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From Uig on the north coast of the Isle of Skye it’s about a two hour sailing west into the Atlantic Ocean on a Caledonian MacBrayne ship to reach the Outer Hebrides. This 130 mile long island chain consists of about 200 islands, only 10 of them inhabited. We docked in Lochmaddy on North Uist, one of the larger islands but semi-submerged in a landscape of peat bogs and fresh water lochs. We headed north immediately and across the short causeway connecting the tiny, atmospheric island of Berneray (Bearnaraigh), population 130, just 3 miles long and a mile and a half wide.
Berneray had its heyday in the early 1800s when the island was intensively cultivated for potatoes and grain, and the processing of kelp to make potash for the soap and glass industries provided a lot of employment. But ruinous economic times arrived in the mid 1800s when potato blight came to the island, coinciding with the decline of the kelp industry. At the same time, the Island’s land owner saw the opportunity to make better profits from sheep farming than from the unreliable rents collected from poor, struggling tenant farmers. The outcome was the clearance of many residents from the island, similar to what was happening across the Scottish Highlands generally. Through a combination of intimidation and inducement, 22 families were cleared from the Borve crofts on Berneray in mid 1855 and their passage paid to Australia on the sailing ship Royal Albert that docked on 1 December 1855 in Port Adelaide, South Australia, after a four month voyage half way round the world. One of those families was Donald and Effie McCuspie and their four daughters; Flora, Catherine, Marion and Mary. It was obviously a huge, emotionally wrenching time in their lives – they knew when they set out that they would never see Berneray or Scotland again, and their welfare in the New World was far from assured. But it was certainly good for me that they did make the voyage, for had they not, I would never have been born. Donald and Effie were my great-great grandparents and Flora my great-grandmother.
We spent a couple of hours in the Berneray Historical Society rooms housed in the old Nurse’s Cottage. Berneray residents speak Gaelic as well as English and have a strong interest in genealogy. With a few clicks of the keyboard of the Society’s computer, Mrs Wilson (who came to Berneray from England on holiday many years ago, fell in love with the place, and returned to live here) was able to locate information on the McCuspie family, back to the 1600s! And there was now another lead I was also interested to follow. Back at the giant Angus MacAskill museum on the Isle of Skye, Angus’ family tree was displayed and I was intrigued to see on it some names and dates I recognized. With a few more clicks, Mrs Wilson confirmed what I now suspected: Angus and I are cousins! More precisely, Angus MacAskill and Donald McCuspie were first cousins, which makes Angus and me first cousins four times removed. It certainly came as a surprise to learn I was related to the largest ever recorded man in the world, although our shared genes obviously don’t include those that gave Angus his colossal stature. Still, this new knowledge seemed to promise an added measure of future protection from everyday travails, and I thought for a moment about the verbal fisticuffs I sometimes have with a friend when we’re arguing about our different political opinions. “Christos won’t dare mess with me now” I chuckled as I lumbered out of the cottage, taking care as I imagine all close relatives of giants do, not to hit my head on the top of the door frame as I went out.
We spent a couple of days walking and driving around Berneray to absorb the remote but friendly atmosphere of this charming isle, and to see a few interesting historical sights. Like the standing stone Clach Mhor at the top of Beinn a’Chlaidh, and nearby traces of a temple dating from 1,800 BC, believed to have been used by Sun worshippers. We also located the ruins of Donald and Effie’s house, now just a pile of stones, and the place on Berneray’s south coast where my cousin Angus, the giant MacAskill, was born in 1825. And on Saturday we drove south to see three other islands connected by causeways; North Uist, Benbecula and South Uist. That’s as far as we could go in the Vauxhall – the next most southerly isle is Barra and an ocean ferry is needed to go there.
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