As it Was = Sin Mar a Bha: An Ulva Boyhood

by Donald W. MacKenzie

In 2000, Donald W. MacKenzie wrote As it Was/Sin Mar a Bha: A Ulva Boyhood, which is a combination of autobiography and a potted history of the island. His father was a Kirk minister, who moved there from Rothesay, where he had been in charge of the Gaelic church there. MacKenzie describes as a child, his early impressions of the island in the 1920s, and how the minister's children slowly began to recognise the landscape of eviction: 'We saw ruins of houses (tobhtaichean) roofless and windowless, and near them neglected green patches that had obviously been cultivated at one time. We saw overgrown ridges and furrows that once had been the lazybeds (feannagan) on which former inhabitants had grown their potatoes and cereals. When returned home from our explorations, to recount our discoveries, we learned, over the years, that the Ulva of 1827, when the church and the manse were built was very different from the Ulva we came to know a hundred years later.'

The island of Ulva lies almost as if folded inside the great island of Mull. It is a place of great natural beauty and with an extraordinary story attached; a story never before told.So dominated is it by its great neighbour that its written history is a matter of fragments, oral tradition, folklore, hearsay and legend. Donald MacKenzie weaves together the history, songs and traditions of Ulva with his own reminiscences and recollections of that last Indian summer between the wars. His book is not merely a conspectus of all that is known, but of all that is remembered of the island, creating a moving and unique blend of history and recollection.

Genres: Scotland

192 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2000

Reviews

[TXGAL1 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mr Mackenzie has produced a book of heartwarming memories and reflections on his years on the island of Ulva, Scotland as a boy.

It’s quite detailed and I found his memoir to be a gift to his former home.

If you have a love of Scotland, or just like the way things were in time past, I recommend this book to you.

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can’t say as I have ever set foot on the Isle of Ulva. It’s a small island that lies, at its closest point, about 300 yards off the much larger Isle of Mull (which I have been to). I might not have read this but for the fact the book was in my local library, and so I decided to give it a go. The Scottish Gaelic version of the title would be pronounced roughly “shin mar a va”.

Even today, if you live in Ulva and want to go somewhere, you have to get a boat to Mull and then a ferry from Mull to the Scottish mainland.

The author lived on Ulva between 1918 and 1929, when he was aged between 1 and 11 years of age. His father was the Church of Scotland Minister for the parish, which comprised not just Ulva but adjacent parts of Mull. During this period there were about 50 people on the island, and at the time this book was published, in 2000, the author was, as far as he knew, the only person still alive who could remember the island in the 1920s.

In the end I came to quite like this. To begin with I wasn’t impressed. The first third or so of the book is a sort of basic general history of the island. It’s only then that the author begins his own memoir, and the early stages of that are, well, mundane. For example, the author explains how a mobile horse-drawn shop would appear once a week at the village of Ulva Ferry (which lies on Mull) and his memoir includes details such as the typical contents of his mother’s weekly shopping list. I’m interested in social history, but not quite to that degree.

There were though some interesting snippets in the book, particularly around religious customs on the island, and the survival of old pre-Christian folk beliefs, which many Highlanders still hold to today.

I have a distinct memory that, in my own primary school in the 1960s, we were never allowed to use the words “get” or “got” in our written work. I’ve mentioned this to other people as an adult and they are usually sceptical, thinking that I must have mis-remembered. I was interested to read in this book that the author had exactly the same experience in his primary school, about 40 years before my time.

In another fragment, the author described ceilidhs (social gatherings with music and song) at which his neighbours would sing a popular comic song, “As I Came Home Last Night”, which had a mixture of English and Gaelic lyrics – a technique known as macaronic verse. What struck me was that the song was unquestionably a version of “Seven Drunken Nights” a song made popular in the 1960s by the Irish folk group The Dubliners. I wonder what the history was of the version set out in this book?

The author left the island to attend secondary school in Oban on the mainland. The ending of the book is actually very poignant, and the book itself is a unique record of life on this tiny island.

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting detailed look at an island community.

[Seonag Paterson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting collection of material about Ulvs. One of those books it's good to read when you're visiting the area, just back, or planning a trip - I picked it up on a holiday one summer in Mull. (Boat trip and walk around Ulva highly recommended if you're in the area.)