Puppies, pussycats and ponies – the pets of Canna House

The bench that can be seen in the first image was a favourite prop for showing off the Campbell animals. When visitors arrived, be they an important priest or politician, musician, writer or crofter, they usually had a cat thrust at them and were told to sit down ‘for pictures’. The ironwork chair beside it was also a favourite resting perch for John and Margaret’s favourite Siamese, Pooni, the King of Canna House. He first came to Canna in August 1938 and presided over the household until the grand old age of 18, fathering many generations of Siamese kittens.

In her earlier life as a folklore and song collector on South Uist in the 1930s, Margaret also took many images of the animals on the croft at North Glendale, both domestic and farm animals. She learned how to milk Dora the cow and feed the pet lambs on the croft belonging to her landladies, Peigi and Màiri MacRae. Here she captured Peigi milking Dora outside their little croft house called Taigh Màiri Anndra. Peigi herself captured Margaret and Màiri taking tea and sandwiches outside the house, watched closely by Dora and the croft collie!

Margaret captured Màiri’s son, Donald, in later years, looking after one of the pet lambs on the croft. If you look closely behind Donald, you can see how the thatched roof of a cottage was traditionally secured, using rope made from heather, held down by a large stone.

Margaret was particularly fond of taking pictures of her South Uist friends with their favourite domestic animals, dispelling the notion that rural folk only care about farm animals. Here is the postman from Stilligarry, Finlay Campbell, in 1930, with his favourite puss.

The Canna Photographic Collections also include that of the Thom family. Robert Thom, a shipbuilder from Greenock, was the owner of Canna before the Campbells, and lived there for over 50 years. Thom’s photographic collection leaves us some delightful images of the animals with which the family shared their lives on Canna in the Edwardian era. The fashion is almost as interesting as the animals! Here is Louie Thom with her pooch and her pony, outside the building which is now Café Canna.

Minnie, Mable and their friends take time out with their various furry and feathered friends. Puppies feature prominently in the Thom photo collection. And it’s that bench again ...

Canna House contains many thousands of photos of animals over the years, but it also celebrates animals in many other forms, including ornaments, tea towels and posters! Almost every corner is filled with a representation of the many animals that the people of Canna House cared for.

Living in a place like the Isle of Canna means that people are closely connected to the land, weather and, above all, the animals that provide companionship, a livelihood and even entertainment. And we’re grateful for the wealth of stories too. Even the cat basket belonging to puppy Paxtu in 1977 is still in use today – it holds the statue to Pepa, the last of the Canna Cats, who died in 2016 aged 22.

Stories about French cats, magnificent cockerel ornaments, cat tea towels, cat posters, owl lamps, butterfly displays and cat-shaped kitchen hooks ... Canna House has them all!

We finish with a classic image taken by Margaret, of prize puss Wicked William (or ‘Uilleam Dhona’ in Gaelic) in the window of Taigh Màiri Anndra beside the old oil lamp, in 1931. This photograph really does tell a story of a thousand words!