The Knockan Blacks
On the
maternal side, the Blacks of Knockan can trace their descent to Christina
Beaton, one of the Seven Beaton Sisters who were born in Ardchiavaig, near
Bunessan, between 1790 and 1815 approximately. The paternal line needs
more research, but the family tradition has it that the first John Black,
who built Knockan, came to Ardtun from Ulva, about the same time as David
Livingstone's forebears moved to Blantyre. There are croft records on Ulva
that would be consistent with that.
The House
that Black Built
When
Knockan was built, in the early 1800s, it was a single-storey thatched
cottage, with the rounded corners that are typical of the older
structures. Dressed stone corners came later. In the late 1890s, John
Black (the second) replaced the original thatched roof with a new tin one.
While they were about that, the walls were raised to add an upstairs. The
walls are constructed like a vertical sandwich - two layers of rough
basalt stone, held together with lime, and the space between filled with
rubble to keep out the wind and rain.
Because
most crofters lived in relative poverty, building materials tended to be
whatever came to hand. The stone would have been gathered locally, and the
wood was driftwood from the shore, which explains the somewhat haphazard
appearance of some parts of the cottage.
A
Tight Squeeze
In the
early 1900s, the cottage was occupied by John and Elizabeth Black, their
six children, and Granny Campbell, who was confined to a bed in the living
room opposite the fireplace, where all the cooking was done on a peat
fired range. The floor was beaten earth, and the table, possibly the same
one as now, was in the middle of the floor. We have been able to
reconstruct this scene from memory of the first time we saw the cottage in
the 1940s, and from a piece of family lore which dates from the early
1900s:
One of the boys was asked to peel some potatoes,
which he did, leaving them in a bucket at the living room door. Meantime,
the horse, called “Buller” (after the Commander-in-chief of the
British forces during the Boer War) had been parked outside. He smelled
the potatoes and tried to insinuate himself into the hallway to get at
them. The porch then was even smaller than it is now, and by the time
Buller was half-way into the hallway, there was no way of reversing him
out. He had to be led into the living room, round the table and then out,
encouraged on his way by Granny’s stick.
Buller
(the horse, that is) was commandeered for the war effort in 1914, and
served as a pack animal on the battlefields of Europe. He survived that,
and, after the war, was spotted by one of the family pulling a milk cart
in Glasgow. Apparently they recognised each other, but whether he thought
Glasgow was better or worse than Flanders is still a matter of conjecture.
Around
and About
The
little round hill just outside the fence in front of the house was the old
stackyard, where the hay and grain were stored. It would have had a low
wall round it to keep out the animals. The byre and chicken shed were
beside the road (the walls are still visible), and the stable was the
building, partly quarried into the hillside beside the west gable of the
house. Drinking water was carried in buckets from a well about 200 yards
across the road. The buckets were kept in the porch.
The land surrounding the house was the Knockan
croft land. It would have been carefully cultivated, producing hay, oats,
potatoes and vegetables, which supported the family and the animals -
cows, sheep, chickens, dogs, cats and, of course the horse. Peat for the
fire was dug from the moss to the west of the house. If you wander up
there, you can see the peat banks. A hundred yards up the road was a small
school, where Margaret McDonald Black was a pupil teacher in the early
1900s, and a little further on are the ruins of the croft where Mary
MacDonald lived in the mid
1800s and composed the famous carol “Child in a
Manger”, with
its tune “Bunessan”.
Now, ironically, her former home is a cattle shed. The tune she composed
even made the charts in the 1970s to the words “Morning has broken”.
If
you take a stroll down to the shore, you will see to the remains of a
small harbour, because fishing was an important means of supplementing the
diet. There is a ruined building there, right on the shore, which once was
a store, presumably located there for ease of transport by rowing or
sailing boat. If you think this situation might be a bit too close to the
sea for comfort, you would be right. The story is told of one particularly
high storm tide, which flooded the store. The storekeeper and his family
were floating around on an assortment of chests and kegs until the local
men guessed they might be in trouble and came to their rescue.
An
Intangible Legacy
John
Black was a weaver, but all that remains of his trade are some woollen
blankets, a shuttle, some smoothing irons and a weighing spring. Having
said that, he and Elizabeth would undoubtedly have wished to be remembered
by more than a few relics of their material lifestyle. The simple truth is
that a profound Christian faith underpinned all that they did, and gave
meaning to all that befell them, welcome or unwelcome. If they ever wanted
to pass anything on to succeeding generations, that would be it.
FOOTPRINTS
OF HISTORY
A
selection of local traces of wider historical events, including (in
italics) some oral traditions which have been passed on in the Black
family.
The
Clans
The
clans could be looked on as kind of extended families. The clan chief
provided land, livelihood and protection for his clansmen, and in return,
they owed him labour, produce and military service when required. The two
main clan seats in South Mull are MacKinnon of Aros, MacLean of Duart, and
MacLaine of Lochbuie, although Campbell of Argyll also had land on the
Ross of Mull.
