A Council House in Stornoway, 1954-59

38 Kennedy Terrace

During his time on Stornoway Town Council one of Calum Smith's main concerns was the provision of more and better homes at an easily affordable rent, what is now called 'social housing'. He used to point with some pride  at a small 'scheme' destined for older people, claiming credit for the decision to paint the front doors in different colours instead of all in one of the traditional darkish school-uniform shades. In his memoir Around the Peat-fire (Birlinn, 2001 and 2010) he described the inadequate conditions in which his parents had to raise their large family, and the surprise of finding them accommodated in a council house in Goathill Cottages (later Anderson Road) on his return from university. His future wife Peggy in a similarly large family had moved into a parallel street (Nicolson Road). Their respective parents and younger siblings were subsequently moved to Bain Square, Manor Park (Smiths) and Springfield Road (Fletts), still in council schemes.

 

38 Kennedy Terrace, 1959
(with accidental ink blot)

In the mid-1950s the social housing sector was expanding in Stornoway as elsewhere to try to cope with postwar demand. At around the same time Calum, now married with two daughters, was faced with the loss of the family's accommodation after the death of Peggy's maternal aunt, in whose house they had been living (paying rent). They had been on the council waiting list for some time and were offered a new home in one of the first blocks to be ready for occupation in Kennedy Terrace. (Not, be it noted, as a result of undue influence; in fact a previous offer had been declined precisely because Calum did not wish to appear to be jumping the queue. He was still on the council, however, although not for very much longer, and there were some ill-natured mutterings.)

Their new house was at one end of a block of four. It had two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, a living room and kitchen downstairs. Several of the neighbouring households were new to town life, having come in from 'the country', Gaelic speakers and staunch Free-Kirk Presbyterians. Next door to Calum lived Captain Smith (no relation) of the mailboat, the old Loch Seaforth, with his wife and four daughters. As more families moved in around them the children of the Terrace soon got to know each other and developed their own ways of interacting. They communicated in English, with the occasional borrowing ('deoch' for drink), and a sprinkling of the Stornoway argot (two wing meek = tuppence ha'penny).

Post-election-defeat letter to Calum

It wasn't a bad place to be growing up, notably good for street play, with very little traffic. Few people had cars. There was space in the cul-de-sac, with steps down to paths past back gardens to Leverhulme Drive, and a square of stubby grass where the watchman's hut stood until the buildings around were complete. In the early days unfinished houses were a site of illicit ploys, with the risk of being chased by the 'watchie'; later, he would sometimes invite a few children into his hut of a cold evening, for warmth and a 'yarn'.

A more approved pastimes (for girls) was skipping using a long rope (two wielding it, one performing in the middle) bought from the ironmongers (Calum spliced the ends of one for his daughter, using his wartime-navy skills) accompanied by the usual sort of chants (Scotland, England, Ireland, Wales/ All turned up like the monkeys' TAILS!), many preoccupied with supposed romantic prediction;, e.g.
'Gooseberry, raspberry,strawberry jam/
Tell me the name of your young man. 
A - B - etc.' 
(The intial at which you tripped up would be that of your 'boyfriend'. Then the traditional 'Tinker, tailor..' would find out his occupation, and 'Castle/ palace/ pigsty/ barn' where you would live.)

After the skipping season came 'doublers', using two multi-coloured rubber balls from Woolworths (they had to be the right kind) to test your dexterity and coordination against any fairly smooth vertical surface, usually that of the 'close' that ran through the middle of the block, for as long as the inhabitants would or could put up with the thumping. Refinements included overhand and underleg throws, clapping, and twirling round fast enough to catch the ball on the rebound, the game being not to let one fall. The actions might be performed in a prescribed sequence: Plainy, stooky, dummy, stooky-dummy, right hand, left hand, right leg under, left leg under... or to various rhymes.
One clasic chant for Doublers went like this:
"Are you gong to golf, sir/ No sir/ Why sir?
Because I've got a cold sir/ Where did you get the cold sir?
At the North Pole sir./ What were you doing there sir?
Catching polar bears sir/ How many did you catch sir?
One sir. two sir.." and so on.
On every 'sir' a special action (overhand etc.) would be performed, the winner being whoever could reach the highest number without missing a catch.

