Alec MacLennan was piermaster when the ‘new pier’ opened in 1968, making the earlier ‘new pier’ the ‘middle pier’. Here he talks about piers, new and middle…

“In the old ferryboat days you’d be leaving the middle pier at seven in the morning and never knowing how long you’d have to sit in it before the steamer came in view. The passengers would jump off the steamer first, then the mail-bags and luggage would be thrown down and you’d have to watch out on rough days. The heavier stuff came off in a sling and one day the netting broke and a load of basic slag fell on the passengers. It was more risky then, with one thing and another, but people still say they miss the old ferryboat.

When they built the new pier tow lengths were cut off during construction because they decided to put the store ashore, so it’s not as long as it should be, if you take account of the seas we get here. The whole thing should have been further down at a different angle in my opinion – and longer. It cost nearly as much to build the new pier road as the pier itself because of cutting out the peat till they got down to solid rock.

When the old Claymore was still on the Coll run after the new pier was built, visitors’ cars had to come off in the slings and some car-owners used to get right worried when they saw their precious vehicles swinging about in the air. They’d see the rusty undersides for the first time too! Occasionally a mud-flap or a mirror would be wrenched off and then there’d be trouble because you couldn’t get any replacements here. At other times the cargo boat would dump eighty odd tons of stuff onus – and with the store only holding twenty-four tons we’d have to get the rest under tarpaulins as best we cold.

So we had our problems but I liked the job for all that . You were always talking to people, seeing who came and who went and having your photo taken – I reckon I must be one of the most photographed man on Coll”

The present piermaster, John Wheeler-James, continues … ”Within the last two years a lot of work has been done to strengthen the wooden fendering around the pier, and, in general, it’s been very successful. This Spring new sodium lights with photo-electric cells are to be installed. All the old cages and flats are being replaced – which is a big improvement. Last summer the M.V. Columba was hard put to keep up with the demand for space on the car-deck in the height of the season. Passenger traffic is also on the increase. For better or worse – next Spring we get a new boat!”