Roger Hutchinson – författare

At the beginning of each decade for 200 years the national census has presented a self-portrait of the British Isles.The census has surveyed Britain from the Napoleonic wars to the age of the internet, through the agricultural and industrial revolutions, possession of the biggest empire on earth and the devastation of the 20th century's two world wars.In The Butcher, the Baker, the Candlestick Maker, Roger Hutchinson looks at every census between the first in 1801 and the latest in 2011. He uses this much-loved resource of family historians to paint a vivid picture of a society experiencing unprecedented changes.Hutchinson explores the controversial creation of the British census. He follows its development from a head-count of the population conducted by clerks with quill pens, to a computerised survey which is designed to discover 'the address, place of birth, religion, marital status, ability to speak English and self-perceived national identity of every twenty-seven-year-old Welsh-speaking Sikh metalworker living in Swansea'.All human life is here, from prime ministers to peasants and paupers, from Irish rebels to English patriots, from the last native speakers of Cornish to the first professional footballers, from communities of prostitutes to individuals called 'abecedarians' who made a living from teaching the alphabet.The Butcher, the Baker, the Candlestick Maker is as original and unique as those people and their islands on the cutting edge of Europe.

Early on a wartime winter’s morning in 1941, the 8,000-ton cargo ship SS Politician ran aground in the beautiful but treacherous seas of Scotland's Outer Hebrides. Among its cargo were 260,000 bottles of whisky destined for the American market – a godsend to the local Eriskay islanders whose home-grown supply had dried up due to wartime rationing.News quickly spread and boats came from as far as Lewis, and before local excise officer Charles McColl could intervene, more than 24,000 bottles had been 'rescued'. Villages were raided as bottles of whisky were hidden in the most ingenious ways – or simply drunk to get rid of the evidence. Meanwhile, official salvage operations foundered, and in order to pre-vent what the islanders themselves regarded as legitimate salvage, the hull of the Politician was dynamited.The story is well known through Compton Mackenzie’s bestselling book Whisky Galore and the famous 1949 Ealing comedy of the same name. In this book, acclaimed journalist and Hebridean expert Roger Hutchinson tells the true story of one of the most bizarre events ever to have happened in Scottish waters.

In 1918 Lord Leverhulme bought the island of Lewis with ambitious plans to massively expand its fishing industry and increase its population.In 1923, when his plans had failed, he offered it free of charge to the islanders in two parts. One part, which included impoverished rural areas, was economically unviable. But the other, based around the busy fishing port and administrative centre of Stornoway, was a different matter. In accepting Leverhulme’s offer, the hardheaded, churchgoing business class of Stornoway took on the responsibility of making the radical slogan ‘Land for the People’ a reality. It was an unlikely coupling, but it worked to perfection.The 20th century was a tumultuous time for Lewis. Migration and depopulation were exacerbated by two world wars. Such problems could not be addressed in the lottery of private landownership, but in the stable, democratic government of the Stornoway Trust, town and country alike would weather the storms.Roger Hutchinson tells the story of those storms, and of the people who guided their pioneering estate into the relative security and prosperity of the 21st century. In doing so he paints a vivid portrait of a unique landholding experiment, of Highland land struggle and of the island of Lewis itself.

This is the story of the Hebridean island of Raasay from the time of the hunter-gatherers to the 21st century. It is dramatic tale which includes Irish missionaries, Viking invaders, the medieval Lordship of the Isles, adoption by the crown of Scotland and centuries of peace in the clan system. During this time Raasay’s people developed their own character and be-came known for their musicality, seamanship and proudly independent nature.Retribution for their Jacobite sympathies was severe and was followed in the 19th century by clearance and decline. At times in the 20th century Raasay’s future looked bleak: an iron mine established before the First World War was abandoned, 200 hundred German prisoners-of-war came and left, and absentee landowners drifted in and out until the entire island was nationalised by the state.But at the start of the 21st century, stability and optimism was generated by the establishment of several community-led housing and energy projects and a new distillery. In 2026, the future looks bright.

'An incredible testament to one man’s determination' – The Sunday HeraldCalum MacLeod had lived on the northern point of Raasay since his birth in 1911. He tended the Rona lighthouse at the very tip of his little archipelago, until semi-automation in 1967 reduced his responsibilities. 'So what he decided to do', says his last neighbour, Donald MacLeod, 'was to build a road out of Arnish in his months off. With a road he hoped new generations of people would return to Arnish and all the north end of Raasay'.And so, at the age of 56, Calum MacLeod, the last man left in northern Raasay, set about single-handedly constructing the 'impossible' road. It would become a romantic, quixotic venture, a kind of sculpture; an obsessive work of art so perfect in every gradient, culvert and supporting wall that its creation occupied almost twenty years of his life. In Calum's Road Roger Hutchinson recounts the extraordinary story of this remarkable man's devotion to his visionary project.

Archipelago is one of the most important and influential literary magazines of the lasttwenty years. Running to twelve editions, it was edited by Andrew McNeillie, with theassistance later of James McDonald Lockhart, and began as an attempt to reimagine therelationships between the islands of Ireland and Britain. Archipelago has brought togetherestablished and emerging artists in creative conversations that have transformed the studyof islands, coasts and waterways. It journeys from the Shetlands to Cornwall, from theAran Islands to the coast of Yorkshire, tracing the cultures of diverse zones through someof the best in contemporary writing about place and people.This collection gathers poetry, prose and visual art in clusters grouped around the Irishand British archipelago, with contributions from an array of significant artists. It includesnewly commissioned work as well as an interview between Andrew McNeillie andRobert Macfarlane on the development of Archipelago across the years.