Meanwhile the wee-fellows (boys) might be kicking a football, 'scrapping', trying to make home-made go-karts go, or something. While some games such as the above were gender-specific, boys and girls would sometimes hang out together, kidding back and forth under the lampposts, chasing and hiding in groups or competing in activities in the swingpark. Once there was a play-off between boy and girl champions at jumping off a swing at its highest point and seeing how far you could jump. The boy won the token prize (choice of a penny toffee or Xcel chewing gum from Rossie's on Bayhead), but not by much (and the girl claimed to prefer the second choice anyway).

From time to time a mini-craze would take hold: hula-hoops; a version of hopscotch called 'Beds'; 'Truth, dare or promise'; slides and snowballs in the few really snow-and-icy winters; making 'spoogers' (water-pistols) out of lemon-shaped Jif juice dispensers...

On Sundays, of course, the most innocent forms of play (as well as all work - absolutely no washing out on the lines) were barred by majority public opinion, and even quite small children who ventured on frivolous make-believe in their own back gardens on the Sabbath risked solemn admonition from the peer group. On one memorable occasion a little friend hurled the scandalised accusation at one of Calum's daughters: "Your mother was singing on Sunday!" The defensive assertion that she was singing hymns didn't cut it, only psalms in proper places of worship were allowed. It was likewise considered scandalous by some when the Church of Scotland (Martin's Memorial) Sunday School summer treat was diverted to the cinema because it was too wet for a picnic, the 'pictures' being the work of the devil:"Surely the Minister wouldn't allow that?"

All the same another game involved guessing the name of the filmstar the other team was supposedly thinking of from shouted initials - DD could be Diana Dors or Doris Day - and popular songs of the time like the latter's 'Que sera, sera' were sung happily (except on Sundays), There were few counter-attractions to rival calling on friends and going out to play - television did not reach the island until 1959 - but plenty of influences from popular culture in the world at large, what with the Picture House, radio, Gazette, Sunday Post (but not until Monday) and the Weekly News (Saturday), not to mention relatives and visitors from Away.

Cat on Peatstack
Kennedy Terrace, Stornoway, 1959

Quite a few people had peats - renting a peatbank and going through the laborious process of cutting by hand, drying and turning in stages and conveying the peats to the roadside before they were taken home by lorry. On a fine summer evening this would be the occasion of a more traditional-seeming, almost 'folklorique' scene with neighbours, including children, rallying round and helping to carry the peats from the lorry in wheelbarrows and buckets, to be built into a stack near the back door by those most skilled in that art. The resulting tiredness, heat and dust were mitigated by the reward of tea and cake in the kitchen. 

Calum's and Peggy's second daughter (left) and friend
in the garden backing on to 'Macninch's Park'

A few years on, with big sister's friend
in the same garden, nearer the house

Behind the Smiths' block and the next one there was a large field, now built over, known as Macninch's Park, extending to Goathill across present-day Balmerino Drive. The gardens backed on to it, and the fences were easy to get through, to enjoy the pastoral setting and pick wildflowers, or make 'houses' in the long grass and among grain-stalks, or just for a short-cut. Capturing bees in jamjars (albeit with air-holes and flower-heads supplied) was popular for a time until discouraged by Calum on the grounds that these useful insects should be left to go about their business, When the field was being used for cattle, cows and the occasional bull would come up to the fence and accept offers of cabbage leaves through the widely-spaced wire, it is to be hoped without coming to too much harm. Some years a corncrake could be heard on summer nights, its distinctive 'skraak' quite loud in the back bedroom.

Other downside aspects, apart from the religious repression, were inevitable, squabbles, rivalries, name-calling, gangings-up and so on being more or less endemic among bunches of kids, and these were normal enough kids whatever their denominational (if any) background. It would perhaps be a mistake to depict any childhood as an unblemished idyll, and this was far from such, but there were certainly good points about it. In many respects girls and boys could have, by modern standards, a remarkable amount of unsupervised freedom, running round the streets till all hours in the long summer evenings, and often well after dark in the winter, in reasonable expectation of safety.

No.38 and the rest of its block in 2017.
Houses on what used to be Macninch's Park can be seen in the background.

Kennedy Terrace runs SW-NE roughly parallel to Westview Terrace,
with offshoots (blank on map), square and cul-de-sac

Cold War Crimes: More on Nuclear Tests

 - Book review -

“Over 50 years, the Western powers used the Pacific region as a laboratory for nuclear testing.”

France was not of course the only or the first country to inflict damage on other places and peoples in the course of developing and testing nuclear weapons - and arguably far from the worst, although its resumption of the programme in the 1990s made it for a time the main focus of protests. 

