NaBloPoMo 2025 - #23

 The war in Ukraine is moving towards its 4th anniversary next February. In 2022, the Russian Federation invaded the territory of its western neighbour, having already occupied the Crimea and areas of the provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk since 2014 through proxies. Ukraine is resisting valiantly, but is inexorably, slowly losing terrain and men. As Russia invaded without provocation, any ceasefire that includes ceding territory to Russia by Ukraine would be unfair. However, that is exactly what Donald "Chamberlain" Trump is proposing. Let's not forget what preceded this war. 

Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, assisted a secessionist movement in Abchazia, a rebellious province of Georgia (on the east coast of the Black Sea) in splitting off from Georgia. Apart from loud protests back in August 2008, no military consequences ensued. Putin occupied the Crimea, part of Ukraine, in March 2014, without any military consequences. Putin's forces allegedly shot down a civilian airliner over the east of Ukraine in July 2014, with the loss of 300 lives - without any retalitatory action. Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. This time round, Ukraine's allies rallied round with supplies of military hardware and intelligence. When Donald Trump became US president in January, he started off by giving Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zhelensky a row in the White House. Trump likes strongmen, like North Korea's Kim Jong Un and Russia's Putin. And Putin manipulates Trump. 

We saw in the 1930s what happens when you try to pacify aggressors. "Peace for our time", Neville Chamberlain said in November 1938, upon adorning a piece of paper with some more ink in Munich. Adolf Hitler did not pay the slightest attention, but invaded Czechoslovakia the next year, followed by Poland in September 1939. Only then did we have a declaration of war from Britain and France. Had these allies stood up to Hitler upon his incursions into the Rhineland in 1936, for instance, war might have been averted. But we'll never know. 

We'll see what happens if Trump's peacedeal is adopted. 

 

NaBloPoMo 2025 - #19

 Today, Western Isles Council decided to grant planning permission in principle to build an electricity  converter station on the outskirts of Stornoway. The station will be massive, measuring several hundred meters by several hundred meters, rearing up to 27 metres in height. It is required to convert electricity, generated by renewable energy projects across Lewis for transport to the mainland. A sub-sea cable has already been approved; it will have a capacity of 1,800 megawatts. In the 21 years I have been in the island, I have been vocal in my opposition to such on-shore and off-shore schemes. It will have a massive detrimental environmental impact, for one. And the benefit for Lewis will only be short-term, and even the employment may not be locally sourced. And by 2031, we'll be left with an industrial wasteland. I am very disappointed. 

NaBloPoMo 2025 - #17

 Eight years ago tonight, my uncle passed away, at the blessed age of 90. He had been suffering from pancreatic cancer, and had spent the last months of his life in a hospice. When I saw him on his 90th birthday, the previous January, he was a well-to-do nonagenarian, his usual affable, smiling self. Ten months later, there was little left of him. I was relieved he had been spared further suffering. 

My uncle, my father's eldest brother, had been married, but his wife had pre-deceased him in 1998, also after having cancer. They had lived together in the same tied cottage for 44 years, and my uncle stayed on until he died in 2017. It fell to members of the family to clear out ten skipfuls of detritus from years gone by. I don't think they ever bought new furniture, and the books were of similar vintage. I remember a ginger cat, and, from further back, chickens. 

Although he never had a family, my uncle was very fond of my siblings and myself, and supported our mother when she was in the final years of her life, up to 2008. Following the death of my father in 2022, there is only one sibling left of the four. My father's second brother was killed in a motorbike accident in 1954, when he crashed into an unilluminated American army truck, which did not have permission to be out and about. The youngest, my auntie, remains, now aged 78. 

Tempus fugit.  

NaBloPoMo 2025 - #11

 On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the guns fell silent. Fifteen million lay dead. Just because an archduke got shot in Sarajevo? Because the royal houses of Europe decided to have a family tiff? No, it's never as simplistic as that. But this post is not about the reasons for the Great War. It is about those fifteen million. Servicemen from all sides, civilians from all sides. It was the age of duty, you signed up because you felt it was your duty. Duty towards King and Country. If you didn't volunteer, if you tried to dodge the draft, you were a coward. You could be handed a white feather, oh, the disgrace. But that overlooked the genuine panic and fear that had some 3,000 shot at dawn. Only very recently have these unfortunate souls been exonerated, and their honour restored to them.

