Poet Don Paterson: Not a Calling, a Diagnosis!

Charlotte with Tony, one of our fellow writers.

As we waited for Don Paterson to arrive from a morning gig at Sabhal Mor Ostaig, Charlotte Johnson celebrated her last day as president of the Reading Room by indulging her taste buds with a yummy cone in the bar of Skeabost Country House Hotel. The rest of us had tea and cookies I brought in case of the munchies--and we had them! We were gathered to partake of what turned out to be a gem of a poetry workshop, some hours before the Reading Room evening meeting at the end of April. Yes, it was a month ago and as is the case recently, I am

Don Paterson at the head of the table: 'Try to converse in iambic
pentameter. It's much easier to do with a gin and tonic in your hand!'

remiss with my postings. My mind has been twiddled by dealings with the Home Office
and at writing time, I am in Edinburgh waiting to pick up my passport from immigration officials and take off for the U.S. of A. But as I've said before, that is another posting! Just wait til I've stopped crying.

From our patio location, I could look across Loch Snizort Beag and up the hill to Tote and my little pink caravan I had been offered for a month, by my friend, Ann. It was like having a workshop in my own backyard.

Margaret, Beverly, Charlotte, Val, Kathy and Tony.

Our good bud Don is an astute editor and teacher, thus we at the workshop were much better off as poets when we dispersed. I have all kinds of tidbits written in my little silk book: 

'Stick it in the title - then it relieves the poem of having to mention it!'            

'Identify the intention of the poem, then see the way it is doing and not doing it.'

'Is the word working? What is the line doing? What we're trying to do with the poem is being memorable.' 

'Fuzziness gives readers problems, when you could have told them. Is it literal?' 

'Emphasize but be careful of typography. You can literally do what you want, but what are you risking?' 

'If you are making a metaphorical move, be sure the reader knows.' 

'With hanging lines, the phrase can take a battering.'

'Try it in quatrains - makes it tighter, to move stuff it doesn't need - less is more.' 

'Show, not tell, but be careful of lots of concrete descriptions. What you're trying to do is prompt the feelings. The reader is concerned with his own feelings, so write with the feeling - provoke the feeling.'

'Sing your poetry!'

Don Paterson was introduced to the Reading Room audience by incoming president, Linda Henderson, with a list of impressive awards. Don said, 'It's a funny thing about poetry readings...I hate them and I'm just drunk enough to admit it,' though he said he loved one because of the introduction: 'A marvelous introduction - better than the poems.'

Still, the credits make you want to go and stick your head in the oven...this guy who stands at the blackboard at the University of St. Andrews has received the 2008 OBE, 2010 Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry, TS Eliot Prize, Forward Prize, Whitbread Poetry Prize, Geoffrey Faber Memorial Award, is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the English Association. He is also Poetry Editor at Picador MacMillan. He does music too...look up his website at www.donpaterson.com.

Doesn't he look like he has an attitude?
Folks didn't realize we had an agreement--I was to let him know
when I was going to shoot him...okay Don, NOW!

   More on the meeting: It was an occasion for accolades, hugs and tears, as Charlotte Johnson slid over for Linda Henderson, amid the gift presentation and verbal love tokens for the job well done. Charlotte told members that the highlight of her stint was Anthology - Words from an Island that the group produced: 'The reality is it's beginning to make money, thanks to all the artists.' She continued, 'I have to say as outgoing chair - I cannot stress enough - what a great committee we have. They're brilliant...and the high caliber of writers we're attracting... I'm also very grateful to Sarah Pentland for her work over the past two years.'

Linda Henderson is the brave new president of The Reading Room on Skye.

...and me, I'm missing the May meeting tonight, with Linda Cracknell and her just published book, Doubling Back. Boo hoo. I will continue Angel on Skye, because no matter where I roam my heart and soul are on the island. Feel free to send me info on what's happening.

Mandy Haggith Charms the Reading Room

Maoilios Caimbeul (Myles Campbell) and Mandy Haggith after a
spellbinding feast of tree poems in English and Gaelic.

It's a joy to be back on my my blog, Angel On Skye, after a long holiday and struggles with applications to remain here. More on that later but I am remiss, having promised myself to do a post on a wonderful event I attended in early February...so here goes, glad to be here!

