0:00:04 > 0:00:06The Highlands and Islands of Scotland
0:00:06 > 0:00:08gave more of their men to The Great War
0:00:08 > 0:00:11than any other part of Great Britain.
0:00:12 > 0:00:14But as they fought,
0:00:14 > 0:00:18the world they left behind was collapsing in debt and despair.
0:00:21 > 0:00:23The great Victorian estates were going bankrupt.
0:00:26 > 0:00:28Crofters were starved of land.
0:00:30 > 0:00:33The Highlands, it seemed, were broken.
0:00:35 > 0:00:37The wartime government promised action,
0:00:37 > 0:00:40promised that its Highlands servicemen would return
0:00:40 > 0:00:41to a better world.
0:00:41 > 0:00:45A promise that was soon forgotten.
0:00:46 > 0:00:49They came back to overcrowded housing,
0:00:49 > 0:00:51lack of housing, lack of land,
0:00:51 > 0:00:54lack of any ideas, basically,
0:00:54 > 0:00:56as to how they were going to bring up their families.
0:00:59 > 0:01:01What followed was the battle for the future
0:01:01 > 0:01:04of Scotland's Highlands and Islands.
0:01:05 > 0:01:08A battle between centuries-old tradition,
0:01:08 > 0:01:11and one man's revolutionary vision.
0:01:12 > 0:01:14He thought crofting was just an economic system,
0:01:14 > 0:01:17he didn't realise that it was a whole way of life.
0:01:18 > 0:01:21For many, the choice was stark.
0:01:21 > 0:01:23To stay, and scrape a living from the land...
0:01:25 > 0:01:28..or to leave that land for ever.
0:01:30 > 0:01:33This is the story of Scotland's most remote communities,
0:01:33 > 0:01:36in the turbulent decade after The Great War.
0:01:38 > 0:01:42Scottish men and women in search of a future,
0:01:42 > 0:01:45and their own, individual, promised land.
0:02:06 > 0:02:08The connection with the land was critical,
0:02:08 > 0:02:11because the connection with the land
0:02:11 > 0:02:13was the connection with survival.
0:02:15 > 0:02:16Agnes Rennie's grandfather was
0:02:16 > 0:02:19one of the tens of thousands of servicemen
0:02:19 > 0:02:22who returned to the Scottish Highlands and Islands
0:02:22 > 0:02:23in the winter of 1918.
0:02:25 > 0:02:29Angus Gillies had served four years in the Royal Navy.
0:02:29 > 0:02:31His ship had been torpedoed.
0:02:31 > 0:02:33A wake had been held in his name.
0:02:35 > 0:02:40Angus returned from the dead to his family croft at South Dell
0:02:40 > 0:02:41on the west coast of Lewis.
0:02:43 > 0:02:46And, like many of his wartime comrades,
0:02:46 > 0:02:49he returned to poverty and desperate overcrowding.
0:02:50 > 0:02:52He lived here.
0:02:53 > 0:02:57His five children at that time,
0:02:57 > 0:02:58my father being the eldest...
0:03:00 > 0:03:01..and his wife...
0:03:03 > 0:03:06..his mother, and two of his mother's sisters,
0:03:06 > 0:03:13and they all stayed in this old blackhouse that they lived in.
0:03:13 > 0:03:16The animals would have stayed at one end,
0:03:16 > 0:03:19that was the way blackhouses were built at that time.
0:03:19 > 0:03:21The conditions that people had come back to,
0:03:21 > 0:03:24the conditions that people were raising families in
0:03:24 > 0:03:26were just so difficult.
0:03:26 > 0:03:30It is really hard to imagine the poverty
0:03:30 > 0:03:33that people were coping with at that time.
0:03:34 > 0:03:38Nowadays, you can see the crofts behind us,
0:03:38 > 0:03:40running to the sea, you know,
0:03:40 > 0:03:45narrow crofts, because all of these crofts had, over the years,
0:03:45 > 0:03:47been divided and subdivided...
0:03:49 > 0:03:51..and had reached a stage where really, practically,
0:03:51 > 0:03:54they couldn't be divided much further,
0:03:54 > 0:03:57so something had to happen, something had to give.
0:03:59 > 0:04:02Crofters like Angus Gillies would come to believe
0:04:02 > 0:04:05that they had been cruelly deceived by their government.
0:04:07 > 0:04:08Four years earlier,
0:04:08 > 0:04:10they had signed up to fight for King and country...
0:04:11 > 0:04:15..encouraged to believe that their service and sacrifice
0:04:15 > 0:04:19would be honourably rewarded, with land enough to raise their families.
0:04:25 > 0:04:27There were all sorts of arguments used, enticements,
0:04:27 > 0:04:31if you will, to encourage men to sign up for the war,
0:04:31 > 0:04:35and although there were no specific promises made,
0:04:35 > 0:04:37there was a general theme in the rhetoric
0:04:37 > 0:04:39at the beginning of the First World War,
0:04:39 > 0:04:42that one of the things that people were fighting for voluntarily
0:04:42 > 0:04:44was a better society,
0:04:44 > 0:04:47and in the Highlands, that came to be very much associated with
0:04:47 > 0:04:48the land question.
0:04:48 > 0:04:52The notion that what was in these days called land settlement,
0:04:52 > 0:04:54that new crofts would be created,
0:04:54 > 0:04:56that previously clear land
0:04:56 > 0:04:58would be taken over again,
0:04:58 > 0:05:00often by the state, and divided into crofts,
0:05:00 > 0:05:03that was a notion that had been...
0:05:03 > 0:05:09pressed for and actually acted upon in the years running up to the war.
0:05:09 > 0:05:11So, when these young folk got back,
0:05:11 > 0:05:13these young men got back from the war, you know,
0:05:13 > 0:05:17they said, you know, we've fought for this land, literally.
0:05:18 > 0:05:24Our friends and neighbours and colleagues have died for this land.
0:05:24 > 0:05:25And in large numbers.
0:05:25 > 0:05:28And we are entitled to it.
0:05:30 > 0:05:32From the narrow crofts of South Dell,
0:05:32 > 0:05:35Angus Gillies and his neighbours would have looked south
0:05:35 > 0:05:40to the rolling fields of the 2,000 acre Galson Farm.
0:05:41 > 0:05:43Enough land for 50 crofts.
0:05:47 > 0:05:49There would have been a resentment...
0:05:49 > 0:05:52because at the same time as they were living
0:05:52 > 0:05:56in these hugely overcrowded conditions,
0:05:56 > 0:05:58just over that turf wall...
0:06:00 > 0:06:02..were these acres of green.
0:06:04 > 0:06:06And these acres of green
0:06:06 > 0:06:09were all just one farm.
0:06:12 > 0:06:15That farm had been created in the 1860s,
0:06:15 > 0:06:17when the human population of Galson
0:06:17 > 0:06:20had been cleared out beyond the boundary walls,
0:06:20 > 0:06:23when the best land had been given over to livestock.
0:06:26 > 0:06:31A process that was repeated all across Highland Scotland,
0:06:31 > 0:06:35that created a world of great farms and sporting estates
0:06:35 > 0:06:38with tiny crofting communities clinging to their edge.
0:06:39 > 0:06:42As The Great War came to a close,
0:06:42 > 0:06:44that world was in desperate crisis.
0:06:45 > 0:06:49The Highland estates had been ruined by taxes and falling stock prices.
0:06:51 > 0:06:53Crofters fared no better,
0:06:53 > 0:06:56starved of the land they needed to sustain their families.
0:06:56 > 0:07:00No-one seemed to know how to make money from the Highlands.
0:07:03 > 0:07:04But in 1918,
0:07:04 > 0:07:07a 66-year-old English millionaire industrialist
0:07:07 > 0:07:09arrived in the town of Stornoway.
0:07:11 > 0:07:14His name was William Hesketh Lever,
0:07:14 > 0:07:18ennobled the year before as Baron Leverhulme,
0:07:18 > 0:07:20the celebrated manufacturer of Sunlight Soap.
0:07:23 > 0:07:27Leverhulme purchased the Lewis estate, the entire island,
0:07:27 > 0:07:31for the knock-down price of £143,000,
0:07:31 > 0:07:34convinced that crofts and estates were the past,
0:07:34 > 0:07:37and industry could save the Highlands.
