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      The great chase

Eric's grandson remembers in a letter written about his grandfather's family history.......... 

Eric (Errick) was a grieve (farm manager).  He married Helen MacKenzie and when my father was born they lived at Skelbo on Loch Shin in Sutherland.  There some of the people spoke English but on the other side of the loch only Gaelic was spoken. 

There were three children, Margaret the eldest we always knew as Aunt Maggie though we found out later she was usually known as Mona - probably because there were so many Margaret MacLeods about.  The next child was my father Alexander whose birth was registered in Dornoch as being on 10 April 1856.  Aunt Maggie was puzzled by this date as she was the elder but had understood that she had been born after that date.  Perhaps she was older than she thought.  The third child was Finlay, named after his mother's father, Finlay MacKenzie, who had built one of the churches in Tain.

The farm on which Eric was a grieve adjoined the village and included one of the three hills called the Soutars(shoemakers) of Cromarty.  A tunnel runs from the shore in the village to the farm house - my father remembered it from his childhood.  Helen must have died soon after Finlay was born.
About this time a soldier returned from the wars and told the people that sometime they would see a ship come up the firth without sails and without oars.  I suppose he was talking of a steamship that he had seen, but this statement puzzled the local people for a long time. 

One of the few recollections of my father's childhood was told to me in Tain.  My grandfather had been in church with the two little boys Sandy (my father) and Filly (Finlay).  My grandfather was rather deaf and was craning forward to listen to the sermon with his hand cupped to his ear.  Meanwhile the two little boys had dressed up the post at the end of the seat with a bonnet on the top and other things.  Their Aunt Margaret was sitting behind them and poked with her stick to make them behave.  That great-aunt Maggie must have been my grandmother's sister.  In her later years she lived with my aunt Maggie and I remember her death in the twenties..

There had also been an uncle of my father's, known as Rod at the Ferry, as he kept the ferry which in those days went across Dornoch firth from the Mickle(?) Ferry on the Tain side.  It looked like the setting for Lord Ullin's Daughter and is the site where the Dornoch bridge is now nearing completion (May 90).
All the MacKenzie side of the family seem to have been musical and were surprised when we told them that none of us were so inclined.  They told of one of the uncles who, when he was playing his violin was asked by someone if the tune he was playing was something.  He replied "no that goes like this" and while continuing to play the original tune on his violin, whistled the other tune to his questioner.

Eric died when the children were quite small.  He is buried in the churchyard in Tain where the church bell still sounds the curfew each evening.  Aunt Maggie is also buried there.  Maggie and Filly were brought up by the mother's family in Tain, and for a while my father was brought up by the owner of the farm in Cromarty.

We know that Eric's father was Alexander, and that he married a Margaret McKay.  Whether there were any other children we don't know.  It's probable that there were, because given the Scottish naming patterns Eric would most likely have been 'Alexander' if he had been an only child.

The only information we have on Eric's father's family history comes in note form from the same grandson of Eric who wrote the notes above:

  I think Alexander came from the Sutherland area.  He had served in the army - perhaps in the dragoons - where he was known as Big Serjeant MacLeod.  He served abroad - perhaps in the Peninsula - but had been discharged and returned to Scotland when Napoleon was sent to Elba.  It was only after that that he married.  He was recalled to the colours when Napoleon escaped from Elba, but Waterloo was fought before he could be sent abroad.  I don't even know his wife's name but she came from Tongue on the north coast of Scotland and spoke no English.  She was known in the family as Old Grandmother and lived in the Dornoch area.  My father visited her there before he left for Australia.  By then her husband had died and after that she returned to the Tongue area.

Thank goodness Eric's grandson wrote these notes back in 1990.  If you know any of these people we would love to hear from you via info@GeneFrog.com  (By the way, Alexander who came to Australia changed his name to McLeod).

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