Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

The Isle of Eigg has a small population today (around 100 people). Back in the 1930s, it must have been much larger with three farms that required many farmhands. In other words, there was the possibility of meeting boys. Of course, the boys didn’t stay ‘nasty’ forever as the girls came of age. In fact, my mother must have stopped running barefoot along the beach at some point. Hence, this post will talk about some of my mother’s exes when she was still in in Eigg.

She started ‘courting’ boys on Eigg. One of her boyfriends was Ian MacKinnon.  She also ‘courted’ Ian’s brother, Dugald MacKinnon, as well as Duncan Ferguson.¹⁵ In the photo with Ian MacKinnon, she appears to be between 14 and 15 years old. Both Ian and Dugald MacKinnon were her second cousins. Strictly speaking, this ‘story’ belongs to the “Volume III”, of “No Woman No Cry (18**-1940)”.  So the story of ‘My mother and the MacKinnon boys’, and the other stories from this period will be presented in “Volume III”.

Reeling in the Big Fish

Teenage boys often think about how to ‘get off’ with a girl, with little regard for jobs, children, and mortgages. Girls, on the other hand, exploit this ‘fixation’ of the boys; they try to hook a ‘fish’ and reel in someone they can make a good life with. The ‘bigger’ the fish, the better. In this context, girls are much ‘smarter’ and more realistic than boys. In other words, it seems the telegrams were not just congratulating my mother on her marriage, but implicitly congratulating her on reeling in a ‘big fish’. 

On the surface of things, my father appeared to be a ‘big fish’ – an officer in the RNVR, a property owner, and even handsome to boot. The island boys would not have been considered ‘big fish’, as most of them were farm workers or fishermen and relatively poor. Although many of them had ambitions about being successful and rich, they would be unable to do so on the Isle of Eigg. They would have to move to the city or emigrate. 

However, young girls are also naïve. They are easily impressed by surface values, such as men in uniform.¹⁶ My mother told me she was in love with Ian¹⁷ MacKinnon before she met my father. Ian went on to become a policeman in Reading, England. Another man in uniform! 

In other words, my father was an impressive ‘catch’, but he was also carrying ‘extra luggage’. Although my parents were compatible in some aspects, they were not in other areas. One could argue that ever since Adam and Eve, men and women have never been fully ‘compatible’. But this is a topic I will not discuss here.

¹⁵ “Dugald MacKinnon was my boyfriend. Ian MacKinnon was much better looking though. He took me to the dance on Eigg, and you’ll never guess what he gave a quart of boiled sweets. He became a policeman in Reading. He had a hair lip, though not a bad one. John MacKinnon came from the Isle of Muck.

Duncan Ferguson invited me for tea and scones (Duncan Ferguson’s father). He did fancy me when I was in my teens. But as I was saying he was a staunch Catholic, and I was a Protestant, and that was important in those days” (conversation with my mother, August 4th, 2007, 6 Fitzjohn Close, Merrow Park, Guildford, England). I met Duncan Ferguson’s son of the same name when I visited Eigg around 2006-2008.

¹⁶ This is nothing new – consider the novel Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, and the character George Wickham.

¹⁷ No one else in our family is called ‘Ian’, except for a cousin. It might seem far-fetched, but my mother may have named me after Ian MacKinnon, her ‘lost love’. Ian was very handsome, but my mother remarked that he had a ‘hair lip’.