How I Came to Live in the Highlands
By Gillian Thomson
I have lived in the Highlands for nearly fifty years, and it is my home. In 1973 I married a Scot from Glasgow, who had been living in Nethybridge, and teaching at the Secondary School in Grantown on Spey. When I first moved to Inverness, I worked as Community Occupational Therapist for Inverness-shire. I covered Strathspey and Badenoch in the East and Skye and Raasay in the West. This was a wonderful introduction to the different life and culture of the Highlands. Many of the older folk in the West were Gaelic speakers, and I remember working with Donald John MacDonald the Social Worker in Portree. (father of Calum and Rory MacDonald of Runrig).
These were the days before the Skye bridge, when it took a whole day to drive from Inverness onto the island, and getting to Raasay was time-consuming. In the winter this involved getting the "Steamer" from Portree at 6 am, which called in at Raasay on it's way to Mallaig, Then, having to wait for the return trip in the afternoon. Whereas in the summer months, it was possible to phone Alasdair Nicolson on Raasay, and he would bring his boat over to Sconser Pier. Almost all the roads in the West were single track, with passing places, so getting anywhere was slow, but where ever you went folk were friendly and appreciative of the service that was provided as Occupational Therapist.
I stopped work in 1975, when the first of my four children was born. When they were young, we spent Easter holidays on the Isle of Skye at Tormore in Sleat, and summer holidays in a cottage at Lettoch, a farm in Nethybridge. I now have a granddaughter who lives in Edinburgh, and attends the Gaelic medium primary school there and loves to speak the language, and enjoys coming to the Highlands whenever she can. It is a special place!
Image provided by VisitScotland/ Airborne Lens
View from the Raasay Ferry, Isle of Raasay
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