Deaths:

Donald MacDonald - 16th. July 1991: 82 yrs.
Indie Kennedy - 21st. October 1991: 64 yrs
Jim MacFadyen - 27th. December 1991: 78 yrs

It is with great sadness we have to record the deaths of three Collachs over the past year; Donald MacDonald. Lonban. Indie Kennedy. Friesland and Jim MacFadyen. Ballard.

All three belonged to Coll families that went back for generations. With their passing goes a precious link with the past; a past that is all too speedily disappearing. We have been privileged to know them and must keep their stories, and others gone before, to mind.

Donald MacDonald will always be remembered as Donald Lonban. There he grew up in a large extended family, staying on when other members of the family moved away to other parts of Coll or the mainland. Latterly, he worked hard; singlehanded farming and housekeeping for his elderly uncles, George, Hughie and Alan. Their sister, Jeannie, married at Bousd, kept an eye on things and a 'scone run' to the bachelors in the West End once a week become a ritual. Sometimes, Donald met the scones half way in the village and it would be a late tea at Lonban that night.

Donald belonged to a generation that knew horses better than tractors but he mastered the skill of driving the Lonban tractor in his own idiosyncratic way when the modern times came.

The onset of arthritis in the' 60s and ' 70s slowly crippled Donald. Undaunted, his famous stick was employed to press the clutch whilst the least affected leg controlled the brake.

With the death of his last uncle, Hughie, and worsening mobility. Donald gave up Lonban, sadly, and moved to the mainland in the early '80s. He is at home on Coll now. 


Indie Kennedy (Iain D. Kennedy) was born and brought up at Toraston - once again in the days of large families when man and woman power was more valuable than mechanisation. Whole families would often be attached to one farm. The Toraston Kennedys were employed at Gallanach and that was where Indie started his shepherding career as a boy.

It was also there, in later years, he was distinguished as strongest man on the island. A rucking machine, up on blocks for maintainance (weighing over a ton), fell onto the man working below, crushing him on the forehead. With the superhuman adrenalin that comes at time of crisis, Indie managed to lift the tractor off, singlehanded. The man was pulled free - and lived to tell the tale.

Indie worked at Gallanach for successive owners until the mid ‘50s, when he and Bunty (married in '54) leased Friesland and Gorton.

These were years of relentless hard work, building up stock and a much respected farming reputation from nothing - no grant schemes in those days. They also managed Coalas for Ian MacKenzie of Iona and rented Crossapol grazings from the Laird. Kenneth Stewart.

Throughout all the changes and vagaries of island farming over the years there was one constant in Indie's life - a love of a ceildh at the end of seasonal activities - the clipping, especially.

Friesland hospitality is legendary.

Indie's company will be sorely missed. 


Jim MacFadyen was born in Glasgow. His father, a MacFadyen from the West End of Coll, was living on the mainland and married to a Glasgow lass (as did his son in turn). The family came back to the island in '22 settling at Uig in the house that the Lunghi's now own. Jim's grannie lived at Seaview and the MacFadyens were known as a very civil family in the Uig community of the time. All the other (now) ruins - save Broadhills - were inhabited; the children - walking. barefoot in the summer, to Acha for their schooling, Jim could 'run like a hare, shoes or no shoes' no doubt on the return from Acha.

After school Jim worked on several farms - Achamore and Totronald on the island: then in Glen Lyon and Arduine on the mainland. At the latter, he met his Glasgow lass, Margaret. who was a landgirl. They married and moved to Bishopton. But the island was calling and in '52 they set up house in the family croft, Tigh na Craig.

Jim worked for the Laird till his retirement as manager in the late' 80s receiving a presentation watch for his 30 years at Breachacha. He and Margaret then moved to the village from Glendyke to the Manse Flat. (Tigh na Craig was destroyed by fire in ‘56). At Margaret's death in '90. Jim went to Ballard to be with his daughter, Catriona, and son-in-law, Allan.

In his heyday Jim was - a very accomplished performer of lengthy poems on the subject of MacAllister and Robina - and more - all declaimed from the heart with gentle delivery and faultless memory. 

Seumas Beag will live on in our memory.

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At the time of the Magazine going to print, it is sad to report the sudden death of Iain Kennedy on March 5th, at his home, Tigh a Bhealaich, next to the Post Office. Where once this gentle, soft-spoken man was typically to be seen standing in his doorway with one of his cats cradled in his arms, now there is only a closed door and an emptiness. Rest in peace lain.