0:07:44 > 0:07:47Leverhulme had an absolutely apocalyptic vision
0:07:47 > 0:07:49for the whole of the island of Lewis.
0:07:49 > 0:07:51We're looking now from a turret
0:07:51 > 0:07:53on the top of Lews Castle...
0:07:55 > 0:07:58..over at the town of Stornoway.
0:07:58 > 0:08:04It's maybe 10,000 people, a busy, relatively prosperous little place.
0:08:05 > 0:08:09If William Hesketh Lever had had his way,
0:08:09 > 0:08:14we'd be looking at a city of between 100,000 and 150,000 people.
0:08:14 > 0:08:17There would have been railway lines running out of here
0:08:17 > 0:08:19to all across the rest of Lewis,
0:08:19 > 0:08:22and we'd have been looking at airstrips
0:08:22 > 0:08:24for spotter planes to take off from,
0:08:24 > 0:08:27to fly over the North Atlantic and the northern Minch,
0:08:27 > 0:08:29to spot the shoals of fish,
0:08:29 > 0:08:33which his enormous fishing fleet would then sail out
0:08:33 > 0:08:35and harvest and catch,
0:08:35 > 0:08:39and bring back here and be prepared in massive canneries
0:08:39 > 0:08:43to be sent south and sold in a chain of fishery stores
0:08:43 > 0:08:44called Mac Fisheries,
0:08:44 > 0:08:48which he'd brought throughout the UK specifically for that purpose.
0:08:49 > 0:08:51Just some extraordinary plans.
0:08:51 > 0:08:53Extraordinary plans.
0:08:56 > 0:09:00Leverhulme proposed to redesign Stornoway's town centre,
0:09:00 > 0:09:04placing a huge war memorial in a new town square.
0:09:06 > 0:09:08His factory workers would give up their crofts,
0:09:08 > 0:09:11and live in these clean, modern houses.
0:09:12 > 0:09:15Built in a style borrowed from his soap factory
0:09:15 > 0:09:17at Port Sunlight, on the Mersey.
0:09:18 > 0:09:21The English millionaire was devout in his faith
0:09:21 > 0:09:25that Scotland's most remote communities could be industrialised.
0:09:26 > 0:09:28And, in the summer of 1918,
0:09:28 > 0:09:32he travelled to the north of his Protestant, Presbyterian island,
0:09:32 > 0:09:34invited to attend a memorial service
0:09:34 > 0:09:37in the ancient Episcopal church of St Mortlach.
0:09:39 > 0:09:42..and forgive us our trespasses,
0:09:42 > 0:09:45as we forgive those who trespass against us.
0:09:46 > 0:09:49And lead us not into temptation,
0:09:49 > 0:09:50but deliver us...
0:09:52 > 0:09:56As he posed at the entrance to the church, at a new war memorial,
0:09:56 > 0:09:59the soap manufacturer paid tribute to the dead,
0:09:59 > 0:10:02and promised a bright future for the living.
0:10:02 > 0:10:04"They've won the war.
0:10:04 > 0:10:07"It's now for us to win the peace and to make our island fragrant
0:10:07 > 0:10:09"with hopes and possibilities
0:10:09 > 0:10:12"for a brighter and more glorious future."
0:10:17 > 0:10:20Leverhulme's sermon was applauded by many on Lewis,
0:10:20 > 0:10:23in particular, by the moneyed middle classes of Stornoway.
0:10:26 > 0:10:29But his world of factory bells and weekly wages
0:10:29 > 0:10:31was anathema to the local crofters...
0:10:32 > 0:10:35..who were determined to continue with their own,
0:10:35 > 0:10:38less than lucrative lifestyle.
0:10:40 > 0:10:42He said to these crofters,
0:10:42 > 0:10:45I will build you houses, new houses.
0:10:45 > 0:10:48I will provide these houses with electricity,
0:10:48 > 0:10:50I'll give you a garden.
0:10:50 > 0:10:53Just abandon what you're doing now, come with me
0:10:53 > 0:10:57and you'll have much, much better lives,
0:10:57 > 0:11:01much more fruitful lives, you'll have much more money
0:11:01 > 0:11:03in your pockets, so...
0:11:04 > 0:11:06Isn't that common sense?
0:11:08 > 0:11:11But the crofters still said no.
0:11:12 > 0:11:15We're happy with our land, we want our land,
0:11:15 > 0:11:18we are determined to croft our own land.
0:11:18 > 0:11:19Thank you very much.
0:11:19 > 0:11:23The battle of the crofters against the capitalists
0:11:23 > 0:11:25would erupt the following year.
0:11:27 > 0:11:30A year that would begin in desperate tragedy.
0:11:42 > 0:11:45In the first hours of 1st January,
0:11:45 > 0:11:49in heavy waters at the entrance to Stornoway harbour,
0:11:49 > 0:11:52the Admiralty yacht Iolaire
0:11:52 > 0:11:54struck these rocks.
0:11:56 > 0:12:01181 returning servicemen lost their lives.
0:12:04 > 0:12:06After four years of fighting abroad,
0:12:06 > 0:12:09many drowned within sight of their homes.
0:12:12 > 0:12:16Leverhulme was at his home in Bolton when the ship went down.
0:12:16 > 0:12:20He returned to Stornoway and donated £1,000
0:12:20 > 0:12:22to the disaster fund - the largest single sum.
0:12:24 > 0:12:28The millionaire had a well-earned reputation for compassion.
0:12:31 > 0:12:33Across his worldwide business empire,
0:12:33 > 0:12:37he treated his workers with an unfashionable respect.
0:12:37 > 0:12:41One part Victorian improver and philanthropist,
0:12:41 > 0:12:43the other, a benevolent Highland laird.
0:12:45 > 0:12:49He transformed Lews Castle into a private Brigadoon.
0:12:52 > 0:12:57He got great entertainers of the day, like Harry Lauder,
0:12:57 > 0:12:58to come and stay here.
0:12:58 > 0:13:02And they, of course, would do a turn for his guests.
0:13:02 > 0:13:06He had his own piper, of course, in the tradition of a Highland laird,
0:13:06 > 0:13:10except when that piper insisted on going back to the croft
0:13:10 > 0:13:13to do the harvest, much to Leverhulme's disgust.
0:13:13 > 0:13:16Couldn't believe... He offered to pay the piper more to stay
0:13:16 > 0:13:20than the piper would ever gain from a harvest of potatoes.
0:13:20 > 0:13:23But the piper still went back and harvested his potatoes.
0:13:26 > 0:13:30Leverhulme's piper embodied much of the spirit of the cottage crofter,
0:13:30 > 0:13:33for whom profit took a poor second place
0:13:33 > 0:13:35to the relationship with the land.
0:13:37 > 0:13:41And 1919 saw a significant victory for the crofters.
0:13:43 > 0:13:47Lloyd George's coalition government introduced new legislation
0:13:47 > 0:13:51and £2,750,000 of public money to create new crofts.
0:13:54 > 0:13:57The 1919 Land Settlement Act gave the State the power
0:13:57 > 0:14:01to, essentially, nationalise land, to purchase land,
0:14:01 > 0:14:03for the State, in the form of the Board -
0:14:03 > 0:14:06later, Department Of Agriculture For Scotland -
0:14:06 > 0:14:08to act as the landowner and rent it back.
0:14:08 > 0:14:10It didn't only empower them,
0:14:10 > 0:14:14it imposed obligations on the Board to do that.
0:14:14 > 0:14:16And these obligations, legally, were very queer.
0:14:16 > 0:14:19If there was a demand for land, particularly from
0:14:19 > 0:14:22returning ex-servicemen in a locality,
0:14:22 > 0:14:26if there was land that could be divided into crofts
0:14:26 > 0:14:28or smallholdings in that locality,
0:14:28 > 0:14:32then the Board was obliged to get on and do something about it.
0:14:34 > 0:14:38For the crofters, this was a famous victory,
0:14:38 > 0:14:40a partial reversal of the clearances.
0:14:40 > 0:14:44Focused on Scotland's seven crofting counties,
0:14:44 > 0:14:47from Argyll in the south to Shetland in the north,
0:14:47 > 0:14:50the Scottish Board Of Agriculture
0:14:50 > 0:14:53drew up plans to create thousands of new crofts.
