Jamt
07-04-2009, 11:10 AM
Carolyn Reynier meets one of Britain's oldest priests who rises at five and does all his own cooking in his remote island parish
3 July 2009
Canon Angus John MacQueen: 'We eat all our fish with our fingers. We forgive Queen Margaret of Scotland, God rest her soul, for bringing knives and forks from France'
'I'm an old man of 85.
I live on fish and potatoes - we grow the loveliest potatoes in the world. I grow all my own crops; we grow them on raised beds of seaweed called lazy beds."
The speaker is the Very Reverend Canon Angus John MacQueen, the place is the Outer Hebridean island of Barra where he has been a parish priest since 1952.
This elongated chain of islands, also known as the Western Isles, runs in a gentle north-east to south-west direction off the west coast of Scotland. Follow the chain south from Lewis and Harris to North Uist, Benbecula, South Uist, and you will come to Barra, right at the southern tip and surrounded by tiny islets with evocative Norse names: Eriskay, Pabbay, Mingulay.
Canon MacQueen was born and brought up on neighbouring South Uist at Balgarva. He attended Blair's College in Aberdeen, studied theology in Ware in Hertfordshire and following his ordination in 1951 become parish priest at Dunoon on the Cowal peninsula before returning to the Western Isles.
Up until the 1880s, he explains, there was only one church, in the centre of the island. The population grew thanks to the herring industry (there are now around 1,500 souls "but that doubles in the summer time"). We had a herring-curing station and throughout the 19th century we exported salted herring to Russia and all that area, he explains. Today, there are five churches and two priests - Canon MacQueen's two parishes are at Eoligarry and North Bay.
He lives in a 200-year-old house in North Bay with his three well-fed cats. "It's a lovely old farm house/shooting lodge type of place with lots of accommodation. I'm within three yards of the ocean. I have views from every window of the sea."
Does he have other priests visiting? He laughs.
"Yes, oh yes! You can't keep them away _- friends from my theology days, even cardinals. When I was in one of the other parishes here on the islands, I had Cardinal Hume. He asked: 'What do I have to do?' I said: 'You have to look after the sheep.' He was an angler and on my croft in South Uist I had one of the finest trout lochs on the whole island, so he had the sheep to look after on the croft and he could fish the rest of the day. It's very attractive, especially for city clergy - they need that kind of ridiculous relaxing that we can offer which is just simply get up when you want, talk to anybody and everybody you meet and if their door is open, go in and visit them."
Canon MacQueen rises daily at five. "I've always been an early riser because I was born a crofter," he says, "and we had things to do. The young people on the croft had to clean the byre, bring water from the well, and feed the animals.
"We had six cows and three horses, the horses did all the work because there were no motor cars or anything. We made our own butter, we made our own cheeses and we grew all our own crops."
He still grows his own crops - carrots, onions, early potatoes, main crop.
"The potatoes we like best are something like Maris Piper for a main crop. The people in England they like wet potatoes. The people in the highlands of Scotland only eat dry potatoes. We were quite surprised when that war was on and people came to build airport runways here on the bigger islands. We thought we would sell them potatoes and we grew potatoes for them but they didn't like them because they were dry. Now, our idea of a potato is something that throws off its jacket once it's boiled, and is dry and you eat it with your fingers by preference. Those of us who are very old, we eat all our fish with our fingers. We forgive Queen Margaret of Scotland, God rest her soul, for bringing knives and forks from France."
On the fish front, herring and mackerel are obvious favourites: "We cure our own herrings and mackerel with rough fishing salt" and Dover sole would be a "very ordinary working-class man's dish". The island has a large fish processing plant which exports three days a week all over Europe and attracts labour from different Eastern European countries including Poland, Latvia, Estonia - "do you know there are more Masses said in Polish in the Catholic churches in Scotland than there are Masses said in Gaelic?" he said. "Our language, of course, is Gaelic." The men work on the boats, the women on the factory floor processing jumbo prawns and scallops.
