The events that led to the castle's destruction in 1602 built up over a period of forty years before they came to a head, and are going to take me the next two photographs to tell! It was all basically the fault of the Mathesons! Clan Matheson was in decline during the 16th century, owning only a third of the great lands they had once owned around Lochalsh. Rightly or wrongly the Matheson blamed the Macdonells of Glengarry for their misfortunes, and the Matheson chief must have made a considerable nuisance of himself with the result that the Macdonells locked him up in their dungeon at some point, where unfortunately he died. Murdoch Buidhe (pronounced "BOOee", which means yellow, probably his hair colour!) Matheson, the new Clan Matheson chief, did what any small boy that is being bullied in the school-yard would do in this situation, he went and enlisted the help of an even bigger boy! He relinquished all his remaining property, excepting the farms of Balmacara and Fernaig to Mackenzie of Kintail in return for the services of an armed force with which to attack the Macdonells of Glengarry. Either his military prowess didn't match his enthusiasm or the force the Mackenzie's gave him was insufficient for the task, because he never did recover his lost land. So by the late 16th century, half of the districts of Lochalsh, Lochcarron, and Lochbroom in Wester Ross was in the hands of the Glengarry Macdonells and the other half in the hands of the Mackenzie's of Kintail, and in 1581, the troubles that had been brewing since the Mackenzies inherited the grievances of the Mathesons, broke out into open feuding. Glengarry to protect his lands from Mackenzie aggression, garrisoned the castles of Strome and Lochcarron. While at Lochcarron, he was tricked, ambushed and captured by a party of Mackenzies. After being detained in captivity for a considerable time, Glengarry procured his release by yielding the castle at Lochcarron to the Mackenzies. The other prisoners, including several of his near kinsmen, were put to death (other sources say they were killed in the original ambush). The murdered Macdonells were avenged by their cousins, who burned the house of one of the "murderers" at Applecross, killing him and his family, and also slew in his bed Donald Mackenzie, who lived at Kishorn. Both Mackenzie and Glengarry went to Edinburgh to present complaints against each other to the Privy Council. One account I have read states that Mackenzie of Kintail was detained for a time at Edinburgh, and subsequently in the castle of Blackness, however I tend to believe the other version which states that Mackenzie got the better of his opponent by producing before the Privy Council, Donald Mackenzie’s blood-stained nightshirt, and that Glengarry having fled the city and been repeatedly summoned, failed to put in an appearance. The Records of the Privy Council under the date 9 September 1602 show that he was declared outlaw and rebel and that a commission of 'fire and sword' was granted to Mackenzie against him and all his followers,

I had found a wallet of antique negatives in an old drawer in the house which I had meant to experiment with when we were trying out photograms in college. The negatives are not 35mm film. They were already cut into individual negatives. I am not sure whether they are a 120mm film or another old format. We picked out a negative in order to a) try larger negative formats and b) see how old negatives fare over time. The resulting print was surprising on many levels: Not only did I manage to get the exposure time right. We were also astounded at the sharpness of the image. Time has not done much damage to this old negative. And according to a hand-written note on the negative wallet, the pictures were taken (or developed) in September 1914! But most surprising of all, I discovered that the image must actually be a self-portrait!!! The picture depicts a boy in what looks like a nightshirt, leaning on his elbow in a hospital bed. The shot apparently is not taken in a hospital, though - the bookcases in the background look domestic. The woman behind the boy appears to be a nurse. And - the boy has a camera resting in front of him on the bed. So I believe that he must have attempted to take this as a self-portrait with his nurse and it is shot in front of a mirror. I absolutely loved the coincidence of developing this shot at a time when I was experimenting with self-potraiture myself. Who the young boy is, we have no idea. There were no boys in V___'s greatgrandparents family at the time that this picture must have been taken. Other negatives in the wallet have family members in them, though. Who is he? What a fantastic mystery to come across... Photography is fascinating on so many levels...