Islanders recall the Politician's bounty
5 February 2016
Willie "Buchach" Macleod
The 93-
On his last day, he took a suitcase full of bottles and evaded the watchful eye of the customs officer when leaving Eriskay as well as getting onboard the ferry at Lochboisdale without catching the attention of the police office guard at the gangway.
When the MV Lochmor docked at Tarbert, Harris, he struggled up the brae with his heavy burden when his suitcase burst open and bottles spilled out onto Main Street. He negotiated a deal with a taxi driver to trade two bottles for a hire to Stornoway. Years later, he learnt a police sergeant was watching him the whole time from the bridge of the ship.
Eriskay resident Màiri MacInnes (above) was just 11 years old when the SS Politician was wrecked off the island, 75 years ago this weekend.
She remembers being surprised at the "immense" size of the ship, like a "huge big house," as she and her friends they gaze on the scene from the hilltop vantage point at St Michael's church.
Màiri MacInnes recalled how a local woman successfully fobbed off custom searchers
from going near a stash of whisky hidden under a pile of hay in the byre -
She added: "I don't think anybody made any profit out of the Politician but quite a few people went to prison for it, which was ridiculous during the war when it was all going to the bottom of the sea anyway."
Willie "Buchach" Macleod of Stornoway was a member of the cargo salvage squad called in to recover the whisky.
He recalls the after holds -