Many years ago I was put in touch with Archie MacDougall, the last of The Seven Men of Knoydart. Although the project I was interviewing him for eventually failed to fly I was glad that I had got a chance to talk to this fine and interesting man. Like many of my contemporaries I knew of the Seven Men of Knoydart from Hamish Imlach’s version of Hamish Henderson’s song of the same name. It was fascinating to say the least to finally meet one of these men and hear the story first hand. Knoydart estate was owned by the Nazi sympathiser, Lord Brocket, an English Aristocrat. In 1939 Brocket was the personal guest of Adolph Hitler at the Nazi leaders fiftieth birthday bash. During the war years Brockets Estate and house were requisitioned by the military for use in Commando training. After 1945, when they got their house back Lady Brocket had all the crockery and cutlery removed from the house and thrown into the sea. All the toilets were ripped out and similarly disposed of. Then they sacked the staff and replaced them with a team of gamekeepers whose job was to keep people off the land. In November 1948, seven men staked out 65 acres of arable land each and 10,000 acres of hill land and prepared to live off it. They claimed entitlement under the Land Settlement Act, which allowed returning ex servicemen to take over underused land and farm it. Knoydart fitted the bill. It had an absentee landlord who only used the huge estate for a spot of hunting, fishing and shooting for him and his pals. The legal advice the Seven Men were given was that they would win their case but it would go better for them if they first of all left the land they had claimed. Regrettably they took this advice. Then Brocket’s army of lawyers and lobbyists moved in, The Labour Government rolled over and Brocket won. But it was the start of the fight for crofters rights and for communities to own the land they lived and worked on. Archie MacDougall, died in 1999. I’ve been thinking of Archie and the Seven Men of Knoydart rather a lot this week while following the despicable attack in the Daily Mail on Ralph Milliband who seems to me to have been a rather decent man. In sharp contrast to the owners of The Daily Mail and it’s “ Coward and Bully” of an editor, Paul Dacre. Now this creature appears to own an estate near Ullapool of which he is the largely Absentee Landlord. And I am thinking that it’s probably high time we had another great Highland Land Grab. dickgaughan.co.uk/songs/texts/knoydart.html
Posted on: Wed, 02 Oct 2013 10:43:56 +0000
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