From Glen Loth to Dunnet Head

As a child, I was fascinated when Granny would call to my father - "Chon, are you ready for yer piece an' cham?"( John, are you ready for a jam sandwich?) Mum was back home on the northernmost shore of Caithness, looking over to Hoy, Orkney – but her voice was different to her mothers. Why did Granny speak like that? A good few years later, I fulfilled the promise I had made to myself, aged 11, and "came home for good" - not only "grown up" but retired! And then, knowing of my interest in family history, my aunt by marriage asked "Why did your Granny have Maclean as a middle name?" It was just the prod I needed. Having studied our Calders, Coghills and Gunns- good Caithness names - I had forgotten that, like all trees , there are very many branches and twigs! Who taught Granny to speak? Maclean is a West Highland name and the absence of the letter “J” seemed to be reminiscent of the Gaelic language ; place names like Thurso, Scrabster, and Wick in the far north are derived from the Norse. We are Viking descendants!

Oral history here is still strong – the “old man” spoken of by Granny’s son was a ship captain born in 1802 – but still no Macleans. Instead, the answer came from the censuses of 1841 – 1921 on ScotlandsPeople and the transcriptions in the Brora museum. Granny’s granny had indeed been a Gaelic speaker but had been “cleared” from Loth and Kildonnan, to make way for sheep. She walked the 80kms to John O’Groats, marrying in Wick, before the entire family spread along the North Coast . This Journey Stone is in memory of Annie Maclean Calder!