The Reading Room presented environmental activist writer/poet, Mandy Haggith, in a late winter meeting on Skye, at the Skeabost Country Hotel on Loch Snizort Beag (incidentally a lovely historical stop for afternoon tea or dinner--see photos on my previous posts). 

Haggith introduced Into the Forest: An Anthology of Tree Poems, a book which she edited while working on her project, A-B-Tree, celebrating the link between trees and writing. Certain trees or shrubs are associated with every letter of the Gaelic alphabet and I'm not sure if anyone else could make it as interesting as Mandy does. Her extensive education, novels and books, and life path through collaborations and activism give her an assured demeanor and guaranteed an intriguing exchange of information of that winter's eve. 

The writer lives on a Lake Roe croft in Assynt, Scotland. She says, 'When I say I live in the most beautiful place in the world, most people nod. On Skye, they all say, "Yeah!"'

Her favorite tree is the Rowan, which is associated with the second letter in old Gaelic, Luis, from the Norse 'raun', meaning 'charm' or 'spell'. 'The Vikings thought the first woman came from the Rowan, the man from the Ash,' explains Mandy. She has so many curious, silly, intriguing and delicious tidbits about trees and things, you must check her out.

The selection of poems, chosen from works by poets of various nationalities, was made even more memorable by the participation of Maoilios Caimbeul, who followed some of Mandy's English versions with readings in Gaelic. 

Mandy Haggith is full of stories, anecdotes and hilarious quips and if you like trees, or bears, or anything in the natural world, I recommend that you search out this fascinating lady. Her blog is at www.cybercrofter.blogspot.co.uk  or search just by name. She's out there, in more ways than one!

Walkers Step it Up on Skye!

A gale of a day, with trees leaning and stinging rain,
will never deter this group of diehards.

Tramping over the hills on Skye is nothing new. There are so many intrepid walkers here, it might seem odd if you don't froth at the mouth without your daily dose of fresh air and leg work...but I find keeping a date with a group of fellow enthusiasts once a week is a social engagement that rewards me with much more than my own company.

Next to singing, there is nothing I like better than to walk and if I walk, I am usually talking to myself. Too many hours at home see me introspecting, meditating, and generally being silent as tombs. As noted in other posts, it is not unusual to see me grasping desperately at the chance to converse with sheep, cattle, chickens, dogs, cats, birds and any critter who passes my way--'Carpe' is my walking motto: carpe dog, carpe tree, carpe anything that moves, and blether, blether, blether. How rare to have a group of humans with which to share general information, personal stories, and even troubles. I have also accumulated a valuable cache of local history from my fellow walkers.

Just lean into it, ladies.

Partners for Wellbeing (PfW) are a registered charity that is supported by the National Health Service, Paths for All, Scottish Natural Heritage and the Inverness Common Good Fund.  PfW recruits volunteer walk leaders, who are trained to run weekly health walks in local communities in the Highlands. On Skye, there are groups in Lochalsh, Dunvegan and Portree. Sue Wood, of Roskhill, is our trusty leader in Portree and Dunvegan.

There is no lack of beautiful walks on Skye and they always end with a warm tearoom and hot cuppa something...and of course, the chatter of beautiful birds revelling in their strong bones and muscles, clarified brain power, and relaxed attitudes.

If you want to save your marriage, plump up your skin, and feel beautiful, start walking!

Our Step It Up Highland leader, Sue Woods, is second from right.

Step it Up Highland news and photos are on PfW's excellent website: www.pfw.org.uk


Bring your fellow or any companion that loves the outdoors and step up your life!

John Dobson: Farewell to the sky traveller

John Lowry Dobson 
(1915-2014) 

My old bud John Dobson passed away last month, January 15. 
(Though he was 99-years-old when he left his body, I'm referring to my long-time acquaintance with him). At the time  he left, I resisted writing about him here, because he was not a Skye man. Having thought about it, I have to say he belongs here at Angel on Skye, because John was mist and shimmer, myth and dream, fertile invention--if anyone could build a cloud castle, it was he.

John Dobson was my orb of the night, my loony lunar play-pal, my shooting star--a star-gazer mad and fleary as thistle down. He was a searcher and teacher of physics, with the levity of eider down let loose on the island moors. 

This dancer through life was a joyous gossamer thread to follow. I do rejoice in the memory of his rush from any part of the world to make it to our Hollywood Hills Christmas caroling ventures, in that he chose me for my voice and laughter--arm in arm--we raised our song like hounds at the moon. 

