Shiskine SWI held its first meeting of the winter session on Wednesday September 6, with president Evelyn Hamilton welcoming a good turnout of ladies to hear a talk on the Kilpatrick clachans given by Angela Cassels.
The period Angela talked about coincided more or less with that which saw the clearances of families off the land on the other side of Arran which is commemorated by the memorial in Lamlash.
While the west coast of Arran did not endure the same level of clearing it did see a reduction in the number of families making their living from the land as the land factors attempted to squeeze ever more profit for their masters, the landowners.
Over time land that had supported 12 and more families became farmed by only a handful of people. One truly interesting thing was that some of the names of those farmers, Bannatyne, McKelvie, MacAlister and Murchie, are still very familiar to us today.
The competition this month was strawberry jam and the winner was Elma Judge with Jenni Turnbull the runner-up.
The exhibition was of buried (found) treasures. The winner was Kate MacIntosh with an ink bottle and runner up Fiona Scott with a little horseshoe.
Also presented at the meeting was the Ferguson Trophy which goes to the member gaining the most points during the previous winter session combined with points won at the annual show in August. This was won by Evelyn Hamilton.