125932: Catherine Ann Macmillan nee Nicolson

Notes from a conversation in 2005 with Katie Ann MacMillan nee Nicolson (1936-2025)

Growing up at 47 Balallan we were told about a previous generation on the croft. Both parents died of Cholera An teasach leaving young children. None of the neighbours would come near the house because of the fever. A boy of seven and a girl of four took the cow into the house, so that their blind granny could milk it. The children had to take the fever infected clothing and bedding to a bonfire on An Carnan a hill above the village.

My father Malcolm Nicolson Calum Aonghais Duinn, 47 Balallan served in the Cameron Highlanders and was wounded at the Battle of the Somme in 1916. He was taken to Southampton Hospital for several months, then issued with a new great coat, before he spent two days travelling, to be one of the first wounded servicemen, admitted into the new Erskine Military hospital near Glasgow.  There was a picture of him there on the wall at Erskine Hospital at one time.

He was left-handed and he lost his left-hand during shooting and bombing at the Somme. He was later fitted with an artificial hand, which he strapped on every Sunday to go to Kinloch church. He was pretty able on the croft, but if there were any tasks he could not complete, there was a plan. He would spread a white tablecloth at the bottom of the croft, alerting his relatives in Sheildinish and they would duly appear to help with ploughing or whatever was required.

As an old man, my father listening to the Gaelic songs programme on the radio, would lower his head, when the song An Eala Bhan composed by Domhnall Ruadh Choruna, Uist, was sung. He often  relayed this account of being in the trenches, on tedious long watch, looking out over No Man’s Land with the bard Domhnall Ruadh.

“The long hours in the one location and the silence, allowed the Uist man to pass the time by composing poetry. He had managed to find the stump of a joiner’s pencil and saved the few and far between, scraps of paper he came across. The notes he put in a cocoa tin pushed in to the earth wall of the trench, until his next watch took him back to that particular section of the trench again.

This worked for a while, there was a small bundle of papers in the tin, until one day on their return, the tin had been dislodged, and a soldier had used the paper to line his leaking boots. Some of the verses of An Eala Bhan was retrieved from the trench floor and carefully dried by the bard. The verses sung today were only a fraction of An Eala Bhan composed in the trenches.

The soldiers’ rations were half a brown loaf a day and Malcolm’s comment on Domhnall Ruadh was S e bha math air car a chur an amhach cearc. "We helped ourselves to hens, carrots and turnips from the fields in France."

My uncle Alex Nicolson 47 Balallan, went to the Nicolson Institute and lodged in The Sheiling on Matheson Rd. It was owned by a Mr Mackenzie who had shops and fishing boats in Stornoway. A cousin of ours, Murdina Nicolson 26 Laxay was air mhuintearas in service there. Young men who became my uncle Alex’s great pals were lodging in the Shieling also: Dr MacDonald Gisla. John Maciver Shonnaidh Shobhal and Dr Murdo MacLean, Ballantrushal.

My uncle Alex born in 1895 was taken from the Nicolson Institute to join up in 1914. Alex survived the war and was a doctor in Springburn, Glasgow.  He often said “I thought I had seen poverty in the black house, but no one knows the poverty of the lack of food, clothing and cleanliness”.

I was born in 1936 and when I was coming to the age of leaving Balallan School, there was a discussion between my father and John Buchannan the headmaster. At that time you needed to be 14 to get into the Nicolson Institute. My father was on a weekly war pension of £1 9s 9d.

At the time there was a scheme to support the education of the children of ex-servicemen. Upshot was I got a letter from John Buchannan the headmaster to get into Duncraig Castle, the Domestic Science School for girls near Plockton. Duncraig Castle had been a military hospital during WW2.

Aged thirteen and a half, I left home along with fourteen-year-old Peigi MacLeod 50 Balallan. The previous year, Zena Morrison later Nicolson and Isa Smith 48 Balallan had gone to Duncraig Castle, so we were going to be among acquaintances.

We left Stornoway with 20 other girls from Lewis, 7 of them from Ness, on the boat the Loch Seaforth sailing to Kyle of Lochalsh. Leaving Kyle of Lochalsh by train, there were only two stations, Durinish, Plocton then Duncraig Castle.

That same year 1951, Balmacara Agriculture School for boys opened and Dolaidh Noh and Calum Iain Chaluim Alasdair were the first boys from Balallan to go there. Balmacara was a farm school just outside Kyle of Lochalsh.

After Dun Craig I went to the "Dough School" in Glasgow, the Glasgow and West of Scotland College of Domestic Science, and my uncle Alex was a great support to me when I moved to the city.

Interview by Magaidh Smith 2005.

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Catherine Ann Nicolson, 47 Balallan

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