The Crofter and the Laird by John McPhee

Author:John McPhee [McPhee, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biographical, Customs & Traditions, Essays, History, Literary Collections, Non-Fiction, Social Science
ISBN: 9780374708641
Google: lA5Romo6wpwC
Amazon: 0374131929
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 1970-06-01T23:00:00+00:00

ROSS AND NEIL DARROCH have been made redundant. Colonsay is in a state of atrophy, and has been since 1830, when there were a thousand people here, but the atrophy has been accelerated in recent years. The old laird, to preserve the status quo and his peace and quiet, underwrote the Colonsay economy; but the new laird wants the island to pay for itself, or, as Andrew puts it, “he’s wanting it to wash his face.” The laird has, among other things, stopped supplying free coal, free undertaking, and free electricity, and he has declared a number of jobs at the home farm redundant, reducing the personnel there by two-thirds—the brothers Ross and Neil Darroch included. The Darrochs are islanders, and they have stayed on Colonsay. But others have left, and before long the population will probably number no more than seventy. There is, at the moment, only one teen-age girl on the island, so dances are no longer held. There are only eight people whose ages are between fourteen and twenty-six. Among the older people there is a profound sense of unease about the future of Colonsay, and in their conversations there are frequent allusions to other islands, once inhabited, where the population is now zero—Pabbay, Sandray, Taransay, Scarba, Soay, Mingulay, St. Kilda.

“There are about twenty children five and under. There will be no employment for these people, you can see that.”

“Angus the Post has two boys and two girls. The girls are twins. Donald Gibbie has two girls. Angus Balaromin Dhu has a boy and a girl, and his wife is pregnant. Big Peter McAllister has two girls. Alastair Machrins has two boys. In ten years’ time, what are they going to do?”

“The sad thing is, if they go, they never come back.”

“Och, yes. The young people leave the island and there is no bringing them back.”

“Donald Garvard has two away. I don’t suppose they’ll ever come back.”

“Findlay MacFadyen has four sons. They’ll all be off this island in two years.”

“There’s nothing in Colonsay. You can get work but no pay.”

“Latent but inevitable is the breakdown of the economic fabric of the island.”

“Aye.”

“Two funerals, one wedding—that has been the social life here during the past year.”

One other event brought the whole island out—a conflagration at Kiloran Farm last Boxing Day. It was a spectacular fire, and on the following day a Glasgow newspaper ran a headline that read, “ISLANDERS STAND BY WHILE LAIRD’S SHED BURNS.” Some say that the headline could be taken at face value, but most say that there was in fact nothing else that the islanders could have done, for the shed was full of dry hay, it burned quickly, the nearest water supply had gone dry, only two hundred feet of hose could be found on the entire island, and of the volunteer firemen of Colonsay—a group that had been organized at least fifteen years earlier—more than half were dead.

When men are made redundant, they find things to do. Ross and Neil Darroch lay bricks.

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