The St Kilda post – part 3

In last month’s edition of Am Pàipear, I mentioned the Fleetwood fishing port’s role in the St Kilda postal service and how, in the early days of re-occupation of St Kilda, the Ministry of Defence made an official contract with the Boston Deep Sea Fishing and Ice Co. Ltd, based in Fleetwood, to carry mail to and from St Kilda on their journey to the northern fishing grounds.

Here we have an example of an item of mail addressed to St Kilda via PO Box 99, Fleetwood, Lancashire. This particular letter is postmarked Saltcoats, Ayrshire 18 March 1959 and it would appear that the addressee had relocated to Benbecula by the time the letter was delivered to St Kilda by trawler. The letter was therefore redirected to the Royal Artillery Guided Weapons Range, Benbecula; it would have undergone a return journey by Landing Craft and then passed through Nunton Post Office where the St Kilda postmark was applied on 13 April 1959. An interesting journey that took one month for a letter to finally reach its destination.

The Fleetwood connection was not new to St Kilda. Back in the 1920s and up to the time of the evacuation of St Kilda in 1930, the mail service, particularly in the winter months, was an issue for the GPO and the St Kilda residents. Over that period, following recovery from the First World War, Fleetwood trawlers were regular callers at St Kilda on their journeys to and from the Icelandic fishing grounds.

Mary Cameron, daughter of St Kilda missionary Donald Cameron, writing in her account of Childhood Days on St Kilda, refers to, on one occasion, counting no fewer that forty-seven trawlers sheltering in Village Bay. One particular Fleetwood fisherman, Tommy Sandham, Skipper of the trawler Erna (FD 158) took a particular personal interest in the welfare of the St Kildans and became the main carrier of mail between the island and the mainland.

An example of 1920s St Kilda mail dispatched on the Erna is this letter from missionary Donald Cameron to Duncan Cameron, editor of the Oban Times, dated 27th August 1923 and postmarked Fleetwood on 11th September 1923.

This all leads to opening up other pieces of local history.

Missionary Donald Cameron was a native of Ballachulish where his father, also Donald, was a slate quarrier.

When engaged as a lay missionary in the Faith Mission in North Uist, he met school teacher Mary Flora MacCorquodale of Carinish, daughter of Peter MacCorquodale and his wife Mary, née MacDougall. Donald and Mary Flora were married in Clachan Church on 26th September 1912 before making their home in Stornoway, where Donald was Missionary Assistant to Rev. Roderick Morison of the United Free High Church in the town. Their first daughter, Mary, was born in Stornoway on 16th July 1913.

Donald and his family then moved to the Mission Station at Callanish where second daughter Christina was born on 5th October 1914.

The move to St Kilda came after the First World War: the family stayed on St Kilda for seven years between 1919 and 1926. The term of office for the St Kilda Mission was generally three years but Donald was given permission to serve two terms and he would gladly have stayed longer.

From St Kilda, the family moved to Glenelg, where Donald was ordained to the ministry, then to Easdale and Lochaline where the family was reunited with many of the St Kildan families who had been evacuated to the mainland in 1930.

Their last move was to Shawbost in Lewis from where Rev. Donald Cameron retired to Kyle of Lochalsh where he passed away in 1950; his widow Mary Flora passed away the following year.

Next month I will round off the year with a “Snapshot” of other ways and means of conveying mail to and from St Kilda.