Logic, but not as we know it...
I am eternally indebted to the Scotsman for carrying a letter from Rev Fraser (Free Church Continuing) which clearly sets out the position of the FCC on Sunday sailings.
Sadly, they are utterly illogical.
In the real world, the previous three hours will have been spent preparing the vessel, stocking the bar and cafeteria, getting taxis to take people to the ferry, hoteliers making sandwiches and so on. Or perhaps the Rev is only interested in the illusion of no Sunday working. After he has finished his work for the day and sent his customers home.
Understandably, the Rev deliberately omits to address a key issue about
Was it really that the island was heathen until 1939, and was only 'saved' by the cessation of the Sunday ferry to Mallaig?
Actually, I think it was religious opportunism that made a spurious connection between piety and the cessation of the ferry service, and has tried to ingrain it into local 'tradition' as a false memory.
If anyone doubts the veracity of what I write, then visit the Transport Museum in Glasgow and find the timetable for London-Stornoway services (outside the railway ticket booth) and see the facts for themselves.
Sadly, they are utterly illogical.
There is still time for a ferry leaving at 00h15 hours on a Monday to return and resume its normal schedule for the day.So presumably the crew and passengers start to board at 00h01.
In the real world, the previous three hours will have been spent preparing the vessel, stocking the bar and cafeteria, getting taxis to take people to the ferry, hoteliers making sandwiches and so on. Or perhaps the Rev is only interested in the illusion of no Sunday working. After he has finished his work for the day and sent his customers home.
Understandably, the Rev deliberately omits to address a key issue about
seeking to defend their distinctive way of life.There were Sunday sailings until at least the 1930's, and I have yet to find anyone who refutes that, or who can tell me when or why the prohibition on Sunday sailings arose.
Was it really that the island was heathen until 1939, and was only 'saved' by the cessation of the Sunday ferry to Mallaig?
Actually, I think it was religious opportunism that made a spurious connection between piety and the cessation of the ferry service, and has tried to ingrain it into local 'tradition' as a false memory.
If anyone doubts the veracity of what I write, then visit the Transport Museum in Glasgow and find the timetable for London-Stornoway services (outside the railway ticket booth) and see the facts for themselves.
40 comments:
The Rev's letter also appears on the Hebrides News site.
In addition to a revised time table he is waffling on about the Lochseaforth running aground with the chairmain and various others on board. Is he suggesting divine retribution or poor navigation skills? Sadly with every bonkers statement that comes out against Sunday Sailings (sounds like an American prom queen) it only serves to allow the LDOS to shoot themselves on the foot. Good.
The 00:15 Monday sailing is a great idea. That would solve everything. However you make a valid point about boarding at 00:01, in the real world you’d have everyone working late Sunday evening to get the ferry away on time. So it’d be better if everyone boarded on Saturday evening instead. That way the ferry would be ready to sail with all external openings sealed 5 minutes prior to the scheduled departure of 00:15 on the Monday as per EEC regs. Packed breakfast, lunch, dinner and a carry out to avoid the catering staff having to work on Sunday essential.
Instead of the 00:15 sailing why not retain the Friday peak summer timetable throughout the year, i.e. an early evening sailing from Stornoway on the Friday and have the regular 2 sailings on the Sunday so people could be back home on Sunday evening ready to go to work on Monday with a smile on their face.
Thinking outside the box maybe? Please advise.
much the same thing, angus, happened with cars (but in reverse.) Cars used to be thought of a a very inappropriate way to get to church - now it is walking that is sometimes frowned upon!
So someone, lets say a tourist, who has to be back in Glasgow for work on Monday morning, gets this ferry, arrives in Ullapool at 3am, home to Glasgow at 7.30am. Just enough time for a change of clothes and bowl of cornflakes before heading to work for a full day, after a night of travelling. Absurd!
There is no truth in the story that I went on a sight-seeing trip on a plane on a Sunday during a Council funded trip to Pendleton USA, and as a consequence I had to leave Back Free Church.
2:40 PM Sorry but there is still work required to be done before a vessel leaves port. This usually takes atleast an hour to do (mainly because the engine cannot just be started like a car engine can). The earliest sailing time would have to be 01:00.
While all this bickering is going on I DO hope that someone with a little intellect has contacted the "outside" media and has pointed them in the direction of this fascinating mud-slinging debate. I can't wait to see it on national telly.
