Stornaway is one of those jewels in the middle of nowhere, with loads of interesting things to do, and we were happy to explore.
To me the statues of the Herring girls were awesome, and the story about them was told to us in a small cafe, where we found some old man who was prepared to speak English. I still do not believe that such a lot of people couldn't understand us, and have a faint suspicion that they did not like to speak their suppressor's language.
According to this interesting old man, there was very little or any work for girls on the island during the 1900's and early in the 20th century. As the women of this islands were used to hard work, they were employed as gutters, a dirty job which entailed long hours. But they were always happy and cheerful lot, and travelled to other places like Lerwick and Stronsey in the North, and a few other islands, and also to Isle of Man , and other fishing ports in England and Ireland.
By 1930 Germany, Russia and the Baltic States had built up strong fishing fleets, and soon the Herring catches had depleted considerably, leaving the girls without work.
We then went to the Harris tweed factory, and it was strange to me that Harris tweed was spun on Lewis, and not on the adjoining Harris. Tweed had been spun by the islanders in their homes for protection against the cold at first, but later it became a barter product to barter for other commodities from the other islands and also the mainland.
The cloth was spun from virgin wool, and dyed with vegetable dyes on the islands'
The original name was Twill, because the fabric was spun with patterns, but an English merchant confused the spelling, and thought that it was called Tweed, because of the river Tweed that runs through the Scottish borders, and advertised it as such, and the name stuck.
I bought three meters of beautiful tweed, in a greenish greyish sort of colour, and would have loved some more, but I had to watch the weight of my luggage.
Then we went for a late lunch in a small pub, where we were told that no pub on the islands were open on Sundays, but the man told us with a lecherous wink that if needed, there were ways to get one's hands on some of the softer stuff.