|
After the recent prolonged cold snap and snowy weather we carried a story in the Banner about the winter of 1947 when the island was paralysed for weeks by deep snow.
Several readers have since been in touch to give their own personal recollections of that winter. Morag Gordon, nee Currie, told us how she walked over the trees in the snow to get to Pirnmill School.
Now Margaret Brown, nee Kerr, who lives in Ayr has phoned to talk about her 1947 winter in Lochranza. She said: ‘The Boguillie was shut for six weeks. We were cut off in the Northend and bread and mail came to Lochranza by boat.
‘Milk was delivered from Ballarie by sledge. The snow was six feet deep in places and roadmen dug paths for carts to get through. We got drinking water from the burn at Currie’s bridge.’
Jack Murchie of Bailemargaidh also has vivid memories of that year.
He said: ‘Bob Hamilton of Balgowan took a stroke and the farm road was blocked. The neighbours got together and cleared a track so that the doctor’s car could get up to the farm.
‘Bob died on March 21 and his coffin was taken to the graveyard on the back of Donald Bannatyne’s lorry. One of the worst places was Shedog village where the snow was over 20 feet deep. People in roadside houses had to dig a tunnel from their skylights to get out. There were no tractor loaders and all the snow had to be cleared by hand.’
When the String road was cleared, the Shiskine squad met the Brodick squad at Balmichael and the estate caterpillar tractor was there with provisions on a sledge. Brodick gamekeeper Mr McAlpine said that over half the deer on the hills were killed.
Jack Murchie continued: ‘Donald Bannatyne with his first green lorry and Donnie Murchie went to Bougarie to lift a cow and take it to Brodick, then lift four tons of slag for Bougarie.
‘Tom McLartie went with them. On the road back they got stuck about 100 yards short of Bougarie where they had to stay for two nights. They had to sleep with the bodach in a room above the byre. Fortunately there was a box of Wallace’s sausages in the lorry, so they lived on them and some scones Mrs McLartie baked.
‘After two nights the Sheddans who fished lobsters out of Blackwaterfoot towed a punt down to the Cleats and got the men home. Donald got his lorry 10 days later.
‘Donald Robertson of Harbourview who was paralysed from the waist down was driving J B Murchie, Balnacoole and Charles Robertson of Burncliff to a council meeting. They got stuck and the two councillors had to walk back to Glenlaig and get a wheelbarrow and wheel Donald back to the farm.
‘Mrs Murchie, Balnacoole, went to visit her sister at The Heights and had to stay a fortnight before she could get home.
‘John Robertson, Laggian’s, mother died at The Mayish and her coffin was brought to Blackwaterfoot in the Sheddan’s boat then carried over two miles over the fields to the cemetery.
‘Lamlash school opened after the holidays on January 7 but the roads were blocked and there were no buses. On March 6 the Shiskine bus got through in the morning, but Newton’s driver refused to go back over the String. On 13 and 14 March all roads were blocked.
‘My father walked from High Feorline to Meadowbank, Torbeg, to get the plumber. He walked over the trees at Burnside and never saw them or the burn.
‘John MacAlister of Shedog farm had a sheep in a drift beside a hedge for six weeks. When it came out it had lost all its wool and the bark was stripped from the trees along the bottom of the hedge.
‘John Craig of Bailemargaidh was one of the first farmers in the area to outwinter cattle as he had good shelter in the wood. He had around a dozen stirks out and after the snowstorm he walked over the wood but never saw any trees or cattle. Days later the beasts walked out safe and sound. The snow had bridged over the trees and the stirks could walk around under it.’
The memories of the great snow of 1947 make our recent difficulties with the weather seem quite petty.
They also show that the Arran folk of 60 years ago were a hardy bunch who took adversity in their stride.
- Road closed signs 'only for tourists'
- Road fatalities on the increase
- Murray's digger buried in Goatfell peat bog
- The sinking of HMS Dasher
- Hidden hazard of new seafront walkway
- Watch out, there's a red squirrel about
- Western Ferries' new Arran vessel on the dra...
- Cliff rescue for stricken Edinburgh holiday...
- Operation Caledonian Sunset for Arran ferry
- Dog walker makes a stink
