Very many people know the song, or at least the expression, "Over the Sea to Skye". Many people are aware that in the last decade, the expression has taken on a new meaning with the building of a controversial toll bridge which carries a major road "Over the Sea to Skye". Not so many people realise, or notice, however, that almost directly under the bridge, stands a Stevenson Lighthouse, now obsolete, and almost completely overshadowed by the bridge which now holds the light.
Kyleakin Lighthouse was engineered by David and Thomas Stevenson, established
in 1857 and automated in 1960. The lighthouse and keepers’ cottages stand on the
tiny island of Eilean Ban (White Island), which stands in the channel between
Kyleakin on Skye and Kyle of Lochalsh on the Scottish mainland. Nowadays
however, they share the island with a pillar of the bridge. Once a busy sea
route for trade and fishing, the local currents and steep beaches made it an
area to be reckoned with, not least by the Lighthouse Board. In 1911, they wrote
this letter to the Board of Trade. "Sir, I am
directed by the Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses to request the sanction of
the Board of Trade to the payment of an allowance of one six pence a day to the
Attending Boatman at Kyleakin Lighthouse to enable him to obtain assistance in
drawing up the Boat nightly. Owing to the strong tide and to the fishing traffic
close inshore, the Boat cannot be left at moorings and it is too heavy for one
man to draw up the steep gravel beach. The late Boatman was assisted by a
brother, but the present Boatman is unable to obtain assistance without paying
for it, and it is necessary to make him the above allowance for this purpose."
Although the natural beauty of Eilean Ban has been largely destroyed by the
bridge, it has nevertheless been targeted as a conservation and environmental
area. Gavin Maxwell, author of "Ring of Bright Water" lived here for a spell; he
converted the two lightkeepers’ cottages into one, intending to establish on the
island a collection of
Scottish
wildlife, including otters, which live in the area in relatively large numbers.
One of the best places to spot the otters is from just across the sound at
Kylerhea on Skye – there is a hide there, from which to look, although they can
often be seen through binoculars even from the car park on the hill side,
swimming in the currents, close to the small ferry which still runs from Skye to
the mainland at a spot where cattle, tied together in groups of about five or
six and attached to a boat, used to be swum across at slack water.
Kyleakin was the first lighthouse to which my grandfather, John Clyne, was appointed as Assistant Lightkeeper. John was born in 1856 in Myreton, Murrroes, in the County of Angus, the first son of Charlotte Simpson and Alexander Clyne, who was a ploughman. By the time of the 1881 Census, Alexander was the County Constable in Ferryden, near Montrose in Angus. He was a well-known local figure, becoming in due course, the Inspector of Poor and the local Census Enumerator, amongst other things. John, aged 24, had moved from Murroes to Ferryden with the family. He had become an agricultural blacksmith, but at the time of the Census, was out of work. The Clynes lived just over the hill from Scurdie Ness lighthouse, whose principal keeper was a friend of the family. John’s younger brother, Robert, had already been a lightkeeper for several years. Whether either Alexander or Robert was instrumental in helping John find work is not certain. In any event, by June 1885, presumably after undergoing training as an occasional lightkeeper, John was appointed as Assistant Lightkeeper to Kyleakin lighthouse. The appointment probably gave the necessary security, for a month after his appointment, he married my grandmother, Isabella Robertson, a flaxdresser from Methil in Fife. Their first child, Isabella, was born the following year – mother Isabella had returned home to Fife for the birth of her first baby, although the birth was dually registered, both in Fife and in Lochalsh, the parish to which Kyleakin belonged. A second baby born the following year, Alexander, was born at Kyleakin. The names of the children reflect the Scottish tradition that the first female child should be called after the mother of the child’s mother, and the first male child after the father of the child’s father. The second female child would traditionally be named after the mother of the child’s father and the second male child after the father of the child’s mother; thereafter, family names were generally favoured and often alternated between the two families. The same forename was even sometimes used twice in the same family, usually when the first of that name had died, but sometimes, in a large family, when the older one had left home.
Grandfather remained at Kyleakin for 4 years and 4 months, long enough I suppose for him to have become accustomed to a new way of life – both in the Lighthouse Service and also as a married and family man. However difficult the adjustment might have been, though, I should think that when a letter arrived from the Northern Lighthouse Board in the late Autumn of 1889, it must have been with some trepidation that he informed his wife that, together with their two small children, they were being sent to Cape Wrath, which must surely be the most remote area of the British mainland.
