Funeral

Attended a funeral at the Free Church, Kenneth Street, this morning. Very large attendance. The cortège commenced at the County Hotel and stretched all the way up Kenneth Street to Scotland Street, then up Lewis Street as far as St Columba's. Numerous shopkeepers and residents stood outside their premises and homes, and the priest stood outside the Roman Catholic Church on Scotland Street. Total distance 700 yards, which is indicative of a huge funeral. Police had closed the roads, which allowed the males in the congregation to file up the street, on either side. A strangely dignified spectacle, as two rows of men in dark garb slowly marching up the street. At the head of the procession was the coffin, borne by alternating mourners, six at a time. Not everyone was able to participate in the lift. The deceased has now been laid to rest in the Eye Cemetery at Aignish, some 4 miles east of Stornoway. I close this post with an image of the cemetery. The word Eye has nothing to do with the sensory organ; it is a corruption of the name of the area, Braighe na h-Aoidhe, where the latter word has been transmuted into Eye.

Different

Summer is on its way here in the Western Isles, and mass tourism has arrived. Today's cruiseliner, the Rotterdam, has spewed hundreds of passengers ashore, who throng the streets of our wee town. Stornoway has a population of roughly 6,000, which increases to 9,000 if you taken in outlying districts like Laxdale, Parkend and Newmarket. In the past, large cruiseliners like the Rotterdam would have to lie at anchor outside the harbour entrance. Now that the Deep Water Terminal has been completed, they can go alongside. Passengers are ferried to town in double-decker buses, a novelty in Lewis, by the hundred at a time. 

What is also different from before the pandemic are the large numbers of campervans. It is a delicate subject in the islands, leading to lively discussions on Facebook and other forums. Research has shown that their economical contribution to the islands' economy is low, as they fuel up on the mainland, and do their shopping on the mainland. Generally speaking - I should not generalise.

Our roads are good, but many are single-track, only wide enough for one car. Passing places allow opposing traffic to meet and safely move past each other. But you have to know the unwritten rules of the road when using these narrow lanes. Other road users have horns or antlers, and are oblivious to the fast-moving chunks of metal. Many accidents are caused through deer collisions. 

By all means, cross the Minch and come to the islands. Especially in weather like today, warm sunshine and a respectable 15C on the thermometer. It's not always like this, our winters tend to be punctuated by high winds, hail and snow. A gale only gets noticed when gusts exceed 75 mph. That's the time when the ferry gets cancelled, and our supply chain is interrupted. Don't be surprised at the sight of empty shelves when you've just struggled to get into Tesco against ferocious winds. 

Remembrance

I make a point of observing Remembrance Sunday in November. There is another Remembrance Day, in May.

On 8th May 1945, Nazi-Germany capitulated to the Allied forces in Europe. Three days earlier, the Nazis had surrendered in the Netherlands, following a brutal occupation of just short of 5 years. During that time, more than 105,000 Jews had been deported and killed in concentration camps like Auschwitz-Birkenau, Dachau and Bergen-Belsen. Their fate is epitomised by Anne Frank. And by the fact that many synagogues in Holland were repurposed after the war, as there was nobody left to worship there.

Tomorrow evening, 4th May, at 8pm local time, two minutes' silence will be observed across the Netherlands. People will stop, trains and buses will halt, bells will toll and a bugler will sound the Last Post. In memory of those who gave their all for their country.

I post a video of the bells of the Dom Cathedral in Cologne in Germany. We forgive - if we can. We do not forget - what led to the atrocity that was the holocaust.

Stop the drownings

So the flights for Rwanda can now take off, and that will deter illegal migrants from attempting the dangerous crossing between France and England. 

I wonder what planet the British government is on. The problem is not the people, who risk (and as shown today, sometimes forfeit) their lives in the crossing. The problem is the people smugglers. That is not something the UK government can do anything about. That is up the French government, who seem to be sitting on their hands. 

Stop the Boats should be a policy for the government of the Republique Française, not for the United Kingdom. And they could call it: Vider les Plages.

Twenty years in social media

On 14th April 2004, I joined AOL for its dial-up service. We all remember the unworldly creaking noises as the 40 kilobyte per second connection was set up. Nowadays, I enjoy 37 megabytes per second, a thousand times fast. And in some places, internet speeds are measured in gigabytes per second, another factor of thousand quicker. 

I found myself embroiled in an internet chatroom of dubious repute, until my circumstances changed. From 2005, I became involved in AOL J-land, a community of bloggers. I became friends with people like the much missed Donna Diggins, then more familiarly known as nightmaremom, and Sugar Lewis, who has now disappeared of the radar, and might well have passed away. More than 60 of our friends have died in those 20 years. 

Who knows what the coming years will bring?

2 April 2024

Spring is slowly arriving here, with the dandelions already out and about. The first cruiseliner came yesterday, also a bit earlier than usual. But it remains a tad on the chilly side. 

The cruiseship Ambition docked at a new quay, dubbed the Deep Water Terminal, built over the last few years at a cost of £59 million. This comes hard on the heels of the Newton Marina, built for £5 million between 2019 and 2021. That seems to be a well-used facility. The DWT will not just play host to the 90-odd cruiseliners we're expecting this year (some will still dock alongside the piers in the town centre), but in time, will also receive bulk carriers (for coal and roadsalt). The preparations for that are not yet complete. The DWT has also prompted the double-tracking of the road to Arnish, but I have not yet been down that way to check on progress.

Cruiseliner Ambition

 

Dandelions

Lewis Chemical Works

If you're ever in Stornoway, swing by St Peter's Episcopal Church on Francis Street. It's at the top of the street coming up from An Lanntair on your right hand side. It has a small churchyard with about two dozen graves. Some of them related to the Lewis Chemical Works, an enterprise dating back to the middle of the 19th century, when they tried to convert peat into paraffin.

Gravestone for Henry Caunter

Fairly successful, except it was badly managed. The site, about two miles southwest of Stornoway, just off the A859 road to Tarbert and near the turn-off to Arnish (and its Deep Water Port), is difficult to locate and requires a bit of bog slogging. I've been there, and there is little to remind us of the plant.



Except for this memorial stone

The electricity transmission company SSEN thought it was a good idea to build a huge electricity transformer and converter station there, required to transmit all the renewables-generated power to the mainland, using a direct-current underwater cable. Well, tout Stornoway was up in arms, and today came the news that the site was no longer earmarked for the converter station. Where then? Well, they were thinking about a site near the Fabrication Yard, two miles to the south. We shall see.