Atlantic Twins Grand Tours of the Scottish Islands

Heading west from the Scottish mainland,

a dark line between the sea and the sky can indicate a low-lying island,

a wild scrap of land sculpted by ocean breakers and constant storms.

Over there, just on the horizon, are two of the most windswept

islands on the Scottish coast -

the Atlantic twins of Coll and Tiree.

In this series, I'm embarking on an island Grand Tour,

travelling from the Orkneys in the north, to Gigha in the southwest.

Generations of travellers have set out to explore

the magic of the Scottish Islands.

I'm following in their footsteps, exploring remote

and fascinating places scattered around our coastline,

and meeting the people who call these islands home.

Like something out of a Western!

For this Grand Tour, I'm sailing into the Atlantic to explore

the islands of Coll and Tiree.

Leaving the mainland, my route takes me first to the rugged

isle of Coll and then onto the low-lying island of Tiree,

before heading west to the lonely

sentinel of Skerryvore lighthouse.

The starting point of my journey is Oban,

the "gateway to the isles". For at least 150 years,

the town has been the main ferry hub for travellers to the Hebrides.

'Oban has much to offer, but we're too near the islands to linger long

'on the mainland. There's a salt tang on the air,

'it quickens the pulse, fires the imagination, exhilarates the senses,

'it's the call of the sea that is part of the irresistible call of the isle.'

Scottish islands are often paired together - even though

they sometimes make unlikely couples.

In this programme, I want to discover just how closely

related the Atlantic twins of Coll and Tiree really are.

This is Arinagour - the capital of Coll.

In Gaelic, Arinagour means the place of the goats - no goats today,

but plenty of sheep.

Coll is the most northerly of the Atlantic twins.

It's a low-lying rugged island 13 miles long by three miles wide.

Crossing the island, I'm following in the footsteps

of the early Hebridean travellers Dr Johnson and James Boswell,

who were blown ashore here during their famous tour of

the Western Isles in the autumn of 1773.

The literary gents from London and Edinburgh were storm-stayed

on Coll for three days, but being the curious souls

they were, they made the best of a bad job by visiting the locals.

To meet my first islander,

I'm heading the beautiful west side of Coll,

where Angus Kennedy lives on a croft once occupied by his ancestors.

My grandfather was the shepherd here.

So it's kind of nice to come back

after living and working on the mainland,

to retire back here to the ancestral homeland.

Back where you were as a boy.

My mother and father were both Gaelic speakers.

But Gaelic has more or less died out.

You don't hear it on a day-to-day basis.

You did in the '60s and '70s.

It's a great shame because it had a richness that we've lost.

Has Coll over the centuries suffered from depopulation

with the Clearances a significant part of the history?

Absolutely. I've...

In 1820, 1830 there was the official census,

they recorded 1,500 people living here on Coll.

These people went to Nova Scotia, Australia and Queensland.

To think of people coming from here

to such a strange land, they must've had great courage, great character.

The traditional way of life hasn't abandoned Coll entirely.

Some of the island's residents maintain the Hebridean

spirit of Angus's intrepid ancestors.

HE CALLS TO THE SHEEP

Tiugainn!

Like something out of a Western!

The woolly stampede headed our way is made up of one

of the island's most ancient of breeds - the Hebridean sheep.

Are these Gaelic-speaking sheep, Angus?

Yes, well, tiugainn is "come" in Gaelic.

They're technically North European short-tailed sheep.

Over centuries, they've been kept by people who lived on the islands.

In Barra and South Uist, the Catholic islands, they're known as the blessed sheep.

-Blessed sheep!

-Because they are technically multi-horn.

-Ah-ha!

-And the sun on a day like today, shining through the horns,

made the sign of the cross on the ground.

-Right.

-That's one of their Gaelic names in the southern isles.

Amazing-looking beasts, certainly.

They are.

Quite unlike the normal white woolly monster you see on the islands.

-These are quite petite.

-They were crossed with the indigenous sheep.

And the end product, over 1,000 years now were the little black sheep, the Hebrideans.

Leaving Angus, I set off to explore the rest of the island.

Sadly, it's almost invisible now through thick mist and fog.