"Britain tested nuclear weapons in Oceania between 1952 and 1958. There were 12 atomic tests at the Monte Bello Islands, Maralinga and Emu Field in Australia (1952–57). These were followed by nine hydrogen and atomic bomb tests in 1957–58 at Malden Island and Christmas (Kiritimati) Island in the British Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony (GEIC)—today the Republic of Kiribati." - Preliminary pages, p.xv in:

Nic Maclellan, Grappling with the Bomb: Britain’s Pacific H-Bomb Tests. (Pacific Series). Australian Nation University (ANU) Press, 2017. ISBN (print): 9781760461379/ ISBN (online): 9781760461386. 

Download free https://press.anu.edu.au/node/2626/download (5.0MB HTML, Mobile 5.8, epub 5.7.)  Buy Print $55 (£41.91 new via Amazon) 

An extraordinary and important new book published last year in Australia records, documents and comments on the devastating effects of what Britain did in the late 1950s on and to Malden Island and 'Christmas' (Kiritimati) Island in the Pacific.

See download for larger-scale maps

The book's structure is original, effective and readable, combining the best features of journalism (its author's profession), history writing and presentation of research findings. As the titles of its chapters indicate, it is first and foremost concerned with people, from the distant decision-makers to the all too close participants in the test, above all the large number who were adversely, often catastrophically affected by them.

This includes a wide variety of individuals and groups, among them some who tried to stop the tests and many who struggled for some semblance of justice in their aftermath. Here they often speak in their own voices, to an extent unusual in historical or scientific accounts, although not for the first time - interviews by Nic Maclennan with Pacific islanders were published in an earlier book, and much testimony has been recorded in the course of the long battle for 'compensation' to have their sufferings acknowledged. A major factor in hampering their quest, compounding the harm, has been the failure of the authorities to keep records of their exposure to radiation, or to destroy any that existed.

In each chapter, however, there is much more than biographical detail and anecdote. Memory, admittedly fallible, is supplemented by solid contextualisation and correlated with well-documented back-up evidence. For the non-scientist or non-historian, the relevant facts are presented in a straightforward, accessible way. The book begins with a time-line and glossary; 'interludes' expand on the key issues, and the extensive bibliography is helpfully arranged by subject (including American and French atomic tests) and type of material. And there are some striking and terrifying pictures.  

Sailors of the Fiji Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, May 1957

On deck in readiness for the test: HMS Warrior

A campaigning work, it presents a comprehensive indictment of British government meanness, bad faith and abdication of responsibility for those whose world was taken over and whose lives were irrevocably damaged and shortened for the sake of preparing even more damage and destruction.     

As we mark the 60th anniversary of the Grapple tests in 2017–18, the issues of British nuclear weapons, indigenous rights and a nuclear-free and independent Pacific are still with us.

There are debates in the UK parliament about the cost of renewing Trident, the heart of the UK nuclear arsenal. Post-Brexit, Scottish nationalists are calling for a nuclear-free and independent Scotland as they move towards a second referendum on independence. The Republic of the Marshall Islands—unsuccessfully—has taken Britain and other nuclear weapons states to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over their failure to meet disarmament obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. As a consequence, in February 2017 Britain withdraw from the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ on matters of nuclear disarmament, in order to halt further cases that threaten its nuclear arsenal.

Eight Pacific island countries co-sponsored the December 2016 UN General Assembly resolution to establish a treaty banning nuclear weapons, with negotiations amongst 130 governments commencing in March 2017. The South Australian Government is seeking to establish a nuclear waste dump on Aboriginal land, even as the Australian Government exports uranium to fuel nuclear reactors like Daichi Fukushima, which since 2011 has continued to contaminate the land and marine environment. Meanwhile the Tokyo Electric Power Company is wondering who will pay the horrendous price tag—US$160 billion and counting—to clean up the world’s latest nuclear sacrifice zone at Fukushima. The list goes on …

Even as some pundits call for an expansion of the nuclear industry to address the challenge of climate change, we have not addressed the costs and consequences of nuclear activities in the 1950s. As we enter a new era of uncertainty, following the Brexit referendum and the election of Donald J. Trump as US President, it is important to remember the tragedy of the nuclear era in the Pacific, so we are never forced to repeat it.

Moreover, it is time for the citizens of the United Kingdom to call on their government to do the right thing and address the legitimate claims of the Grapple survivors.

