4 Coigach Poems by Alistair Taylor of Torphins, Aberdeenshire
Alistair Taylor with Kevin Macleod, Eileen Macleod & friend, atop Meal An Fheadain, circa 1964
Alsistair Taylor taught English alongside my father Roddie Macleod in the Morgan Academy in Dundee in the 1950s. He had a deep understanding and passion for Scots language, music, history, poetry, literature and art, and imbued that passion into my father and myself. I would not have heard the wide range of traditional music in the early 1970s without his impetus and drive, nor would I have read so deeply about our own culture. He was a wonderful man, and dear friend to us all.
He presented us with these 4 poems that he had composed for us on our wedding day in 1989, and they reflected his deep love of his times in ‘Springwell” in Polbain, my father’s Macleod family crofthouse there.
It occcured to me recently, after an inspiring visit to the amazing Seamus Heaney HomePlace | Co. Derry | Northern Ireland that, after the long years since then, they ought to be seen and heard, and I have had fun giving them and will slowly produce some animated videos to match his lovely sentiments.
‘ON THE SUMMIT OF MEALL AN FHEADAIN’
‘ON THE SUMMIT OF MEALL AN FHEADAIN’
Here the first line of defence
‘Gainst swastika hordes from the West;
Here with a loyalty intense
Stood Johnny and Hugh and the rest.
Some sing of the Maginot line,
Or Monte Cassino's proud crest;
Here a less obvious design,
Just Johnny and Hugh and the rest.
In days of helmet and horn
MacLeods hauled their ships up with zest,
Fearing none of womankind born
Save Johnny and Hugh and the rest.
Each had a torch and a rifle,
A pull-through, one of the best;
Even Mina herself wouldn't trifle
With Johnny, not Hugh, but the rest.
A gas-mask that had to be shared,
A radio that played on request;
The Wehrmacht just can't be compared
With Johnny and Hugh and the rest....
...Who'd probably still be up here
With duty and loyalty obsessed,
Had Aggie not sounded, “All Clear!
Now, stand you all down with the rest!”.......
... for the Polbain Detachment of the Home Guard, 1939
‘SPRINGWELL
‘Springwell’ 204 Polbain. Coigach. summer 2024
‘SPRINGWELL’
The wind is keen up here
On the brow of the Blar:
It hurtles ley-line straight and true
From Tiumpan Head
To Tanera Mhor,
(Rupturing Murdo's peat-stack
As it breasts the brae),
Then over Coigach of the bens
And long-miles-long to the flat lands of the East.
The bible years roll back;
Shimmering clear the air:
I see you by the green-mossed well,
Eachuinn Beag, soldier
From the wars returned,
(leaving Flanders’ bloody hillocks
Each one numbered, with no name),
With the sun of home upon you
And ageless promise of the high bens in your heart.
The well-spring of the years
Continues crystal-clear:
I see you by the dry-stone dyke,
Kevin, blood of Hector,
Part of all your past,
(Reforging links of sure-fast faith
in music, song and tale),
With the open years before you -
And a double bow of hope arches Badentarbat Bay.
Mary Maclean and Hector Macleod. Mary was Hector’s neice, daughter of his eler sister Mary Macleod. Circa 1919
‘TANERA MOR’
The Summer Isles, Gul na Beinge at far left
‘TANERA MOR’
Sitting on Gul na Beinge
in vibrant sun,
Shimmering sea smooching
The base of the cliff,
I heard a red-throated diver
Ululating - ating - ating,
A primal, ice-blown cry
That tore the heart and blanched the sun,
And shrivelled Darling's fruit trees
in the bud.
‘OLD DORNIE HARBOUR’
‘OLD DORNIE HARBOUR’
The ‘Bossom Mhor’ at Old Dornie Harbour, 1950’s
“Give her the gun, boy!”
Shouts Johnny Aly
As the car buckets along
The Dornie road.
And for one tingling moment,
One blubber-freezing split of a moment
We're McMurdo bound
On the path of the whale.
The buzzards mew with derision
At the antics of the whaler.
The heron rises judicially,
Carks in annoyance
And pulsates across to Ristol.
We pause at every shattered rib-cage.
Johnny's face softens with memory,
And the ritual begins:
Each stoved-in spar is given
A name,
A character-assessment,
A blessing - or a curse,
And the bard's boat-poem
Old Dornie harbour, Coigach, 2000’s sometime
is savoured with respect and accord.
For one time-warped moment
Our eyes are lashed with spume
Of years long gone;
The rolling timbers top the waves;
Bowsprits dip in lunging force -
And an old man is young again.
Johnny Ali Mackenzie of 203 Polbain, with cas crom, circa 1955
The heron' sail-planes back,
Settles,
And resumes his frozen stance.
We're silent on the homeward way.
The road seems straight and true
And dully flat.
We've touched the elemental
And feel small....
“Obair-dheathain is a very cold place!”
Says Johnny, a laugh in his voice,
And Roddy puts his foot to the floor.
Old boat at Badenscallie, Coigach, 2000’s sometime, by Will Maclean, the lifeboat washed up during WW2 on the Summer Isles.