BBC ALBA’s compelling series on Scotland’s individualistic ferries, Thar an Aiseig or Ferry Tales, features the Belnahua in the episode on Tuesday 12th March.
Pictured above, this is the ferry that crosses the narrow Cuan Sound from the Isle of Seil – that, according to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) is no longer an island – to the Isle of Luing.
Luing is one of the famous slate islands, south of Oban, whose quarries – particularly at Eilean-a-beithich and Easdale, were finished when a storm with heavy seas, flooded them.
Some had been quarried to a depth of around 250 ft below sea level, with only a rim separating them from the sea. When the seas came over in the storm in 1881 and the quarries filled, there was no way they could be emptied again.
An industry that had seen 8 million slates a year shipped out to, as they say, ‘roof the world’ – and all of the livelihoods that industry supported – stopped, literally, dead in the water.
The ferry is an intrinsic part of life in many communities throughout Scotland. From large vessels to small motor boats, the ferries transport people, goods and livestock from islands and peninsulas, providing a crucial connection with mainland Scotland.
In a year long series, Ferry Tales follows the people that operate and use Scotland’s ferries, often in the most beautiful scenic areas of Scotland.
In the episode on 12th March,the Belnahua’s skipper, Kirsteen Morrison, has big news for the crew of ferry.
Then the Renfrew Rose crosses the River Clyde from Renfrew to Yoker for the last time; while up in Orkney, the efforts of independent ferry operator, Andrew Banks – whose service runs from Gills Bay in Caithness on the Pentland Firth to St Margaret Hope on Orkney’s Mainland Island – are celebrated in a new book.
Back in Argyll, things are busy on the tiny island of Kerrera with the arrival of Sheila’s baby and the opening of the parrot sanctuary.
All will be revealed when this hour long programme is transmitted on Tuesday 15th March 2011 at 20:30.
You mean the 15th of March, right? Not the 12th? I should also point out that the ferry has been featured before and the programme is on every tuesday so people can watch it next week as well (the 8th).
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Oh, and it’s also a half hour programme, not an hour long.
Don’t worry, one of these days you’ll produce an article about this programme without any errors in it.
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