The ladies swooned over John for his loving camaraderie, his great sense of humor, his guitar-plucking, his easy ways which made us all feel like this is the kind of man we want in our lives--our ideal for true marriage of souls...we could say we wanted to marry him and thank goodness he never took us seriously.

John served as a Vedanta monastic in San Francisco and Sacramento, U.S.A., for twenty-three years (1944-67). There, Swami Ashokananda assigned him the task of reconciling Advaita Vedanta and modern physics.

For many years, he visited the Vedanta Society of Southern California--for several months at a stretch. When residing at the Vedanta Society, he presented a series of fascinating cosmology classes, each over a month in length. In his cosmology series, John started out teaching some basic ideas about the universe, the birth, growth and death of stars. Then he turned to the nature of the electron and proton, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, and Einstein’s equation for the objective separation of events in 4-dimensional space-time. This led to a discussion of what is behind space-time-matter-energy and how we get from it to this universe that we perceive. His cosmology directly corresponds with the ideas of Advaita Vedanta. John then explained how spiritual practices naturally follow from this cosmology. This brilliant, twinkle-eyed science guru turned me on to physics and I am forever grateful.

Twice while visiting Southern California, he appeared as a guest on the Johnny Carson Tonight Show.

John Dobson is the founder of the San Francisco Sidewalk Astronomers. His books are: Astronomy for Children Under Eighty (1973); Advaita Vedanta and Modern Science (1979) (republished as Beyond Space and Time); "The Moon Is New": Time Comes In With A Minus Sign; and Plans for Building a Sidewalk Telescope (free download) (1991). John also penned two articles in Prabhuddha Bharata (1985-86) and six in Vedanta Kesari (1988-96). Nearly all of these addresses and writings were on the subject of Vedanta and modern physics, particularly in relation to the scientific cosmology of Albert Einstein.

When in Southern California on a yearly basis, John also presented a class for constructing personal large-size telescopes at a fraction of their normal cost. He has become world famous for helping thousands of people make their own telescopes. Even today, many manufacturers copy his simple and elegant design, which is dubbed “the Dobsonian”. He and many of his students have made it possible for hundreds of thousands of people to view the rest of the universe through a telescope. He felt that it is important for people to start wondering about the nature of this universe, and he said that letting them look through a telescope is a good way to get that wondering process going.

During the last few years of his life, John resided at the Hollywood monastery of the Vedanta Society. He impressed many with his zeal for life and his regular meditation habit. He left his body on Wednesday, January 15, 2014.

Obituaries appeared in the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. For a glimpse into what his friends valued him for, a number of videos of John Dobson can be found on YouTube.

Thanks to the Vedanta Society and Swami Atmavidyananda for bio notes.

Is it Spring Yet?

Sun raises his glory a little earlier...

one brave eye peeks over the bedsheet more hopefully...

leaf buds appear and some dare to swagger forth in lime radiance and apparent defiance of the ominous slate on the horizon...

mad-cap geese sail near the icy wind and tip, and almost flip...  

a lone tit pecks frantically for a peanut before perhaps the late-winter gale catches her plucky spirit...

…while snowdrops bow to whatever may come, tiny lion-hearts of February

bidding good morning to Mr. Groundhog

in giddy jubilation.

Days are becoming more glorious on
Skye and as you can see, these Orbost Highland cattle are dancing a jig...


well, this guy is just very good at playing poker--but I know by the tilt of the hip, he is swaying to the pipes.

Baby exhibited a few kicks and twirls but I think she had a flea.







The petite homesteader on the hill at Orbost estate showed a very good tossing arm. What a wall and what a great day to find snowdrops...

Irishman's Point Nightmare

Excerpt from my favorite book about Scotland (mine!), Gimme the Song O' the Pipes! 

The boys keep making sounds about my clotted cream belly again, after my gorge on chocolates last night. My host fills the jar every day--why, why? Today is my walk around Irishman’s Point in Broadford. It sounds like a simple, interesting walk along the Broadford Bay coast. Fooh and Angus say they are ready for an adventure...little do we know...

   We happily tread past the hostel, which has a prime location looking out over the bay. Fooh is impressed that I recognize the oystercatchers, with their bills even longer than their long legs which end in big chicken feet. Photo-taking of blackish, brackish seaweed turns on my artistic soul, then over a stile, around the point, along the edge of the water—when all goes haywire.

