Isabell Alicia Eva Burton MacKenzie was born in Union Street Aberdeen on 6 October 1872. She died on 9 May 1958 in Gartnavel Hospital, Glasgow. She begins her Diary of her Hebridean journey in August 1912 , giving the address as, Kilcoy Castle on the Black Isle, her family home. Spinster ladies leave few traces in history and because her diary has survived her, we have this unique snapshot into her remarkable journey in the Western Isles, the Scottish Highlands and the Mainland of Scotland. The Highland Home Industries Board was formed in 1907, and with it's headquarters in Edinburgh this remained a showcase for craft work from the whole of Scotland until it's demise in the late twentieth century. The knitting in the Highlands and Western Isles and the formation of The Highland Home Industries Limited developed alongside the Harris Tweed Industry. The overall aim of this body was to raise the standard of Home Industry particularly in the remote Outer Isles, focussing in 1912 on North and South Uist, Eriskay, Barra and Skye. Miss Isabell Burton-McKenzie was appointed as their Travelling Organiser from 1911-14. She was a woman of vision and although untrained in business methods, her diary shows an empathetic attitude to the workers and people. She had learnt the Gaelic Language as an essential means of communicating directly with the people. Very little English was spoken at that time by the crofters and fisherfolk and usually confined to dealings with the merchants, the Church and landlords. The paradox or anomaly here is that by the 1930s Gaelic was forbidden in schools and children were physically punished if they spoke their native language, whereas at the turn of the century the peasant was regarded as a noble savage and the upper classes regarded helping them as some kind of redemption for the ruthless actions of their land owning ancestors. The people of the Outer Hebrides from North Uist to Barra carried living memories of scenes of the most brutal episodes of the Clearances from the evictions in the 1850s. to the more recent land Raids of Barra and Vatersay, in the first decade of the twentieth century. These were economically fragile communities whose livelihoods depended on the land and sea. The weather in these islands, especially in the Autumn and Spring Equinoxes is extreme, especially when the full force of Atlantic Gales is experienced. The diary and account book covers the months from August to December 1912 and she notes only two fine calm days in this period. From her diligent account, Isabell appears as an intrepid, eccentric traveller, hiring a pony to visit remote crofts and showing courage when faced with dangerous weather in her journeys by sea and land. A single woman with a sense of humour, able to converse in Gaelic and note the qualities of the people and children she met with shrewd wit and kindness. She enjoyed a game of golf, walking and conversing. Isabell illustrates her account with remarkable pen and ink sketches and photographs giving a unique glimpse into a vanishing world.