I compiled listings of the men from the island of Lewis in particular, and from the Outer Hebrides in general, who went to war from August 1914 until November 1918. When focusing on Lewis, their number stands at roughly 6,200. The number of dead is not set in tablets of stone; I have it at roughly 1,300. It matters not. Of that number, 181 were lost seven weeks after the Armistice, when their transport, HMY Iolaire, sank off Stornoway. Twenty others were Iolaire crew.

We all fall silent at 11 in the morning on November 11th. I have marked the occasion for thirty-fiveyears now, initially listening to the event on BBC Radio 4 longwave, 198 kHz. Not until I came to Stornoway, in November 2004, did I start to actively observe the Armistice. I have photographed the war memorials here, each stating the war to have ended in 1919, unlike everywhere else in the UK, where the end year is 1918. I have photographed over 400 wargraves and war-related gravestones in the island's cemeteries. I have compiled my findings on several websites, for all to see - at no charge. It's not for money that I have done this work. 

Lest we forget.

NaBloPoMo 2025 - #10

I repost the flame for Kristallnacht, as that ran on into November 10th, 1938. It is meant as a warning. 
As Heinrich Heine once wrote, Where one burns books, one will end up burning people. Only too true, as this horrendous prophecy became reality in the gas chambers of the death camps of Hitler's Nazi Germany. Have we learned from the past? 

No. Hitler was allowed to gain the ascendency through fear and complacency of the leaders of countries like France and England. Fast forward 80 years, and we see Vladimir Putin getting away with it. Remember Abchazia, the northwestern part of Georgia, which Putin occupied in 2008. We have all witnessed the creeping occupation of Ukraine, starting with Crimea in 2014, and now this entrenched war in which he has occupied 20% of Ukrainean territory - and no intention of stopping. Had we stood up to this bully in 2014, if not 2008, he might not have proceeded as far as he has now. 

Beware.  

NaBloPoMo 2025 - #09

 It is 87 years ago since the Night of Broken Glass [Kristallnacht]. That night, an organised mob of Nazi forces and sympathisers went on the rampage in towns and cities across Germany, smashing and destroying Jewish-owned property and businesses. It was a foretaste of what was to come during World War II. The extermination of anyone deemed sub-human by the warped mind of Adolf Hitler and his henchmen. Jews topped their league of the unfit, closely followed by gypsies, the mentally ill and many many others. The Reichskristallnacht was a night of infamy, and not just to Germany. Hitler had already been allowed to get away with murder for several years beforehand. In 1936, he occupied the Rhineland which had been ceded to France at the end of the First World War. The League of Nations, the predecessor of the United Nations, cried wolf but had no bite. On 12 March 1938, Nazi forces marched into Austria to join that country to Germany, an event referred to as the Anschluss. Neville Chamberlain flew to Munich to meet with Adolf Hitler on 30 September 1938, returning with the infamous phrase: "Peace for our time". Six weeks later, the Reichskristallnacht took place. Only a few months later, Germany invaded the Sudetenland area of Czecho-Slovakia, and again, nobody moved a finger to stop. In September 1939, Hitler thought he could get away with the invasion of Poland. But this time, it prompted a declaration of war, signalling the outbreak of the Second World War. The lights have gone out in Europe, it was said at the time. The lights in Europe had already been extinguished in 1914, and had not been relit, not even at the end of the First World War. The Versailles Peace Treaty of June 1919 contained all the ingredients for another war, which duly materialised. After the unspeakable atrocities of the Second World War, Germany was divided into four by the victorious allies. The British, French and American sectors became West Germany, whilst the Soviet sector was turned into East Germany, a communist state. Berlin was similarly divided. Until 1961, people from the East fled to the West in droves. A barrier was erected across Berlin in August 1961, later replaced by a high, concrete wall. Similar barriers were put up along the borders between East and West Germany. Anyone trying to flee from East to West was shot on sight, no questions asked. The advent of Mikhail Gorbatchov as leader of the USSR in the 1980s heralded a start of change. And when this wind of change blew across eastern Europe, it blew away all the communist regimes within the space of a few months in 1989.