From what Angus has told me, it seems that Coll has changed

considerably since Johnson and Boswell's time.

Of the 200 people who live here today - just four or five

call themselves Collachs - true natives.

One incomer with more of a connection to Coll than most

lives at the southern end of the island.

This is Breachacha - in Gaelic - the speckled field -

and that is Breachacha Castle - the ancient seat of the Macleans

of Coll - a place familiar to Johnson and Boswell.

'From these walls,

'the Macleans of Coll held sway over the island for centuries,

'but when Johnson and Boswell came here it was in a ruinous state.

'Restoration was begun 30 years ago by the present owner,

'Nicholas Maclean Bristol,

'whose front door forces people to bow before entering.'

May I come in?

-You certainly may.

-Thank you.

'In the great hall of Breachacha Castle,

'modern visitors are confronted with a gallery of Maclean ancestors -

'including some who would have been familiar to Johnson and Boswell.'

Do you know who built this castle?

Yes, it was built, erm, built by the first Maclean of Coll,

my 13th great grandfather in about 1400.

Erm, and his uncle was the Lord of the Isles,

and the Lord of the Isles gave him the middle bit of Coll and

Mull and other bits.

-Uh-huh.

-And, erm, but he had to fight for it.

From the portraits on the walls, I get a strong impression that

fighting skills have figured large in Maclean history.

They're all military men.

-They've all been soldiers right back as far as...

-And you were a military man?

Yes. My family, every generation since 1651 has been in the

proper army, not, you know, not fighting in clan warfares.

-Uh-huh.

-And they were all killed, the head of the family

and his two other sons were killed in battle of Inverkeithing.

800 Macleans were meant to have gone to the battle and 40 survived.

-You're very proud of that heritage, though, I can see.

-Of course one is, yes, yes.

-Hm.

-The thing is to try and inspire one's children to take

an interest in it and I haven't yet succeeded at it.

I'm relieved to hear that Nicholas has long

since done dodging bullets and has exchanged the gun for the pen.

In the library, where he spends his time writing clan histories, he

tells me how a chance meeting with an old school chum inspired him to

use the castle which he'd restored with his wife Lavinia, to focus his energies on overseas development.

This all started with the castle.

I always saw the castle because of one's research,

as a centre of something international, but what?

Then I didn't know and I was in Aden with my battalion

I saw a motorcade go past,

and in the place of honour was a black face who'd been in my form at Wellington.

We'd been friends.

I rang him up and had a drink with him,

and he advised me to go and stay in Ethiopia, he took me around,

he was passionate about the development of Ethiopia.

Nicholas's friend was Iskinder Desta the grandson of Haile Selassie -

the last Emperor of Ethiopia.

He said, "There's room for people in this country whatever the colour of their skin

"to fall in love with Ethiopia." He said to leave the army,

and help him do what I was going to do here.

I had my blinding light on the road to Damascus

so I thought my future's in the isle of Coll.

But I'll send you first-rate people from Britain,

and you make them fall in love with Ethiopia.

-Are you from the Project Trust?

-Yes.

-Welcome to Coll, have you had a good journey?

-Yes.

Since 1967, Project Trust has been training young

volunteers for overseas aid work.

Back then, Nicholas and Lavinia ran the organisation from

the half-built home at Breachacha Castle.

Since those early days,

Project Trust has developed beyond their wildest dreams.

Not only has it reversed the drift of people away from Coll,

it has become the island's biggest single employer.

How many volunteers have been through Project Trust?

-We've had 6,500 overseas.

-6,500?!

-Yeah.

-You must be very proud.

-I'm pleased it worked.

Nicholas's family are no longer lairds of Coll,

but his ancestors were.

When Johnson and Boswell stayed

at what is still called New Breachacha Castle,

the Maclean home was snootily dismissed by Dr Johnson.

"There is nothing becoming a chief about it.

"'Tis a mere tradesman's box."

To get a more elevated perspective of the island,

I approach Coll's only mountain - Ben Hogh - another place on

Johnson and Boswell's tour.

Dr Johnson never made it to the summit, preferring instead to

read a book halfway up this modest protuberance,

which rises to the less than dizzy 341 feet above the sea.