-   Introduction, p.16   

War Resisters' International pamphlet 1988

A longer and more academic review of Grappling with the Bomb is available online (June 2018). Journal: Medicine, Conflict and Survival, vol.34, no.2.

Link for e-prints (free for the first 50) here.

A Trip to the Mainland from Stornoway, 1952

Written by a Stornoway shopkeeper to her niece.

The writer with two great-nieces in her back garden, Stornoway, c1952

Athol Private Hotel
St. Leonards Bank
Perth
8th Sept. 1952

Dear Peggy,

  I have posted today a doll for Alison - but couldn't think of anything to post Dimpy [nickname] - so if you think the parcel should be hidden until there is something for Herself - just Hide. - What can I get for her? The shops here are no better than at home - indeed I think Jumpers & baby clothes are much nicer in D---- [Doug’s? - Stornoway shop, probably] The navy blue wool & coarse stocking are for her wellingtons & if they are any good I can get more - or any finer wool - for Alison. As I am not buying "Ready Mades" I can get wool & materials.

 We haven't heard from SY [Stornoway] since we left.- The red Jumper is a Marks & Spencer - also the "Lindsay Maid" [label] not the blue coat - nor the navy Jersey. My shopping is not a success. Can't get anything to fit but Hats. & I'll never 'Kahn' [criticise verbally, slag off; phonetic from Gaelic] Wilkie [presumably another Stornoway shop, or mail order?]again - after seeing the price of O.S. Suits, £29 - £33!!

How are the Girls - I miss them - & will be quite ready to return.

MA [Mary Ann]

"Dimpy" a few years earlier,
probably taken outside Mary Ann's shop in North Beach Street.

For Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month

"Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month (GRTHM) started in 2001 in Brent and in 2008 it was celebrated across the country with backing from the government. GRTHM is an important opportunity for communities to celebrate their heritage and for everyone to learn about the history, achievements and cultures of Gypsies, Roma and Travellers."

Here is Calum Smith's take on the "tinkers" of Lewis, 1956 vintage:-

A Place In The Sun?

In Violet Jacob’s poem [The Lad ‘i the Muin] the lad who is looking out of the window at the moon and who feels the call of the open road, says:–

            “When I’m as big as the tinkler-man

            That sings i’ the loan a’ day.

            I’ll bide wi’ him in the tinkler-van

            Wi’ a wee-bit pot and a wee-bit pan;

            But I’ll no tell Grannie my bonnie plan,

            For I dinna ken what she’ll say.”

            But the days when there was any romance for a lad in the prospect of living in a van with a tinker-man are fast disappearing, and in this part of the world they have gone altogether. The “old order” has changed and, unfortunately, the new is, so far, shoddy by comparison.

            I am one of those fortunate people who have the honour, because of beneficial experience, of being able to wear the same “old school tie” – elementary school that is – as some of the tinkers. I have sat in class at school with them, played football with them, sat in their tents and talked with them; and even during the war found myself once, as a seaman, standing in the same pay-queue as a tinker whose surname started with the same letters as mine, and who, incidentally, wore on his naval uniform the campaign ribbons of the 1914-18 war in which he had served as a soldier. For these reasons I may perhaps be excused for embarking upon the controversial subject of the fate of these people.

            Time was when the tinkers as we knew them were nomads – camped outside one village tonight and tomorrow night on the outskirts of another twenty miles away – pursuing their occupations as rag-collectors, tinsmiths, and horse-dealers. But times have changed and waste-wool collecting has become the lucrative occupation of more “respectable” citizens, tinsmithing has been made uneconomic by the marketing of machine-made, mass-produced articles of better quality and longer life, and horses have been ousted by motor vehicles and tractors. There are no longer any reasons extant for the tinker being a nomad and so we find settlements springing up in the place of temporary encampments. And, further, it is becoming increasingly obvious that some of these settlements are not altogether desirable and do not provide a way of life suited to recognised present-day requirements.

            To my way of thinking this problem, and that it is a problem is clear, cannot just be ignored. The rest of us cannot go on with our own affairs, living our own lives, and conforming to accepted social precepts and, at the same time, treating these people as a separate society or as if they weren’t there.