First the bankers, then the MPs and now taxpayers cash used to sub this islands "unique way of life"....stifling growth and expansion more like......
Our forefathers fought so that we would be free and have freedom of choice and democracy.
Come on Calmac, just start the service, the fallout will prove more entertaining on national news than recent topics.
Lets have a demo in support of opening the sports centre on Sundays too. Less drunkenness and more QUALITY FAMILY TIME!!!!!!
If I wanted my family and I to live in a dictatorship, I'd have relocated to any number of countries east of here, instead we choose Lewis.... should have looked at the politics and the childlike behaviour of the elected representitives first!
What ever happened to religious tolerance?
You're bang on about the false memory of the 'tradition'. (Not speaking from experience of course but) anecdotally, it seems that before the revivals in the 1950s, attitudes were not nearly so entrenched. In the 1850s the FC petitioned to have the Sy PO close on a Sunday (because it didn't, previously). Fervent evangelism and hardline attitudes are distinctly seasonal and to pick them as the genuine tradition is selective, to say the least.
If we're going to be really traditional, why don't we start up the offerings of beer to Shony, or revisit some pre-Christian Viking beliefs? I expect Thor would prefer us not to sail on Thursday.
So 4.41 chose to live here instead of anywhere else on the planet where it is possible to get a ferry on a sunday. WHY??
Read and weep-
"In the Seventies, when Sunday sailings were instigated to the Isle of Mull, our protest was ignored. However, that summer virtually every service was dislocated by vessel break-downs. Finally, the MV Lochseaforth ran aground with the company chairman and managing director on board. There is a price to pay ("in this life and that which is to come") for transgressing God's laws needlessly."
HA HA HA.
And they wonder why people leave these islands.
If any national, and I mean sizeable UK wide publication picks this up, prepare for stereotypes of this island to continue for another 20 years.
Intellectual discourse worthy of the Taliban.
F***ing lunatic!!
Sorry, I don't normally swear but someone has just told me to read this letter and seeing is believing.
I cannot believe that there is anyone in this country who still thinks like this. This extremism at it's best. Forget the Taliban etc come to Lewis and get the real deal.
It would seem that one of the main issues that LDOS has with Sunday working is do do with making a profit on the Lords Day. Surely Calmac are therefore exempted from this because they do not make a profit, they are a loss making nationlised company!
There is still time for a ferry leaving at 00h15 hours on a MondayI can see the Visit Scotland headlines now, what a great tourist selling point.
How about.............
anyone not in support of Sunday sailings let Calmac have their details so when ferries are full and demand outstripped they can stand aside or let calmac automatically delte their booking and let others have their places on ferries on Saturdays and Mondays to save the souls of those who may otherwise sail or want to sail on a Sunday. The inconvenience not being an issue knowing that they abide by the good book and that have done their fellow men a soul saving favour. The inconvenience of not being able to travel on a day of their choosing should be no issue to these righteous guys.
Just read Donnie Foot's column in the Free Press - unbelievable language and basically illogical.
If Sunday ferries are wrong now and threaten his religion, why would they be ok when they 'become the settled will of the Lewis people?
He also needs to do a bit of homework on Equalities.
A lot of our more superstitious neighbours refuse to enter Engie's shop, even through the week, because he opens for business on the Saaaaabeth.
Can we hope for similar sanctions on Macbraynes- a refusal to use the ferry even through the week, as it has been tarnished by Sunday sailings?
Of course, this should also apply to the airport, so they are stuck on the island for ever- unless they leave now!
I am not a religious person but I respect the Christian traditions on this Island. I am very skeptical that ferries ran on Sundays in the 1930s, but the Equal Suffrage Act was only passed in 1928 maybe we should remove the right of women to vote - I mean its not a UK tradition is it?
It is the attitudes of people in the above comments that make myself and others hate living in Lewis. Sunday ferries will make no difference to Lewis it is ruined already!
4:41 "What ever happened to religious tolerance?" - it didn't go any where, its just vastly outweighed by religious intolerance.
I think Anonymous 8.45 has hit the nail on the head in his/her remarks on intolerance. That, in my opinion, is the root of the problem ; the inability or refusal of some sections of the community to respect the wishes of others. The "religious" community has always stated that they are always right in their views and interpretation of Biblical writings.I have never seen any expression of fallibility or humility from that sector, in the ppublic domain. "Ordinary" people have put up with this attitude for far too long, in my opinion, and now the mainstream population are venturing to ask for their civil rights to be respected, this fearful backlash is the result. It is a really scary situation. It has all to do with power and little to do with Christianity in my view.