0:14:56 > 0:15:00But one man placed himself above the new legislation...
0:15:01 > 0:15:02..Baron Leverhulme.
0:15:05 > 0:15:09In an extraordinary arrangement, the Scottish Office -
0:15:09 > 0:15:12Robert Munro, who was the secretary for Scotland -
0:15:12 > 0:15:18agreed a deal with Leverhulme that he would give ten years' grace
0:15:18 > 0:15:21and not pursue any land settlement schemes in Lewis
0:15:21 > 0:15:25in order to give Leverhulme's schemes time to come to fruition.
0:15:25 > 0:15:29And that added to the intensity of feeling about this
0:15:29 > 0:15:33because as somebody said, as one of the land raider's said at the time,
0:15:33 > 0:15:37"When the law was on the side of the landlords,
0:15:37 > 0:15:40"the government was anxious enough to enforce it.
0:15:40 > 0:15:45"Now the law is on our side, the law states clearly
0:15:45 > 0:15:46"that we're entitled to that land,
0:15:46 > 0:15:49"but the government is not enforcing that."
0:15:50 > 0:15:54Leverhulme's investment had mesmerised the politicians.
0:15:54 > 0:15:57The man who was already the mayor of Bolton
0:15:57 > 0:16:01had become the great dictator of Lewis.
0:16:01 > 0:16:06And in 1919, one project above all dominated his thinking.
0:16:08 > 0:16:10In the fertile Back district, north of Stornoway,
0:16:10 > 0:16:13Leverhulme announced that his existing farms
0:16:13 > 0:16:15were to be rationalised
0:16:15 > 0:16:18to become one, highly efficient dairy farm...
0:16:20 > 0:16:23..to supply what Leverhulme hoped would be
0:16:23 > 0:16:25the growing town of Stornoway.
0:16:27 > 0:16:30Servicemen who had returned to the Back district
0:16:30 > 0:16:33had hoped for a different outcome.
0:16:33 > 0:16:37Most lived on tiny crofts, squeezed into the least fertile land.
0:16:39 > 0:16:42They wanted Leverhulme's farms for themselves,
0:16:42 > 0:16:44to be divided into new crofts.
0:16:45 > 0:16:48Malcolm MacIver had come back from the war
0:16:48 > 0:16:51to his home village of Coll in the Back district.
0:16:52 > 0:16:55My grandfather was Malcolm MacIver.
0:16:55 > 0:16:58At the end of the war, he came back to overcrowded housing,
0:16:58 > 0:17:00lack of housing, lack of land...
0:17:00 > 0:17:04lack of any ideas, basically, as to how they were going to
0:17:04 > 0:17:05bring up their families.
0:17:07 > 0:17:10If you go to the war memorial in Back,
0:17:10 > 0:17:13you will see what they gave to the State.
0:17:13 > 0:17:15And one of them was actually my grandfather's brother.
0:17:15 > 0:17:18That's the price they paid and many families here paid.
0:17:18 > 0:17:21When they came back, the promises that had been made,
0:17:21 > 0:17:25in terms of land fit for heroes, or just land,
0:17:25 > 0:17:27were totally forgotten.
0:17:30 > 0:17:33All across Scotland's crofting communities,
0:17:33 > 0:17:36returning servicemen became increasingly militant.
0:17:37 > 0:17:39And not for the first time.
0:17:41 > 0:17:43Older crofters would have remembered
0:17:43 > 0:17:47frequent and sometimes violent land raids that began in the 1880s.
0:17:51 > 0:17:54On several occasions, soldiers and marines had been despatched,
0:17:54 > 0:17:57bayonets fixed, to extinguish the unrest.
0:18:02 > 0:18:05Now, in the March of 1919,
0:18:05 > 0:18:07Malcolm MacIver and the men of the Back district
0:18:07 > 0:18:09took similar action.
0:18:09 > 0:18:13They staged land raids on Leverhulme's farms.
0:18:14 > 0:18:17Their protest was entirely peaceful.
0:18:17 > 0:18:20They took possession of small pockets of land
0:18:20 > 0:18:23and they planted potatoes.
0:18:24 > 0:18:28They felt that they had to do this or they would starve.
0:18:28 > 0:18:30There would be no food for their families,
0:18:30 > 0:18:32there would be no future for their families.
0:18:32 > 0:18:34And they saw this place with the tenant farmer
0:18:34 > 0:18:37having all that land that he didn't really need
0:18:37 > 0:18:39and they had no access to the land which they did need.
0:18:41 > 0:18:45A tiny crop of potatoes posed little threat to Leverhulme's plans.
0:18:47 > 0:18:49But the millionaire grew increasingly frustrated
0:18:49 > 0:18:53at the repeated intrusions on HIS land.
0:18:54 > 0:18:57He determined to confront the raiders,
0:18:57 > 0:19:00and on 12th March 1919,
0:19:00 > 0:19:04he was driven to the very centre of the disputed territory -
0:19:04 > 0:19:06the bridge over the Gress River.
0:19:08 > 0:19:111,000 islanders turned out to hear the millionaire
0:19:11 > 0:19:13they called the "Soap Man"
0:19:13 > 0:19:15speak from the top of an upturned barrel.
0:19:20 > 0:19:25He told them that it was the first sunny day in ten days
0:19:25 > 0:19:27and that was a great...
0:19:28 > 0:19:33..indicator of the future because he was bringing news
0:19:33 > 0:19:35of a sunny future for Lewis.
0:19:37 > 0:19:40Some of the islanders were enthusiastic.
0:19:42 > 0:19:44But many could not share Leverhulme's vision.
0:19:46 > 0:19:48One man, Alan Martin, shouted...
0:19:48 > 0:19:50"This will not do!
0:19:50 > 0:19:53"This honey mouthed man would have us believe
0:19:53 > 0:19:56"that black is white and white is black!
0:19:56 > 0:19:59"We are not concerned with his fancy dreams.
0:19:59 > 0:20:01"What we want is the land.
0:20:01 > 0:20:03"Will you give us the land?"
0:20:04 > 0:20:07Leverhulme said he would not.
0:20:07 > 0:20:11Another raider, John MacLeod was even more outspoken. He said...
0:20:11 > 0:20:14"Lord Leverhulme, you have bought this island.
0:20:14 > 0:20:17"You have not bought us.
0:20:17 > 0:20:20"We refuse to be the bondslaves of any man."
0:20:24 > 0:20:28A year after they had planted their illicit potatoes,
0:20:28 > 0:20:32returning servicemen again raided the farms of the Back district.
0:20:32 > 0:20:35Their protest escalated.
0:20:35 > 0:20:38They began to build houses.
0:20:38 > 0:20:40Leverhulme wrote to the raiders.
0:20:40 > 0:20:43He accused them of wrecking their own island's future.
0:20:47 > 0:20:50The policy you have selfishly adopted
0:20:50 > 0:20:54will force other landless men to emigrate to Canada and elsewhere.
0:20:54 > 0:20:58You're condemning them to be exiles from their own native lands.
0:21:00 > 0:21:03Leverhulme would not compromise.
0:21:03 > 0:21:06Crofting was the past.
0:21:06 > 0:21:09He called it "a gross waste of public money".
0:21:11 > 0:21:12Industry was the future.
0:21:13 > 0:21:15Or so he thought.
0:21:25 > 0:21:27Driving Leverhulme's plans for Lewis
0:21:27 > 0:21:31were the profits made elsewhere in his business empire.
0:21:32 > 0:21:34But, by the summer of 1920,
0:21:34 > 0:21:37those businesses were in serious difficulty.
0:21:38 > 0:21:42His plans for Lewis, including his plans for new roads
0:21:42 > 0:21:44across the island, came to an abrupt halt.
0:21:46 > 0:21:49The bridge is the end of the road.
0:21:49 > 0:21:54It leads on to moorland and a rough track and nothing.
0:21:54 > 0:21:57It's a bridge to nowhere.
0:21:57 > 0:22:00As such, you could see it - and plenty do see it -
0:22:00 > 0:22:05as a symbol of Leverhulme's few years in Lewis.
0:22:05 > 0:22:06A bridge to nowhere.
0:22:08 > 0:22:11His dreams of transforming Lewis
0:22:11 > 0:22:15with millions made from fishing were over.
