Rare footage of life in the Outer Hebrides that rewrites the archives - from crofting to island schools

More than 20 hours of authentic film footage of life in the Outer Hebrides since the 1970s has emerged.

The reels have been collected over the past decade after call was made to islanders to share their family archives to project a true sense of island life.

Andy Mackinnon, of UistFilm, started searching for film records after a trawl of island footage held by the National Library of Scotland (NLS) led to disappointing results.

He said: “Back in 2014 I was making a film about a North Uist doctor and we were researching archive film in NLS and I realised that none of the film about the Outer Hebrides was from anything like an islander’s perspective.”

Much of the available film was “propaganda” for the Highlands and Islands Development board or films shot by those arriving on the islands to record locals, their working lives and customs.

More than 20 hours of footage from the Outer Hebrides has emerged after filmmaker Andy Mackinnon called for islanders to share their family archives. PIC: UistFilm. | UistFilm

Mr Mackinnon said: “I was kind of incensed that there was no footage from an islander’s perspective in the National Library of Scotland and I felt that it was important that this was redressed.

“The stuff that was at NLS was very much from an outsider’s perspective. It left huge potential for romanticisation or, at best, ill- informed portrayals of island life.”

Now, 12 separate collections hold around 20 hours of film from, chiefly speaking, the 1970 onwards, although some footage from the 1930s can also be viewed.

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As the 8mm film plays on, a genuine portrayal of island life - from crofting to island schools, children at play and people’s place within the landscape - takes over the screen.

Mr Mackinnon said: “We pro-actively went out to find more archive film. I was sure that other people must have had some footage and that proved to be correct.”

Kids at Lochmaddy in North Uist in the early 1980s. PIC: UistFilm. | Kids at Lochmaddy in North Uist in the early 1980s. PIC: UistFilm.

A major element of the collection is the archive of school teacher Annie Macdonald of North Uist.

Mr Mackinnon said: “She very keen photographer, naturalist and Gaelic educator. She just left us a wealth of footage from the mid 1970s to the early 1980s.

“She was a teacher and she did a lot of work with school trips, field trips to the moor and the shore, croft work. She really was documenting her life and surroundings at that time.”

Building the archive also led to the discovery of film of the island wedding of Gloria MacKillop, 91 and her late husband, Splash, who wed on Berneray in 1968.

Thatching a roof. The working lives of islanders and their skills are well documented in the new archive. PIC: UistFilm. | UistFilm

The box of reels was pulled from her attic, with the footage, now digitised, forming a central part of Mr Mackinnon’s film Dùthchas (Home). The film premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and toured the Highlands and Islands on the Screen Machine mobile cinema.

A screening was also organised for Mrs MacKillop’s home town in New South Wales, which her family travelled across hundreds of miles to attend.

Professor Sarah Neely, and expert in film and memory at Glasgow University, said: “One of the things that you see in the collection is not just the fact that the people are filming places that they’re familiar with, but also that they’re familiar with the people that they're filming. The subjects themselves are really relaxed in front of the camera and that’s very rare to see, I think.”

Battle of the beasts at a cattle sale. PIC: UistFilm | UistFilm

Mr Mackinnon said he was working to get the archive fully accessible to the public, with hopes to launch a new website to host the footage next year.

The story of the archive is being told in Faodail, of Found Film, which will screen on BBC Alba on Hogmanay. It can be watched now on iPlayer.