The Berlin Wall was torn down on 9 November 1989, and you can see the dilemma. Do we remember the Kristallnacht, and not celebrate the reunification of Germany? Do we celebrate the reunification, and ignore the Night of Broken Glass? Maybe the two can be reconciled. The Berliners remember the Kristallnacht in a very low-key but poignant manner. Every year, in the evening of November 9th, candles are left on the doorsteps of houses that were ransacked that night.

The flame, burning at the top of this post, is my candle of remembrance for Kristallnacht.

NaBloPoMo 2025 - #05

 There are plans afoot for major renewable energy developments across the island of Lewis. It involves an offshore windfarm, a couple of miles west of the West Side; electricity transmission infrastructure (such as pylons and cables etc) and substations. One such substations is pencilled in for an area immediately south of the Castle Grounds, a big grey box, extending for a quarter of a mile and standing 90 feet tall. It would stand out like a sore tooth. Another substation would find itself on the banks of the Creed River, a mile or so to the west - and I'm not even talking about cables and pylons. All that power will be sent down a subsea cable to the mainland and the National Grid. We in Lewis stand to gain the grand total of £4.5m per annum; whereas SSEN and Northland (the developer) stand to make hundreds of millions of pounds. I wonder whether the protests, that are beginning to be organised, will help to thwart these plans. I sincerely hope they do. 

NaBloPoMo 2025 - #04

A delapidated house and a boat. The photograph dates back to February 2008. The location is Valasay [Bhalasaigh] in the island of Great Bernera, 30 miles west of Stornoway. Bernera [Bearnaraigh] is linked to mainland Lewis via a bridge. I mention the date of the picture, because I have been informed that the house has since fallen down, in the face of our customary gales. It had long lain derelict. 

The issue is that although the edifice may appear abandoned, it most likely is not. First of all, there is nearly always an owner to any property in Scotland; it requires a court ruling for an edifice to be declared abandoned. Secondly, people see pictures like this (I run a Facebook group about abandoned crofthouses) and want to buy it and do it up. Not as simple as that, and owners tend to get angry when confronted with unsollicited enquiries towards acquisition. I tend to refer folks to an estate agent, who often have seemingly abandoned properties on their books.  

NaBloPoMo 2025 - #03

 In the 20 years that I have been involved in the J-land community on AOL, later Facebook, more than 70 fellow bloggers have passed away. I keep a special blog (and associated Facebook page) in their memory. Without preference, I recall Donna Diggins, Linda Smith Shook, Marla Goodman, Sugar Lewis, Kath Motherhen... and so many others. Although I never met any of these good people, they became like friends. We shared our lives through blogs and comments, latterly through Facebook postings. 

Some of the people I met in real life have also now gone; for example a lady named Sophia whom I met in North Uist 12 years ago. She passed away unexpectedly 7 years ago today. As she was an avid seaswimmer, Sophia was thought to have swam away in the night. Apart from bereaved friends, she also had to leave her wee cat behind. 

Both my parents have now gone; my mother passed away in 2008; my father followed her 14 years later. I still miss them, although they live on in my (and others') memories. I can revisit the wee town where they lived in person, through my old photographs and courtesy of Google Streetview, which was updated last May. 

When thinking of the departed, I see a window and a door. The door is closed for eternity, after those who went gone on ahead passed through it upon passing away. It is possible to go up to the window and see them as they were in life. The trick is not to spend all the time standing by the window. It is there if you need to look back. But it is more important to go forward, as they, who left you behind, would have wanted. 

An afterthought on All Hallows.  

NaBloPoMo 2025 - #02

A typical November Sunday, shortening daylight hours, fair bit of rain. As I type this, the sun is nearly setting. Attended church this morning, focused on chapter 14 of the book of Job. The Stornoway High Church shares the service on the WWW, but when the minister played a Bob Dylan song, the stream did not contain sound: only the text of the song. Copyright, you know. 

The fall-out of the de-princing of Andrew Mountbatten Windsor continues - his brother, King Charles III, has now stripped him of military honours, some of which date to his service in the Falklands War of 1982. Falling from grace - but a fall that was long overdue. Apparently, he was the apple of the late Queen's eye - something he may well have cruelly abused. 

 The tow of the former MV Hebridean Isles concluded this morning at 10 am, when the tug Pegasus reached Esbjerg harbour in Denmark. It had taken 5 days, proceeding at between 5 and 10 knots, to sail round the United Kingdom and into the southern North Sea. I have no imagery - just a log of the final approach to Esbjerg. New ferry vessels are in the offing, which should join the service next year.  

