World War One
The Applecross Parish Council minutes help to give a picture of life at home during World War 1.
Shortages
Feeding the population seems to have been a prime concern. In the winter of 1914, the minutes tell us “venison and other game” was to be distributed to families of those on active service and a cargo of crushed lime shells was to be obtained to be sold at cut price to crofters to improve the land, as directed by a Board of Agriculture circular.
In 1917 the Board of Agriculture was again pressing the urgent need to increase food supply, so the parish council resolved to ask for the mill at Milltown to be repaired and put back into working order.
While one ministry was exhorting the people to more food production, many felt that another was putting obstacles in the way. There were frequent complaints in the newspapers about the admiralty severely restricting permits to fishing boats to conduct their trade on the west coast.
The war led to coal shortages which particularly affected the school. In January 1916 the school minutes recorded that the school coal was quite exhausted, and children – coming to school drenched – had little or no fire. The boys were employed in splitting logs in lieu of coal. The following January things were no better and it was noted in the minutes that “in the course of the forenoon one pupil was overcome by the severe cold. Temperature below zero”.
Conscription
Conscription was introduced in March 1916 and the Parish Council played a role in identifying those who should be exempted. In October 1916 the council made representations to the Wester Ross tribunal that Alexander Livingstone, Fearnbeg, should be exempted from military service as he was the principal merchant in north Applecross and was indispensable to the people of the area.
Peace
In December 1919, at their first meeting after the First World War ended, the Applecross Parish Council took it upon themselves to agree a resolution, which they would send to the Prime Minister.
The members of the Applecross Parish Council “regard it as a solemn duty to do all in their power as a council and individuals to abolish forever a system of disposing of international quarrels [through war] which is an outrage against justice and honour and the greatest crime of which men are capable”.
They declare that “the best means that can be devised for preventing war is the establishment of a League of Nations”.
World War Two
Sadly, as we know, the First World War did not end all wars.
Build up to war
Less than 20 years later, the people of Applecross were again following events in Europe with trepidation as another war seemed to be looming. In November 1936, Mrs MacLeod, the wife of the Church of Scotland Minister, wrote in her ‘family bulletin’ (sent from Applecross to their grown up family) that “we have had a peaceful & happy week – peaceful at least as far as the European situation will allow. Daddy is becoming convinced that Mussolini is ‘the man of sin’ mentioned in the Bible”.
Mussolini, rather than Hitler, seems to have been the main focus of concern at that time. In February 1936, during a by-election for the Ross and Cromarty constituency, a public meeting had been held in Applecross by one of the candidates, Malcolm MacDonald, Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs and son of former Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald. At the meeting he had to respond to an accusation of ‘shirking responsibility’ over a secret proposal to end the Second Italo-Abyssinian War by offering Mussolini most of Ethiopia (an early example of what later became referred to as ‘appeasement’). Other issues to be addressed at the Applecross meeting were armaments (a substantial programme of British rearmament was underway), and more local concerns including the state of the Bealach road, fishery grants and the need for a telephone kiosk.
Mrs MacLeod’s family bulletins, written between 1934 and 1944 give news of several of the Applecross locals who went on to fight (and die) in world war two. For example, on 8th March 1939, she noted that “Alister Ross is home for a little, looking very well & going a-courting of the teacher!” Four years later he was to marry the teacher in question (Jessie MacKenzie), but was tragically killed just 8 months later, when his ship was torpedoed in the Indian Ocean.
Refugees
The start of world war two saw the arrival of refugees in Applecross, as recorded in the school minutes.
“Sept 4 1939: The School was closed for a week today on account of the national emergency. Britain is at war with Germany.
Sept 11: School reopened again today. There is an additional four on the roll. Two of these are private evacuees from Glasgow and two are refugees from the Hitler terror in Vienna. They are brothers of Jewish extraction. The older, nine years, knows a smattering of English.”
The two Austrian refugees were Jewish boys who came to live at Camusterrach Manse. The boys’ parents had arranged for them to get out of Vienna where they were in danger. Mrs MacLeod had previously recorded the background to their arrival in her family bulletin –
“We have heard abt our children of Israel! They are Felix & Heinz Braun aged 9 + 7 & we have their photographs. Such jolly little boys! So we have written to say we’ll be glad to see them in Sept. They are still in Germany. Their father is a lawyer & hopes to get to America & be ready to reclaim Felix & Heinz in abt 3 years’ time”.
Many years later, in 2003, Heinz came back and visited Applecross from America with his wife. He was surprised to meet two of his old Applecross schoolmates at the heritage centre, and he said of the Macleod family: “they saved our lives and, indirectly, because our parents, free of us, were able to make their own arrangements to get out, theirs too”.
Home Guard
In world war two of course, the Home Guard, or Dad’s Army, was set up to defend the home shores from German invasion. Applecross had its own Home Guard unit and the historical society holds a copy of one of its training record books – showing the names of around 20 local men at each training session.
War effort
Everyone at home in Applecross made their own contribution to the war effort. Evidence from newspaper articles talks of work parties, including one from Applecross, knitting for the “War Comforts for the Royal Navy” appeal and in September 1940, around £19 was raised by the ‘people of Applecross’ in response to an appeal by the British Red Cross, to fund weekly food parcels for British prisoners of war.
