An island tragedy — over 20 years on
When I was 23, and at a relatively low-ebb after leaving an awful job, my then-partner and I gathered all that we owned and moved to the small Hebridean island of Iona. Her grandfather was born there, and her mother was a well-known and well-liked face to locals of a certain vintage. It was certainly a gamble, with no guaranteed employment or stable finances. But, we figured that being the reasonably resourceful people we were, we’d get by.
It’s often said that Iona is like nowhere else in Scotland, and it’s hard to argue with that. Apart from its scenic beauty it is both nationally and internationally famous as one of the birth-places of Christianity in Scotland, when St Columba came over from Ireland in 563 AD. Pilgrims flock to it from all over the world, and have done so for many years. It attracts an incredibly eclectic cross-section of visitors, and every local will tell you an improbable story of something or someone they’ve seen or heard. Despite this, we had been keen to move there for some time. So, when a house belonging to one of my partner’s relatives became available she was offered it, and we jumped at the opportunity.
Leaving aside the transient summer work-force, there were (and are), in effect, two permanent communities on the island. One is the ‘Iona Community’, an ecclesiastical (i.e. Christian) organisation centred around the restored mediæval abbey. The other is the actual community: that is, the indigenous folk whose families have worked the land and sea since time immemorial. My partner’s family belonged, tangentially, to the latter.
All told I spent four years on the island, in all seasons. I have a catalogue of very happy memories from living there, and I remain friends with some of the local folk. One event, though, overshadows everything else and always will.
At approximately 3.30pm on the 13th of December 1998 I received a knock on the door of the cottage I lived in. When I opened it there stood the familiar and redoubtable figure of Logie McFadyen. Logie was unusual in that he was a young man who had opted to live on Iona full-time, rather than leave for work on the mainland. Some of his contemporaries — through necessity — left the island to find employment, having no land to manage. Logie worked the fields that he and his mother ran as a croft, as well as dabbling in other modest ventures.
Logie and I had come to be good friends. I moved to the island in late 1996, and had set up as a self-employed electrician. When there was a decent-sized job on the books I used to employ him to assist with some of the cable-pulling or heavy lifting. He enjoyed and was receptive to this sort of work, and — I suppose — to me. It wasn’t often back in the mid ’90s that people with a trade moved to Iona. He, I think, liked this. Although, to be honest, you’d never know. Overt praise and warmth didn’t flow naturally from Logie. He was a complicated person, and in many ways the classic islander: hard-working, practical, intelligent, wedded to place, private, aloof — until you got to know him. He’d be the first to call you wanker for something you’d done, but also the first to give you the only £10 in his wallet if you needed it. Well do I remember sitting on the rocks at the Pennyghael Hotel on a bright summer day, eating our lunch after a hard morning’s work, with him laughing as only he could. ‘F*ck’s sake, mother.. hu hu hu!’ he said, at the number of sandwiches his mum had made him for lunch.
‘A few of us are going over to Mull tonight in the dinghy for a couple drinks if you fancy it,’ he said after I opened the door on that afternoon of the 13th December. After explaining that I was unable to go (for reasons that I cannot now remember) I chatted to him for five minutes or so about a job on Mull that I needed some help with the following week, and that I’d give him a call about it. I went to bed as usual that evening.
About seven o’clock the next morning my sleep was disturbed. It was still dark outside, but I could hear the buzz of what sounded like a helicopter coming and going. I thought little of it at first, as helicopters weren’t a rarity in those parts. But, for the next 10 minutes the sound didn’t go away. In fact, it got louder. As I moved to get out of bed to investigate by looking through the window, I heard our front door open (doors were seldom locked back then) and a voice call out our names. (For a door to be opened at 7.20am, without first being knocked, could only be bad news. We didn’t know at that point just how bad the news was.) The voice then shouted:
‘There’s been a terrible accident. Ally and a few of the boys’ boat sank last night. They’re still looking for them.’
Our hearts sank as we leapt out of bed. The ‘Ally’ being referred to was Ally Dougall. He was my partner’s 2nd cousin, and a regular visitor to our home. He was only 19. I knew immediately, too, that this was the dinghy Logie was in, and the one I’d been invited to travel in. Grimmer news is hard to imagine, but, unfortunately, grimmer it got.
We got dressed and dashed out to the top of the pier, beside where the-then fire station was (it’s now the National Trust’s visitor centre). When we got there many of the island’s resident winter population of 85 appeared to be present. I recall it as though it were yesterday, and it’s hard to envisage a more sombre or grave sight. The desperation on the ashen-coloured faces assembled was hard to look at. Nobody said anything. Only nods were exchanged. But it was only then that the true gravity and magnitude of the situation emerged to us.
