My great, great aunt.... Written as she may have told her life story....JKL
I am Elizabeth Keith, I have the Gaelic, but have become used to speaking in English now. I come from Islay and am one of the ten children of John Keith and Ann Campbell. I was born in 1839. When I was young we lived out at Nosbridge It has been said that it is the prettiest hill that can be seen anywhere, and I believe that. It is an old Danish fort surrounded by three semi circular mounds or ramparts rising one above the other. There was a stream, Alb-Na-beiste, where we used to gather berries, wild straw, rasp, blue and bramble berries. There was an old school house at the end of Mulmar Bridge, but none of us went to school. If we had we would have learned English when we were young. There were 14 or 15 farm villages and each had about 20 families. They were the descendants of men who lived for generations in the same farms paying yearly rents, till they all felt that it was but their own steads. But they are gone now. The ploughman plodding homeward in his evening, after his day’s toil is over, is no more to be seen, for those pleasant voices were hushed forever by the tyrant sway of greedy landlords.
There were many folks put out or deprived of their parks about when I was young. But we stayed and my father worked at Daill Farm until his death in 1862. It was said that people were put out of the farms to make room for Webster and his sheep. He was the under factor wh had the big house at Daill Farm. Yes, there were Clearances in Islay, but there was no burning of houses and no use of soldiers in red coats. They were peaceable, but none the less enforced clearances. We had a meagre existence, most of the time we had oats, sometime some meat, but not often. We did not even eat fish from the sea. We weren’t fisher folks, you see.
My mother once told me about her wedding. It seemed like a grand do. None of us married in Islay, so we never experienced such a celebration. She said that traditionally the bridegroom and his prospective wife were not allowed to see each other the night before the wedding, nor was the bridegroom allowed to see his fiance in her wedding dress before she arrived at the place of the wedding. They weren’t married in church, but their wedding took place at her home at Mulindry. A reception followed the ceremony. The minister came, but there wasn’t much fuss. Friends and family all attended, and there were plenty of them. The proceedings took place in real highland fashion, she said, as recognised by our forefathers, in its simplicity, sociality and good natured sobriety. There was plenty to eat and drink. The old women gathered themselves together the night previous to twist the necks of many a corpulent turkey, goose, duck, hen and chicken, and also prepare the inevitable “Cnotudh”(cask) without which the old folks considered a wedding unorthodox. They consider the “Buideal”(barley) a legal appendage of the same, not on any account to be dispensed with, and as a natural consequence the piper must be present. Entertainment followed, made up chiefly of dancing to the dawn of morning when all separated well satisfied.
The Islay I remember was very different from that. It was a hard life, my father and my brothers would cut the peat, and from when I was only six years old, I traipsed through the bog to carry the peat home. The girls were all taught to spin yarn, and we would sit for hours in gloom, working until our arms and backs ached, and our eyes stung from the smoke from the fire – the only light we had.
