Angus Stewart and family at Carrbridge setting up camp. The bow tent structure is in place. The tent poles "would be hazel or ash, somethin' bendable, ye know ... It wiz the men that put them up. In the summer time ye could put them up in an hour ... because ye didn't really ... hae tae be strong in summer or warm in the summer .. maybe just a couple o' hazel bows. We called them bows ... it be easy enough to call them willows but we just called them bows. A politer word would be hazel willows. Ye shove the bows in the ground ... the winter ye pit them deep an' a bit thicker, quite a lot together, ye know. In the summer ye put maybe five at one side, five at the other ... not to be strong, ye know, it was summertime. In the winter, the gales, it had to be strong ... some o' the winter gales ... some o' the places on Skye were very exposed. Oh, we had straw on the ground, just a sheet on it, made a mattrass (mattress) ... but there was a big family. Seven of us."
Gordon Shennan, who took this photo and many others, was an inspector for the Royal Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in the Highland area. His work took him across the entire breadth of the Highlands and Islands. His nickname, 'the cruelty man', belied his warm and kindly personality. He became known as someone interested, not only in protecting vulnerable children, but also as a person who would gladly give practical advice to help parents where social problems lay at the root of the trouble. Through his work Gordon Shennan became a genuine friend of many travelling families.
Click to enlarge the image, read the text then answer the following questions.
Questions
- What were used as tent poles and why?
- How was the winter tent different from the summer tent and why?
- Count how many are in the group in the photo; are they all Angus Stewart's family?
- How did Gordon Shennan become a genuine friend to the Travelling People?