As described by Logie the previous afternoon, some of the boys (five in total) had indeed gone in a small dinghy over the Sound of Iona to Mull for a few beers. They didn’t stay late, or have many drinks, as some of them were working the next day. On the way back, just a few hundred metres off the shore, and minutes after pushing off, a large wave swamped the boat and capsized it. In the darkness, all of them had been tossed into the cold December water. Only one of them, Gordon ‘Pal’ Grant, had a survival suit on. The currents of the Sound could be fierce, and at this time of the year it was the worst possible place to be.
Of the dinghy’s five occupants, it was reported to those of us who’d assembled at the fire station that Logie, Ally and Davie Kirkpatrick (another local, and a fisherman to-boot) were missing. Pal Grant had managed to get ashore onto some rocks, south of Fionnphort, and stumbled along the shoreline to raise the alarm late at night. The last of the five, Bob Hay, had seemingly made it on to the rocks as well. The news filtered through, though, that Bob had drowned and was dead when he was found. It was a gut-churning piece of news. Everyone looked shell-shocked.
With folk now feeling that they wanted to do something, a plan was hatched for every available person to scour the shoreline on Iona to see if the boys had managed to swim or paddle there. After all, despite the current being strong, the Sound wasn’t desperately wide.
I found myself walking a piece of coast close to my house, as our garden bordered the shore. I was with Ian Dougall, Ally’s father. I was completely lost for what to say to him. Here I was, walking with a man who was looking for his 19-year-old son, knowing that if he found him the likelihood was that he’d be dead. It was horrendous. I said to Ian, trying pathetically to say something positive, that perhaps Ally had managed to haul himself on to some rocks and was, exhaustedly, awaiting discovery. The four words he replied with, through a cracking and desperate voice, were ‘That’s the only hope.’ As long as I live I will never forget the way in which those four words were delivered. It’s one of the few times in my life where I’ve felt a literal chill run down my spine.
Despite everyone’s best endeavours, we didn’t find anything that day, nor the next 20-odd days. For every one of them we reported in the morning to the fire station, where local worthy Gordon MacCormick would direct what sections of shore to walk. Once we had done our beat we’d come home, get some food, then go back out again. The tracts we walked were rough and sometimes quite inaccessible. Though Iona is small, its shoreline is indented and difficult to traverse. In addition, the winter weather was often appalling. But, nobody quibbled and nobody shirked.
Although we scoured the coastline as best as we were able, and — of course — tried our hardest, part of me dreaded coming across any bodies. I’m easily spooked and badly affected by grizzly sites. Seeing someone you know’s body after it had been in the water for a couple of weeks was something that I suspect I’d have struggled to cope with. But, that didn’t stop us from doing what we were doing. We had to.
In the event it was some three weeks later, after Bob Hay had been buried in the ancient, Shakespearian-referenced cemetery of the Reilig Odhran, all three bodies resurfaced and were found. They were on the Mull side of the Sound, and fairly close to where the boat had capsized. Though their discovery was of immense sadness, it did at least provide an element of relief. Grieving without bodies to bury is, or so I’ve read, doubly hard to come to terms with, as there’s always that little hope, no matter how remote. It’s the hope that precludes the full closure and acceptance.
Certain things make me think of that terrible morning of 14th December. As a keen hillwalker I often encounter helicopters on my travels. Whenever I see the coastguard or air ambulance buzzing above I automatically think of the Iona boys, and inwardly pray that the incident the rescue services are attending isn’t a fatality. Also, every time I spy a wooden dinghy, even if it’s in a boating pond, my mind is cast back. It always takes me by surprise.
Inevitably, I’ve often thought about what would have happened if I’d accepted Logie’s invite and gone along that evening. If I’d been on that boat would my fate have been the same as Bob, Davie, Ally and Logie’s? I don’t know. The different dynamic would have altered the evening’s timings, but would’ve made the dinghy heavier. Who can say. I try not to think about it too much.
Though over 20 years have passed, the event still casts a long shadow on Iona. How could it not? The loss of four young men in their prime was a tragedy greater than such a small community could reasonably be expected to bear. For my part, I still think of Logie when I see a beaten-up, blue Land Rover Defender. Mostly, though, I think about what the island would look and feel like today had all the boys come home safely that evening.
Many versions of this incident have been written by far more eloquent writers than I. Generally, though, they’ve been from the perspective of someone who’s come to the island to do a commission either for a newspaper or a magazine. Accounts from people who lived on the island at the time are less common, so perhaps now that almost a generation has passed it is time to add just one more.