0:22:15 > 0:22:17Ended not by local protests,
0:22:17 > 0:22:20but by two major world events,
0:22:20 > 0:22:22to the West and to the East.
0:22:25 > 0:22:29There's the October Revolution in St Petersburg,
0:22:29 > 0:22:32which, in turn, led to a trade embargo,
0:22:32 > 0:22:36which wiped out the massive Eastern European market overnight.
0:22:37 > 0:22:42And then Prohibition was introduced in the United States
0:22:42 > 0:22:45and in bars in the States they used to have
0:22:45 > 0:22:48little pots of salted herring for people to pick at
0:22:48 > 0:22:53and then have another whisky or another beer or something.
0:22:53 > 0:22:56Prohibition came along, the bars closed down,
0:22:56 > 0:22:58that demand disappeared.
0:22:58 > 0:23:03And all contributed to this failure of his grand plans.
0:23:03 > 0:23:06They no longer made economic sense.
0:23:07 > 0:23:10Leverhulme's a complicated character
0:23:10 > 0:23:15and a lot of what he was looking to do was visionary.
0:23:15 > 0:23:18And I think he was, in many ways, extremely well intentioned.
0:23:18 > 0:23:21But he was dealing with a situation
0:23:21 > 0:23:23that economically, and in all sorts of other ways,
0:23:23 > 0:23:25were out of his control.
0:23:26 > 0:23:29In the end, there were no factories,
0:23:29 > 0:23:31no railways,
0:23:31 > 0:23:33no pot of gold.
0:23:33 > 0:23:36Leverhulme's parting gesture was deep with irony.
0:23:37 > 0:23:42He offered existing Lewis crofters their own land, free of charge,
0:23:42 > 0:23:47to transform them from tenants to landowners.
0:23:47 > 0:23:48They refused.
0:23:48 > 0:23:50Ownership came with risks.
0:23:50 > 0:23:53Tenancy was protected by law.
0:23:54 > 0:23:56Leverhulme's departure untied the hands
0:23:56 > 0:23:59of the Scottish Board of Agriculture.
0:23:59 > 0:24:02Now freed to create crofts on Lewis
0:24:02 > 0:24:05as they had been trying to do across Scotland.
0:24:08 > 0:24:10But the process of finding suitable land,
0:24:10 > 0:24:12negotiating its purchase,
0:24:12 > 0:24:14then dividing it into crofts was painfully slow.
0:24:16 > 0:24:19In the first three years of the Land Settlement Act,
0:24:19 > 0:24:24the Scottish Board of Agriculture received 4,500 applications
0:24:24 > 0:24:26to create new crofts
0:24:26 > 0:24:28or extend existing crofts.
0:24:30 > 0:24:32But by the end of 1920
0:24:32 > 0:24:34less than 600 had been completed.
0:24:37 > 0:24:40Even when land was made available,
0:24:40 > 0:24:44the process of deciding who would get it could be random and cruel.
0:24:51 > 0:24:54There was a priority system.
0:24:54 > 0:24:56People who'd fought in the war
0:24:56 > 0:24:58were the number one priority,
0:24:58 > 0:25:02They were recognised to have a bigger claim on crofts
0:25:02 > 0:25:03than anyone else.
0:25:03 > 0:25:07But, even then, there might be a drawing of lots, as it were.
0:25:07 > 0:25:10If your number came up, you got a croft
0:25:10 > 0:25:11and if it didn't, you didn't.
0:25:13 > 0:25:15Angus Gillies had come back from the dead
0:25:15 > 0:25:18to an overcrowded croft in South Dell.
0:25:18 > 0:25:20He and his neighbours had looked enviously
0:25:20 > 0:25:23at the wide fields of Galson Farm.
0:25:26 > 0:25:28But, in 1923,
0:25:28 > 0:25:31five years after Angus came back from the war,
0:25:31 > 0:25:34it was announced that Galson was to be divided.
0:25:38 > 0:25:41They came with their rods and their chains
0:25:41 > 0:25:45and boundary stones were put in.
0:25:47 > 0:25:50And then they were allocated.
0:25:50 > 0:25:54And the word that we use here, in Gaelic, for...
0:25:54 > 0:25:58a croft... We don't refer to croich.
0:25:58 > 0:25:59We refer to "lot".
0:25:59 > 0:26:01SPEAKS GAELIC
0:26:01 > 0:26:03Their croft.
0:26:03 > 0:26:06And, literally, the lot was the lot
0:26:06 > 0:26:08that they had been allocated, in a lottery.
0:26:08 > 0:26:12Agnes's grandfather was one of the lucky ones.
0:26:12 > 0:26:14He drew number 25,
0:26:14 > 0:26:17the croft Agnes's family still occupy.
0:26:22 > 0:26:24My maternal grandmother, Shona Marsden,
0:26:24 > 0:26:27she gives a beautiful description
0:26:27 > 0:26:30of when they had got their croft,
0:26:30 > 0:26:33because they would only have ever seen it over the turf wall.
0:26:33 > 0:26:38And she describes how they walked in the road,
0:26:38 > 0:26:40where the road still is,
0:26:40 > 0:26:42between the walls,
0:26:42 > 0:26:44springtime...
0:26:44 > 0:26:46and everything looked so green.
0:26:48 > 0:26:50And everything looked so open.
0:26:52 > 0:26:54It had taken five years,
0:26:54 > 0:26:58but now Angus and his family had found their promised land.
0:26:59 > 0:27:01A rented croft of their own.
0:27:03 > 0:27:04Many were less fortunate.
0:27:08 > 0:27:10Traditionally, the family croft would be passed down
0:27:10 > 0:27:12to the eldest son.
0:27:12 > 0:27:14His younger brothers and sisters
0:27:14 > 0:27:17would have to look for a living elsewhere.
0:27:19 > 0:27:22Many had moved south to the great industrial centres.
0:27:22 > 0:27:25But, as Scotland's economy collapsed,
0:27:25 > 0:27:27they were forced to look further afield.
0:27:29 > 0:27:33There were huge numbers of people in Glasgow, for instance,
0:27:33 > 0:27:37and in other centres, who were of Highland origin.
0:27:37 > 0:27:41But now these places were no longer a Mecca either.
0:27:41 > 0:27:44They were contracting economically and declining.
0:27:44 > 0:27:48Scotland is a place that people are leaving from in huge numbers.
0:27:48 > 0:27:50Particularly for the United States
0:27:50 > 0:27:56and for the so-called dominions of that time - Canada, Australia, etc.
0:27:56 > 0:27:58From the Lowlands to the Highlands,
0:27:58 > 0:28:02critics called for imaginative new schemes
0:28:02 > 0:28:04to stop people leaving.
0:28:04 > 0:28:07Hydroelectrics, new roads,
0:28:07 > 0:28:09perhaps a handful of Leverhulmes
0:28:09 > 0:28:13to breathe life into Scottish communities.
0:28:13 > 0:28:16In the end, the government offered little.
0:28:16 > 0:28:21The Forestry Commission, established in 1919, was a rare success.
0:28:22 > 0:28:26But growing trees would not replace building ships.
0:28:26 > 0:28:31And forests would never prosper in Shetland or the Outer Hebrides.
0:28:31 > 0:28:33And so, with much to encourage it,
0:28:33 > 0:28:36and little in place to stop it,
0:28:36 > 0:28:421920s Scotland became a time of mass departures.
0:28:42 > 0:28:45A decade when the country's recorded population
0:28:45 > 0:28:48would decrease for the first time ever.
0:28:54 > 0:28:56Emigration was nothing new.
0:28:56 > 0:29:00For over a century, emigration agents had journeyed
0:29:00 > 0:29:04across Scotland's communities, her islands, villages and cities.
0:29:05 > 0:29:09The agents came from Australia, from New Zealand and the United States,
0:29:09 > 0:29:12but most often, they came from Canada.
0:29:15 > 0:29:17Your main Canadian federal agent
0:29:17 > 0:29:19was based in Glasgow.
0:29:19 > 0:29:23But he, and various sub agents who were attached to his office,
0:29:23 > 0:29:24would go out on recruitment drives,
0:29:24 > 0:29:26usually in the summer months.
0:29:26 > 0:29:29And they would give public lectures, hold private meetings
0:29:29 > 0:29:30with people who were interested.