NaBloPoMo 2025 - #01

November has just arrived, and it is suitably windy outside. Nothing out of the ordinary for this part of the world, where gales occur on average every seventh day. November is the 11th month of the year, although in Roman times, it was the ninth month. Winter is round the corner, and days are shortening quickly. It's now dark by 5pm, certainly when it's cloudy. 

November is the day in 2015 when I started to grow a beard for the Movember charity. Ten years ago. Much has happened in that time, many changes. I lost my father in 2022, and a close friend in 2020. Others have also gone on ahead, particularly in the blogging community we used to refer to as J-land - Journals land, until AOL booted us out. All of 17 years ago. 

November 1st is All Hallows, when we remember those who have gone on ahead in the last year. It is the start of the Celtic winter. In six months' time, at Beltane, the summer will restart. On the solstice, in December, people used to make a lot of noise to chase off the evil spirits. They still do the same on April 30th. 

 

Hallowe'en

The last day of October, the last day of the Celtic summer. 

It is the dark half of the year; the image shows Stornoway at 4.15pm this afternoon, 25 minutes before sunset. By the time of the winter solstice, sunset will be at 3.35pm. Sunrise will be at 9.15am.
Recently, the idea was mooted in the House of Commons to reintroduce Double Summertime, which would place us in the same timezone as continental Europe. For Stornoway, this would mean sunrise after 10 am in December and January - leaving kids to go to school in the dark. 

Meanwhile November is nearly upon us. And once again, I shall try to make daily postings for NaBloPoMo, the national blog posting month. 

November is also the month for Movember, when men are encouraged to grow a moustache (or more extensive facial hair) for charity, namely men's health. Men find it difficult, sometimes, to talk about health issues. 

NaBloPoMo 2024

Well, that fizzled out after day 11. Not that I have that much to report on these days, but could have done better. I'll just post a picture from the Christmas illuminations that adorn Stornoway for the festive period. The switch-on event was last Tuesday, 26th November, but was only able to get out take a picture during the hours of darkness the next evening.

NaBloPoMo 2024 - day 17

This morning, the 39-year old ferry Hebridean Isles departed Stornoway for the final time, to be scrapped. Three hours later, the Tesco superstore opened its doors for the first time on a Sunday. I walked past half an hour later. The carpark was full, surrounding streets even busier than during a weekday at that time; a camera crew were skulking about, waiting to trap the unwary - and a group of poor souls, forlornly holding up a banner saying "Remember the Sabbath, to keep it holy". There is an attitude around, beyond this island, that we should come into the 21st century, join the rest of the country which has been enjoying Sunday trading for three decades. That is condescending, and ignorant of a special way of life that we can afford to have, 50 miles off the mainland. But, the die has been cast, Tesco has claimed that there is widespread support for its Stornoway store to open on Sunday. There is, I know that. And as it's there, it will be used.

NaBloPoMo 2024 - day 11

 Armistice Day. The day, now 106 years ago, when the guns fell silent on the Western Front, after more than four years of slaughter. The blame was laid squarely at the Germans' door, although it had been more an pan-European royal spat. Years ago, I visited the village of Tolsta Chaolais in Lewis, where the first war memorial was built in the 1920s. A local resident commented to me: "Why did eighteen men from our village have to die, because an Archduke got shot in Sarajevo?" And that summed it up nicely for me. The fact that more wars have followed in Europe says enough.

Tolsta Chaolais War Memorial

NaBloPoMo 2024 - day 10

Today is Remembrance Sunday, when we commemorate the Fallen from two World Wars, and conflicts before and after. Here in Lewis, the focus is quite strongly on the First World War. Out of 6,300 who joined up, more than 1,100 did not survive. Of that number, more than 200 drowned on 1st January 1919, when their ship, HMY Iolaire, sank just outside Stornoway harbour. Although the vessel ran aground on reefs, only 50 yards from shore, the atrocious weather and sea conditions made it impossible for a rescue to be mounted. Seventy-five managed to scramble ashore; the remains of 65 were never recovered from the sea.

