Taggart star John Michie reveals epic journey through Scotland's dark past

Mar 30 2008

Taggart Star John Michie On His Epic Journey To The Darkest Part Of Scotland's History..the Highland Clearances

ACTOR John Michie went back to the land he loves for new five-part TV show Highland.

The Taggart star's poignant journey through hill and glen led him to uncover a heartbreaking history of murder and betrayal.

He learned how the Highland Clearances laid waste to a people and a way of life - an act compared to ethnic cleansing.

Today John writes exclusively for the Sunday Mail on his moving exploration of the darkest part of our history.

__________
OVER the last few months I've been lucky enough to go on a very personal journey exploring the Highlands and their history for a brand new television series on STV.

It allowed me to explore areas of our country's past that I was aware of but in honesty never truly understood.

Despite going to school in Perthshire, my history lessons were full of tales from the south of the border.

I learned how many wives Henry VIII had and about King Alfred burning cakes but was taught little about the fascinating history of the Highlands.

I did discover their stark beauty as a schoolboy though.

I would often escape to the mountains and glens, walking through the wilderness and taking in the sheer majesty of the scenery we are lucky enough to have on our doorstep.

I still enjoy the solitude the Highlands offer me.

But as a young boy who had never heard of the Highland clearances I never considered why the most stunning part of Scotland was also the emptiest.

It was only years later on a visit to see a friend in Easter Ross that I was confronted by this dark time in our nation's history.

In the 1800s the Highlands were stripped of their inhabitants, often violently, to make way for sheep farming.

My mate took me to the picturesque Croick Church, where 80 people who had been driven from their land in 1845 sought refuge.

Before they made their way onwards, whether it was to the new world in America or to the mills and factories of Glasgow, some scratched messages on the glass windows of the church.

In many ways this was just graffiti, crude lettering that told passersby they had been there.

But these scratches affected me deeply. They had been made by people who had lost the homes that had been theirs for generations and who no longer knew where their destiny lay.

The injustice of people being driven from their land for the sake of profit angered me, so when I got the chance to present a series of programmes about this part of Scotland's history I didn't have to be asked twice.

I set out to discover why the Highlands had gone from being the most densely populated part of Scotland, full of bustling communities and with a vivid and distinct culture, to becoming the most sparsely populated area in the country in such a short space of time.

The Highland Museum in Newton more gave me a fascinating insight into that lost world.

To walk into a replica of a Highland black house, where most people lived then, is quite an experience.

They are very primitive and basic buildings with no windows, an earthen floor, a sleeping area at one end and a cooking area in the middle.

They would have been sturdy but gloomy homes for Highlanders who faced a constant struggle to protect themselves from the harsh weather and to feed their families.

Starvation was rarely a stranger. Even today some argue that the rocky, barren ground of the north couldn't support the number of people who lived there. The Clearances have, at times, been described as "improvements". But there is a big difference between calling something an "improvement" hundreds of years later in a university lecture theatre and actually having to endure being driven from your land with the threat of being burnt from your home or beaten by thugs employed by your own clan chief.

Perhaps the reason why the Clearances still evoke anger is because it was a period of betrayal.

Clan chiefs turned on their own people in order to make a profit.

I learned how close-knit the clan structure had been.

For centuries the warriors of the clans fought and toiled for their chiefs, no matter what the threat or how hard the battle would be.

The most poignant examples of the loyalty of the Highland warrior are the graves scattered around the grim moor of Culloden.

It was in loyalty to their chiefs and in support of the ancient Scottish dynasty of the Stewart family that so many fought for the so-called Bonnie Prince Charlie.

Thousands of brave men faced the bullets and bayonets of the government red coats on that infamous day in 1746.

As I worked on this series it became painfully clear that Prince Charlie and the failure of his Jacobite uprising changed every aspect of Highland life to the point where an entire culture was almost completely destroyed.

It also became apparent that Prince Charlie had snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

As I was told by Professor Jim Hunter, the success of Charlie and his warriors in battles as far south as Derby, a mere 100 miles from London, was an astonishing feat. He told me it would be like Sitting Bull and the Sioux nation succeeding in rising up against the American government and getting within a day's march of Washington on their way to bringing an end to white American rule.

But due to ill-judgment, lies and infighting, a Jacobite victory was not to be.

The dreams of Prince Charlie died at Culloden in a bloody battle which was not, as some believe, a fight between Scots and English.

There were more Scots in the government army than the Jacobite army and it was almost between the Highlands and the rest of Britain. No one on that day of bitter defeat could have known how much the Highlands would lose in the following years.

Of all I learned on my journey the most shocking to comprehend was the crimes against humanity committed by the victorious leader of the government forces, the man known as Butcher Cumberland. He set about "cleansing" the Highlands of any Jacobite sympathies.

His army became the scourge of the Highlands as it swept through the land.

They hanged people from the nearest tree if they were suspected of even having sympathies with Bonnie Prince Charlie.

Thousands were murdered in what can only be described as ethnic cleansing.

