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.