            In this part of the world there is no colour bar – at least, not noticeably so. Coloured people are permitted to use our eating and drinking places, shops and all normal facilities without question; they are allowed to live among us without any attempt at segregation. The same treatment and courtesies are meted out to tinkers – until it comes to the point of letting them live among us. Then segregation creeps in – and there’s the rub. A very serious rub it is too, for any right-thinking or free-thinking person, because the answer to the problem is not to put these people in a reservation, for obviously what were originally voluntary settlements are developing into reservations once those who are in them are prevented from leaving them. And on every occasion when some enterprising member of the tinker community attempts to buy his way out of his present environment and into ordinary society he is vetoed by authority.

            Now history shows that the policy of keeping people on reservations leads to extinction. And there is no question but that an analysis of the present situation leads one to the conclusion that the fate of these people must be absorption or extinction. The only question that remains is whether we, as a society, are going to let them waste away or whether we are going to stretch out a helping hand in their struggle for adjustment to changed conditions. The number of them who are engaged on public works (some of their women even work in hospitals) shows that they themselves have seen the writing on the wall as far as their former occupations are concerned. The fact that some of them are trying to buy houses and crofts shows a new awareness. They have done with the old ways of living. Are we going to hinder or help?

            The time would seem to be ripe for a thorough and exhaustive examination of the position by the responsible authorities, a re-orientation of ideas about tinkers as a class, and the formulation of a progressive and benevolent policy to help them “rise on stepping stones of their dead selves to better things”.  

26 & 29/06/1956

"As I See It" by M.S., published in the Stornoway Gazette.

(Foreground) Wartime Nissen huts on the Castle Green, Stornoway;
some tinkers were living in huts like these in the 1950s, others in tents.

Book cover showing Tinkers' encampment, Barra, 1952

Stornoway and the Strategists

Masters of War

When the Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic (SACLANT) chose to develop Stornoway out of fifteen possible airfields for NATO's use, officials in the Air Ministry and Ministry of Defence found that such a proposal was likely to arouse strong local opposition. For some, in this unemployment black spot, the prospect of job creation would outweigh other considrations, but there were enough dissenting voices to send a good few memos and minutes flying around Whitehall. How to deal with those ungratefully reluctant participants in the Cold War effort? - without of course telling them much about what that effort consisted of, and what risks closer participation in it might entail. There were security objections to explaining "operational reasons" for the plan, nevertheless a local enquiry might have to be held.

Pesky Politicians and Contumacious Clerics

Secrecy was prominent among the concerns of the by then long-established Labour MP for the Western Isles. Malcolm K Macmillan, who wrote in September 1958 to complain of the mysterious activities of "surveyors and officials running loose" worrying his constituents, and to request details about the prospects of demolition. Croft lands, with some (Ross & Cromarty) County Council and croft houses, were being looked at in May that year, and the men at the Ministry had cannily decided to extend the lease on Melbost Farm, on the outskirts of the town, to save compensation later. (Melbost Beach, formerly a cherished amenity for townspeople, had been lost in the MoD takeover, along with other land including the old golf course, during the Second World War. Militarisation of the wider area dates back at least to the First World War and it continues.) 

A view of Stornoway in 1959

                With the national ban-the-bomb movement still in its early days there was not much sign of specifically anti-nuclear activity in the Western Isles, but it was clear to many that having defence planners eyeing up your back yard as a place to park and service state-of-the-art equipment was undesirable on several grounds. By early 1959 the Free Church Presbytery of Lewis was taking a principled stand; in a letter they outlined their fears, from noise to risk of war: the threat to existence itself as well as to "moral and spiritual welfare" and the traditional way of life. They blamed the policy of sacrificing the Hebrides to the interests of the industrial south and insisted that, if it came to the worst, it would be better to lose young men from the island through emigration - to seek employment - than to have hydrogen bombs stored there.

                In a response addressed to the Reverend Macaulay on 10 February, Number Ten offered the assurance that Prime Minister Harold Macmillan felt the "inconvenience" would be less than predicted, and would be "loyally accepted". In contrast to the church stance, the Town Council debate on the issue was apparently swayed by the "jobs first and foremost" line (advocated forcefully by a local schoolmaster) if not by the spirit of patriotic self-sacrifice, and it decided to take no action.

More trouble than it's worth?

Without seriously entertaining the notion that the people who lived in the place should have a real say in what was going to happen there, the chaps at the desks, ready as they were to do SACLANT's bidding, were having a few second thoughts. All this fuss being stirred up might lead to Parliamentary Questions (and answers) and "other political transactions". The Scotsman on 1 April 1959 published a description of the proposed airfield. There was some worry as to how the paper had got the information, and surmise that the leak might be not unconnected with the recent visit of US and RAF personnel to Lewis, which had included an overnight stay at a hotel in Stornoway - the suggestion being that conviviality may have overcome discretion. Altogether the "present project" might prove troublesome and should perhaps be re-examined. It showed signs of being expensive, inconvenient, and a political embarrasment: in fact "Stornoway could be a thorn in our side".

