The one thing that is very apparent from the oral history postcards and from conversations with people about what is important to them here - whether they have been here 5 years or 55 years, and whether they like or dislike what is happening on the island today - is that every individual has a deep and timeless love for this place.
Now that the consultation phase of the project is all but over, we know what the eight themes of our collective ‘living history’ of the island will be: Childhoods, Community, Change, Activities on the estates, the Landscape, Animals (wild and farm), Ceilidhs, and Transport. To me, the list seems a good mixture of social history, economic history and natural history. People were asked what the significant features of a life on Jura were, and also about their strongest personal memory. Everyone who lives here or is connected with the island will have the opportunity to expand on their own strongest memory for the archive, so we can get some personal history in there too!
(poem read by Alex the bus, music by John Squire of Crackaig)
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“Soil and soul, heritage and home, cairns and cast ewes, family and friends, paps and pints, the circle of life!” — Response to the Oral History Postcards : the things about Jura that have had the biggest effect on me are…
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“Coming to Keils…The old crofts with the low rafters, the thatched roofs, the smell of peat, the old black kettle always boiling on the range. Venison and fish hanging from the rafters, drying out so they would last through the Winter…” — Response to the Oral History Postcards : the most vivid moment of my life here was when…
“The KLF burnt a wickerman on Midsummer’s night 1991; four Japanese maidens wafted into the sea, and the island partied til dawn” — Response to Oral History Postcards : the most vivid moment of my life here was when…
“World war two broke out and there was the most tremendous thunderstorm I have ever experienced. Even the adults were terrified. It seemed like a judgement” — Response to Oral History Postcards : The most vivid moment of my life here was when…
I went to the School of Scottish Studies sound archives today, and look who I found in a drawer. I’m negotiating to bring their tapes back home…
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