0:29:30 > 0:29:33So it was a big event, it was something to go out to,
0:29:33 > 0:29:35if the agent was visiting your village.
0:29:38 > 0:29:43In 1922, the task of emigration agents was made considerably easier.
0:29:45 > 0:29:49A new Act of Parliament committed £3 million per year
0:29:49 > 0:29:53to subsidise the cost of one-way tickets to the British dominions.
0:29:55 > 0:29:59Instead of paying £16 for a passage to Canada,
0:29:59 > 0:30:02the poorest migrants would pay only £4.
0:30:04 > 0:30:09The 1922 Empire Settlement Act saw Britain pay her people...
0:30:09 > 0:30:10to leave.
0:30:14 > 0:30:17The thinking behind the Empire Settlement Act was
0:30:17 > 0:30:20that it would bolster an empire that seemed to be
0:30:20 > 0:30:22threatening to fall apart
0:30:22 > 0:30:25by sending out loyal British subjects.
0:30:25 > 0:30:28But, taking it from the domestic perspective,
0:30:28 > 0:30:31they were beginning to be worried that some of these subjects
0:30:31 > 0:30:34were not loyal, they were potentially disaffected.
0:30:34 > 0:30:36There were fears of Bolshevism.
0:30:36 > 0:30:40So they thought they could export the potentially troublesome
0:30:40 > 0:30:43and disillusioned to the other side of the Atlantic.
0:30:45 > 0:30:47To send her people to the dominions,
0:30:47 > 0:30:54the British government committed £3 million per year for 15 years.
0:30:54 > 0:30:58A total sum equivalent to £2.5 billion today.
0:31:00 > 0:31:04This was a profoundly controversial piece of legislation.
0:31:04 > 0:31:08It drew ferocious criticism from all corners of Scottish society.
0:31:10 > 0:31:13There was opposition from the left,
0:31:13 > 0:31:17who felt that it was the government essentially giving up
0:31:17 > 0:31:21on the working class, those voices were heard.
0:31:21 > 0:31:25There was opposition from the nascent Nationalist Movement in Scotland.
0:31:25 > 0:31:27And there was additionally, however,
0:31:27 > 0:31:32somewhat maybe counter-intuitively, opposition from the right as well.
0:31:32 > 0:31:35On the right, you had Sir Alfred Yarrow,
0:31:35 > 0:31:39of Yarrow Shipbuilders, complaining about the expense
0:31:39 > 0:31:42of educating people in Scotland,
0:31:42 > 0:31:46only to see them use that education as a springboard to emigrate.
0:31:46 > 0:31:49BELL TOLLS Some went even further.
0:31:49 > 0:31:53In Parliament, the radical Glasgow socialist David Kirkwood,
0:31:53 > 0:31:55likened Scotland's losses to emigration
0:31:55 > 0:31:57to the losses of the war.
0:32:01 > 0:32:05When there is a war on, it is the best blood of the country
0:32:05 > 0:32:07that is taken away.
0:32:07 > 0:32:09It is the same with emigration.
0:32:09 > 0:32:13It is our young men, the best asset that any country ever had,
0:32:13 > 0:32:16the finest raw material in the world -
0:32:16 > 0:32:18the British working class.
0:32:23 > 0:32:27The protests did little to stem the tide of Scottish migrants.
0:32:27 > 0:32:29The 1920s would become
0:32:29 > 0:32:32the peak period for Scottish outward emigration.
0:32:35 > 0:32:39In ten years, almost half a million people left the country.
0:32:39 > 0:32:41A tenth of the population.
0:32:42 > 0:32:46No other European country lost such a large proportion
0:32:46 > 0:32:48of its post-war population.
0:32:50 > 0:32:54The year 1923 saw the most departures,
0:32:54 > 0:32:58when almost 85,000 Scots emigrated overseas.
0:33:02 > 0:33:05The vast majority came from Scotland's towns and cities.
0:33:07 > 0:33:09But the much smaller number,
0:33:09 > 0:33:11who left from Scotland's Highlands and Islands,
0:33:11 > 0:33:15had a massive impact on the tiny communities they left behind.
0:33:17 > 0:33:22In the Hebrides, 1923 would long be remembered
0:33:22 > 0:33:27as the year two migrant ships departed in one single week.
0:33:32 > 0:33:33SEAGULL CRIES
0:33:33 > 0:33:37100 miles from Stornoway, the island of Barra lies
0:33:37 > 0:33:40at the southern edge of the Outer Hebrides.
0:33:41 > 0:33:43A traditionally Roman Catholic community,
0:33:43 > 0:33:48in 1923, the local priest was Father Donald MacIntyre,
0:33:48 > 0:33:52who was also an agent for a Catholic emigration charity.
0:33:54 > 0:33:58In a village hall, MacIntyre hosted a magic lantern show.
0:34:00 > 0:34:03He projected pictures of fertile prairies,
0:34:03 > 0:34:07told stories of a country where hard work was well rewarded.
0:34:09 > 0:34:13Every family was promised a farm of their own.
0:34:16 > 0:34:18In the audience were the MacNeils
0:34:18 > 0:34:20from the village of Tangasdale.
0:34:22 > 0:34:26The father, 55-year-old Alexander, or Atoll MacNeil,
0:34:26 > 0:34:29was a fisherman, fallen on hard times.
0:34:30 > 0:34:32His youngest son, Lachlan,
0:34:32 > 0:34:35would never forget the night the family decided to leave.
0:34:38 > 0:34:41- RECORDING:- I can remember the showing of pictures
0:34:41 > 0:34:43and listening to speeches.
0:34:43 > 0:34:47How well off they would be if they went to Canada.
0:34:47 > 0:34:49The promised land.
0:34:51 > 0:34:55A few more made up their minds to emigrate,
0:34:55 > 0:35:01including my own family from Tangasdale.
0:35:08 > 0:35:11He didn't want to leave here and none of them wanted to go.
0:35:11 > 0:35:13But they had to go for a better future.
0:35:13 > 0:35:15They thought they were going for better land.
0:35:15 > 0:35:17Land around here, as you can see, is quite scarce
0:35:17 > 0:35:19and it's not easy to plough much of it.
0:35:19 > 0:35:21Their hope was to get land they could have
0:35:21 > 0:35:23and land was the big issue.
0:35:23 > 0:35:27In the Western Isles, emigration had long been a fearful word.
0:35:27 > 0:35:30The legacy of the clearances hung heavily.
0:35:32 > 0:35:36But Government money for new crofts had dried up.
0:35:36 > 0:35:38Harvests were failing.
0:35:38 > 0:35:42By 1923, a subsidised ticket to a new life abroad
0:35:42 > 0:35:45seemed an increasingly attractive option.
0:35:47 > 0:35:49There was a sense of...
0:35:49 > 0:35:52ambition, opportunity,
0:35:52 > 0:35:55a sense that there was a better future to be had
0:35:55 > 0:35:56across the Atlantic.
0:35:56 > 0:35:59Partly, that was a consequence of disillusionment about
0:35:59 > 0:36:03being let down, in terms of promises of homes fit for heroes.
0:36:03 > 0:36:07But it was also a consequence of better publicity.
0:36:07 > 0:36:11What the agents were saying, the impact of the new legislation,
0:36:11 > 0:36:15the fact that many of the guys who were leaving had served in the war
0:36:15 > 0:36:18and had heard about these opportunities elsewhere.
0:36:23 > 0:36:27The MacNeil family - Atoll, Annie and their two children -
0:36:27 > 0:36:31were to depart on a Canadian Pacific liner, the Marloch.
0:36:32 > 0:36:34The youngest son, 11-year-old Lachlan,
0:36:34 > 0:36:38remembered a sombre mood in the family croft,
0:36:38 > 0:36:41as his father said goodbye to family and friends.
0:36:45 > 0:36:47- RECORDING:- I remember the night.
0:36:47 > 0:36:50Donald McLean "Borve"
0:36:50 > 0:36:55and my father sitting by the fireside
0:36:55 > 0:36:57drinking a bottle of whisky
0:36:57 > 0:37:00and both were crying their eyes out.
