Ultravox and the Stones

Midge Ure in full flow at the stones

On a cold winter’s night in Stornoway, I waited outside the Caberfeidh Hotel, wondering what to do. I was working for the Stornoway Gazette, the ‘Only Newspaper Printed in the Outer Hebrides‘ according to its masthead, and I was the Island’s soul dedicated newspaper photographer. What’s more I was onto a scoop. I’d had a tip-off from the Manager of the hotel, that a, ‘big band from the south’ was staying with them.

Recording the Video for 'One Small Day

He’d told me the band’s name as if it really should mean something to me. Oh ‘Ultravox‘ I said knowledgeably when he called with his hot scoop, wow. I think I’d heard of them, just, but I around that time I was a little in the musical wilderness. Anyway, I went into the bar to scope the place out and got into conversation with a cool looking leather jacketed Glaswegian. A few pints later, I confided my mission to him and asked if he knew the band?

It was a freezing cold day in the Outer Hebrides

I suppose I’d been expecting someone fairly outlandish and aloof to be the leader of this big band from ‘the south’ but when my new drinking buddy told me he thought I might be looking for him, I was chuffed. This was Midge Ure. I was even even more delighted when Midge asked us on the band’s video shoot the following day.

These pictures were taken at Callanish Stones the day after my meeting with the band. I can’t remember the date exactly but it was mid winter ‘84 and bitterly cold. The band recorded the video for ‘One Small Day’ which was a single released from the album ‘Lament’.

The stones are called Tursachan Chalanais in their Gaelic name and are an ancient Megalithic site built around 3000 years BC. They lie on the west coast of the island of Lewis.

Shiant Shepherds

Shiant Shepherds

Two shepherds from the island of Harris on a sheep rescue mission to the remote Shiant Islands. Rural areas in the Hebrides are ‘crofting’ communities.

Crofting is a a method of small-hold farming. Its a precarious living so its likely that a crofter will have another source of income besides what can be earned from their croft.

Sheep lie at the heart of the crofting economy. European Union Agricultural reform, food hygiene regulations and changing diet are damaging sheep farming. Consequently there is less money coming into these already fragile communities.

The Shiants

The Shiants

The Outer Hebrides, (also known as the Western Isles) is a chain of islands over 150 miles long off the north west coast of Scotland.

The Shiant islands lie between the mainland of Scotland and the Outer Hebrides.

For many who travel by ferry to Lewis, the most northern and populated island in the chain, this is their first glimpse of the Hebrides.