WITH his trusty camera and a keen eye for a photograph, Duncan Macpherson captured the day to day lives of the families he encountered, of men marching to war, island weddings, crofters and children. 

Across Kyle of Lochalsh and over five decades, he gathered tales and truths from the people he met; from folklore stories to which plants to use to make tincture and balms, keeping meticulous notes as he went just in case they might be of use. 

Back at his chemist shop, he processed the films and created an incredible catalogue of community life. And at home, he stored countless documents and letters, many offering an intimate insight into his own family life. 

More than 1,500 of Duncan’s images have been gathered and stored in archives, recognised for the remarkable insight they offer into bygone days and regarded as being of national importance.

Now, the collection has almost doubled in size, after the surprise discovery of even more images and, sparking particular excitement, a bundle of five reels of moving film thought to date from the 1920s. 

Six boxes bursting with material, including collections of touching correspondence between Macpherson, his wife and their children, along with notes taken during his travels for books he planned to write, plus an array of other printed bits and pieces, were found tucked in the garage of the family’s former home. 

The discovery was made just hours before the garage was due to be demolished and the collection almost certainly lost forever.

Untouched for decades, while some items show the effects of the damp and fluctuating temperatures, many offer a picture-perfect view of life across the area as it once was. 

The collection was handed into Skye and Lochalsh Archive shortly before the pandemic struck, leaving curators reeling from its scale and importance.

Some images capture crofts, street scenes and landscape from the West Highlands and Skye that have long since changed: such as one particularly fascinating image of the island’s Talisker Distillery. 

Unlike today’s distillery with its pristine whitewashed walls and tall chimney, it shows a ramshackle collection of murky buildings with cupola roof. 

The newly discovered collection also includes images that show the reconstruction of Eilean Donan Castle and a wealth of photographs  featuring people simply going about their daily business, waiting for a ferry, gathering sheep or, in one case, marching a pig down the main street of Kyle towards the shore, scenes which might otherwise have passed by without being recorded. 

“There are over 1,000 items of film and photos, and we think most of them are images that we’ve not seen before,” said Catherine MacPhee, archivist at Skye and Lochalsh Archive Centre. 

“There’s film, negatives, photographs, correspondence, a draft of one book which he has typed up, business papers. 

“The photographs and film have been taken by someone who lived in the area and was at the heart of the community,” she adds. “A local tends to see things differently than a visitor.”

Duncan was born in Glenquithal, Aberdeenshire in 1882, and after graduating from Edinburgh University as a pharmacist and working briefly in England, opened his own shop in Kyle of Lochalsh.

His output was prolific: as well as taking an immense number and variety of photographs, from 1927 to 1960 he published an annual Vest Pocket Guide to Skye and Lochalsh packed with visitor information including bus routes and places to visit which, offers its own insight into Highland and island life at the time. 

He sold a range of postcards under the title ‘Kyle Pharmacy Series’, and wrote travel guides, packing them with information he gleaned from the locals he met, taking time to reproduce names in Gaelic and interpreting their meanings. 

Some of the newly found correspondence includes charming letters between him and his bride to be, Margaret Maciver, detailing how she was planning their wedding from her home in Stornoway and looking forward to their new lives together. 

The couple had two children, Mary and Neil, who featured in many of their father’s photographs. 

Neil died in an accident during the Second World War. Among the items found within the new collection is a tiny pocketbook which belonging to his father containing a newspaper clipping recording his birth, a photograph of him as a child and another as a young soldier, presumably taken just months before his death. 

There are also letters between his wife and his daughter in which they chat about events in their lives, and correspondence between Mary and her wide group of friends. Packed with details of life at the time, it has been described as similar to a modern “WhatsApp” group chat. 

Mary married, but had no children. Nearly 30 years after her father’s death in 1966, she handed many of his items to the Dualchas Heritage Service, later Skye and Lochalsh Archive Centre. 

They form two collections: The Kyle Pharmacy Collection of papers from his chemist’s shop including orders for medical, veterinary and household goods, invoices, prescriptions and dispensary records, and the Duncan Macpherson Collection of photographs. 

It was thought they represented the entire body of material he had left behind. 

Catherine added: “In 2019 the new owner of the property where the MacPherson family had lived contacted us with news that they had uncovered boxes of business and personal papers, negatives and film in a flooded garage on the day of its scheduled demolition.

“However, it has suffered from poor storage conditions over the years and the film and photographic formats are in particular need of conservation work.”

The Centre has now been awarded funds from The National Archives’ Records at Risk Fund, to digitise and store the moving film and glass plate negatives, and to protect the images from further degradation.

Eventually the new images will be uploaded to the Centre’s online archive, Ambaile. 

Catherine added: “The collection allows researchers to weave their way between the intrigues of community life, the family’s leisure and business concerns, and the development of the creator’s photographic interests. 

“What is outstanding is the detail of life on the west coast that he recorded; it is a unique snapshot of everyday life, weddings, social events. 

“He was a pioneer, who chronicled what was happening in the community but also the big events such as images he took of German submariners surrendering in the main street of Kyle and crossed into tourism.

“It’s a significant addition to our collection.”