"...me, a Tiristeach, coming to Coll with my new husband, a Muileach, both of us for the first time. Jimmy had got a job as Gamekeeper on the Estate; I was to work at Acha. Our home to be the Garden House. It was wartime. Jimmy had been invalided out of the Army. We had met when I was working in the canteen at the Lochaline silica mine. He was in the Royal Observer Corps. It was love at first sight.

After our wedding on the mainland and honeymoon on the Isle of Bute we sailed to Tiree first to see my Mother. The Tiree folks advised us not to come to Coll: 'the house you are going to has no road to it!' They were shocked.

It took us a week to reach Coll owing to bad weather. The Coll ferryboat was badly damaged on the first abortive attempt to get alongside the mailboat. The Captain, John MacKinnon, thought the Coll ferryman was being a coward and cursed his lack of effort to set out to meet the mailboat on subsequent attempts. The week was spent doing the triangle of Tiree, Mull and hopefully, Coll. The Collachs, not having had a boat for a week, were all down in force at 6.00am when the ferryboat finally made it. I was amazed at the number of people standing on the jetty watching us come up the stone steps. Was it for me? Everyone was eyeing me up and down. "She'll not last long," I heard someone say. Others thought 'he' would.

A horse and cart took us to the Garden House. The horse was called Jock. I'll never forget that horse."

Katina MacDonald