The “good” old days?

One of the most violent storms and high tides ever experienced in Scotland, happened on December 28, 1879.

 
The first Tay Road Bridge collapsed when a train was passing over it, killing the 74-75 people on board. More than 8,000 trees were reputed to have been blown down between Old Ardtornish Castle and Acharn, and a good deal of structural damage was caused to roads and bridges.

An old cottage at Eignaig, standing about 50 feet above sea level on the Glensanda side of the parish boundary, was flooded. The elderly occupants had to take to the hill where they managed to get shelter under a large rock for the night. The following morning, they found their boat lying in the garden up against the house.

At the height of the recent storms, the waterfalls along the cliffs behind Ardtornish Castle, known as the ‘Morvern Witches’, were an interesting spectacle as they were blown upwards and backwards instead of cascading on the woods below. 

No less impressive was the area of flat ground below Acharn where the water from the parallel glens, Gleann Dubh and Gleann Geall, form the ‘Snag Pool’. Here, one of the most unusual phenomena in the Highlands occurs.

Normally the water from the glens discharges into the River Aline, but due to the landform when they are in spate they run ‘uphill’ into nearby Loch Arienas. When the loch fills from its own catchment area the situation is reversed. So, for a number of days the water flows in one direction, and again for several successive days in the very opposite.

The gloomy weather of the past few months leads us to wonder how our forebears coped with their lot. 

Imagine, for example, what a shepherd in an isolated glen had to contend with on returning home after a long, cold wet day on the moors. 

No hot water, let alone a bath or a shower; a draughty, leaking thatched cottage with clay floors; a dour peat fire as the only source of heat to dry his clothes against; half a dozen or more half-naked, starving children living in a single room; a few salted herring and a handful of potatoes; emaciated cows and howling dogs under the same roof; hens roosting in the rafters above the humans; no medical services, no contraception; no security of tenure; no unemployment benefit or old age pension to look forward to, only the fear of a visit from the estate factor looking for a bigger rent and, finally, the local minister (the very man they trusted) urging them to emigrate because the laird, who paid his stipend, wanted his glen cleared.

Maybe we don’t have too much to complain about today after all!