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A beautiful video which makes the rest of us proud of our heritage and what a lovely child to portray our freedom of space…!
I’m guessing Katie Morag is an upcoming movie? and it looks like some of the scenes were shot on Valtos Quay, (where I spent many hours waiting for the ‘Kilda’ to come home). Wow, someone please let me know when the movie will be released so I can source a copy…………..thanks
In reply to the previous commentator : It’s not actually a movie but a forthcoming TV series aimed at children of all ages (5 to 85) and broadcast in the UK on the BBC CBeebies channel. The first episode starts this coming Sunday (Nov 3), though I don’t know what time.
Though it’s difficult to predict public reaction, I hope for the sake of everyone involved the series will be a success and that Katie Morag may yet become a national heroine. It’ll also bring free nationwide TV exposure for the Isle of Lewis. Bhaltos Quay was featured in the video, as was Traigh na Berigh (Reef Beach) just round the bay. The other locations looked like Tolsta Chaolais and Garyvard, though my bearings may be mistaken.
As a near resident of Bhaltos,It would be interesting to know more about the ‘ Kilda ‘, it’s historical context, and who was being waited for.
Dear IMM, the ‘kilda’ was a fishing trawler which my father (Kenny J.MacKay) had a third share in with two brothers from Stornoway. We lived at 31 Valtos (Bhaltos) until 1957 when we emigrated to Australia and here we stayed. Unfortunately my father passed away in 1967 and I have very little knowledge of the two brothers he shared his fishing life with. I spent many an hour standing on the top of Valtos Quay watching for the flag on the mast of the Kilda to appear round the end of Phabay, at which time I would run home to tell my mum that dad was on his way. She would gather as many (large) cooking pots as she could muster and start boiling water for the lobsters he would bring home from the fishing co-op at Stornoway. They would be the ones that were too large for the co-op to take. He would be gone to sea for 2 weeks at a time setting his pots and returning some time later for another two weeks to retrieve them. He would often sit with his lobster traps on the hill outside No.31 and repair them, my memories often remind me of the smell of the liquid he doused the twine with to stop it from rotting. I don’t what it was called, but it had a unique smell.
He also made Harris Tweed in the shed annexed to the house and transported it back to Stornoway via the local bus.
In the earlier days where we lived in the cottage at Miavaig he ran a grocery business out of the shed next to the Church and also had a 5 ton Bedford truck that he’d run up and down the glen with a grocery service to those who had no transport.
As you can see improvisation was the key to being able to sustain a family, and it wasn’t long before my parents realised that all us youngsters would have to travel to the mainland to achieve any sort of professional career, so the decision was made to emigrate to a place where we could all stay together a lot longer than we would if we stayed in Valtos.
Wow, a trip down memory lane is really good for the soul on a lovely Friday morning, thanks IMM, you made me smile…..:)
Though Australia may in distance be far away, it is indeed a small world. I often heard my late parents referring in gaelic to your emigrant family as “teaghlach Coinneach Tharmoid Uisdean “ My mother and your mother frequently corresponded by airmail I well remember those distinctive blue envelopes regularly arriving from Australia.
My mother was a district nurse who occupied the other end of the semi-detached nurses cottage in Miavaig where your parents stayed prior to them moving to Bhaltos. By the time they emigrated she had married the local sub-postmaster next door. He had a sister who was a teacher in the Nicolson Institute primary school in Stornoway .An older brother had previously emigrated to Canada to work for the Sun Life Insurance Company.
Without publicly disclosing names, I hope that’s enough information to identify my family tree and its connection with your own
Dear IMM, you need or (it would be nice if you could) email me privately so that others aren’t bored by my morbid curiosty of who you actually are….:)
my email addy is : [email protected]
p.s. and if you can’t figure out which MacKay I am………. I’m the middle one…:)