The Sun Shines on Scalpay (4)
The architect of modern Scalpay was the late and gifted Captain Roderick Cunningham, who was the head of a locally based shipping-company, Roderick Cunningham (Scalpay) Ltd, which traded all round the coast of Britain and on occasion to Europe. Boats like the Isle of Rona and the Isle of Lewis puffed about the United Kingdom carrying coal and bricks and similar heavy cargoes, and the company still operates in the West Highlands today, specialising in the transport of Calor Gas and high explosives.
Captain Cunningham was a shrewd businessman and able master, and after the war he helped rebuild a fishing industry in Scalpay. He invested his own money in boats and harbour facilities, granting loans on generous terms. The strongest point of the scheme was a principal of basic communism - that each member of a boat's crew, young or old, took an equal share of the catch. This was an ancient island tradition long buried under the rigid seniority rules of the Scottish fishing industry. But it gave young Scalpay men a powerful incentive to stay home and try the fishing rather than head for the shopfloors of Glasgow.
Scalpay fishermen are resourceful and adaptable mariners. Though the herring that used to be their economic mainstay are now severely restricted, they have turned with great success to the harvest of prawns and velvet crabs. A new pier has given easy landing at all states of tide, and an efficient co-operative provides good marine and chandlering services.
