In the Freezer

There are no safes for breaking in the Outer Hebrides, but there’s treasure more worth lifting in the crofter’s huge deep freeze. A verse from the Stornoway Gazette: we didn’t go hungry in 1972.

There are no safes for breaking
In the Outer Hebrides
But there’s treasure more worth lifting
In the crofter’s huge deep freeze.

There is mutton in the mountains
And lobsters by the score
And the odd wee tail of salmon
That got tired and came ashore.

In the homes of Pairc and Uig
Where they shoot like William Tell,
Though the keeper mustn’t know it,
There is venison as well.

So the poor old Highland crofter,
Butt of all the would-be wits,
Can provide a slap-up dinner
That would gratify the Ritz.

Stornoway Gazette, 23 September 1972