SCOTLAND: "CHE and the island of Eigg"

George Sassoon does not think highly of CHE, Scotland's Centre for Human Ecology, held responsible for the sorry state of the Island of Eigg and its community of Coll:

"According to Ian Mitchell, the Centre for Human Ecology is a one-man show run by Alistair MacIntosh - do you know of him? Has apparently recently developed a new theory of eco-feminism or something like that, possibly inspired by the fact that Eigg was once known as the island of Big Women. He got married on Eigg to an Irish lady - last year, I think - on the beach? at dusk? communing with nature? He's a great fan of the buy-out and was one of the inner council who drove the whole thing along, with Leslie Riddoch (another Big Woman), Our Brian and Andy Wightman, etc.

He was also an original trustee. Perhaps he had read Fraser Darling's Coll Report when it was published in 1948? Fraser Darling had the whole of Coll's economy and society re-vamped in an umpty-paged document that nobody in authority paid any attention to (thank goodness).

One of his most innovative suggestions was that scientists should be introduced into the island on a permanent basis. In fact he recommended 3 households; they were to form the largest social grouping on the island after farmers/crofters. Unfortunately it became partly true when the RSPB bought the rump of the old Coll Estate in 1991 and installed a permanent "warden" there.

Now we have whale and dolphinists fighting for a bit of the action, occasional sightings of the otter people (in their brand new LWB landrover) and a swarm of archaeologists who are currently imposing site surveys at £700/day on a few poor buggers who are excavating sites for houses. And I haven't even mentioned SNH yet. Or a Marine National Park. GGRRRRRR".

RH:
This I presume is the sound made by a Scottish terrier.