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Badnaban
Mrs McBain told us a bit about life at Badnaban. They had cows for milk and lots of sheep. Everybody had their own boat and caught prawns, salmon and lobsters, using the creels that are still piled up on the tiny harbour wall there now. They also caught venison, something that puzzled us until we later asked Scott’s father about it and he confirmed that this was, indeed, poaching – ‘but where was the deer inspector?’. Off they went onto the moor with a gun, and back they came with a red deer slung over the shoulder, or if it was too heavy two halves in two journeys, made circumspectly by night.
Mrs McBain also confirmed that the old family croft was the renovated one next to what is now numbered 22, and that the current owner, Alison Robertson, worked in the local bank. The following morning, then, we presented ourselves at the counter of the Royal Bank of Scotland and introduced ourselves. Somewhat bemused, Alison said we could go and ‘poke about’.
Badnaban on a sunny September morning looked very different to the day before, the red rowan berries ruby red against the brave blue sky and the burn chattering down to the shining sea. Maybe Alice hadn’t been so keen to leave after all – did she jump, or was she pushed by the family’s need for ready cash? They were virtually self-sufficient, Mrs McBain had said, but they still needed money to buy paraffin, and other necessities – and to pay the rent!
The croft has been lovingly modernised, the ‘harling’ (roughcast) that used to coat the stone walls has been stripped away to reveal the original stonework and in the garden where the MacLeods once grew vegetables and kept their chickens there is now a manicured lawn and modern decking. The old outhouse is still there, now serving as a rather ramshackled garage, and on the croft’s old land now stands a holiday chalet and the newer, whitewashed house that we had encountered the day before, now numbered 22.
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