Many people left the island. Most of my mother’s family set sail for Canada, with the promise of land and a better life. My father’s brother, Nicol and his family emigrated too. That wasn’t for us, my father died in 1862. There was nothing for us on Islay either. My sister Mary, was the first of our immediate family to leave the island. She had heard that the farms and big houses on the mainland were always looking for farmhands and domestic servants, and it was recommended to her that she could look for work in and around the area of Paisley. She went off the island with plenty of contacts, as there were any number of Islay folk, young and old, in Renfrewshire. She was lucky. She landed a job as a dairymaid on the farm of William Carswell in the Parish of Neilston. Within a year she was married. To Archie McIntyre, son of the late Donald McIntyre and Catherine White from Portnahaven on the island. That was about 1863, I think. She settled down to family life quickly, and soon had children of her own. She told us we could have a better life in Neilston. There would be jobs for all of us. It was difficult for us to leave Islay, especially for Mother, she could not imagine life away over on the mainland. Alexander was already married to Jean Morrison and they had an infant, and they were keen to come along too. We were given a good send off, friends and family came to the harbour to say their goodbyes to us. The journey was long and uncomfortable, but Mary was waiting to greet us when we arrived. We all stayed with her that night. We were well used to bedding down in one room. It was not difficult to get work. Me and my sisters who were old enough, were working as dairymaids, and my brothers worked on the land. My mother got a place in the village, she was a great knitter and she could make enough by selling her work to look after the young ones. Alexander and his increasing family were out at Craighall. John was at Auchenback, in Barrhead, in 1871 when he married Catherine McKechnie, from Port Chilean in Argyll. She was a servant at Craig O’Neilston, William Carswell’s farm, when they met. Catherine had a bairn in 1873, but she would never say who the father was, I wonder sometimes if he was one o’ the Carswells. She named her Christina. She was a good wee soul, but it was my mother who reared her. Year followed year, Alexander became unsettled, he was listening to the stories of farming in Canada, and decided that was for him. I never saw him or his family again after he left Neilston. My sister, Christina married Donald Cameron from Skye. They were working at Thomas Carswell’s Wraes Mill Farm when they married. Mother grew older, but she was still strong. When John’s wife died in 1880, just after the birth of her fifth, mother looked after the infant for a while. It was hard for John to be without a wife, but Catherine looked after the house for him when the bairns were young. We always kept up with Ileachs, we would sometimes travel to Glasgow with the soul puprose of getting together with them. A friend of mine was Jane McNiven, she was from Bowmore, and about ages with myself. She was married to John Leitch, a joiner from mainland Argyll . They lived in the east end of the city. It was awful built up, rows and rows of houses. Not like Islay at all, not even like Neilston, come to think of it. They had two bairns, John and Marion. Poor wee mites they were when Jane died in 1879. John needed someone to look after the bairns and the house. I knew him well enough, and although there was no romance I was happy to be his wife. We married in 1880, and I moved into the house at 358 Townmill Road, Glasgow. My marriage was short lived. John had an injury to his hip. Disease set into the joint and within 6 months he was dead. He hadn’t left me provided for. I had no income, and no way of looking after the bairns. I felt very alone in Glasgow then. Janet’s family in Islay decided that it was for the best if they returned to the island. Their aunts and uncles would look after them. Another two mouths to feed would not make a deal of differnce to them. Marion went to her Aunt Mary. She was married to Archibald Clark, the Post Master at Port Charlotte, and John went to his Uncle Duncan McNiven, farmer at Ballytarsin Farm. I went back to Neilston. I never married again. And as time went by folks seem to have forgotten that I ever had been married at all. I was just Leezie Keith to them all. Catherine faired little better better than me, I think. She had her daughter of course. But she also yearned for more. She decided to follow Alexander to Canada to try to make a life for herself there. It was 1895, Christina had married Hugh Carnduff, the year before. Alexander McMillan a native of Islay had emigrated to Canada, and was looking for a wife. When he met up with Catherine he asked her to marry him. They were married in a place called Collingwood in Ontario. She did not return to Scotland until Alexander died after the turn of the century. I knew little of this far off place, Canada, and even less of America. That is until Cowboys and Indians arrived in Glasgow. It was about 1891 or 92 and this troupe Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show came here. They quickly became familiar figures around the city, even before they had put on their performances. They were dancing and performing tricks, not a bit like the savages I thought. You see, one of my mother’s brothers, Malcom Campbell had had dealings with the Indians, He was only 19 when he left Islay. He stopped in a place called Rochester, New York for a year, before heading for Canada, and settled as a farmer at a place there. It was called Cheltenham. He cleared most of this farm himself. Indians used to come around and fortunately for him he made friends with them. They were not so friendly with everyone you know. They made him a cap which his family treasure. He lived in a log house and was a very Christian man. We heard he had died, round about the same time that our Mother died in 1894, she was a grand old age, having lived for eighty four years.
