Compton Mckenzie

Compton MacKenzie

Compton Mackenzie was an English-born Scottish novelist and nationalist. He was born into a theatrical family. His father, Edward Compton, was an actor and theatre company manager; his sister, Fay Compton, starred in many of James M. Barrie's plays, including Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up. His grandfather was Henry Compton, the well-known Shakespearean actor of the Victorian era. He was educated at St Paul's School and Magdalen College, Oxford where he obtained a degree in Modern History.
 
Aside from his writing, he also worked as an actor, political activist, and broadcaster. He served with British Intelligence in the Eastern Mediterranean during World War I, later publishing four books on his experiences.  He is perhaps best known for Whisky Galore – the hilarious eEaling comedy which was filmed here, and also for Rockets Galore & Monarch of the Glen. He published almost a hundred books on different subjects, and his fiction, The Four Winds Of Love is considered to be his magnum opus. It is described by interviewee Dr John MacInnes, (formerly of The School of Scottish Studies), as "one of the greatest works of English literature produced in the twentieth century."  Among his many other achievements, he was the co-founder in 1923 (with his brother-in-law Christopher Stone) of The Gramophone, the still-influential British classical music magazine.
 
Mackenzie went to great lengths to trace the steps of his ancestors back to his spiritual home in the Highlands, and displayed a deep and tenacious attachment to Gaelic culture throughout his long and very colourful life. He was an ardent Jacobite, the third Governor-General of the Royal Stuart Society, and a co-founder of the Scottish National Party. Mackenzie built a house here on Barra in the 1930s. The house, called “Suidheachan” overlooks the Traigh Mhor at the Airport where the plane lands on the beach.  It was here that he gained much inspiration and creative solitude, and where he befriended a great number of people in the community that he described as "the aristocrats of democracy". One such friend was John MacPherson, known as "The Coddy". MacPherson's son, Neil, recalled Mackenzie as a man of huge imagination, generosity, and talent.
 
Such was Sir Compton Mackenzie's love of Barra that he is buried at Cille Bharra in Eoligarry where he is still very fondly remembered.