Bringing desert colours to Carloway...
by Katie Laing
CALLANISH guesthouse owner Donald Macleod is settling in to life on the croft and gearing up for the tourist season – after many years of travelling the world through the military.
Donald, who left Lewis as a teenager, was joined on Lewis last year by his doctor wife, Juanita, an ex-Army colonel. Son John has since also joined them for a while and is planning to bring his family up soon from Dundee.
Donald had moved here a number of years ahead of them and, as well as getting ready for reopening the guesthouse on April 1, is busy developing the business. They will be extending the middle part of the H-shaped guesthouse and opening it as a restaurant, also catering for non-residents, in 2011. At the moment, their provision consists of four bedrooms. Dinner is available to guests as well as bed and breakfast.
The guesthouse is four-star and can take 12 people. Two rooms are for families, there is a twin room with disabled facilities and also a double ‘honeymoon’-type room, with a huge German bed in it. Prices this year are £35 per person for bed and breakfast and £25 for an evening meal.
Donald himself does all the cooking and will be running the restaurant. They are focused on getting that off the ground but also want to become as “green” and self-sustaining as possible. Part of that is getting the crofts functioning again, beginning with the basic infrastructure such as drainage and moving on to livestock.
By the end of March, Donald is hoping to have taken delivery of a number of pigs – namely, a breeding pair of Gloucester Old Spots and another couple who are destined for the freezer. Donald and Juanita are now part of the Gloucester Old Spot society and by the end of the year they will also have thoroughbred Hebridean and North Ronaldsay Sheep, plus Shetland Cattle.
There is certainly no shortage of animals at Leumadair. They already have chickens, sheep, rams and geese. Not to mention the seven dogs. And two birds of prey which Donald flies. The farm animals were acquired to please Donald’s old German housekeeper, Connie, who sadly died of cancer last year. She had come to Lewis to work for him in 2005.
Juanita joined Donald on Lewis last June when she retired from the military after 28 years. She is now practicing as a doctor in Mealista, Uig. In her former life as an Army doctor, she served in the major theatres of war, including Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan. She also had a spell with the Sultan of Brunei’s armed forces, where she made history as the first female doctor to a totally male Muslim force.
Donald began his working life as a psychiatric nurse, before joining the military – the Black Watch – as a soldier and then becoming an operating theatre technician with the medical corps. He came out of the forces after 15 years but not before he had met Juanita. When he took her to Lewis in 1985, just after they married, to meet his mother, his new wife was instantly smitten with the place.
Donald said: “The Callanish Stones – that’s what it’s all about. Juanita fell in love with them and said to me that day ‘I want to come back here; I want a croft’.” They came back every year to visit. Then, nine years ago he tested Juanita’s desire to move to Lewis by bringing her up during December, when the weather was rotten. “That was the acid test,” he said. “The wind was howling in 15 directions and it was raining hard – and I was quite pleased about that.”
But, far from putting Juanita off, they ended up buying Number 12 Callanish which was for sale. Donald moved to the island permanently in 2003 and bought Number 7 Callanish shortly after that and then built the guesthouse. Juanita was still in the military and stationed abroad, including six months in Iraq, during that time. She still had a big hand in developing Leumadair, though, and would look at paint charts while out in the desert and give her husband instructions on colours. Indeed, it was painted “the colours of the desert”, said Donald, with burnt oranges and reds abounding. Since then, they have also bought the croft at Number 13.
The guesthouse attracts customers from all corners of the globe – including South America, Australia, Korea and Scandinavia – with more than 80 per cent of bookings coming through the internet. The Callanish Stones are a big attraction but visitors are also keen to see other sights on the west coast of the island, including the Carloway broch and the Arnol blackhouse, as well as being interested in the history of the place and finding out about ancestors.
Donald said: “It’s the Stones, the culture, the mystique, more than anything else… the history, the genealogy.” He also said: “The amount of peat that leaves the island as souvenirs is phenomenal.”
Guests regularly ask questions – such as “how do you build a drystane wall?” – and Donald always does his best to answer them, believing that is all part of the service.
It’s certainly a world away from their previous lives. But Donald believes that all it takes to make a success of a project – whatever that project is – is setting your mind to it. He said: “That is the one thing that has been necessary for this to work. Nothing works without determination. It’s determination to fulfill a dream – and the ability to do it.
“Failure may be an option for everybody else but it’s just a start for us. The military taught us that there are no problems; there are only solutions to problems.”
Donald said he had “no regrets about coming back at all”. He said: “I actually love the place. It’s so peaceful.
“I’m glad to get back. We left because there was nothing here. I can always get on a plane and get to any of the major cities in Europe in 12 hours.
“There’s the internet as well, which makes a huge difference.”
Like so many returnees, Donald loves the pace of life, the clean air and fresh water, and “the sheer safety of the island”.
He said: “Coming from the military, and having been in Northern Ireland, I used to check under my car every single day for bombs.
“Now I leave my keys in my car. I no longer check under it.”
Contact
Leumadair Guesthouse, Callanish, Isle of Lewis HS1 2EU