                Pressure was on for an early decision, and surveys would be required. On 21 April a statement was obtained of aircraft that would use Stornoway in war - not of course for public distribution, although Macmillan, the MP, was to be "reassured" that NATO only came in for occasional exercises, "or, of course, for war". The files do not record his reaction to this consoling thought. In any case he and others continued to express opposition. They were told in May that plans were not yet firm enough to say if anyone would be evicted; anyone who was would receive compensation but no firm decison had yet been made. In June the County Council of Ross and Cromarty expressed support for a Free Church protest of two months earlier and voiced complaints over the lack of information. It was regarded as doubtful whether a public enquiry would satisfy the Free Church.

                Behind the secrecy, admittedly, there seems to have been a genuine absence of clarity. By now "root and branch reappraisal" was being advised, for whatever mix of logistical, bureaucratic or policy reasons. Occasional unexpected or intriguing comments crop up amid the files' officialese. A confidential note, signed "Tom", to the head of Special Branch asks "Could we have a word? - about precisely what, or whom, remains unspecified. Another note-writer in what presumably is an example of Civil Serive humour would like an assurance that the "Brahan Seer or any other Gaelic clairvoyant has nothing to say that would save us wasting our time." Meanwhile, although some think there is no alternative, other locations are being canvassed, Benbecula among them.

                In the USA, where else, the Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic eventually opined that although Stornoway was the only one suitable among those offered originally "for wartime support", they could perhaps use Lossiemouth. Whitehall sent Lord Forbes on a visit and observed that while there were political objections to Stornoway and financial ones to Lossiemouth, the latter was becoming more favoured as the recipient of this dubious honour, with Stornoway relegated to being a "hideaway" due to its perceived lack of logistic facilities. A "Siting branch" would be set up there in May 1961, while lucky old Macrihanish airfield in Argyllshire came under "development for NATO" in its turn in the early 1960s, attaining the status of "probabIe nucIear target" by 1967.

Cold War Coasts

As early as November 1948 the Ministry of Civil Aviation and the RAF agreed that Stornoway aerodrome would be available for use in emergency by short-range aircraft on Atlantic flights. It featured in TOP SECRET and NATO SECRET documents, and was marked on homegrown UK Coastal Command (CC) plans dated 1957 as providing facilities including storage tanks. A visit was made on 19 and 20 March 1959 with the remit of considering it with regard to deployment of one CC Shackleton to Stornoway on outbreak of war and at periodic intervals in time of peace, and determining its suitability as a wartime (supporting) operational base for No. 210 Squadron. Formal agreement for use in war had not yet been reached at Air Ministry or Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation level, but permission had been granted for an on-site review.  "Tentative agreement" had been reached on Shackletons deploying to Stornoway in peacetime, on condition, among other techinical specifications, that there should be no interference with civil aircraft movements.

                A "third use" for this handy outpost, UK, was that it would be required to implement CC dispersal plans for Phase 1 of a future war: as a war station to provide fuel and refuellers, domestic and technical accommodation, weapon storage, essential commmunications and heavy ground equipment. One may speculate whether, as seems likely, the existence of this list would have brought the place to the interested attention of Soviet intelligence.

                Reporting on 14 April 1959, the visitors gave their verdict that Stornoway could be used as a hideaway base in "extreme emergency" only, scheduled to supply fuel to enable eight Shackletons to fly back to Ballykelly. Operations were at present out of the question due to deficiencies of accommodation and of medical and other facilities. Stornoway was, hjowever, noted as being earmarked for development by NATO, with £2.5 million already allotted in the sixth tranche of NATO's Infrastructure Programme. If this went ahead as planned the deficiencies would be made good. It was decided that transfer of fuel should proceed anyway, in case of delay. A newspaper account about the airport being flooded by the sea in December 1959 was added to the file, and may have increased misgivings, but "rehabiitation of Stornoway airfield" went ahead. CC planned that when completed it would be used as a deployment base, under Air Ministry control within CC and under RAF command in peacetime (as at Macrihanish).

Brave Britannia's Bombers, or, Anyone for Plane-Spotting?