Canon MacQueen does all his own cooking using old-fashioned iron pots, frying pans and griddles. "Good Hebridean food, it's so easy because we have the best ingredients." His six hens keep him supplied in eggs for his scones. "I do a lot of baking. The fish factory is just down the road. We have the largest red crabs you ever saw, we have lobsters, crayfish sometimes weighing up to six to seven pounds. I can wander along the shore and knowing the fishermen I can always find a fish to eat or a bit of lamb. During the hard time of the winter, we have barrels of herring and mackerel with potatoes. We are potato people. We eat potatoes every day... Kerr's Pink, Golden Wonder..."
Every morning after he has fed his animals, he sets off, visiting the small hospital and old people's home "just talking to people, wandering about". In the old days when he was younger, he recalls, he had a lobster fishing boat and did a very active day's work. "I'd go out fishing early in the morning usually with older schoolboys and fish for lobsters; after school at four in the afternoon, we'd go back out for a second round of the creels."
Although Barra and South Uist are Catholic islands, those further north are not. The reason is a historical one. "Although the Franciscans and others sent people out here and there was no persecution of any sort during that time, we were the best part of 100 years without clergy," explains the Canon. "Priests would arrive in small fishing boats, people would gather and immediately have Mass then he'd move on."
Then the Irish Vincentians sent someone out to the island. He spent some time "getting everything back in order again", finished his work on Barra and moved to the next island, South Uist, where he took ill and died soon after.
No priest came after that for a long time, he continues, and by the time one did arrive in the Western Isles, working his way down from the north, the new religion had taken hold. "But it did mean there was never any animosity between Protestants and Catholics. When I went at the age of five to the school, we had these little double desks and the boy who sat beside me became a Church of Scotland minister and I became a Catholic priest. We knew we were different religions, but we were never, ever aware of any kind of problem."
The local Church of Scotland sends him a cheque every Christmas to buy flowers for his church. "We're very Christian in that way, we all love each other," he laughs.
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/features/f0000436.shtml
3 July 2009
Canon Angus John MacQueen: 'We eat all our fish with our fingers. We forgive Queen Margaret of Scotland, God rest her soul, for bringing knives and forks from France'
'I'm an old man of 85.
I live on fish and potatoes - we grow the loveliest potatoes in the world. I grow all my own crops; we grow them on raised beds of seaweed called lazy beds."
The speaker is the Very Reverend Canon Angus John MacQueen, the place is the Outer Hebridean island of Barra where he has been a parish priest since 1952.
This elongated chain of islands, also known as the Western Isles, runs in a gentle north-east to south-west direction off the west coast of Scotland. Follow the chain south from Lewis and Harris to North Uist, Benbecula, South Uist, and you will come to Barra, right at the southern tip and surrounded by tiny islets with evocative Norse names: Eriskay, Pabbay, Mingulay.
Canon MacQueen was born and brought up on neighbouring South Uist at Balgarva. He attended Blair's College in Aberdeen, studied theology in Ware in Hertfordshire and following his ordination in 1951 become parish priest at Dunoon on the Cowal peninsula before returning to the Western Isles.
Up until the 1880s, he explains, there was only one church, in the centre of the island. The population grew thanks to the herring industry (there are now around 1,500 souls "but that doubles in the summer time"). We had a herring-curing station and throughout the 19th century we exported salted herring to Russia and all that area, he explains. Today, there are five churches and two priests - Canon MacQueen's two parishes are at Eoligarry and North Bay.
He lives in a 200-year-old house in North Bay with his three well-fed cats. "It's a lovely old farm house/shooting lodge type of place with lots of accommodation. I'm within three yards of the ocean. I have views from every window of the sea."
Does he have other priests visiting? He laughs.