69.  Irishman's Point.

  It is a mucking mess, if I may say so. The rocks and basalt are slippery, so it is too difficult and no fun to walk close to the edge of the water. Up a bit is the deep sloshy, grassy muck. I become discouraged and decide to head up the hill and along a fence. The view is magnificent, with the isles of Crowlin far off in the distance, and closer up, Pabay and Longay. The going is just as tough here and I plan to move right up over the hill to the road on the far side of the conifers. No messing around.

  Uh-huh. Right.

  The fence is un-crossable here, so we follow it around the corner and keep climbing. I have to go pee, but decide to wait, then it gets worse, because I have to go poo. Oh dear. This happens to me every time I go into a bookstore. But why here? Okay, so it could be readily taken care of, except there is nowhere to step except on my bit of patchy grass. So my task is to squat in my own bed, so to speak, find bits of dried leafy vegetation to use and move on, hoping the troops aren’t close behind me—I can hear them now...oh yuck, what the...?

  Up a ways there is no trekking onward, too much vegetation, so I climb the fence and double-over to move under bushes—Fooh and Angus in my hood yelp occasionally when a twig snaps in their faces. As I creep along, hunched and slipping and sliding, I feel like Hyacinth in a comic sketch, but it gets worse. I am now looking across a vast stretch of clear-cutting on the hill. To the left, way up and over, is a long forest-like stand of fir trees. As I begin stepping into the mess of stumps and piled branches, it becomes immensely—I say immensely because my mind has just exploded with the realization—immensely obvious that this is going to be a nightmare. With each step is the possibility of dropping down into several feet of water and rotting, stinking-of-sewage vegetation. I am going to royally get paid back for my soiling in my bed antics. Fooh keeps saying we could or should go back the way we came, but the optimist in me says this can’t last forever and I hate to go back to the muck. After about an hour, I pause to take a self portrait of my plight, in case I never get out. They will have a last- moments-of-my-life illumination to give to my daughter Woo.

70. I'm smiling because

Fooh and Angus have toppled over and are on my right 

in the muck, but first things first...

I pause for the camera, hanging on and standing on a root...

  I choose a path, climb over stumps and realize that it is safest to try to follow the line of the tree roots. One path after another--guessing games of this way or that leading to the hill over there, or perhaps a road up there, end only in disappointment and frustration. I discover various trails made by tractors and follow up and down, and they lead to nowhere. Each step is tentative and I barely move five feet per minute. When finally we reach the line of trees at the top and think okay, we can go through the forest to the road, it only gets more treacherous. That is not a viable solution.

  I decide to move along the edge of the forest and by this time, I can barely move without falling into a bog or one leg dropping down into a hole under the delicate, rotting branches. Now, the terrain gets more lumpish and trenchy. Streams are moving under everything and I climb down and then up. This all strikes me as ludicrous, because I can’t be far away from anything.

  But I see no one—just rolling brown trenches and steep water-filled ravines and stumps and clumps of high grass--this Angus suggests I concentrate my weight on, which turns out to be my saving grace. Then my feet turn every which way, my ankles twist, my new fleece pants and shoes are filled with smelly water, mud and crap. On I stumble, wanting to cry, but why? What good will it do? It becomes almost impossible to move in any direction.

  After hours of this, I see some buildings. It turns out to be the company that is cutting these trees. Now the final hour—of acres of bog, six-foot piles of Christmas tree branches with no bottom, and all intermingled with—oh, la, what a surprise—berry vines! Acres of berry vines—wrapped around, trailing through, tangled in all of the above. I have fallen from grace with the gods and have been plunged into a dark hellhole. So close and yet, so far, far from any place I would choose to be rather than here. Angus wants to shout out for help, but I am too mortified. How embarrassing and how could I betray my country by revealing my stupidity to these Scots?

  No, I bumble on, tumble down; scratched, grabbed at by every nasty prickly bit of berry vine. My legs and hands bleed, each step catches me, digs at me, I pull and pull and pull the vines away and each step is another imprisonment. I can actually hear the men shouting to each other over there but they ignore me. For this I am grateful—once they heard my American dialect, I’d be a laughing stock. I practice my London dialect, thinking if they do notice me, I can convince them I’m an idiot from the south.

