the so-called puffers, coal-fired steamships, though modern for the time. I will tell you more about these ships later.
Bowmore harbour was the stomping ground for us kids, one of the best adventure playgrounds you could imagine. Of course, it was strictly forbidden to play there. “Don’t go to the harbour! If I see you on the raft, I’ll spank you and you’ll go straight to bed!” – was my mother’s clear message, but then, that was precisely the attraction. How I loved watching all the boats sail out in the mornings, after which they’d cast their nets and return with a rich catch. Every now and then a fisherman would take me out and let me help him with his work. To go out to sea, steering my way through the waters, was total freedom. For a small boy, the sea had no end, and how I wanted to sail out into the world, travel to foreign countries, and get to know of other, far-off cultures. With the sea as a gateway to the world, the fascination was there even then. As young pirates, we fought sea monsters, sailed the seven seas and captured many a well-laden frigate. Every day there was a new story to be experienced. You’d scarcely believe how many small fortresses, prisons, treasure chambers and dungeons are to be found in a small harbour, countless corners that captivated wee boys looking for adventure. Each of us knew where we could and could not go, but the forbidden areas were the most exciting. We were always looking towards the shore, where our parents might be standing, for you desperately wanted to avoid being caught exploring these banned zones. What you didn’t count on, however, was a state of affairs that rarely exists today: you didn’t just have one mother on the island, but several. “Jim McEwan! You know very well that you’re not allowed to do that – surely your mother told you that!” This exact sentence echoed through Bowmore, clearly and unmistakably from a wide variety of voices. Even though I didn’t like it at the time, it gave me a feeling of familiar security, knowing there was always someone looking out for you. On Islay it was the manifestation of a responsibility for others, back in a time before mobile phones. More than once, my mother pulled me off the raft, dragged me up Main Street by my ears, before giving me a slap or three and I was sent to bed without supper. However, when that happened, my ever-faithful ally was my beloved grandmother Kate. She would always tell my mother, “Let him be, he’s only a boy and he just wants to play like a boy. Come here son, here’s your supper.” Granny Kate understood me so well – though, of course, my mother understood too, but she was more concerned for my well-being.
Unfortunately, I never got to meet my grandfather. Though I’m sure he could have taught me a lot, I can only repeat what everyone who knew him said: John McEwan was a kind and gracious man, having lived a spectacular life. Like almost all male Ileachs, he went to sea, having hired out as a horse whisperer on a ship taking horses to Cuba. As a result, he was nicknamed ‘Cuba’. He always travelled below decks with the animals, calming them down whenever the seas became rough. On their passage, the horses undoubtedly learned Gaelic, for my grandfather spoke the language fluently. On his return to Islay, he found work as a maltman, a barley turner, in Bowmore distillery, and like almost all men of those days, he smoked a pipe. When I look at old photos of him, he was always to be seen with a pipe in his mouth. I loved that familiar smell of tobacco, but smoking eventually took its toll, and he died much too young from cancer of the throat. I missed my grandfather John very much, even though I never got to meet him.
The harbour was also a welcome place in which to swim in the summer, though sometimes we were to be found swimming as early as Easter. We even loved to go into the sea when it was raining. Now you probably think I’m exaggerating, for after all, we’re talking about the west coast of Scotland, a stone’s throw from the oft-times stormy Atlantic. But we’re also talking about Islay and the distillery, a place not entirely unknown for the amount of heat generated during the distilling process. And when the heat has done its job, it has to be dissipated, and the stills have also to be rinsed with hot water. All this hot water was discharged into the sea, as, apart from a few mash residues, there were no pollutants involved. We knew, of course, at which point from the distillery wall the pipe with the warm water flowed into Loch Indaal. We therefore had our very own, always warm, swimming pool, a heated outdoor pool that was always open and, above all, could be visited for free from Easter onwards. Islay could be like an island in the South Seas. The more I think about it, the more I realise just how good my childhood on Islay was. How many of you reading can claim to have such an enjoyable and free facility on your doorstep all year round?
But life is not only about play and leisure. The serious side of life was every bit as much a part of it. In my case, that meant having to go to school. As the crow flies Bowmore village school was only a few metres away from our house, but I’d be lying if I said I liked going to school. However, I had two wonderful school friends in Eddie MacAffer and Angus ‘Innis’ McKechnie, the three of us getting up to as much nonsense at school as we probably did anywhere else.
Much later, Eddie became manager at Bowmore Distillery and Angus was my best man, but together we had an incredible amount of fun. I remember having to tend and harvest the school garden, probably the most boring thing to do at school, but it at least offered the bonus of getting us out of the classroom. Back then, gardening didn’t interest me at all, but our headmaster, Mr Crawford, was a keen gardener. He really cared about the school garden and ensuring our responsible use of it, hoping to educate us to be great garden lovers. Harvest time showed how conscientiously you had worked over the year, a time that only served to show how little Angus and I cared for our carrots. When time came to harvest the season’s crop, we invested a few pence in a fresh bunch of carrots from the grocery shop and smuggled them into school, carefully ‘planting’ them in advance, only to re-harvest them in front of Mr Crawford. He was visibly thrilled and we were highly praised for our achievements, never having seen such magnificent carrots in the school garden.
“Jim McEwan is a true Ileach! And I am very proud of what he has achieved in his life. I love to see the boys of Islay do great things and he has truly achieved extraordinary things. I’m delighted to be able to call him a true friend.”
Eddie MacAffer
Master Distiller, Bowmore Distillery
But school days were not all plain sailing. Though I can’t remember exactly what, we had once done something wrong and were punished by having to clean out Mr Crawford’s chicken coop. This was hardly a favourite chore, but one that had to be done nonetheless. Mr Crawford led us to the chicken coop, with the birds still inside. However, after the headmaster had left, we decided to otherwise occupy ourselves, emptying the small metal water pot, using it as a drum kit, while wailing at the top of our voices. This startled the chickens, all of which flew around in a wild panic, colliding with each other in the air, feathers flying everywhere and the panic-stricken birds screaming in terror. In a panic of our own, we ran away. Though Mr Crawford never said a word about the matter and never punished us in that manner again, those chickens probably never laid another egg in their lives.
But we didn’t just have a great headmaster who loved the garden; we also had a wonderful teacher. She had us Islay boys well in hand, and most importantly, she had something that other women didn’t. Our Mrs McArthur had a television! Wow! Brand-new technology that few could afford in those days, there were very few televisions in Bowmore, but we knew there was one in our teacher’s sitting room. This was easy to discover; you needed an aerial to receive television, aerials that were so big that they could be clearly seen from a distance. I’m sure even NASA didn’t have aerials that large, but these giant masts, more like the posts on a rugby pitch, were necessary to pick up the TV signals from Ireland. However, we’re hardly talking about ultra-high definition quality here, but a rather mediocre black-and-white picture. Once a week there was a children’s programme on TV, called ‘The Lone Ranger’, a western series starring Clayton Moore. He was our hero, the cowboy who stood for good and put many a bandit to flight. It’s hard to imagine, that once a week there was such an exciting programme for us little Ileachs, yet none of us could actually watch it. Mrs McArthur, however, had a big heart, knowing well