Now this impressive rock was the reason for the literary

gent's slog over heather and hill.

What's quite unique about it

is the fact that it's perched on three much smaller stones,

almost as if had been carefully placed there by a giant.

So it may come as no surprise

that local legend does indeed mention a giant

and a Mrs Giant and a gigantic domestic row

and instead of dinner plates,

this monstrous pair hurled boulders at each other.

And this is one of them.

In 1773, neither Johnson nor Boswell

could explain how the boulder got here.

Science was yet to discover Ice Ages and the power of long-since

melted glaciers to carry rocks great distances on their icy backs.

From the top of Ben Hogh,

you get an absolutely breathtaking 360-degree panorama

of all the neighbouring islands

including, to the southwest down there,

Tiree -

my next island destination.

Johnson and Boswell never made landfall on Tiree,

which is almost the same size as Coll

but it looks very different.

It is much less rugged,

and the land is very fertile.

The current population of nearly 700

is three times that of neighbouring Coll.

Tiree derives its name from the Gaelic

for "land of the corn", and from the earliest times

produced an abundance of barley that was exported to other islands.

Back in the 6th century,

there was a monastery here.

But 300 years later, it was destroyed

when the Vikings invaded the island.

Now, it's an odd thought, but it doesn't seem to matter

how apparently remote an island is,

conflict so often forms part of its history.

During the Second World War, the flat, low-lying island of Tiree

was converted into a giant air base -

like an enormous, unsinkable aircraft carrier in the Atlantic.

RAF Tiree opened in 1941

on the site now occupied by the island's commercial airport.

From here,

Coastal Command flew dangerous sorties over the Atlantic

to protect the vital convoys

that kept Britain supplied during the war.

Air crews also gathered data for the meteorological station on Tiree,

which created the D-Day weather forecast

that greenlit the Allied invasion of Europe in 1944.

INDISTINCT CONVERSATION

'Mabel McArthur was a young girl back then

'and has clear memories of what life was like on the island.'

There were over 3,000

-RAF personnel based here on the island.

-Uh-huh?

And they had camps everywhere.

There was the main camp, which was at the airport.

But, erm, they just had camps everywhere

and you can still see the foundations

of some of these buildings, and some of the buildings

-themselves are actually still standing.

-So you're talking about

-3,000 RAF personnel.

-Yeah.

And what was the population of Tiree at the time?

Now, I'm not quite sure what it was at THAT time.

It might've been about the thousand but I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

-So it's an overwhelming number of incomers.

-Yes, it was. Absolutely.

The roads were just busy ALL the time with these vehicles -

big, huge trucks.

We were very lucky when the RAF were here. They used to give us lifts.

-Did they?

-They would stop and give us lifts.

And the vehicles were so big, the driver had to get out

and physically lift us up into the seat.

But they were very good like that.

It made quite a difference getting a lift to school.

There was a cosmopolitan mix of RAF personnel living on Tiree.

They came from Canada, Australia,

Poland, as well as the UK.

They came from all over the country.

-They were posted here and it wasn't a very popular posting.

-Right.

-Why was that?

-Well, Tiree was a very different island in those days.

It was a dry island.

-A DRY island.

-A dry island.

-What do you mean? It didn't rain?

No, no, no. No alcohol.

-Oh, no alcohol?

-Yes.

-Right.

-No licence.

And also, there was no water -

running water - or electricity in any of the houses.

So I believe Tiree, um, Scapa Flow and Benbecula

-were three very unpopular postings.

-Right.

When they were told this is where they were going, they dreaded it.

-Did they not provide their own entertainment?

-Oh, yes. Yes.

Oh, they did, very much so.

They had a cinema. They had a NAAFI, of course,

and a cinema, and, um, they also put on live shows

in, you know, like a theatre.

So it really made a HUGE difference

to life on the island, having them here.

-They upgraded quite a number of the roads also.

-Uh-huh.

And they allowed the local people to use the NAAFI,

-so suddenly Tiree had a pub.

-Right.

And the locals were allowed to go in. And at the cinema,

very many people on the island

saw films in a cinema for the first time ever.