  By the time I break free and find my way through a junkyard of planks that want to flip and tip each time I tentatively put my foot on them, and climb over the fence, it has been four and a half hours since we left the water’s edge. When I step onto the blacktop of the road across the street from the Highland Free Press, I feel I have never been so happy to walk with a road under my feet and the boys cheer me on. I am exhausted.

  At Caberfeidh, I leave my boots on the porch, toss the guys onto the bed and walk straight into the shower, clothes and all. Afterwards, somehow refreshed, I take a walk to the Co-op to replace the candies in my room. By the time I get ready for bed, I have eaten half of the chocolates and am sick of myself. My last fading thought before sleep is, ‘Spare me from pigging out tomorrow.’

Walking Bernisdale and Skeabost

One of my local (and regular) walks, along the western shore of Loch Snizort Beag, is filled with hellos to my critter acquaintances, updates on what the wind has taken down, and the varied small, but consequential enchantments a stroll necessarily has to offer--like the signs on homemade boxes and containers that entice coins out of your pocket for fresh eggs. Yes, I have many chickie friends on this walk.

The charming bookstore of Gaelic, Highland and rare books, Buth Leabhraichean (lea-brai-chean sounding so close to 'library', yes?), is a surprise along the little lane toward River Snizort.

No matter that we get hail and powders of snow and ice-bear winds--it still tends to look tropical in certain sheltered spots, like this pond at Skeabost Country House Hotel. I'm wrapped up to my nose but it remains green and I'm noticing the bright yellow flowers of gorse already blooming forth. 







The impressive white 'hotel' was built in the mid-1800s as the hunting lodge of Lachlan MacDonald, proprietor of the townships of Skeabost and Bernisdale.

During the crofter Clearances, the emigration point for the area was on this jetty by the hotel. Such a dreary state of affairs, which deserves a blog post of its own.

 This quaint stone structure was built on the Snizort River, by the MacDonald family. It sits near the mouth of the river and is known as the Old Turbine House, where electricity was produced for the big house until 1954.

A company named Three Esses has taken over here, with the intent of recreating the hydro scheme, which will provide funds to keep their hatchery going. Wild salmon eggs are incubated in tanks here at the ghillie's cottage. I must admit that I have always thought the dry, circular, recessed 'tanks' were old sewage processing tanks! The 
lades, which run above the river, originally provided water for the turbine, but now also supply river water to the eggs.

Lades draw the water to the hatchery and turbine.

The Tube, a black scary- looking piece of plumbing which required a 100-ton crane for installation, can be heard emitting almost subterranean grunting and churning slurps--I am minded of Kumbhakharna, the sleeping monster of the Ramayana, and I pray to the gods to let him snooze, while I take this photo. 

The 'Beast' has a 35kW Archimedes screw, which the guys make much about, as it's supposed to turn at around 30 revs per minute. The 40:1 gearbox steps the gennie (generator for  non-geeks) up to 
over 1200 rpm. The screw is filled with a rubber trim, so that none of the fish--even the smallest fry--gets hurt, in case they "want to take a white-knuckle ride up or down the tube". (More info on this turbine at end of post.)

The River Snizort is the most celebrated spate river on Skye. The Three Esses Ltd. operates the fishing for nearly its entire eight miles. They say the river has Wild Brown Trout, Sea Trout and Salmon and they help anglers practice catch and release techniques. I would be interested in what local readers think of this project--comments welcome.

The pool in front of the turbine is named  'Coire nan Ceann', the Cauldron of the Heads. After the 1539 battle over ownership of Trotternish peninsula, which begins on the other side of the river, the victorious MacDonalds tossed the corpses of the MacLeods into the river by the bridge, and they collected in this pool.

Looking across the river, I see the ruins of the old 'Nicolson' chapel on the pretty green grass of St. Columba's Isle.

St. Columba's Isle: "The little ruined island of silence and the dead..." (A. Smith)

Skeabost Gatehouse is available for fishermen.

I head out past the Skeabost House Hotel's gatehouse and stone posts... 

...and pause for a shot of the Old Poste House, known to you as the scary Halloweeny House in the Glen (its much earlier name). It doesn't look too frightening in the daylight, but it is in a nasty state of condition and its owners, Penny and Iain, are slowly renovating the historical building. The path I am following from my cottage is the old drovers' road and this 1702 house was the inn on the bridge that served travelers passing by on horses, in wagons and on foot.