The
Blacks' ancestry is pretty mixed up, having a foot in the Campbell,
Lamont, MacDonald and possibly MacGregor camps. Apparently, after the
exploits of the famous Rob Roy MacGregor, the name MacGregor was outlawed
as well as the man, and many former MacGregors took the colours of their
tartan, such as Black, Red (Reid), Green etc. as substitute names.
On
the South coast of Mull, near the Carsaig Arches, (Grid ref.: 485192 on OS
Sheet 48), you will see the name Binnein Ghorrie. Ghorrie was a servant of
MacLaine of Lochbuie. One day MacLaine was out hunting on the moors above
Malcolm’s Point, and Ghorrie was one of the beaters, whose job it was to
drive the game towards the hunters. Unfortunately, Ghorrie let the deer
escape through his part of the cordon, as a punishment for which MacLaine
had him flogged there and then.
MacLaine
's daughter, only a girl, was among the hunting party, and Ghorrie,
burning with resentment at the flogging, seized his opportunity and the
girl, and ran with her to the highest point of the cliff about 1000 feet
above the sea, where he threatened to throw the girl over, unless MacLaine
subjected himself to a similar flogging. To save his daughter, MacLaine
complied, and, having witnessed that, Ghorrie jumped, taking the girl with
him. If you have a good head for heights, you can stand or lie on the rock
slab and look over the edge of "Ghorrie's Leap " as it is called
in English.
After
the 1745 rebellion, (Bonnie Prince Charlie and all that!), the clan system
was dismantled, their unique tartans proscribed, and the Gaelic language
banned. The social organisation provided by the clans, with its bonds of
kith and kin, was replaced by the crofting system and its economic
relationships of landlord and tenant.
What
is a Croft?
Crofting
was more than simply a small farm. The croft land belonged to the
Landlord, and was rented to the crofter, but the buildings were built by
the crofter. In the early days, this fact gave the crofter no security
whatsoever, although now, legislation regards the buildings, as distinct
from the land on which they stand, as the property of the crofter tenant.
Each individual croft had some arable land for crops and some outrun land
for rough grazing. However, crofts were organised into
"townships", each comprising perhaps half a dozen crofts. In
addition, each township had a common grazing on which every crofter had
the right to keep an allotted number of beasts (known as the “souming”).
Knockan's common grazing was the high hill you look out to from the front
of the house.
Within
the townships, there was specialisation of skills. Weaving was John Black'
s speciality, but, if you walk along the shore east from Knockan until you
come to the first major stream (about half a mile along), and then walk up
the stream, you will find the remains of a water-powered sawmill, which
was another crofter’s contribution to his community.
As well
as sharing the common grazing, and sharing their skills, townships would
share equipment which was too expensive for any one crofter to own and
co-operate to accomplish tasks which were beyond the capability of any one
family. There would often be common ownership of one "township
bull", who would usually be kept in a specially secure field, or
alternatively, kept by each of the crofters in rotation. You could say
that crofting was actually an early and highly effective form of
co-operative farming.
Grain
was processed in the water mill just outside Bunessan. The crofters would
take the grain along with a bag of peat to the mill by horse and cart, and
receive it back in the form of oatmeal. Peat also featured in the ceilidhs
which took place in each other' s homes in the evenings. The guests would
each take some peat for the fire, and when they were leaving, they would
take a smouldering peat to light their path home in the darkness.
The
Highland Clearances
Boosted
by the return of soldiers from the Napoleonic wars, Mull' s population
reached its peak around 1840, when every square inch of soil was
cultivated, as you can see from evidence of ruined dwellings and
cultivation by means of "lazybeds". You can often detect the
furrows in low evening sunlight.
As
a method of cultivation, lazybeds were anything but lazy. Each bed was
about four feet across, bounded by a ditch on either side. The soil from
the ditch was piled onto the bed, along with manure, seaweed and even
unwanted fish, providing enhanced soil depth and fertility, while the
ditch provided drainage. This system permitted cultivation of patches
which would otherwise be moorland, and sustained a high density of
population, subsisting to a great extent on the staple crop of potatoes,
as in Ireland.
Laziness
is a quality sometimes mistakenly attributed to country people who live
under conditions which are harsh in ways that townspeople cannot imagine,
and crofters are no exception. Far from attempting to dispel the myth,
however, they often take a perverse delight in perpetuating it in stories
such as this:
Hamish
was sitting in front of his peat fire, smoking his pipe while the rain
poured through a leak in his roof. Dugald came by and said, "Hamish,
why don 't you fix the leak in your roof? ".
"Och,
surely you don 't expect me to go out in this rain to fix the roof? "
"No,
" said Dugald, "but you should fix it when the weather 's dry.”
"But
it doesn't leak when the weather 's dry.”
This
may have been designed to lull the unsuspecting into a false sense of
superiority. This next story would never have happened in the Ross of
Mull, but could have happened in some other part, or maybe it never
happened at all.
An
American tourist was "doing" the island when he came across
Callum, who was selling some little round objects from a box, claiming
them to be "learning pills". Out of curiosity, he bought some
and put one in his mouth, but immediately, spat it out, accusing Callum of
selling sheep droppings. "See!", replied Callum, "ye’re
learning.”
Tourists
of the patronising variety come in for a bit of stick in Bunessan lore.