"Yes, oh yes! You can't keep them away _- friends from my theology days, even cardinals. When I was in one of the other parishes here on the islands, I had Cardinal Hume. He asked: 'What do I have to do?' I said: 'You have to look after the sheep.' He was an angler and on my croft in South Uist I had one of the finest trout lochs on the whole island, so he had the sheep to look after on the croft and he could fish the rest of the day. It's very attractive, especially for city clergy - they need that kind of ridiculous relaxing that we can offer which is just simply get up when you want, talk to anybody and everybody you meet and if their door is open, go in and visit them."
Canon MacQueen rises daily at five. "I've always been an early riser because I was born a crofter," he says, "and we had things to do. The young people on the croft had to clean the byre, bring water from the well, and feed the animals.
"We had six cows and three horses, the horses did all the work because there were no motor cars or anything. We made our own butter, we made our own cheeses and we grew all our own crops."
He still grows his own crops - carrots, onions, early potatoes, main crop.
"The potatoes we like best are something like Maris Piper for a main crop. The people in England they like wet potatoes. The people in the highlands of Scotland only eat dry potatoes. We were quite surprised when that war was on and people came to build airport runways here on the bigger islands. We thought we would sell them potatoes and we grew potatoes for them but they didn't like them because they were dry. Now, our idea of a potato is something that throws off its jacket once it's boiled, and is dry and you eat it with your fingers by preference. Those of us who are very old, we eat all our fish with our fingers. We forgive Queen Margaret of Scotland, God rest her soul, for bringing knives and forks from France."
On the fish front, herring and mackerel are obvious favourites: "We cure our own herrings and mackerel with rough fishing salt" and Dover sole would be a "very ordinary working-class man's dish". The island has a large fish processing plant which exports three days a week all over Europe and attracts labour from different Eastern European countries including Poland, Latvia, Estonia - "do you know there are more Masses said in Polish in the Catholic churches in Scotland than there are Masses said in Gaelic?" he said. "Our language, of course, is Gaelic." The men work on the boats, the women on the factory floor processing jumbo prawns and scallops.
Canon MacQueen does all his own cooking using old-fashioned iron pots, frying pans and griddles. "Good Hebridean food, it's so easy because we have the best ingredients." His six hens keep him supplied in eggs for his scones. "I do a lot of baking. The fish factory is just down the road. We have the largest red crabs you ever saw, we have lobsters, crayfish sometimes weighing up to six to seven pounds. I can wander along the shore and knowing the fishermen I can always find a fish to eat or a bit of lamb. During the hard time of the winter, we have barrels of herring and mackerel with potatoes. We are potato people. We eat potatoes every day... Kerr's Pink, Golden Wonder..."
Every morning after he has fed his animals, he sets off, visiting the small hospital and old people's home "just talking to people, wandering about". In the old days when he was younger, he recalls, he had a lobster fishing boat and did a very active day's work. "I'd go out fishing early in the morning usually with older schoolboys and fish for lobsters; after school at four in the afternoon, we'd go back out for a second round of the creels."
Although Barra and South Uist are Catholic islands, those further north are not. The reason is a historical one. "Although the Franciscans and others sent people out here and there was no persecution of any sort during that time, we were the best part of 100 years without clergy," explains the Canon. "Priests would arrive in small fishing boats, people would gather and immediately have Mass then he'd move on."
Then the Irish Vincentians sent someone out to the island. He spent some time "getting everything back in order again", finished his work on Barra and moved to the next island, South Uist, where he took ill and died soon after.
No priest came after that for a long time, he continues, and by the time one did arrive in the Western Isles, working his way down from the north, the new religion had taken hold. "But it did mean there was never any animosity between Protestants and Catholics. When I went at the age of five to the school, we had these little double desks and the boy who sat beside me became a Church of Scotland minister and I became a Catholic priest. We knew we were different religions, but we were never, ever aware of any kind of problem."
The local Church of Scotland sends him a cheque every Christmas to buy flowers for his church. "We're very Christian in that way, we all love each other," he laughs.
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/features/f0000436.shtml