It was a time of retribution. The government wanted revenge for coming so close to being defeated by what they considered a ragtag army of savages from the edge of Britain.

They even attacked Highland culture.

The Act of Proscription in 1747 banned the wearing of tartan, the ownership of a Gaelic Bible, the playing of bagpipes and the ownership or use of any kind of weapon.

Huge military forts were built - Fort William, Fort Augustus and Fort George.

These giant constructions linked one end of the Great Glen to the other.

In each was stationed a large garrison ready to suppress any uprising.

Fort George, the largest garrison in Europe, cost half of Scotland's gross national product in 1750.

This was a British establishment determined to annihilate Jacobitism - indicating how dangerous this political movement was thought to be.

But one thing the government learned from the uprising was that Highland men made excellent warriors.

So to fight their many wars overseas in their expanding empire, the British army very cleverly enlisted as many as possible - not too difficult during the next few decades as most families desperately needed an income.

In many ways they were cannon fodder but their immense courage and awesome fighting skills would defy the odds to win battles in alien lands, creating a vast empire. But, as I learnt while visiting a number of lifeless and ruined villages, while many Highlanders were fighting for their country abroad, the battle was being lost for an ancient way of life back home.

Half of the Scottish population used to live in the Highlands but it's now less than one in five.

Where once our hills and glens were farmed with oats, barley, grazing black cattle, goats and horses, they became home to flocks of lucrative cheviot sheep.

At one time the land was green but it began to turn brown as the cheviot destroyed the grasslands that thrived under the black cattle.

The sheep was the black gold of its time and no landowner, including the clan chiefs, could resist ejecting their tenants in favour of them.

Many clan chiefs no longer lived permanently on their ancestral lands but in cities like Edinburgh, Glasgow and London.

Their indulgent lifestyles needed funding and with sheep giving five times more profit from the land, people came a poor second place.

One tenant is reputed to have said when called by his chief to take up arms: "If you prefer sheep to men then let sheep defend you."

Many Highlanders ended up in coastal towns because they had been forced off their land or because they could not pay the increased rent.

When I visited Ullapool I discovered many people who had been strangers to the sea had to make a living from it in the fishing industry.

Others chose to make the treacherous voyages to Canada, America and later on to Australia and New Zealand.

Most of the ships the emigrants sailed on were cargo boats unsuited to passengers.

They would off-load cargo in Britain and pick up people for the return voyage.

Conditions were appalling and on some vessels were not much better than those of the infamous slave ships.

The hunger for profit was invading the rural economy of the Highlands.

When the Countess of Sutherland bought the parish of Assynt for her grandson, she took a life rent of five per cent a year of the original cost.

Tenants' rents were raised to pay this and non-payment meant eviction.

Rents had always been paid to clan chiefs but often in kind with cattle, crops or even fighting men.

But when lands were in the hands of distant or new and unfamiliar landlords, less compassion was shown.

The replacement of a feudal system by a form of rural capitalism was a disaster for Highland tenants.

Perhaps the most potent symbol of the Clearances is the statue of the first Duke of Sutherland in Golspie, known locally as The Manny.

The worst atrocities on his estate were perpetrated by his factor James Loch and the lowland owner of the largest sheep farm on the estate, Patrick Sellar.

Sellar wanted to expand his farm and with Loch's blessing cleared 15,000 people from the estate.

Some accepted small plots of marginal land on the coast where they could fish or harvest seaweed.

Others were forcibly moved by burning their homes or at gunpoint. The coastal areas became over-populated and huge rent increases and over-fishing led to destitution. The potato famine in 1846 was the final straw for many and thousands left Scotland.

It is in recognition of these people the sculptor Gerald Laing was commissioned to create the Emigrants Statue in Helmsdale.

In contrast to the stiff, unemotional statue of the Duke, it flows with passion.

A father looks out hopefully to sea while his son looks up to him for inspiration. The mother, baby in her arms, looks back at the glen to the home they had to leave.

It is an inspirational work combining eviction, poverty, hope, determination and even the fight against the elements.

For this TV series I tried to tell the story of the hardest times in Highland history because it had to be told.

It's not a story that intends to make people angry or ashamed, it lets people understand how our country took shape.

I hope it helps viewers understand our past and helps them appreciate the extraordinary beauty of the Highlands.

John's five-part series Highland begins on STV on April 13 at 5.25pm.

'As I boy I never considered why the Highlands were so empty'

'Tenants faced being burnt out of their home or beaten by thugs'

'Sympathisers of Prince Charlie were hanged by the army'

'Half the Scots population lived in the Highlands ..it's now 1 in 5'

'Many fled to America on boats no better than slave ships'

MAILFILE

THE Highland Clearances were considered necessary "improvements" by landlords. But they were born from greed as sheep were more profitable than people. Admiral John Ross of Balnagowan Castle was the first to kick tenants off his land in 1762. Many had to emigrate and the exodus reached a peak in 1792 - known as the Year of the Sheep to Highlanders.

JOHN'S trek took him from the STV studios in Glasgow right up to Durness on the north coast and back. Here is a map of his travels.