0:37:10 > 0:37:13I do like the story Lachlan put on a tape he made in the '80s
0:37:13 > 0:37:16about my great-grandfather, Donald McLean, "Borve",
0:37:16 > 0:37:19coming to see his father, Atoll, with a bottle of whisky,
0:37:19 > 0:37:21and they're at the fireside, crying their eyes out,
0:37:21 > 0:37:24cos they knew that was the last time they'd see each other.
0:37:24 > 0:37:25They at least knew that.
0:37:28 > 0:37:33The next morning, Sunday 15th April 1923,
0:37:33 > 0:37:3813 families left Barra for the short crossing to Lochboisdale.
0:37:40 > 0:37:45There, they met fellow travellers from Benbecula and South Uist.
0:37:46 > 0:37:49And, under a cloudless sky,
0:37:49 > 0:37:53a total of 291 islanders
0:37:53 > 0:37:56were transferred to their waiting ship -
0:37:56 > 0:37:59the Belfast-built liner, the Marloch.
0:38:03 > 0:38:07The islanders joined 177 other Scottish migrants
0:38:07 > 0:38:10who had boarded in Glasgow the day before,
0:38:10 > 0:38:12accompanied by journalists from the mainland,
0:38:12 > 0:38:16who had travelled to witness the Hebridean departures.
0:38:19 > 0:38:21BAGPIPES PLAY
0:38:24 > 0:38:27The correspondent from the Herald described...
0:38:27 > 0:38:31"A spirit of hope and buoyant expectancy,
0:38:31 > 0:38:35"as the Marloch slipped anchor to the tune of the bagpipes."
0:38:43 > 0:38:47Just six days later, another Canadian Pacific liner,
0:38:47 > 0:38:50the Metagama, arrived in the waters off Stornoway.
0:38:51 > 0:38:55She carried 1,100 emigrants who had boarded at Glasgow
0:38:55 > 0:38:58to be joined by another 315
0:38:58 > 0:39:00from all across Lewis...
0:39:02 > 0:39:05..including one passenger from the tiny village of Brue
0:39:05 > 0:39:0720 miles north-west of Stornoway.
0:39:10 > 0:39:12Home to the Finlayson family.
0:39:14 > 0:39:17The father, Donald, had served in the navy.
0:39:17 > 0:39:19He fought at the Battle of Jutland.
0:39:20 > 0:39:23His son, Norman, had elected to leave the family croft
0:39:23 > 0:39:26to travel alone to Canada.
0:39:28 > 0:39:31Forced to sacrifice his future to support his family
0:39:31 > 0:39:33with the money he'd make abroad.
0:39:36 > 0:39:39My father won a scholarship.
0:39:39 > 0:39:42Certain young people were earmarked to go to the high school,
0:39:42 > 0:39:45the Nicholson Institute in Stornoway,
0:39:45 > 0:39:46and my father was one of those.
0:39:46 > 0:39:50He turned it down, because he felt he was needed at home.
0:39:50 > 0:39:54And then, in 1923, my father was 18 years old,
0:39:54 > 0:39:57he and several friends walked from Brue,
0:39:57 > 0:39:59the village they were born in,
0:39:59 > 0:40:01into Stornoway to take the ship to Canada.
0:40:03 > 0:40:07There is a photograph that shows all the people lined up
0:40:07 > 0:40:08at the end of the road, if you like,
0:40:08 > 0:40:11to say goodbye to these young men who were all leaving home.
0:40:11 > 0:40:14I think there was probably a feeling of adventure,
0:40:14 > 0:40:17along with the feeling that they were leaving behind
0:40:17 > 0:40:20and maybe never seeing their families again
0:40:20 > 0:40:22and that would have been an extremely difficult thing
0:40:22 > 0:40:24for them to do.
0:40:25 > 0:40:28On the afternoon of 21st April,
0:40:28 > 0:40:32Norman Finlayson and 300 Lewis migrants
0:40:32 > 0:40:35were ferried out to the waiting Metagama.
0:40:35 > 0:40:38There was dancing, then prayers.
0:40:38 > 0:40:40Every traveller was given a Gaelic Bible.
0:40:44 > 0:40:47Like Norman, most of the migrants were single young men,
0:40:47 > 0:40:51described in the optimistic prose of the Herald's correspondent as...
0:40:51 > 0:40:54"Youth, pulsating with hope,
0:40:54 > 0:40:58"setting out with confidence to conquer worlds."
0:41:00 > 0:41:02As Norman, and the mostly Protestant passengers
0:41:02 > 0:41:04of the Metagama left Stornoway,
0:41:04 > 0:41:09the predominantly Catholic migrants from Barra and Lochboisdale
0:41:09 > 0:41:10were already mid-ocean.
0:41:12 > 0:41:15On board their ship, the Marloch,
0:41:15 > 0:41:18fisherman Alexander, or Atoll, MacNeil was advised,
0:41:18 > 0:41:20by his emigration agent,
0:41:20 > 0:41:23to exaggerate the amount of money he held.
0:41:23 > 0:41:28- LACHLAN MACNEIL:- He told them that if you tell me that you have
0:41:28 > 0:41:30more than you actually have,
0:41:30 > 0:41:33it will be to your credit.
0:41:34 > 0:41:36Atoll agreed,
0:41:36 > 0:41:39a decision that he would come to bitterly regret.
0:41:41 > 0:41:44On 28th April 1923,
0:41:44 > 0:41:4613 days after leaving Lochboisdale,
0:41:46 > 0:41:51their ship, the Marloch, made landfall in St John, New Brunswick.
0:41:52 > 0:41:54The Metagama, from Stornoway,
0:41:54 > 0:41:57arrived in the same port four days later.
0:41:59 > 0:42:01Together, the two ships
0:42:01 > 0:42:03had brought over 600 Scottish men, women and children
0:42:03 > 0:42:05from the Hebrides to Canada.
0:42:06 > 0:42:09That one year, 1923,
0:42:09 > 0:42:1329,000 Scots would make that same journey.
0:42:14 > 0:42:17Local newspapers welcomed the Hebridean arrivals,
0:42:17 > 0:42:20described them as, "alert, rugged
0:42:20 > 0:42:23"and experienced in farming and fishing".
0:42:24 > 0:42:26They were also said to be rich.
0:42:30 > 0:42:31TRAIN HOOTS
0:42:39 > 0:42:41After almost two weeks at sea,
0:42:41 > 0:42:44the MacNeil family, from Barra,
0:42:44 > 0:42:47took another week to reach Alberta by rail.
0:42:52 > 0:42:55A journey of almost 3,000 miles
0:42:55 > 0:42:57across the Canadian prairies.
0:43:01 > 0:43:04This photograph shows the passengers of the Marloch
0:43:04 > 0:43:07arriving in the town of Red Deer,
0:43:07 > 0:43:12where they were trained in the ways of Canadian farming.
0:43:12 > 0:43:15The emigrants had been assured, time and again,
0:43:15 > 0:43:18that they'd each be given their own farm.
0:43:18 > 0:43:21But, after three months unpaid work,
0:43:21 > 0:43:23there was no word of any farm.
0:43:25 > 0:43:28Atoll MacNeil wrote to the emigration agents,
0:43:28 > 0:43:31The Scottish Immigrant Aid Society, and asked
0:43:31 > 0:43:34when he would receive his own promised land.
0:43:36 > 0:43:39The reply...was devastating.
0:43:41 > 0:43:43- LACHLAN MACNEIL:- We received a letter back telling us
0:43:43 > 0:43:47there was no such promise and called my father a liar.
0:43:47 > 0:43:51And that we were quite capable of getting our own place
0:43:51 > 0:43:53without his help.
0:43:55 > 0:44:00The MacNeils had been caught in a web of duplicity and incompetence,
0:44:00 > 0:44:04spun by the agents who'd inspired their journey to Canada.
0:44:05 > 0:44:07The Scottish Immigrant Aid Society
0:44:07 > 0:44:11was managed by a former Benedictine priest, Father Andrew MacDonnell.
0:44:15 > 0:44:18There is a whiff of scandal that surrounds Andrew MacDonnell.
0:44:18 > 0:44:21He had told his sub-agents in Scotland, he said,
0:44:21 > 0:44:24"I want you to recruit 18 families
0:44:24 > 0:44:27"and they must all have 750 to their name,
0:44:27 > 0:44:31"so that they can make a start in farming on their own account."