An update in July 1963 particularised aspects of wartime use as an RAF/CC dispersal base for Shackleton Squadron, i.e. six aircraft with air and ground crews, and as a US Navy dispersal base for one  Squadron, P2V (Neptune) and emergency land-on facility for carrier-based aircraft. Occasional essential use in peace was also planned, for both NATO and national exercises and in national surveillance operations in time of tension, as part of the North Norwegian Sea area. Transits (flying over) would be necessary in peacetime for practice, to familiarise pilots with the area. An RAF Holding Party would be in place.

                Much of the subsequent business concerns the minutiae of maintaining personnel in the style to which they were accustomed (the idea of bomber-command type caravans was found not to be practical in the rugged climate) and a certain amount of sorting things out with the Americans and between ministries. The record of modifications and delays goes up to 1967. "Local political difficulties experienced during early development planning" were relegated to background briefings; the project's history from November 1955 was cited to explain why plans had now to be modified at a late stage. Stornoway was deemed "likely to be an important NATO base for some years to come" in view of the input of resources. It had its spot on a swathe or continuum from Ballykelly in Northern Ireland through Macrihanish (an emergency deployment, wartime, base for two Shackleton Squadrons), although unlike those places it does not feature on the Joint Intelligence Committee's list of "where the nuclear bombs would fall in wartime". (1)

                The early 21st century has brought plenty of reminders that the Hebrides sea area is still a favourite arena for war games. Exercises are mounted with scant regard for the convenience or safety, even in the shortest term, of the islands' inhabitants.Incidents such as those of 2002 - the civilian aircraft ordered to change course, the damaged nuclear submarine - could no doubt have been worse, and that is perhaps also the best that can be said in summarising the history, so far, of Lewis in its strategic context.

L.W.

Based on research in the National Archives

Originally written around late 2002.

Previously unpublished.

1. Peter Hennessy, The Secret State. Allen Lane, 2002; endpapers [below].

"Probable nuclear targets" including Macrihanish

Postscript: Apparently Orkney was in the running too...

"Nor did anything come of newspaper reports at the end of 1957 that Orkney might be chosen as a missile launching site and that the United States was interested in the former RNAS airfields... Orkney was going through a bad economic patch at the time with the consequent depopulation problems, but even so the idea of a missile site in the islands was received with very mixed feelings - but it did not happen either." - W.S. Hewison, This Great Harbour: Scapa Flow. Birlinn, 2005; p.335 (Orkney Press 1985)

Further documentation on the militarisation of many areas of the country
(June 20040. No relation to the 'Heritage' publication of the same title.

A 13-year-old writing in Stornoway school magazine 1961.
Latin: melius = better; dulcius = sweeter; semper = always; ludere = to play.

   

Local Election Result: Stornoway, May 1955

(How it went for one man in one place 60 years ago)

Calum Smith’s last appearance as a member of the StornowayTown Council, his “account of his stewardship”, and how news of his election defeat was received at the post-election meeting.       

Calum kept cuttings from the Stornoway Gazette and added the notes and dates; the 6th and 13th would have been Fridays, publication day. The paper’s editor, James Shaw Grant, regularly reported council meetings in detail, and had quite often quoted Calum (Malcolm) Smith at length. 

Question Time

Stornoway Gazette May 1955

  When one questioner alleged favouritism in the repair of fences at Council houses, Dean of Guild Langley advised him to complain to a member of the Council, if he did not get satisfaction from the official concerned.

  Baillie Smith disagreed. “Put your complaint in writing and send it to the Town Hall,” he advised. “Then every Council member will be apprised of it, and action will follow – whether for you or against you will depend on the results of the investigation.”      […]

  In the course of a series questions about housing allocation Baillie Smith said he had never come away from a  housing allocation meeting really satisfied that the job had been properly done, and he felt the same could be said of all the other members.

  “The difficulty is to achieve unanimity among nine people as to who are the most deserving cases,” he said, showing by concrete, detailed examples, the difficulties confronting the council.

   The Council sometimes sat from about 7 p.m. until midnight at allocation meetings, said Hon. Burgh Treasurer Matheson. Every case was minutely scrutinised, and very often the members were at a loss what to do.

  Dean of Guild Langley said the Council for many years, had to try to re-house not only the inhabitants of the town but of the whole island. There was also the pressure of those coming into town for local industries. “If you don’t house the key workers in your industries, you can’t have industries,” he said.

