"The Scottish islands have a great reputation: in shipping circles for their willing assistant to distressed mariners," recently wrote the managing director of a big London shipping firm to the lay preacher in a Lewis village of 20 homes on the Atlantic seaboard which, twice in a fortnight, had given hospitality to seamen shipwrecked in the North Atlantic.
Since war began thousands of seamen of al! nationalities have landed from torpedoed ships on the Scottish islands and received hospitality from the crofters ard fishermen in their own homes, writes a Stornoway correspondent to the "Manchester Guardian." In most parts of the country the care of distressed mariners is an organized charity supported by public sub-Scription. but in the scattered hamlets along the north-west Scottish fringe shipwrecked crews are still dependent on the goodwill of private individuals for care and succour. at least until they are fit to travel to the nearest centre where the Shipwrecked Mariners' Society is represented.
The classic story of hospitality from the Scottish islands is that of the Swedish same who were given a wedding breakfast when they landed on the island of Bernera. off the west coast of Lewis. after 60 hours' expos: in an open boat. Their boat had missed the entrance to the bay, ard the whole crew would have perished on a rocky coast but for the efforts of a naval reservist home on leave and two young men from the village, who made an all-night search for the mysterious sail which had been seen passing down the coast. The crew. several of them wounded. were carried ashore to the houses nearest the beach. In one of them the table was spread for a wedd-ding which was to take place later in the day The bride, roused in the small hours of her wedding morning, prepared tea and attended to the injuries of the wounded men. The meat and drink made ready for the wedding were lavished on them and the hour of the wedding was postponed because the only car on the island which could take the bride to church had to serve also as an ambulance taking the wounded to the ferry on their way to hospital.
Since the war began one small hospital in ihe North of Scotland has treated seamen of fourteen nationalities. At one time seven nationalities have been represented in the same ward Many of these men spent a night in a crofter's home before they were transferred to hospital.
Exposed in Lifeboat Over 1,000 Miles The villagers of Northton, in Harris, suw a boat approaching the coast. Her erratic course showed that she was a stranger. Over the roar of the huge Atlantic breakers rolling up the beach after a week of storms they heard a cry. "We are British shipwrecks." Several of them dived into the sea, got aboard thalifeboat. and brought her safely to the shore. The ten British seamen in the lifeboat had sailed miles in the open Atlantic through bað weather in a waterlogged lifeboat. They had been fourteen scantily clad, living on condensed water. Nineteen men had died of exposure in the boat.
The captain, a real sea-dog from the south of Devon. was unconscious when the boat reached Northton, but he had given his men course to hold that would bring them to land. Throughout the whole voyage perfect Wiscipline had been maintained. The captain and the second mate had taken watch and watch, and each member of the crew had his appointed duties so long as he was capable of carrying on, Twice they had sighted ships. On the twelfth day of the voyage an aeroplane passed close overhead, but a sea fog which lasted only half an hour hid the lifeboat. On the thir teenth cay the captain made his landfall. but the wind was offshore and the lifeboat was driven out to sea again.
The people of Northton carried the survivors to their homes, dried their clothes. fed them. bathed their swollen limbs, and summoned medical assistance from Leverburgh. Later the men were taken by ambulance to Lewis Hospital. where nine of them mate a good recovery, An injured man from the same vessel who was last seen on a raft two days after the ship was sunk was landed safely in Nova Scotia. One of the ships which missed the lifeboat came upon the raft.
Hospitality to strangers is a tradition of the "Scottish islands. The visitor who refuses to accept a cup of tea may unwittingly offend. When two schoolboys from Breanish in Lewis. brought home a shipwrecked crew their mothers were out working on the crofts. The boys made tea themselves. and when their mothers arrived home they were washing the seamen's feet to relieve the swelling. The lads had seen the crew on an islet off the coast and had signalled them to come over to the mainland. The men thought they were on an uninhabited coast. They had landed with the intention of catching one of the sheep on the islet to replenish their larder after three days on biscuits and water.
"Highland hospitality still stands good," of the seamen sai when he got to Stornowa "We were treated like little lords. They us on home-baked scones and cream and gave us clean, comfortable beds to sleep in."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.