0:44:31 > 0:44:33But what his sub-agents in Scotland actually did
0:44:33 > 0:44:35was to recruit 50 families,
0:44:35 > 0:44:37almost half of whom were penniless,
0:44:37 > 0:44:41and MacDonnell didn't know that they were arriving until they were there.
0:44:42 > 0:44:47With hopes of getting their own promised farm now on hold,
0:44:47 > 0:44:50the MacNeil family rented rooms in the town of Calgary.
0:44:51 > 0:44:53Meanwhile, back on the coast,
0:44:53 > 0:44:58the emigrants from Stornoway had encountered their own problems.
0:44:59 > 0:45:02Norman Finlayson, the young man who had turned down a scholarship,
0:45:02 > 0:45:05was one of almost 1,500 Scots
0:45:05 > 0:45:08whose arrival in Canada surprised everyone.
0:45:11 > 0:45:15When they got to New Brunswick, there was no-one there to meet them,
0:45:15 > 0:45:17so this whole ship of young emigrant people
0:45:17 > 0:45:19were left on the quay and...
0:45:19 > 0:45:22no-one to meet them and they didn't know where they were going.
0:45:22 > 0:45:24They were cold, they were tired, they were hungry.
0:45:24 > 0:45:27Ultimately, a company representative came
0:45:27 > 0:45:30and they were sent by train to Toronto.
0:45:31 > 0:45:34My father was sent to a farm in Southern Ontario
0:45:34 > 0:45:36and he went to work there, near Orillia.
0:45:42 > 0:45:46For four years, Anna's father worked his way through the farms
0:45:46 > 0:45:49and mines of western Canada,
0:45:49 > 0:45:52sending money home to his parents in Lewis.
0:45:54 > 0:45:58He arrived in the city of Vancouver in 1928
0:45:58 > 0:46:01and married another Lewis emigrant, Anne MacIver.
0:46:04 > 0:46:06They were engaged for five years,
0:46:06 > 0:46:09because my father insisted on having a house built,
0:46:09 > 0:46:12and furnished, and a car before he got married.
0:46:12 > 0:46:15And he was that way all his life. He never owed a cent.
0:46:17 > 0:46:21The man whose family had been too poor to send him to school
0:46:21 > 0:46:23found great success in Canada.
0:46:26 > 0:46:29He started the first charter flights to Scotland.
0:46:29 > 0:46:33There were enough Scottish people here that wanted to go back home
0:46:33 > 0:46:35and visit, so he set up a charter
0:46:35 > 0:46:38with a company called Ward Air, in those years.
0:46:38 > 0:46:40And they flew from Vancouver to Prestwick.
0:46:40 > 0:46:44He loved Canada, but he never forgot home.
0:46:44 > 0:46:47And they always referred to Lewis as home, yeah.
0:46:51 > 0:46:55And he passed away in Vancouver on 21st April 1983.
0:46:55 > 0:46:58Exactly 60 years to the day he left home.
0:46:59 > 0:47:03His one big wish was that we would all go to school
0:47:03 > 0:47:05and finish our education and have an opportunity
0:47:05 > 0:47:09that he didn't have and...
0:47:09 > 0:47:12we did that, more for him than for anybody, I think, you know?
0:47:13 > 0:47:15I think he was given more opportunity here
0:47:15 > 0:47:18than he would have had in Scotland in those days.
0:47:18 > 0:47:21And I think he made the most of those opportunities
0:47:21 > 0:47:24and he lived a very happy, very productive life.
0:47:28 > 0:47:31Just six days before Norman had left Stornoway,
0:47:31 > 0:47:33the MacNeil family had left Barra.
0:47:36 > 0:47:40They'd been convinced to emigrate by their local priest.
0:47:40 > 0:47:41They'd been cruelly let down.
0:47:43 > 0:47:45But, in 1926,
0:47:45 > 0:47:49they once again put their faith in Father MacDonnell
0:47:49 > 0:47:52and his Scottish Immigrant Aid Society.
0:47:54 > 0:47:58That year, MacDonnell had taken out a mortgage of 100,000
0:47:58 > 0:48:01and bought 32,000 acres of land
0:48:01 > 0:48:03from the Canadian Pacific Railway
0:48:03 > 0:48:07and established the Scottish Catholic immigrant colony
0:48:07 > 0:48:08of Clandonald.
0:48:10 > 0:48:12What I'm holding here
0:48:12 > 0:48:15is the walking stick that my great-uncle,
0:48:15 > 0:48:18the Reverend MacDonnell, used when he came to Clandonald.
0:48:20 > 0:48:23MacDonnell's new settlement was more than twice the size of Barra,
0:48:23 > 0:48:26the island the MacNeils had left behind.
0:48:27 > 0:48:30They chose 100 farm sites,
0:48:30 > 0:48:35that are shown on this map for the Clandonald colony.
0:48:35 > 0:48:38The farm sites were originally just a number.
0:48:38 > 0:48:40The MacNeil family were located on
0:48:40 > 0:48:43what was referred to as farm number 81.
0:48:43 > 0:48:46The land that they had there was quite rolling land.
0:48:46 > 0:48:48There were some nice, level spots for fields.
0:48:48 > 0:48:52There was a large water body that went through the middle of it
0:48:52 > 0:48:53and does to this day.
0:48:57 > 0:48:59In this photograph,
0:48:59 > 0:49:01mother and father Annie and Atoll MacNeil
0:49:01 > 0:49:05stand outside the flimsy prefabricated home
0:49:05 > 0:49:08they shared with their sons, Lachlan and John.
0:49:10 > 0:49:15These homes were supplied by the Stavelock Lumber Company.
0:49:15 > 0:49:18There were 100 of them in total
0:49:18 > 0:49:20and all used in this colony area.
0:49:24 > 0:49:27The MacNeil home has long gone,
0:49:27 > 0:49:28but this identical cabin
0:49:28 > 0:49:32has hardly been touched since the last settler departed.
0:49:34 > 0:49:38These homes were built with no insulation in the wall whatsoever.
0:49:38 > 0:49:42It's the boards and just one sheet of tar paper.
0:49:42 > 0:49:45And that was all that was between you and the weather.
0:49:46 > 0:49:48In the wintertime it does get very cold here.
0:49:48 > 0:49:52Some years, some winters are up to -40 Fahrenheit.
0:49:54 > 0:49:58And the cold was not the only hardship.
0:49:58 > 0:50:01The settlers were obliged to pay their share
0:50:01 > 0:50:04of Father MacDonnell's 100,000 mortgage.
0:50:06 > 0:50:07Many struggled to cope.
0:50:09 > 0:50:13This was not the land they had been promised in the magic lantern shows.
0:50:13 > 0:50:16Many of those families didn't do it for themselves personally,
0:50:16 > 0:50:18although they did benefit.
0:50:18 > 0:50:21It was for their family and grandchildren
0:50:21 > 0:50:24that they went through what they did to come to Canada.
0:50:24 > 0:50:27It was not an easy life
0:50:27 > 0:50:30and it wasn't what some of the people thought it was.
0:50:30 > 0:50:33Some, I think, had been painted a picture of much better.
0:50:37 > 0:50:39Six years after their arrival at Clandonald,
0:50:39 > 0:50:42Lachlan MacNeil's elder brother,
0:50:42 > 0:50:4524-year-old John, fell critically ill.
0:50:50 > 0:50:54- LACHLAN MACNEIL: - 1932 - my brother John died
0:50:54 > 0:50:59and my father wasn't in the best of health either.
0:51:03 > 0:51:06I was beginning to see the light.
0:51:06 > 0:51:09In the Fall of '40 we sold out
0:51:09 > 0:51:11and moved to Vancouver.
0:51:16 > 0:51:19Lachlan MacNeil would always insist that the Clandonald settlers
0:51:19 > 0:51:21had been unfairly treated.
0:51:22 > 0:51:24He blamed the emigration agents
0:51:24 > 0:51:26who had brought his family from Scotland.
0:51:26 > 0:51:30And, in particular, he blamed Father Andrew MacDonnell.
0:51:32 > 0:51:36My great-uncle firmly believed that what he was doing
0:51:36 > 0:51:37was the right thing.
0:51:37 > 0:51:40And, I think, for the most part, he did do the right thing.
