Benbecula: Island of Fords and Forgotten Classrooms

And so to Benbecula: flat, battered by wind, the Atlantic on one side, soggy peat and bog on the other. In the middle of it all stands a single hill, Rusbhal, soaring to the dizzying height of 124 metres. It qualifies as a landmark largely because nothing else bothers to rise.

The island’s name, Benbecula, comes from the Gaelic Beinn a’ bh-Faodhla — “mountain of the fords” — a name from when one had to wade across tidal channels from North or South Uist to get there. You had a two-hour window at low tide. Now there are causeways and bridges, which rather takes the poetry out of it.

Naturally we climbed the hill. “Because it’s there” as Mallory said. Then we followed a track that fizzled out at the start of the Roisinis peninsula. Apparently this was once a ‘kelp road’, built to haul seaweed from the far eastern shore.¹Salt Air and Sea Pinks https://saltairandseapinks.wordpress.com/2021/09/26/east-and-west-on-benbecula-2/ The industry vanished, but the track is still there, going nowhere.

Near the end of it we found some crumbling concrete footings with a plaque fixed to one: “Nuntonhill Side School 1946–1951.” Someone had the sense to carve it in stone. Five years. A school for ghosts.

It is hard to imagine anyone living out here now, let alone enough children to justify a school. Yet in the early twentieth century, the east side of Benbecula was opened up — reluctantly — by Lady Cathcart, who finally allowed a few returning soldiers from the First World War to settle. They carved crofts from the poor land. By 1924 a few families had made homes in the area known as Nunton Hill.²Salt Air and Sea Pinks https://saltairandseapinks.wordpress.com/2021/09/26/east-and-west-on-benbecula-2/

Schooling was a legal requirement, even here. No roads, mostly boats, but still the law said children must be taught. The result: ‘Side Schools’, improvised classrooms set up by the church or the state in remote corners. A teacher — sometimes barely trained — would live with a family and teach in whatever space could be found. In this case, they went to the trouble of relocating a building. It had been a school in South Uist, dismantled, ferried by boat to Roisinis, carted by the hill and reassembled. Corrugated iron, painted dark green — what they called a “zinc building”. In the 19th century they were modern, supposedly. They looked like sheds. Churches, schools, homes — all done in zinc.

In 1947, the Sunday Post proudly announced the appointment of one Duncan Macrae, aged 18, as headmaster. A prodigy, they said. Schooled in his father’s farmhouse. Scholarship winner. Dux of every school. Smothered in first prizes.³Headmaster At Eighteen! | Sunday Post | Sunday 02 February 1947 | British Newspaper Archive⁴Benbecula Accident To Mr D, Macaulay The Community Are Grieved To Learn Of The | Oban Times and Argyllshire Advertiser | Saturday 22 February 1947 | British Newspaper Archive

Three years on, he was gone. A new teacher arrived, a woman. She had years of experience, but no paper to prove it. The parents would not accept her. They kept their children at home. There were five pupils, aged six to eleven. One suspects misogyny rather than concern for academic standards. The children probably enjoyed the break.⁵Five-Pupil School On Str | Sunday Post | Sunday 10 September 1950 | British Newspaper Archive By January a new male teacher was appointed: Mr Cathulus Campbell from Creagorry on Benbecula.⁶New Teacher | Oban Times and Argyllshire Advertiser | Saturday 30 December 1950 | British Newspaper Archive

It was all for nothing. By the early 1950s, people had begun to leave. The place was too remote, too hard. Jobs and housing were easier to find elsewhere. The school shut. The crofts emptied. The buildings crumbled. Now only a plaque remains. Just long enough to make you wonder if any of it really happened.

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  Salt Air and Sea Pinks https://saltairandseapinks.wordpress.com/2021/09/26/east-and-west-on-benbecula-2/
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  Salt Air and Sea Pinks https://saltairandseapinks.wordpress.com/2021/09/26/east-and-west-on-benbecula-2/
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  Headmaster At Eighteen! | Sunday Post | Sunday 02 February 1947 | British Newspaper Archive
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  Benbecula Accident To Mr D, Macaulay The Community Are Grieved To Learn Of The | Oban Times and Argyllshire Advertiser | Saturday 22 February 1947 | British Newspaper Archive
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  Five-Pupil School On Str | Sunday Post | Sunday 10 September 1950 | British Newspaper Archive
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  New Teacher | Oban Times and Argyllshire Advertiser | Saturday 30 December 1950 | British Newspaper Archive