"We know there are other islands where ferries only call on alternated days, or less, so this is a spurious argument."
Without doing extesive research, i assume this refers to islands such as Coll, Tiree, Eigg etc. Therefore, hardly a 'spurious argument' when you consider the considerable poplulation differences!
Yet another case of LDOS speaking before thinking.
Does anyone know what the good folk of Ullapool think about sundae sailings? I don't recall seeing anything open on a Sunday when I was last there (probably about 12 years ago).
After reading the Rev Frasers letter I must say I have never read so much rubbish in all my life. So what is to blame for the London Bombings or the Foot and Mouth outbreak ??
A Mori poll in February 2000 showed 72% of Lewis and Harris residents supported a referendum on Sunday Sailings and 61% in favour of Sunday sailings. Of course this was rubbished by the Comhairle and the LDOS ( no suprises there then !!!)
The LDOS make absurb remarks like "Naked commercial greed" so there is no problem with naked commercial greed filling the island with windmills running seven days a week then ??
12:02 The last time I was in Ullapool on a Sunday (due to a cxd sailing), almost everything was open.
The last poll was in 2000, a majority approved.
We are in 2009. Much has changed. Sunday planes, Engies open, swings no longer chained up, more people hang their washing out on a Sunday. A more diverse population of different,(or not at all) religious persuasion. Broadband internet. Ever been in the castle grounds on a warm summer Sunday afternoon?
Roll on a referendum. The LDOSers got 4000 signatures. Pro Sundays could get double, but many are intimidated,have a standing in the community, wish to be anonymous etc.
But a secret ballot....
I've had a re-read of the Rev's letter. When the Loch Seaforth was introduced in 1947 it sailed @ 00:15 to Kyle to meet the mail train. Prior to the Seaforth starting the service, it's predecessor had sailed at 23:45. So the Seaforth was obeying the rules and yet it was the one that grounded and not the other vessels. Also by the time the Seaforth hit a rock, it had also gone aground already, hit a pier in Mallaig and had also sprung a leak. So really, it was just an unlucky ship.
The Seaforth had both cabin and bunk accomodation for the passengers (unlike the IoL), so I guess that they could board earlier in the day. As it wasn't a Ro-Ro vessel, it would have taken a while to load and discharge it with derricks.
The Loch Seaforth was also similar to Alasdair Allan's trousers - no ballroom.
New lobby group formed, campaigning for Sunday Sailings/sports centre opening/24hr Tesco etc etc
They're called...
"Lets Do it On Sunday"
To avoid any confusion with the similarly named extreme right wing Hebridean offshoot of the Taliban, their headed notepaper will bear the name:
LDOS (non-deluded)
Will the Stornoway Gazette go running to them for a quote every time the 'S' word crops up??
BTW, are the members of LDOS (deluded) elected by anyone? Who exactly are they claiming to represent? Their 'petition' was signed by many church members who felt pressurised or were cajoled into signing for fear of meeting with disapproval of their peers. We saw the same thing in Harris a few years ago with the introduction of Sunday sailings.
However, within a couple of weeks of the service being introduced, many of those who had signd the petition protesting against the service were to be seen boarding the Loch Portain on the holiest of days and sharing the passenger lounge with assorted heathens and ne'er do wells. Would I be correct in describing those petition signing ferry users as hypocrites?
With all that sitting on the fence he no longer needs the room !
Anon 8.31 said if any national newspaper picked it up, we would all be screwed.
From Today's Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/23/scotland-hebrides-ferry-ian-jack?commentpage=1&commentposted=1
Although it is actually quite reasonable and not knee jerk and bigoted.
And it came to pass that Inverness Caledonian Thistle the originators of professional football in the Highlands on Sunday have today been relegated. That will cut down on the number of passengers on the Sunday ferry as from now on they will play on Sats - the traditional day for football.
Re Inverness Caledonian Thistle relegation...
Could this be a message from God? A forewarning of worse things to come if Calmac introduce the dreaded Sunday crossing?
Or does it simply mean Inverness CT failed to score more goals than they let in?
Look out for any upcoming tragic circumstance or slightest misfortune being heralded by the LDOS as proof positive the Lord disapproves of CalMac's actions.
Mark my words, a football team being relegated is merely the start. Armageddon beckons.