The war and the presence of the RAF brought Tiree into the modern world.

But life on an island - even with all mod cons - has never been easy.

Tiree's sunny climate and fertile soils

may once have been good for growing oats and barley,

but life here was always

a relentless battle against the elements.

The island is one of the stormiest places

not just in Britain, but in the whole of Europe.

On average, there's a gale blowing here 160 days a year.

To protect themselves against ferocious Atlantic storms,

islanders developed an architecture that's unique to Tiree.

Now, this single-storey but and ben was fairly typical of the style.

Walls could be up to six feet thick

and sometimes they had no windows at all.

More like a bunker against the elements than a house.

The island's position in the stormy Atlantic

might mean that crofting, or even standing upright, is a problem,

but the conditions here are ideal for windsurfing.

Every year, Tiree becomes a Mecca for windsurfers

from around the world, keen to harness the wind and waves

to spectacular effect.

William Angus MacLean owns Wild Diamond -

a windsurfing water sports company catering for

those looking for adrenaline thrills along Tiree's coast.

For such a small geographic area, as we've got here,

we've got a dozen beaches pointing in every direction.

Clean white sands.

That's fantastic news. If you've wind coming from

different directions, then you can always get a suitable beach.

Additionally,

Tiree is smack in the middle of the Atlantic, effectively,

so we've an abundance of groundswell,

generating good waves for windsurfing as well.

Tiree hosts

what is now the longest-running annual event in the world,

which is the Tiree Wave Classic.

It's been the longest-running professional

windsurfing/wavesailing event

which kicked off in the early '80s,

and has run, with a couple of breaks, through until present-day.

I think what's particularly unique about the event

is that it attracts all the top UK professional windsurfers to it.

And additionally, some of these guys

are some the top guys in the world tour as well.

The sailing ability is just through the roof.

Fantastic sailors in the water

doing very inspiring things.

From a spectator's point of view, it's fantastic,

and the guys seem to love coming here so it's all good news.

Windsurfing isn't the only sport

that's hosted by the beaches of Tiree.

I'm delighted to be offered a shot in a sand yacht.

'Willie tells me that these nifty craft are capable of

'70mph in a good blow.

'When the seat of your pants

'is just four inches off the ground,

'even 20mph feels like warp speed.'

Here we go! Here we go! Phwoar!

This is quite exciting.

Neee-yow!

Argh!

Crass!

'Willie warned me that this might happen.

'But at least I can take comfort from the fact

'that there is NOTHING new

'in being shipwrecked on the shores of Tiree.'

For centuries sailors ran the gauntlet

of the treacherous seas west of here

until the construction of Britain's tallest lighthouse

warned shipping of the dangers lurking beneath the waves.

Heading south, I'm making my way to the small village of Hynish,

which was founded by the pioneering lighthouse engineer Alan Stevenson.

It's immediately obvious that

there's something different about Hynish.

For a start, the architecture

is unlike anything else I've seen on the island.

There's an oddly institutional feel to the whole place.

Now, the fact is that Hynish was built with a single purpose in mind,

and that's the construction and maintenance of

Skerryvore lighthouse.

The village is maintained by the Hebridean Trust.

'Monica Smith is part of the team dedicated to preserving

'this unique part of the island's heritage.'

The buildings that you can see all around you here are,

or were, the shore station

for the building of Skerryvore lighthouse.

The harbour was constructed,

the barracks building was the accommodation for the workers,

and all the various outer buildings were an office, a laundry,

sheds for cattle, walled gardens.

-So the community...

-Walled gardens and cows.

So they had milk and fresh vegetables?

They had their vegetables. They had their meat.

So there had to be a self-sufficient community here

on Tiree before you could even think about building...

-Basically, yes.

-..the lighthouse out there?

-Yes.

There's also an area where the circumference of the lighthouse

was actually mapped out on the ground

so that they could work there with the stone

-and...

-So that they could make sure that each course would fit?

-Yes.

To make sure as much work was done as possible

-onshore before they shipped it out.

-That's amazing.

-Yes.

Skerryvore lighthouse was sort of built twice, in a way.

