Gaelic!

This grammar book belonged to my paternal grandfather whose first language was The Gaelic. He had fought in WW1 in The Dardanelles. He came home to Lewis on the ferry from Kyle of Lochalsh. His fellow islanders and comrades on the HMY Iolaire, which also sailed from Kyle of Lochalsh, for Stornaway but hit rocks in Stornaway harbour in the early hours of 1st January 1919 and 205 returning Lewismen perished in sight of their home town.

My grandfather never spoke of this and I have only read of it subsequently. Whether his experiences in the Great War or his shock of what happened to so many on the Iolaire was a factor in his loss of interest in Gaelic as a language without a future we will never know. What we do know is that he forbade his son and daughter from learning the Gaelic at all and sadly the language in my immediate maternal family died out with his generation.

There are two ironies surrounding this decision. First, despite denying his children Gaelic he taught Gaelic to countless others and judged Gaelic mods for the rest of his life. The second irony is that I have inherited a few shelves of his Gaelic books like this one and enjoy dipping into them from time to time. But, wait for it, I have also been learning Gaelic on line with a daily programme that generates streaks for every day you do a lesson. My current continuous streak stands at 963. Now I am not pretending to be fluent yet but I do have a far greater grasp of its challenging spelling, melodic pronunciation and complex grammar.

I would like to think that my grandfather would be pleased with my efforts and also at the revival of Gaelic across Scotland including almost every ScotRail station now enjoying its bilingual nomenclature!