Helen Macaskill Watt; born Skinildin, Skye, January 22, 1908, died Inverness, August 25, 1996
EILIDH Watt's commitment to teaching, Gaelic writing, and women's rights were all to some degree rooted in her childhood in the crofting community of Skinidin in Skye.
When she grew up there during the First World War memories of the crofters' fight for land rights 30 years earlier were still fresh. Her father, Calum Macaskill, had been active in that struggle, was still involved in radical politics, and firmly believed in educating his children, even if the local schoolmaster thought an academic education rather wasted on girls.
Eilidh would frequently recall his remark that, given her ability, ``it was rather a pity she was not a boy'', with a wry smile. It fired her determination to fight for parity in a man's world.
After graduating at Glasgow University she returned to the islands to teach English and Latin in Tarbert, Harris, and Portree, Skye, before marriage to Robert Watt took her to spend much of her life in the utterly non-Gaelic environment of his native Dunfermline.
Marriage in the inter-war years meant giving up teaching but her services were required again with the onset of the Second World War. She quickly rose to become head of her department and deputy head of Moss-side Secondary School, Cowdenbeath, one of the few women in Fife's education system to enjoy such promotion.
That only served to sharpen her awareness of the disparity of treatment suffered by her sex and she became an ardent campaigner for equality through the EIS. At the end of the war she channelled her desire for radical political solutions to the poverty and inequality she saw around her into the newly founded and briefly fashionable Commonwealth Party.
In Fife her isolation from her Gaelic background found occasional solace in listening to the infrequent BBC Gaelic radio programmes of those days. A critical letter to the broadcaster Hugh MacPhee on one of his offerings brought an invitation to try to do better herself. She immediately accepted the challenge, submitted a script and thereafter found herself a frequent contributor of talks and short stories.
The art of the short story has been in fairly robust health in Gaeldom in recent years, and Eilidh Watt is one of the writers to whom the credit must go. Her work has appeared frequently in the literary quarterly Gairm, and a number of collections of her stories have been published, including A' Bhratach Dhealrach (The Shining Banner) and Latha a' Choin Dubh (The Day of the Black Dog). She could happily handle a wide range of styles and subject matter.
These latter perhaps derived from her interest in extra sensory perception. Without being in the slightest fey about it, she would admit to having the ``second sight'', a faculty she often found burdensome. She is survived by a son Ronald and his family and was buried yesterday in her native Skye.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article