Remember the wise words uttered by Councillor Morag Munro prior to the introduction of Sunday sailings from Leverburgh: "The way of life in Harris will be devestated".Now I've experienced Harris both before and after the Sunday ferry service. Excuse me for asking Morag, but which bits are more devestated now than they were before?
She was also quoted (Sunday Herald) saying people in Harris who disagreed with her views regarding the sanctity of the Sabbath were free to up sticks and live elsewhere. Could this be interpreted as the beginnings of a Tartan Taliban ethnic cleansing programme?
More recently I've heard a rumour councillor Munro is hoping to revive the island's economy by seeking lottery funding for the design and production of Tartan Taliban Burkhas. To reduce costs the initial run will be made from the thousands of unsold Harris Tweed jackets originally commisioned and designed by that other forward thinking saviour of the island, Brian Haggas.
MacTeuchter, my god (and you can choose anyone you happen to favour) someone with a sense of humour this surely will not be tolerated. Will life on the islands ever be the same again.
Having just flicked through my Bible, it appears the sabbatarians are chickening out a little.
Exodus 35:2 states that those who work on the Sabbath shall be put to death (yikes).
While we're at it let's reintroduce some of those "traditional Christian values", such as
- selling your daughter into slavery
- never touching the skin of a dead pig
- stoning to death those that plant different crops side by side
- burning your mother alive for wearing garments of two different threads.
Good, solid Christian values...
Ha..ha..9.48pm, these are not 'Christian' values. Christ wasn't around in the times of Exodus so there. If you have a nose through the New Testament there are very few rules and regulations that are based on taking your daughter to the slaugter, violence, gardening and questionning your old mum's needlework. Christ had quite a bit to say about people who would not lift a finger on the Sabbath be it Sunday, Saturday or whatever day it was on way back then. Check it out. As someone has already pointed out Christ's one liner, 'the sabbath was made for man not man for the sabbath'.
Here endeth the lesson. I am available for weddings, funerals, bar-mitzvahs and wine tasting.
So the 10 Commandments aren't Christian then?
5:02 the original 10 were given to Moses. JC made an alteration to them but they mainly OT.
Good to see that the minister in Aberdeen was appointed too. Roll on Liberalism and tolerence.
PS Any one who disagrees will be stoned to death or cast from the cliffs. {:-)
Anonymous said...
"So the 10 Commandments aren't Christian then?"
------------------------------
If you accept the 10 Commandments as being 'Christian' and the Bible as the Word of God, then surely all good Island churchgoers must also abide by the following Holy pronouncements...
a) Burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice - it creates a pleasing odour for the Lord (Leviticus. 1:9).
STOP PRESS: 10% discount at Charlie Barley's on all bulls for FP and Free Church (continuing) members on presentation of Gaelic Bible
b) Sell your daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7.
(A little more difficult nowadays since Scalpay's fish processing factory closed its doors).
c) Lev. 25:44 states you may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations.
(Would one from Harris and another from Scalpay comply?)
d) If you have a neighbour who insists on working on the Sabbath, Exodus 35:2 clearly states they should be put to death.
e) Leviticus 11:10 states eating shellfish is an abomination.
(Does this mean the fishermen of the Western Isles are peddlars of immoral goods? No better than drug dealers?)
f) Lev. 21:20 states that you may not approach the altar of God if you have a defect in your sight.
(It doesn't explain whether vision must be 20/20 or if contact lenses are permitted. Should have gone to SpecSavers)
g) Haircuts are forbidden, including the hair around the temples, Lev.19:27.
(Do the the LDOS have plans to close down all hairdressing establishments in Stornoway?)
h) My uncle Donald has a croft. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same lazy beds, as does his wife Morag by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole township together to stone them? (Lev.24:10-16) Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)
LDOS are expected to market sacks of rocks especially selected for the increasingly popular method of stoning wrong doers to death. Free pack of sacrificial firelighters with every order of three bags or more. Available next month from local Co-op and Tesco stores (soon to be open 24/7).
McTeuchter has really shocked me now (yesterday 4.15) with the allegation that Cllr M Munro spoke to a Sunday newspaper.
Has she been immediately struck dumb by divine intervention then?
I think we should be told.
Clearly just the suggestion that Sunday Ferrys might be a possibility have prompted divine intervention!
So come on then, own up, who's been praying for the MV Isle of Lewis to breakdown?
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