Stornoway - 19/08/04

Decide on today's course of action after breakfast. I have a choice of joining the Citylink bus to Glasgow or the Calmac ferry across to Tarbert, Harris. I opt for the ferry. Having bought a ticket, I now have to wait for the minibus to take me to the ferry. It is very windy today, blowing a gale. When on the actual quayside, the wind gets hold of the gangway, which nearly sweeps everybody off their feet and into the wall of the waiting room. Departure time 9.20, and it's very lively in the Minch. Visibility poor, but I nonetheless spend the duration of the journey out on deck. Dock at Tarbert at 11 o'clock. Bus leaves for Stornoway at 11.30, depositing me there an hour later. I'm first going into the TIC for a bed. A lot of trouble later, I'm finally directed towards a B&B in Newton Street, on the seafront. At the TIC I also enquired about what's on: it appears a play called Metagama will be staged tonight, so I buy a ticket. After dinner in the Crown Hotel, I proceed up the road from my B&B to Seaforth Road and the studios there. Metagama is the name of an emigrant ship that left Lewis in 1923 for Canada, taking scores of young men and women with it who were looking for a new life in the West. Following the Great War (1914-18), prospects in the Western Isles were definitely bleak. The Canadian Government advertised for work, and hundreds applied. Return to B&B at 10.30.