  Recalling that six years had passed since he was last called on to give an account of his stewardship in a ratepayers’ meeting, Baillie Smith said, “In the past six years, the situation in the Council has altered considerably. The membership has altered drastically, and, on occasion, tragically. That is why a person like myself, who is only serving his apprenticeship in the Council,  has become a veteran of local politics under the necessity of accepting very important office.”

Stornoway Second to None

  Stornoway, he claimed, bore comparison with any burgh in Scotland for its housing record. At the time of the last census 50 per cent of the population of the burgh was housed by the Town Council. There were 600 Council houses now occupied, more were nearing completion, and the site preparation for still more was in hand.

  In designing houses to fill in the gaps on Newton the architects had been asked to design houses which would not clash with that beautiful front, and they had gone to considerable trouble to design a suitable cottage type of dwelling house.

  He spoke of the completion of the water scheme, providing “an excellent and ample supply”; the comprehensive sewage scheme of which two instalments had been carried out; the improvement of street lighting from “the dim, the very dim days of not so long ago”; road improvement schemes and the demolition of derelict properties.  

  “We have been building beautiful houses where formerly there were slums. We have been planting trees and trying to beautify the town in a great many ways.”

  They were endeavouring, he said, to get the County Council to build a learners’ swimming pool in the school area.

A Better Place to Live In

  “I don’t want to create the impression that I think that all these things are being done because I am on the Council,” he added. “I can assure you that it is not so. Everything that is done by Stornoway Town Council, whether for good or ill, is done by the majority vote of the Town Councillors.

  “If you send me back to Council, I will not solve all your problems, but I will continue working in the future, as in the past, to try to solve some of them.”

  Their aim should be to get a well-knit team on the Council working towards one end and one end only – to make the town of Stornoway a better place to live in.

An ink-stained photograph of 38 Kennedy Terrace, Stornoway, in one of the town’s council housing schemes of the 1950s, as it was in 1959

After the Result                    

               

A Great Loss to the Council

TRIBUTE TO A DEFEATED CANDIDATE

At the annual statutory meeting of Stornoway Town Council on Friday [… ]

Expressing regret that ex-Baillie Malcolm Smith had not been returned, the Provost said “he was a man with a very wise and shrewd appreciation of the many problems, and varied problems with which the town council had to deal.”

Ex-Baillie Smith had always been concerned with the living standards and general welfare of the ratepayers of the burgh, and he thought it right that they should place on record their appreciation of his services.

A Poor Reward

“I must say frankly that the Council will be a lot poorer for his absence,” said Baillie Stewart¹, joining in the Provost’s tribute.

“I must also say that I think he got a very poor reward for his able, efficient and devoted services to the community. But as has already been said that is the wish of the electorate and their wish must prevail.”

“I quite agree that the community has lost the services of one of its foremost men,” said Ex- Provost Smith. “Ex-Baillie Smith was one of our ablest representatives and there is general regret in the community that he is not with us again.”

Re-iterating what he had said about Baillie Smith on the night of the poll, Dr Matheson said he would be missed not only for his efficiency but for the very happy times they had on the Council.

A Man of Parts

Councillor Langley said he always had a very high regard for ex-Baillie Smith. “If it were possible to change the circumstances and place ex-Baillie Smith where I now stand, I would be very happy for the change, but the will of the electors is what must prevail, and I am perfectly sure that the first one to bow to that will is ex-Baillie Smith himself.”

It was a pity that a man of undoubted ability should not be returned to the Council, said Councillor John Macleod. On many occasions ex-Baillie Smith had deputised for the Provost, and had fulfilled the duties faithfully and well.

Speaking as one who knew ex-Baillie Smith as a pupil and as a councillor, Councillor Nicoll said, “he is a man of very considerable parts, and his absence will be a serious loss to the council.“ He expressed the hope that his absence would be purely temporary.

First Council meeting

after election, May ‘55

1. Donald Stewart, later MP (Scot. Nat.) for the Western Isles.  

“Malcolm” was Calum’s registered given name, used in formal or semi-formal contexts; the Gaelic “Calum” was customary among family and friends, along with his nickname, “Safety” (which he used to say had been bestowed due to his – alleged – habit of leading other children into danger). He never returned to public political life as a candidate for election, but was able almost at once to continue expressing his views and trying to influence opinion through the Gazette column which J. S. Grant – not agreeing with the (Bevanite Labour) politics of “M.S.”, but considering he was worth listening to – invited him to write as a result of this defeat.