'Powerful' pictures revealing life of island women over past 100 years emerge for first time

Now, the images held by the An Iodhlann historical centre on Tiree are to be shared with the public for the first time.

The photographs will be screened at the island’s Sea Change film festival, Scotland’s only annual celebration of women and film, later this month with their associated tales lifted from the archives where they have often sat for decades.

Hard work and heartache are captured in the images, including one of a minister’s daughter who left her husband in the early 1900s to return to island life for the rest of her days.

Then, there is the sad and steel-like stare of a woman holding a pet monkey on her lap - a gift from her sailor husband in the years that followed the death of their son from TB.

There is joy, too, among the collection including a fabulous imag of the much-loved Mary Munn, the former superintendent of Tiree aerodrome who helped to guide planes onto the sands from the 1940s, sometimes with the help of a handkerchief blowing in the wind.

Then, there are the woman of RAF Tiree theatre group who entertained their male colleagues around 1945 dressed in outfits which must have been considered quite daring for the day.

Dr John Holliday, the island’s former GP and founder of An Iodhlann, said the images held a sense of “rarity” given women were lesser found in the centre’s archives.

He said: “There is something very powerful about these photographs. These are not ‘Kodak moment’ Hollywood-style shots. They feel serious, they have an un-selfconsciousness about them.

“Men outnumber women in the photographs we have. Men tended to take photographs of men who were doing something they found interesting - such as working with a horse or a fishing line. Perhaps they found women doing things that were considered more mundane.

“There is a rarity value in these photographs of women.”

Most of the photographs to go on show date from the 1920s to the 1950s but earlier images do feature, including the image of Catherine MacKenzie, nee MacFarlane, who is pictured around 1885 looking out to sea from the shoreline.

She later married but left her husband in 1905 to return to the manse where she was born - and where she lived until she died.

More modern takes on island life will also make it to the big screen, including a 1984 shot of waitress Jeanette Straker and proprieter Mabel MacArthur at the bar of The Glassary restaurant, Sandaig. As Ms MacArthur receives a tray of large drinks, the old-style Haigs Whisky ice bucket sits on the end of the bar.

Dr Holliday said all the photographs had been gifted to the centre by Tiree families.

He said: “Families want their story to be properly recorded and to survive and to be more widely shared . We have just tried to look after other people’s family memories for the benefit of the community.”

Dr Holliday said the island now wanted to get a series of portraits taken of Tiree women.

He added: “There are lots of women doing extraordinary things on Tiree and we would like to create a modern day record with the same sort of power the archive collection has shown us.”

Sea Change 2024 will be held on Tiree from September 20 to 24. A full programme can be seen at www.screenargyll.co.uk