Another story tells of a local worthy who sported a long beard and was
known as Noah. On one occasion, Noah was pointed out to a visitor, who,
perhaps a little insensitively, went up to him, introduced himself and
said, "They tell me you're called Noah." The old man looked at
him and replied, "No, my name's Saul, and I'm out looking for my
father's asses, and lo, I have found one."
More
seriously, however, the story of the leaking roof is a joke about a sense
of time. The “to everything its season” concept is a bit alien to
today’s thinking, when so many things are in season all year, and
technology has deposed from their thrones the ancient overlords of time
and tide, seedtime and harvest, night and day. A sense of time is closely
linked to a sense of rhythm, which is to do with not having, as well as
having, and without rhythm, we may be in danger of being permanently wound
up.
In the
mid 1800s, the potato blight which hit Ireland, also hit Mull, and this,
along with the infamous Highland Clearances, started a decline from which
the island has never quite recovered. There were cases of eviction by
burning on the island, and most of the sporting estates on the island are
littered with the ruins of crofting townships, although one notable
exception was the Duke of Argyll' s estates on the Ross of Mull, where
crofting was allowed to remain. During this period, many Ross of Mull
folks emigrated, mainly to various parts of Canada, including several
branches of the original Beatons, and a number of relatives of Mary
MacDonald, some of whom were lost when the vessel carrying them to a new
and better life foundered.
Many
years later, one of the Canadian sons of Bunessan returned on a visit, he
was observed on his knees before the small waterfall which gave the
village its name (Bunessan means "The town at the foot of the little
waterfall"). Asked what on earth he was doing, he replied, "Over
in Canada I was taken to see the Niagara Falls, and I said they were very
nice, but they were nothing compared to the waterfall at Bunessan. I'm
just asking forgiveness."
Rack
Renting
Even
although the crofters on the Ross of Mull were not evicted, they were
subjected to the process known as "Rack Renting'' - the continual
raising of rents to levels which caused near starvation on the crofts. To
judge from the accounts that have survived in our family, The Duke of
Argyll seems to have been an unusually humane landlord, although one story
gives a glimpse of what life was like in these days.
One
local crofter is reputed to have gone to the factor in Bunessan to ask for
a stay in the repeated raising of his rent. When this was refused, the
factor observed him to mutter something under his breath, and demanded to
know what the plaintiff had said.
"Well,
" said the crofter, "I was just having a word with my Maker in
my native tongue, and I was asking that you may be long spared to occupy
your present position, because, if you go, I’m afraid it’ll be
the Devil himself that’ll take your place.
Happily,
various pieces of legislation have now given crofters a fair degree of
protection and security as tenants, along with the right to purchase the
croft land if they so wish.
Goings
and Comings
Two of
the three brothers of the Black Family went to fight in the trenches of
the 1914-18 war. They never came back to live in Knockan, but settled in
Glasgow, where both joined the police force. The sisters looked after
their elderly parents and also nursed their youngest brother Hamish
through a long and terminal illness, until the grim reaper kindly relieved
them of their family responsibilities and allowed them to join their
remaining brothers in Glasgow. It was in Glasgow that Donald Black met and
married Grace Dunlop, a Blantyre girl (David Livingstone again!). He was
the only one of that generation of Blacks to marry.
Knockan
was closed up for many years, becoming almost derelict until, in the
1950s, Donald and Grace began the Herculean task of re-opening, occupying
school holidays for what felt like half a lifetime to the children. The
task was “Herculean” because, apart from the dilapidated state, there
was no running water or electric power in the cottage, and the family car
(a black and grey, two-tone Morris Ten, AGG 854) was only available during
the short periods for which his Police work allowed Donald to join the
family on holiday. For Grace Black, unlike Hercules, there were no quick
fixes, like diverting a stream through the Augean Stables – only
unremitting hard work. She deserves a place among the stars.
Once the cottage had been
rendered habitable, Donald's sisters decided to try it out for holidays,
so he and his family had to move out. A neighbouring crofter called Neil
Beaton, who had an unused and almost derelict cottage on his croft known
as “Salachran”, took pity on them and allowed the family to start the
whole process again there.
Meantime, back at
Knockan, the reality of returning home had proved less attractive than the
dream, and the cottage was quickly abandoned once more. It was the 1970s,
before it was re-opened by Donald and Fiona, with help from Margaret (nee
Black) and her husband Hugh Mathie. By this time, the family were
beginning to feel like Sisyphus, who was condemned by the Gods to roll a
huge boulder up a steep hill, only to have it roll back down again every
time it neared the top. As far as anyone knows, poor Sisyphus is still
rolling his boulder.
In the 1990s, more
renovation was carried out bringing the cottage up to a good standard of
comfort. None of the Black family lives permanently in Knockan, but they
do spend holidays there, and, when the youngest of them sleep in one of
the bedrooms, they are the sixth generation of Blacks to do so.
When the Blacks are
not there themselves, the cottage is let for self-catering holidays. It is
remarkable how strongly at peace people feel in these island homes, even
when there is no family connection. Whatever that special ingredient might
be, it is definitely worth preserving.
Knockan Names
