The Island of Bragar - A Scottish Island Adventure

And across the island to Bragar, where my grandparents were brought up, with Gaelic as their first language. They raised two of their seven children in black houses before settling in Clydebank.

How would city slickin' 16 year olds take to the culture shock of a few days of moors, lochs and sea? My aunt's family own the famous Whalebone Arch in Bragar and my uncle's house is right beside it – so a good start when I off-loaded the four of them beside the lower mandible with the harpoon that killed the beast in 1920 hanging from the apex.

They adapted quickly to their new environment, slumping down in front of Neighbours, Hollyoaks and Trisha (in the morning). I sent the two boys down the road to get stamps at the post office and they came back highly amused that they had to knock on a house door and someone came and opened the shop for them. The kids were also quite amazed at the Borve pottery when the lady left us to browse the shop while she went back to her house to finish her lunch.

Franz Ferdinand accompanied us as we did the touristy thing. We visited the black house in Arnol with thatched roof and fire in the middle of the floor, and the black house village at Garenin. At Carloway we stopped off at the Broch and headed on down to the standing stones at Callanish. Second only to Stonehenge , the blurb reads.

Perhaps in stature, but not in location. The setting is fabulous and even more so when the stones are silhouetted against a setting sun and rosy sky. We did not stay long. When we arrived, a coach load of American tourists had been not long deposited and several were to be found eyes shut, pressed up against the stones and, it has to be said, fondling them. Presumably they were trying to get in touch with mother earth and nothing more perverse.

The Hebridean reported that week that a lunar spectacle that only happens every 18 or so years is due to happen at the stones in 2006. Some chap intent on setting up a web cam at the stones to film it all was apparently currently on the island drumming up support for his idea.

Down to Great Bernera and the beach at Bosta. It was here that I finally had my answer to whether a streetwise 16 year old could really enjoy a holiday on the Western Isles. Sitting out on the rocks with the waves lapping around, surrounded by hills and sheep and not another soul in sight, one of my daughter's friends turned to her and said: “Thanks for bringing me here.”

Graveyards are situated next to the sea and the one at Bosta seemed to house a lot of Macaulays next to a beautifully preserved Iron- age house that had been unearthed in a sand storm in 1992. I had intimated to my daughter as we visited my grandparents' grave at Bragar Bay, that I would like whatever is left of me to be buried there.

This changed as I wandered round the graveyard at Bosta where I found what I was looking for - a gravestone with “Iolaire” written on it to show my charges. The Iolaire famously and tragically was bringing troops home from France to Lewis on 1 st January 1919 when it sank approaching Stornoway harbour with massive loss of life.

Our high holiday spirits were lowered somewhat during 90 minutes of Scotland getting humped by some eastern European team. At half-time I received a phone call from a distant cousin – actually not so distant – two houses away – asking if I had any objections to Gordon Strachan being the new Scotland manager.

Michaela Strachan would do as long as we start getting results, I intimated. I remember being introduced to someone in Bragar and they said: “Oh you're Alex the footballer's daughter!” My dad's professional footballing days with Queens Park, Dunfermiline and East Fife were over in 1953!

There is no exaggeration when people talk about miles of white sand with not a soul to be seen. It must have taken about 45 minutes for us to walk the length of Garry sands north of Stornoway, heading towards the monastic cell that is high on an isolated stac surrounded by sea when the tide is in. But my favourite place, and it has been since childhood, is the beach at Dalmore, between Shawbost and Carloway. H

ere the Atlantic crashes against the rocks with awesome ferocity even on the calmest of days, and swimming is forbidden due to the undercurrents. I told my daughter that this was the place, gravestone facing the sea with words along the lines of: “She used to come here on holiday – now a permanent resident.”

And long after we had headed back to the bustle of central Scottish life, the knowledge of the incessant beating of the Atlantic against the rocks at Dalmore calls me back – again and again.