My brother John never remarried and I found myself looking after him and his family, not that much of a job, did I make of it. We lived at Number 84 Kelburn Street, in Barrhead. My nephew John died when he was such a young man. He was working as a coachman at West Arthurlie. It was not long after my mother had passed away. And not that long after that tragedy, my brother passed away as well. The other boys were ill disciplined. John had had a good business. He was a Carter and Potato Merchant and Danny and Dugald carried on with it. My niece Maggie had a good head on her shoulders and she needed it, as her brothers took drink to excess. Danny was so ill that we thought the only way he would survive was to get to a warmer climate. We shipped him and John off for recuperation, but it was too late Danny died in 1899. I had lost so many of my family in the latter years of the century. I looked forward to the new century bringing better times. Maggie married David Hay and moved to Rufflees Farm at the bottom of the town. I stayed with Nicol and Dugald in Kelburn Street. Nicol married Catherine McEwan in 1902, and they soon had three bairns. But that Dugald, he was a right one. I knew nothing about this until afterwards. Young Maggie Sharp, from the McKay family had Crossmill, had been sent away out the town, to work as a servant for a minister at Dumbarton. We knew the McKays, for often they would have folks from Islay working for them. What shame. She had a wean there, and wrote to our Maggie to tell her that Dugald was the father. He could only admit to being the father, and immediately went off to see Maggie to arrange the marriage. Her mother would not have her back in the town at that time. I wonder if it would have been different if the old Mrs McKay had still been alive. She was a fair woman, I think she would have looked after her grandaughter in her time of need. The marriage took place in Dumbarton, no freens or family to wish them well. Dugald got a wee a place in the Gorbals for him and his new family. Maggie was a good, strong young woman, and in the next few years, she had 3 more children. A boy, James, died when he was just an infant, but as the years went by, I got to know the others well. There was Jessie, the eldest, then John, and wee Leezie. I was pleased that the Dugald named the bairn after me. He had never known his mother, of course. Dugald took too much drink, and they didn’t have much money, but they got by. Maggie was a worker, not like her mother, who was a sickly soul. Then the war came. So many men volunteered, so many never returned. Dugald and some of my other nephews were amongst them. Dugald died in June of 1917 in the trenches in Belgium, I loved him like a son, and it broke my heart when he was killed. It was good that Nicol was still near me. He had been with me when Catherine died in 1914. She had come back to be with her family, when things didn't worked out as she had hoped in Canada. Nicol he had his own troubles, his wife died the year after Catherine, leaving him with the bairns. Maggie and Davie Hay took the youngest, James. They adopted him as there own and brought him up as a brother of their family. I did what I could, but was glad when Nicol married again just a wee while back. It wasn’t the same after that though. His new wife didn’t want anything to do with his family. Maggie and her bairns have just come back to Barrhead when her old father needed to be looked after. Not that he stood by her when she needed him. He had been a fine looking young man, Jimmy Sharp, I remember him well. He used to sing at the concerts in the town when he was younger. He always had an eye for the ladies. After his wife died they say he was very friendly with that Mrs Beasley, who lived up beside him. Wee Leezie has been often to see me in the past while. She comes with Phamie Graham. Phamie is from Islay and worked at Crossmill, before old John McKay lost the place a couple of years ago. She goes about Maggie’s as well a coming about me. There’s not so many now that have the Gaelic, so it’s good to talk with her. But when the bairn is with her we talk in English. It’s not right that the bairn would not know what we were saying. She’s a lovely wee lassie. She tells me about her Granpa. He just sits at the fire side, and he tells her stories about what he sees in the flames. I hope he is not filling her head with nonsense. I just sit by the fire too a lot of the time. I have outlived all my brothers and sisters. Mary died suddenly a while back but she lived to be seventy three, and Christina not so long ago. She had a bad heart but reached 66 before it took her from her family. Being over eighty is a grand age. I am as old as my mother was when she died and I doubt I will see another year. When my time comes I will be ready to go.
Elizabeth Keith died on 4 April 1924 in Barrhead.
Here are some websites which you may help or be of interest:
Rootsweb Islay Mailing List (http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/intl/SCT/SCT-ISLAY.html)
Margaret Jane McKay (nee Carswell) biography (http://freepages.family.rootsweb.com/~renfrewshire/mjcbiog.html)
UK Census Online (http://www.freecen.org.uk/)