Now I cross historical Skeabost Bridge, trip lightly along the water to cross a little footbridge, and voila! I am on St. Columba's Isle (Eilean Coluim Chille). In the Dark Ages of 536 CE, it is said Columba left his home in Ireland to settle with the Gaels of Dal Riata on the Isle of Iona, which was granted to him for a monastery. St. Columba (Collum Cille) was presumed to have been a prince of high status and he appeared to have influence with kings, as he served as a diplomat. His reputation grew after his death and legend tells us he used one of the large stones here as a pulpit. 

Effigy in the small chapel ruins now called Nicolson's Aisle.

We are told that this small isle in the River Snizort held the first Christian church on Skye. It is associated with the Bishops of the Isles from 1079. By 1134, Skeabost had the status of a cathedral. There are ruins of at least two buildings: one small chapel dedicated to the saint, used as the Nicolson clan chief burial aisle and a larger, 79' x 26' cathedral with transept...though it is hard to decipher much of the cathedral now, as the stones are covered in moss and trees and bushes grow everywhere. Over a hundred years ago, it was thought that there were five or six chapels here. The little isle is lumpy with rocks, walls, partial gravestones, the land all rolling and tumbling. One time I encountered a herd of cattle here and they didn't seem to mind my presence, what with the lovely green grass munchies. I finally found a three-foot section of fence that had been lowered by bovine paws--their deep churning effect is still visible and adds to the difficulty of walking around the graveyard.

Some monuments have managed to remain upright in a tipsy fashion. Twenty-eight chiefs of Clan Nicolson are said to have been buried in the wee chapel, but it is hard to imagine, without referring to Alexander Smith's description: 
'I never saw a churchyard so mounded and so evidently overcrowded. Here laird, tacksman and cotter elbow each other in death.' In his bewitching book, Summer in Skye, the nineteenth-century Scottish poet says, "One could  not help thinking what a picturesque sight a Highland funeral would be, creeping across the moors with wailing pipe-music, fording the river, and his bearers making room for the dead man amongst the older dead as best they could....an eerie place by moonlight. The broken chapel, the carved slabs lying sideways, as if the dead man beneath had grown restless and turned himself, and the headstones jutting out of the mounded soil at every variety of angle, would appal [sic] in the ink of shadow and the silver of moonbeam..."

There are a lot of different types of Blackface sheep on Skye, with varied horn shapes and body color. I won't insult any shepherds by pretending to know more than that, though I was told that the marks they put on the sheep are precise, as they have various meaning. I just saw a program where they put a marking halter on the male, and when he mounted, a particular color rubbed onto the ewe. The Scottish Blackface is known to be grumpy and shy, but though her peers ran away, she? posed amenably before retreating. Most of the sheep I encounter are quite friendly. 


Lachlan MacDonald was the landlord for the Free Church of Scotland in Skeabost and the Free Church Manse in the trees. This is the spot to watch bird antics at ebb tide. Here the River Tora runs into Loch Snizort Beag, and ducks continue to float around the boggy turf, while the free flyers play tag, knock the boater off the head, and skim-surf.

Above is a (out-of-focus!) guy who insists on being outside of the fence--I fear for his life on the fast road on the other side of the drovers' path, but he loves to play dodge and continues to surprise me two cottages down, just when I pick up speed in my car.

Back near home, joyful cluckings abound in the rare sunshine. 




My cluckings are just as happy, 'cause it's teatime for me! 

Floreat!





*The Archimedes screw (again for non-geeks)is credited to the third-century BC Greek polymath, Archimedes of Syracuse, but the concept of a turning screw pulling water gradually up a tube was known at least by Syrians three-hundred-and-fifty years earlier. 
The screw used for 'The Beast' is using falling water rather than pulling it up.

Hydro power is water power, where falling water has potential energy due to gravity (witness flash-floods). In some hydro schemes, fish can become disoriented due to turbine turbulence, thus causing concentration in fish passes--thus creating an increase in predation by other animals and people. The Archimedes hydro screw turbine is designed to not impact the effectiveness of the adjacent fish pass. New England Hydropower's Roger Hutton says the Archimedes power generator 'tends to wash the fish rather than impact them'. Search Fishtek Consulting for the risk assessment of impact on fish. For info on the turbine at Skeabost, search www.skyesalmon.co.uk.