-Well, you could say that.

-Once here.

-Course by course. And then, totally assembled on the reef.

-On the rock.

Stevenson built a temporary wooden platform on the rock

to accommodate the offshore workforce.

During the summer months, this is where they ate and slept.

THUNDERCLAPS

There was a story that during one particularly bad storm,

when the men were all staying out there,

the storm was so fierce and the sea was coming

right over their wooden barracks

and they actually braved a rope construction to get from the barracks

onto the rock and get the shelter

of just the first few courses of the stone.

-They must've been desperate.

-Absolutely desperate, yes. Uh-huh.

It took Alan Stevenson and his dedicated workforce

nearly seven years to complete the lighthouse.

But that wasn't the end of the Hynish base.

They built the four

lighthouse-keepers' cottages up the back,

and the watchtower. And the families would live in these cottages

and they used the tower to signal back and forward to the lighthouse.

They had forms of flag signalling.

There's stories again about maybe a lighthouse-keeper's wife

was about to have a baby,

and they'd be watching out from the rock.

And if he'd seen the pink flag going up,

he knew whether he had a son or a daughter.

Inspired by Monica's account of Skerryvore,

I'm keen to see the lighthouse for myself.

Tiree's only mountain -

Ben Hynish - is just a walk away.

A short climb takes me to

a viewpoint overlooking the open Atlantic.

CURLEW'S CALL

From here, I can just make out Stevenson's masterpiece -

a tiny speck in the ocean 12 miles southwest of Tiree.

It's an inspiring sight and a place I've always wanted to go to.

And now, tides and weather permitting,

I've got the chance to get there.

'Climbing aboard a fast RIB, I meet up with Tiree brothers

'Daniel and Martin Gillespie.

'They have a particular reason for joining me on my trip.'

They are the founder members of the band Skerryvore,

named after Stevenson's remote lighthouse.

Why Skerryvore?

We actually... We struggled. We didn't have a name for...

We played as a band for, I don't know, a year, a year-and-a-half,

and we didn't have a name at all.

People were calling us the Gillespie Boys and things like this.

And it was actually Angus MacPhail from Skipinnish - another band -

suggested about calling the band Skerryvore...

-Right.

-..after the lighthouse,

which we all seemed to take to pretty quickly

and liked the idea of it, and obviously it had links to Tiree,

where the band had started.

So it fitted in well for us. And, er,

it's quite an epic place, as we're going to see.

Growing up in Tiree, we were very fortunate -

we both got taught accordion and bagpipes.

Very, very lucky to have people

that were willing to give their time for free

and teach not only us

but a whole host of kids coming through in the island.

And accordion and bagpipes

are predominantly the main instruments on the island.

Can you tell me, Martin, about the song you're going to play for us?

Yeah, it was a piece I wrote from our self-titled album Skerryvore.

The song is called Gairm A'Chauin,

which translates as "call of the sea".

-The call of the sea?

-Yeah.

-Right.

What is the call of the sea?

I think it's... I think it's a tune...

It's quite a powerful piece.

A piece of music that starts quite slow.

It's atmospheric but then it kicks in

just how powerful the sea can be.

As we're probably going to see as we get to Skerryvore.

MUSIC: Gairm A'Chauin by Skerryvore

After two hours of bouncing around in North Atlantic swell,

we finally approach our destination.

When I think of a lighthouse, I think of Skerryvore.

It's got the classic shape

and is the archetypal lonely sentinel in the sea.

The spectacular location and the band's haunting music cause me

to reflect on all the island stepping stones

I've visited on my journey so far,

from North Ronaldsay in Orkney,

to Barra in the west, the Slate Islands,

Mull, and on to Jura and Gigha in the south.

All of these islands are both united

and profoundly influenced by the seas that surround them,

but each one is different with a unique story to tell.

And even though Coll

and Tiree form a pair,

they are far from being identical twins.

With the band playing

and the Skerryvore lighthouse in the background,

we're 12 miles from Tiree and 50 miles west of the Scottish mainland,

and I can't think of a better place to end

this grand tour of the Scottish islands.

MUSIC: Gairm A'Chauin by Skerryvore