Seil stories start new chapter for museum funds

Seil Stories is the latest fundraiser for Ellenabeich's slate island heritage centre.

 

Scottish Slate Islands Heritage Trust has just published a second book, which is out now and on sale in the centre and online for £5.

 

The book  is written by the trust's founding chairman Mike Shaw, with photographs by Trevor Davies and illustrations by Mike Lowe, and comes hot on the heels as a companion to the author's Seil & Easdale guidebook, which made its appearance in lockdown almost selling out of all 1,000 copies.

 

Three of the stories in the latest book go back 30 years to Mr Shaw's days as Kilbrandon Cub Scout leader - a fourth tale, that takes the reader from the shores of Seil to Seringapatum in India and back - is a more recent offering.

 

Mainly meant for entertainment, Mr Shaw weaves his stories with a guide to the area - its history and landscape, busting  misconceptions that the area's only iconic selling points to heritage seekers are the slate industry and famous Bridge Over The Atlantic.

 

A fairy cave, a crannog  along the old road to Seil and a lesser known saint than Columba or Brendan all feature in the new book's pages.

 

'Just to spice things up a bit, I'm making the point that there's more to Seil than the iconic bridge and the slate industry. People have been living here over two or three millenia and there is plenty to tell,' said Mr Shaw.

 

In Seil Stories, Mr Shaw has revisited the old stories he told his Cub pack, expanding them with more description and colour but not changing the plots.

 

'I'd keep the Cubs active, running about and then towards the end of the night they'd begin to tire and run out of energy so I had to think of something for quiet time before handing them back to their parents - that's where the stories came in handy!' he said.

 

Shorter versions of the stories were aired in his 1992 guide to Seil but they stood alone and were not illustrated.

 

As a gift for his 70th birthday, Mr Shaw's children surprised him with specially commissioned  illustrations for those tales. When he wrote the fourth tale, he approached the same illustrator to bring colour to it with two more drawings.

 

'None of the stories have a moral but they do make a slight point or have a twist. Are the stories true? The boys used to ask me that. I answer now as I did then: what do you think?' he said.

 

The trust has published 500 copies of Seil Stories so far, also available from Balvicar Stores and Seafari Adventures in Ellenabeich and at www.slateislands.org.uk

 

'The stories are all tied into Seil and are used to discuss bits of the island's history but  mainly it is meant as entertainment, it's not a textbook.

 

'I hope  if people already have the guidebook from 2020 they will want to add this new one to their collection,' said Mr Shaw.

 

The museum relies on donations to make up about two thirds of its income - the rest comes from merchandise - including Mr Shaw's books.