Coll 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.

My destination today is the Hebridean island of Coll,

and to get there I'm taking the ferry from Oban.

It's been the gateway to the isles for 150 years.

'Oban has much to offer

'but we're too near the islands to linger long on the mainland.

'There's a salt tang in 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 the isles.'

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 stormstayed on Coll for three whole 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 to the beautiful

west side of Coll, where Angus Kennedy lives on a croft

once occupied by his ancestors.

My grandfather was the shepherd here

and so it's kind of nice to come back after living and working

on the mainland to retire back here to

the ancestral homeland and back where you were with, er, 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 was day-to-day.

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

-Mm-hm.

Has Coll, over the centuries, suffered from depopulation?

-Were the Clearances a significant part of the history?

-Oh, absolutely.

Erm, in 1820, 1830,

the official census recorded

some 1,500 people living on Coll.

And these people went to Nova Scotia,

they went to Australia, to Queensland.

And to think of people coming from here

to such a strange land, they must've had

great courage and 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.

Trobhad! Trobhad!

Trobhad!

BLEATING

Like something out of a Western.

ANGUS'S CALLING CONTINUES

The woolly stampede heading our way is made up of one

of the islands' most ancient of breeds - the Hebridean sheep.

Are these Gaelic-speaking sheep?

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

-Uh-huh.

-They're technically north European short-tailed sheep.

Er, over centuries,

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

In Barra and South Uist, the Catholic islands,

-they're known as blessed sheep...

-The blessed sheep?

-.. because they are technically multi-horned.

-Ah-ha.

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

-made the sign of the cross on the ground.

-Great.

And that's their Gaelic, one of their Gaelic names in the southern isles.

-Amazing-looking beasts, aren't they?

-They are.

They're quite unlike the normal, white, woolly monster you see on the islands.

These are quite petite.

They were crossed with the indigenous sheep,

the Soay sheep, and the end product,

over 1,000 years now, are 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 Breacachadh - in Gaelic, "the speckled field".

And that is Breacachadh Castle,

the ancient seat of the Macleans of Coll,

and a place familiar to both 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 Breacachadh 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 by the first Maclean of Coll,

-my 13th great-grandfather, in about 1,400.

-Right.

And his uncle was the Lord of the Isles,

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

and Quinish in Mull and other bits.

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 have 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, you know, not fighting clan warfare.

They were all killed at, erm...the head of the family

and his two elder sons were killed at the Battle of Inverkeithing.

800 Macleans are 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. The thing is, to try and inspire one's

children to take an interest in it, and I haven't yet succeeded.

I'm relieved to hear that Nicolas 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 researches

and thoughts about this, as the centre of something international.

But what?

And then, I didn't know, and I was in Aden with my battalion

and I suddenly saw a motorcade go past and there,

in the place of honour, was a black face who'd

been in my form at Wellington and we'd been friends.

And, erm, I rang him up and had a drink with him and he invited me

to go and stay in Ethiopia, and I did and 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 colour their skin, you fall in love with Ethiopia."

And he said, "Leave the Army and help me do

"what I was going to do here."

And I had my blinding light on the road to Damascus and said,

"I won't, because my future is on the isle of Coll, but I'll send

"you first-rate people from Britain at an impressionable age.

"You make them fall in love with Ethiopia."

'Right, are you for the Project Trust? Good, welcome to Coll.

-'Did you have a good journey?

-Well, not too bad, thanks.'

Since 1967, Project Trust has been training young volunteers for overseas aid work.

Back then, Nicolas and Lavinia ran the organisation

from their half-built home at Breacachadh 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.

And 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, but, you know...

Nicholas's family are no longer lairds of Coll,

but his ancestors were.

When Johnson and Boswell stayed at what is still called New Breacachadh 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 Hebridean 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 gents'

slog over heather and hill.

Now, what's quite unique about it

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

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

Now, 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.