Alan MacPherson with the overall show champion. Photograph: Willie Urquhart. BY DANIEL CULLEN The champion sheep owned by David MacLean enters the ring. Photograph: Willie Urquhart. The 75th Dunvegan Show proved a memorable success, with big crowds, high-quality competitions and some welcome afternoon sunshine helping to create a great atmosphere. Show chairperson Iain Beaton told the Free Press it felt like one of the event’s busiest years. “The show was a huge success. It was fantastic to see so many people come along and enjoy the 75th Dunvegan Show,” Iain said. “We don’t have an exact gate figure yet, but it certainly felt like one of our busiest shows. We were fortunate that the sun came out during the afternoon, which really helped bring people out and created a great atmosphere around the showground.” The livestock competitions saw a high standard displayed, with several other competitions also drawing praise from...

Finlay Wilson and Theo Scott get to work at Skye Auto Detail in Portree. Photograph: Willie Urquhart. BY DANIEL CULLEN Two enterprising young Skye residents have turned their passion into a successful business after launching Skye Auto Detail, a new car valeting and detailing service in Portree. Founded earlier this year by recent Portree High School leavers Theo Scott and Finlay Wilson, the business has already proved popular with customers across the island, with demand keeping the pair fully booked since opening. The Free Press spoke to the young entrepreneurs about how the business came about, with Theo Scott explaining: “Our business, Skye Auto Detail, is a local car valeting shop based in Portree. We do interior and exterior valeting and also headlight restoration.” Finlay Wilson added that the pair wanted to take a different path while they were still at school. “When we started the business we were pupils...

Some of the successful S5 pupils at Portree High School who achieved 5 Highers and S6 pupils who achieved an Advanced Higher award. Photograph: Willie Urquhart. BY JACKIE MACKENZIE As the new school year gets under way Portree High School has been celebrating pupils’ exams success –including one student with a perfect 100 per cent mark in Higher maths. In S5, 17 young people gained five Highers, with six of them achieving straight A passes – Harry Matheson, Tilly Ng, Isla Preston, Holly Salter, Rory Turner and Odhran Young. Rory Turner achieved an outstanding 100 per cent in his Higher maths paper, a feat which last happened two years ago, when his older brother Joshua also achieved 100 per cent. Ahana Akter notched up six Highers, and in S6 the hard work put in by Megan Campbell, Lucia Ceccini-Fraser and Dylan Maughan was rewarded when they all gained five Highers....

Local people are demanding urgent action. Photograph: Willie Urquhart. BY JACKIE MACKENZIE There was a good turnout at a public meeting in Portree on Monday evening when the community was given a chance to voice views over the future of closure-threatened Home Farm care home. The NHS Highland-run elderly people’s home is currently being overseen by the Care Inspectorate after major weaknesses were found in its operation, potentially putting residents at risk. Organised by local campaign group SOS-NHS Skye, the meeting held in the Church of Scotland Hall was chaired by Fay Thomson and attended by local MP Andrew Baxter, Highland councillors Drew Millar and Chrissie Gillies, and SOS-NHS Skye members Neil Campbell and Marion Carson, along with members of the public. Local people were united in their view that Home Farm is a vital facility for Skye and must remain open. They wanted reassurance from NHS Highland over consistent...

Stòras Shlèite project manager Greg Thomson receiving the donation from Alex Bell from the Camuscross games organising team. The recent games day held at Camuscross in south Skye raised more than £700 for the Stòras Shlèite oral history project, which is run by library staff at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig. The generous donation from local games-goers will help support the ongoing collection, preservation and sharing of the rich Gaelic heritage of south Skye. The project is dedicated to recording new material with local people while also preserving and making accessible valuable archival recordings and historical material. This work ensures that the area’s stories, traditions, language and memories are safeguarded for future generations. The project has also been working closely with Bun-sgoil Shlèite, helping to pass on local Gaelic songs from Sleat and distinctive local dialect words and expressions to pupils, strengthening links between young people and their linguistic and cultural heritage....

Calum Slowther and Sopie at the new sauna on the Portree waterfront at Scorrybreac and new addition to the team – Buddy! Photograph: Willie Urquhart A new waterfront sauna in Portree is seeking to establish itself as more than another visitor attraction, with its founders setting out plans for the business to support community organisations, promote water safety and make sauna use more accessible to local residents. Portree Sauna has recently opened beside the Skye Sailing Club boathouse at Scorrybreac, offering wood-fired sauna sessions overlooking Portree Bay. The venture is a commercial partnership with the sailing club, with the sauna’s site payments lined up to provide a new and significant source of income for the volunteer-led organisation. Angus Ross, representing Skye Sailing Club, said the arrangement offered an opportunity to generate revenue from the club’s facilities while introducing a new group of people to the site. “The sailing club is...

John Laing at Dunvegan car park. Photograph: Willie Urquhart. BY JACKIE MACKENZIE The community of Dunvegan is sending a clear message to Highland Council over its plans for motorhome services in the village – right project, wrong place. Highland Council has put in a planning application to install a black water and fresh water service area for motorhomes and campervans on land within the only public car park in the village. But 14 objections have been lodged against the plan, including from Dunvegan Community Council, on grounds that large motorhomes manoeuvring and queueing to use the facility will create traffic chaos in the small car park. It is already under strain and is the location for the public toilets, EV charging points, the bottle bank and is also the Morrisons grocery collection point. John Laing, chairman of Dunvegan Community Council, told the Free Press: “We need to have motorhome waste...

Members of the crew and volunteers at the Portree RNLI Lifeboat Station take a break from their busy open day last Saturday to line up for the camera. Photograph: Willie Urquhart. BY DANIEL CULLEN Portree RNLI’s annual open day raised more than £25,000 last Saturday, as hundreds of people gathered at the pier for one of the highlights in the community calendar. A total of £25,733.50 had been raised during and in support of the event, with that figure expected to increase further as additional donations come in. The Isle of Skye Pipe Band perform for the large crowd on the pier. Photograph: Willie Urquhart. The open day featured a demonstration by new Portree lifeboat Peter and Mary as the local RNLI waved goodbye to the Stanley Watson Barker 14-16 after three decades of service across the area, with 530 launches and 458 people aided during that time by the...

BY DANIEL CULLEN Sarah Bold ‘Night Shift’, an exhibition by artist Sarah Bold, came to a conclusion last Saturday following a successful run at Summer Café in Portree this month. In the exhibition, painter Sarah Bold turned her attention towards the island after daylight has disappeared and landscapes are often seen through windscreens, as winter weather and routine journeys form part of rural life. The Free Press spoke to Sarah about the exhibition and her work more broadly, with the artist saying that ‘Night Shift’ grew from her experience of winter travel on and off Skye. “I am interested in painting rural life and how we interact with the landscape around us. Like most Skye folk, a lot of time is spent driving, either around the island or trips to Inverness, Glasgow or Edinburgh,” Sarah explained. “During the winter the daylight hours are short and it is often dark when...