Patchwork tales at Moulin Hall

Claire Hewitt and I were at Moulin Hall on Friday with the patchwork quilt for Tell a Story Day and for an event that was part of the Luminate Creative Ageing festival.  Children from four of Highland Perthshire schools came early to hear and rehearse ‘The Spider that Spun the Golden Web’, a wonder tale created on Claire’s Travelling Tales cycling project in May.  The children worked hard to learn the story.  There was no reading and no props. They just had their memories and voices to tell the story.  And they did, wonderfully well, to an audience in the afternoon of older people who had come to listen and to tell their stories about the patchwork quilt.

Some of those quilt stories were remarkable.  Angus Macmaster and his brother Archie came along and told us about their three aunts, Gracie, Katie and Bella Macmaster.  The three girls lived at Saunich, four miles over the hill from Kinloch Rannoch and they walked to and from school every day.  They were known as the ‘wild deer of Rannoch’. Even for the time that was a tough walk.  They all emigrated to Canada about a hundred years ago.  Perhapsthat wasn’t such a daunting journey for young women who’d walked the hills since they were five years old. Mabel Macaulay came from Kyle to talk about her grandmother, who was the assistant teacher in Lochmaddy when she signed her name on the quilt. Mabel had a school tale too. She lived on Kirkibost, a tidal island off North Uist, and went by boat or horse and cart, depending on the tide.

We are hoping to have more gatherings to hear stories from those patchwork names and, eventually, I will write them.  The patchwork names represent girls from three Highland and Island communities and their lives in those landscapes one hundred and odd years ago.  It’ll take some time to piece their stories and how they fit in their communities and landscapes, so it will be a while.  And hopefully we can get some funding.  In the meantime the stories on Friday were wonderful to hear, and thank you to all who came to listen and tell. It was a very special day.

Pop Up Prints

Buoyed up by another successful outing at Fortingall Art the Splinter Group is branching out again. We are going to be in a ‘pop-up shop’ in Dunkeld for three weeks between the 10th and 27th October.

We will be in Zigzag, next to Palmerstons Café. Zigzag was a lovely little shop where Dave Amos sold mostly locally produced handmade goods. He used to sell some of my stuff too, mostly beads and felt from my early craft selling days. Dave has gone on to other things but for three weeks only we'll be stepping in to fill the shop before the new tenants come in.  We’ll be mostly selling prints in our three week stint, though Penny Kennedy has her new home-ware and wrapping papers for sale under her new ‘Homebird’ brand. Linda Farquharson has lots of her exquisite lino prints, and I’ve put in a few too. And of course there’s the range of Splinter output, especially the Animal Alphabet and this year’s Calendar project. There’s also some Philip Wood pots, handmade notebooks and wood carvings.

I went along at the weekend to help Penny and Linda set up and was impressed how good it looked even before we’d got it fully setup.

Patchwork Stories, Patchwork Names

To mark National Tell a Story Day, Claire Hewitt and I will spend the afternoon at Moulin Hall, Pitlochry on Friday 26^th October with the patchwork and some of its stories.  Local schoolchildren will also tell their new wonder tale ‘The Spider that Spun the Golden Web’ created on Claire’s ‘Story Cycle’ this summer. 

We hope a few people with connections to the girls on the patchwork will come along and tell their stories over a cuppa and cake. 





The event is part of The Luminate Festival and The Scottish International Storytelling Festival.

Names on the quilt

The dates when Isabella Christie taught at each school and the relevant names are listed below.  The information comes from the census: 1881 for Heisker, 1891 for Lochmaddy and 1891 and 1901 for Kinloch Rannoch.  Sisters are together under one surname, names in full are for girls from different households.  Clearly there aren’t that many surnames (or first names for that matter), especially in Heisker and Lochmaddy. A few girls signed just with initials and, because I think they will be almost impossible to trace, I've missed them out.

Heisker, 1882 to 1887: Chrissie and Annie Macaulay, Maggie Macaulay, Effie Macaulay, Jessie and  Annie (Jannet) McCuish, Alexandrina Macdonald, Chrissie and Lizzie Macdonald, Maggie Macdonald, Maggie and Marian Morrison, Marion Morrison.

There is a second Chrissie Macaulay who I think was from Heisker, but I can’t be sure.  Katie Morrison, is listed in the relevant census for Heisker and Lochmaddy in two different families, so I don’t know which she belongs to.

Lochmaddy, 1887 to 1894: Bella Dingwall, Anna and Effie Dingwall, Maggie and Bessie Grant, Katie McDiarmid, Jeanie Macdonald, Bella Macdonald,  Shenac (Jean) Macdonald, Effie Macdonald, Mary Macdougald, Bessie McFarlane, Rachel Macgilp, Rachel and Marian Mcinnes, Lizzie Mackay, Flora and  Isabel Maclean, Maggie and Annie Macorquodale, Chrissie Morrison, Chrissie Kate Stewart.

Kinloch Rannoch, 1895 to 1897: Catherine Anderson, Euphemia Cameron McGregor, Jessie Campbell, Lizzie Dewar, Maggie Farquharson, Tina Forbes, Annie Fraser Stewart, Christina McEwen, Jeannie MacMartin, Katie, Bella and Gracie MacMaster, Maria Macpherson, Flora and Maggie MacSwan, Mary Munro,  Maggie Richardson, Bessie Robertson, Marie, Katie and Jessie Scott, Annie Sinclair, Mary Templeton, Maggie Thomson, Jessie Urquhart.

The following names weren’t located, though, given that the census for Heisker and Lochmaddy are a good match and most of them have surnames that were not found in the islands (apart from McCuish, Macdonald and possibly Macdougald), it’s likely they’re mostly from Kinloch Rannoch.

Maggie Clark Macdonald, Maggie Cooper, Katie Cramb, Mary Cramb, Isa Dott, Bessie Ferguson, Chrissie Macdougald, Bella McCuish, Annie McIntosh, Ethel Mackenzie, Madge Mackenzie, Barbara McColl McInnes, Jessie Maconie McInnes, Jeannie McPherson (twice), Katie McPherson, Elsie Stuart, Williamina Sutherland, Gracie Thomson, Maggie Todd Robertson, Tina Bell Turner Campbell.

The spelling of surnames is more or less standardised but the first names are as they appear on the quilt.  There’s a bit of guessing about which first name matches with the census records. Where there are different first names but it seems a plausible match the census recorded name is given in brackets.