This is a picture from an installation which has stood off South Beach in Stornoway since late 2018. Although the lighting has long since failed, and the posts are now decaying, this image of it depicts the outline of the Iolaire. Each of the posts denotes someone on board; the red lights indicate a life lost

NaBloPoMo 2024 - day 09

 It is 86 years ago since the Night of Broken Glass [Kristallnacht]. That night, an organised mob of Nazi forces and sympathisers went on the rampage in towns and cities across Germany, smashing and destroying Jewish-owned property and businesses. It was a foretaste of what was to come during World War II. The extermination of anyone deemed sub-human by the warped mind of Adolf Hitler and his henchmen. Jews topped their league of the unfit, closely followed by gypsies, the mentally ill and many many others. The Reichskristallnacht was a night of infamy, and not just to Germany. Hitler had already been allowed to get away with murder for several years beforehand. In 1936, he occupied the Rhineland which had been ceded to France at the end of the First World War. The League of Nations, the predecessor of the United Nations, cried wolf but had no bite. On 12 March 1938, Nazi forces marched into Austria to join that country to Germany, an event referred to as the Anschluss. Neville Chamberlain flew to Munich to meet with Adolf Hitler on 30 September 1938, returning with the infamous phrase: "Peace for our time". Six weeks later, the Reichskristallnacht took place. Only a few months later, Germany invaded the Sudetenland area of Czecho-Slovakia, and again, nobody moved a finger to stop. In September 1939, Hitler thought he could get away with the invasion of Poland. But this time, it prompted a declaration of war, signalling the outbreak of the Second World War. The lights have gone out in Europe, it was said at the time. The lights in Europe had already been extinguished in 1914, and had not been relit, not even at the end of the First World War. The Versailles Peace Treaty of June 1919 contained all the ingredients for another war, which duly materialised. After the unspeakable atrocities of the Second World War, Germany was divided into four by the victorious allies. The British, French and American sectors became West Germany, whilst the Soviet sector was turned into East Germany, a communist state. Berlin was similarly divided. Until 1961, people from the East fled to the West in droves. A barrier was erected across Berlin in August 1961, later replaced by a high, concrete wall. Similar barriers were put up along the borders between East and West Germany. Anyone trying to flee from East to West was shot on sight, no questions asked. The advent of Mikhail Gorbatchov as leader of the USSR in the 1980s heralded a start of change. And when this wind of change blew across eastern Europe, it blew away all the communist regimes within the space of a few months in 1989.

The Berlin Wall was torn down on 9 November 1989, and you can see the dilemma. Do we remember the Kristallnacht, and not celebrate the reunification of Germany? Do we celebrate the reunification, and ignore the Night of Broken Glass? Maybe the two can be reconciled. The Berliners remember the Kristallnacht in a very low-key but poignant manner. Every year, in the evening of November 9th, candles are left on the doorsteps of houses that were ransacked that night.

The flame, burning at the top of this post, is my candle of remembrance for Kristallnacht.

NaBloPoMo 2024 - day 08

 A football riot raged across the streets of the Dutch capital, Amsterdam, last night. An Israeli side had come to play Ajax Amsterdam, but the politics of the current war in Gaza spoiled the occasion. Without the full facts, I would rather not comment further. But it is unacceptable for people to be targeted for being Israeli or indeed Jewish, or for people to be targeted because they are Palestinian or support the people of Gaza. I think the Israeli government overreacted by chartering a plane to take its citizens out of the Netherlands.

Holland saw 110,000 of its Jewish population deported to the gas chambers of Auschwitz and other deathcamps during the Second World War. To have Jewish people targeted again on the streets of Amsterdam, albeit in a vastly different context, would have opened old wounds.

Tomorrow, I am publishing a NaBloPoMo post to commemorate the 86th anniversary of the Reichs Kristallnacht.

NaBloPoMo 2024 - day 07

A lens-shaped cloud looming over the ferry terminal, on a fairly bright but blustery afternoon. The days have been very cloudy, dark and overcast this week, but a bit of sunshine was very much welcome today.

NaBloPoMo 2024 - day 05

Today the people in the United States of America go to the polls to elect a new president. I thought that British politics was polarised. It is, but nowhere near as nasty as American politics.
I wish all my American friends and acquaintances wisdom in selecting the person best suited to lead their country over the next four years. Nationally and internationally many challenges face the new president. I just hope things will calm down across the pond.