0:51:40 > 0:51:44Some people may disagree, but I think, for the most part,
0:51:44 > 0:51:47they would all agree that they were all better for what he did
0:51:47 > 0:51:49to bring the people out here.
0:51:53 > 0:51:56Lachlan's mother and father, Annie and Atoll,
0:51:56 > 0:51:59died a few years after the family moved to Vancouver.
0:52:00 > 0:52:03Lachlan had three children of his own.
0:52:04 > 0:52:05Still in Vancouver,
0:52:05 > 0:52:08they understand the hardships their father faced
0:52:08 > 0:52:10at the hands of the emigration agents.
0:52:15 > 0:52:17Every family that went there,
0:52:17 > 0:52:20many of them encountered the same problems.
0:52:20 > 0:52:23So it wasn't just, you know, something that he thought happened.
0:52:23 > 0:52:25It definitely did happen.
0:52:25 > 0:52:29And they were promised things that never came through.
0:52:29 > 0:52:32THEY CHATTER
0:52:32 > 0:52:35Why did he emigrate? I remember Dad talking about the weather.
0:52:35 > 0:52:37- The weather or something.- Yeah.
0:52:37 > 0:52:41- And coming to a better life.- And, yeah, just coming to a better life.
0:52:41 > 0:52:43Lachlan worked for the Canadian Steel Company
0:52:43 > 0:52:47and three times he returned to the island of his birth.
0:52:48 > 0:52:52Somebody once said to me, when I was there 11 years ago,
0:52:52 > 0:52:54that, when all of those people left,
0:52:54 > 0:52:56a lot of the dreams left with them -
0:52:56 > 0:52:58they were the dreamers that left.
0:52:58 > 0:53:00They were the ones that wanted to...
0:53:00 > 0:53:03er...kind of do more.
0:53:03 > 0:53:07This picture here. This would be dad's last trip to Barra.
0:53:07 > 0:53:08- Oh, yeah?- Yeah.
0:53:08 > 0:53:12It wasn't all easy for them and he was a very proud man
0:53:12 > 0:53:16and he...he made a very good life for his family.
0:53:16 > 0:53:18PHONE KEYS BEEP
0:53:18 > 0:53:22One positive from the great exodus of the 1920s
0:53:22 > 0:53:24is that it helped create a Scotland
0:53:24 > 0:53:27where almost every family has a relative abroad.
0:53:27 > 0:53:29DIALLING TONE
0:53:30 > 0:53:32Hello, Angus.
0:53:32 > 0:53:34Hello, Ann!
0:53:34 > 0:53:35It's lovely to talk to you.
0:53:35 > 0:53:39Lovely talking to you too. It's been quite a while.
0:53:39 > 0:53:42Lachlan died in 1991.
0:53:42 > 0:53:45Almost a lifetime before, here in Tangasdale,
0:53:45 > 0:53:48he had watched his father, Atoll,
0:53:48 > 0:53:52share a tearful whisky with Angus's great-grandfather, Donald,
0:53:52 > 0:53:55the night before the family had boarded the emigrant ship,
0:53:55 > 0:53:56the Marloch.
0:53:58 > 0:54:01Their descendants would come to prosper in Canada,
0:54:01 > 0:54:04but, across the Hebrides, across Scotland,
0:54:04 > 0:54:06there remains an anger...
0:54:08 > 0:54:11..that, in the years after the Great War,
0:54:11 > 0:54:14emigration seemed the only option.
0:54:14 > 0:54:17I think it would have been better if they tried to keep them here
0:54:17 > 0:54:19and there are other areas of northern Europe
0:54:19 > 0:54:21where this didn't happen at all.
0:54:21 > 0:54:23I suppose Britain felt it had an empire to fill.
0:54:23 > 0:54:26And who'd be better than the Scots Highlanders and Islanders
0:54:26 > 0:54:29to go along to the toughest parts, and they were Canada.
0:54:29 > 0:54:32So I think they were used in many ways, the people,
0:54:32 > 0:54:34and that's annoying and it's sad.
0:54:39 > 0:54:43The Scottish exodus of the 1920s had been fuelled by poor housing,
0:54:43 > 0:54:45a stalling economy
0:54:45 > 0:54:48and by men and women who wanted a better future
0:54:48 > 0:54:49for their children.
0:54:50 > 0:54:53Most controversially, it had also been fuelled
0:54:53 > 0:54:56by false promises and government money.
0:54:59 > 0:55:02The £3 million a year that had been made available
0:55:02 > 0:55:04for Empire Settlement Funding seemed to be
0:55:04 > 0:55:06a counsel of despair for some people.
0:55:06 > 0:55:09And the argument was, why can't this money be used
0:55:09 > 0:55:14in Scotland on forestry, commercial fishing,
0:55:14 > 0:55:18hydroelectric schemes, industrial investment?
0:55:18 > 0:55:20Why spend money sending people away?
0:55:20 > 0:55:23That money could be invested at home
0:55:23 > 0:55:26in making the population productive.
0:55:28 > 0:55:31A lack of investment and a lack of imagination
0:55:31 > 0:55:34had paralysed post-war Scotland.
0:55:34 > 0:55:38Nowhere more so than the Highlands and Islands,
0:55:38 > 0:55:40where the failure to provide land
0:55:40 > 0:55:43had led impoverished families to seek it out overseas.
0:55:45 > 0:55:48Young people are denied opportunity,
0:55:48 > 0:55:50even in their own country
0:55:50 > 0:55:52and they have to go elsewhere to find it.
0:55:52 > 0:55:55And that's a pretty awful state of affairs.
0:55:55 > 0:56:01And the kind of psychological, cultural impact of that,
0:56:01 > 0:56:04I think on Scotland, overall,
0:56:04 > 0:56:07and certainly on the Highlands and Islands, was pretty devastating.
0:56:11 > 0:56:13For Scotland's most remote communities,
0:56:13 > 0:56:18the 1920s would be remembered as a time of missed opportunities,
0:56:18 > 0:56:21when the questions of who owns Scotland's land
0:56:21 > 0:56:26and to what purpose were left to another generation.
0:56:27 > 0:56:31In 1918, Angus Gillies had come back from the dead
0:56:31 > 0:56:36and won a lottery to secure the tenancy on his promised land -
0:56:36 > 0:56:37the family croft at Galson.
0:56:39 > 0:56:42Baron Leverhulme had offered Angus and his fellow crofters
0:56:42 > 0:56:45outright ownership of their land -
0:56:45 > 0:56:48a risk they'd lacked the confidence to take.
0:56:50 > 0:56:53But 90 years after Angus came back from the war,
0:56:53 > 0:56:55his granddaughter was at the centre
0:56:55 > 0:56:58of a government-assisted community buyout
0:56:58 > 0:57:00that finally put Galson in the hands
0:57:00 > 0:57:02of the people who live and work there.
0:57:04 > 0:57:06Here we are now
0:57:06 > 0:57:10and this community owns this land.
0:57:10 > 0:57:13And, for me, that is a circle
0:57:13 > 0:57:16that's very, very important to have closed.
0:57:16 > 0:57:18And, I must say, I wonder how
0:57:18 > 0:57:21my grandfather and that generation
0:57:21 > 0:57:23would have thought about that,
0:57:23 > 0:57:25how they would have responded to that.
0:57:25 > 0:57:28I think they would have felt good about it.
0:57:32 > 0:57:36Galson is just one of the many schemes that has placed land
0:57:36 > 0:57:39in the control of the people who live on it.
0:57:40 > 0:57:43The buyout cost the Scottish government £600,000 -
0:57:45 > 0:57:48a considerable sum,
0:57:48 > 0:57:52but a mere fraction of the public money spent in the 1920s
0:57:52 > 0:57:55sending Scottish men and women overseas.
0:58:02 > 0:58:04In the next and final film...
0:58:04 > 0:58:09a cultural revolution, a Scottish renaissance.
0:58:09 > 0:58:12A band of revolutionary writers and artists
0:58:12 > 0:58:15mount an explosive rearguard action
0:58:15 > 0:58:18to portray their country in a language
0:58:18 > 0:58:21free from sentiment, free from tired music hall parody.
0:58:23 > 0:58:25A battle for a noble cause
0:58:25 > 0:58:28to find the voice of Scotland's people.