By a strange coincidence the S.S. Cabinet Minister was wrecked off Little Todday two years after the S.S. Politician with a similar cargo was wrecked off Eriskay; but the coincidences end there for the rest is pure fiction.

"Och, times are hard in Barra"
You'd hear the Badochs cry.
"No food to feed a sparra!
And effery bottle dry."

Old men, once fresh and frisky,
So full of ploy and play,
Dropped dead for want of whisky,
The blessed Uisque Bae.

Now, the dusty dry Sahara
Is a bare and barren land,
But the drought that year in Barra,
Was more than man could stand.

Aye, life was hard and cruel
And days were long and sad,
When the strongest drink was gruel,
And the war was going bad.

A cleffer man, old Hector
And wise the words he said:
"Without the barley's nectar,
A man is better dead."

But strange the ways of Heaven,
When men in darkness grope.
Each sorrow has its leaven,
Each tragedy its hope.

The great ship "Politician"
Her hold stocked high with grog,
Steamed proudly past the island,
And foundered in the fog.

A case was rent asunder,
Twelve bottles came to grief,
When the Barra surf - like thunder -
Came pounding on the reef.

And then the scent of nectar,
Came on the wild wind's breath.
"I smell it" screamed old Hector
"It's whisky - sure as death".

He yelled out Kirsty, Kirsty,
Bring down my oilskin coat.
No more will we be thirsty,
Salvation's in that boat.

Though thirst her tongue had blistered,
Old Kirsty forced a laugh.
"I'm coming too" she whispered,
"It's me that needs a half."

Now, Chon MacNeill was dying,
The death that's far the worst.
No end so sad and trying,
As the fatal pangs of thirst.

For weeks he had been lying,
Without a sign of life,
And all the neighbours crying,
For his nearly widowed wife.

He sobbed "I am delivered"
"From the torture I am free".
As his nostrils flared and quivered,
In the glory from the sea.

He shook, chust like an aspen,
The man they thought was dead,
An' sighin' gulpin' gaspin'
He vaulted out of bed.

Barefooted, in his nightie,
He slipped from out their reach,
With steps both long and mighty,
He headed for the beach.

Now Sarah Chance MacKinnon,
A lady through and through,
Was chust a wee bit partial,
To a drop of Mountain Dew.

She brooded at the Ingle,
Her form all old and bent,
When her blood began to tingle,
At a well remembered scent.

Wan sniff and she was rising,
Two sniffs and straight outside,
Where odours appetising,
Were blowing from the tide.

She ran, but so did others,
Och hundreds, maybe more,
As uncles, cousins, brothers,
Stampeded for the shore.

The boats went gaily dashing,
Across the crested wave,
The long oars dipping, splashing,
To their Aladdin's Cave.

They climbed aboard the liner,
The halt, the lame, the old.
No Vikings e'er were finer,
No Pirates half so bold.

They peered with anxious faces,
Within the gaping hold,
And saw a thousand cases,
Of precious liquid gold.

"Ashame! Ashame!" cried Kirsty
It is an act of God,
Just think of Barra thirsty,
And all this going abroad.

Och the ceilidhs and the pleasure,
Oh the choy in Castlebay,
As the gurgling golden treasure,
Chased the cares of war away.

Och the bottles that were hidden,
Buried deep beneath the croft.
Oh! the cases in the midden,
Oh! the joy up in the loft.

Who would heed an air raid warning,
Who would hide himself in fright,
With a tumbler in the morning,
And a bumper late at night.

And Barra boys hard fighting,
On sea and ocean wide,
Deserved their wee bit parcel,
With glook, glook, glook inside.

Old Hector cried we're winning,
The fact is plain to me.
This night is the beginning
Of Victory at sea.

He swigged another chug full,
And happily he sighed:
"The Germans sure have had it,
Now Barra's fortified."

A Slainte - now for Churchill,
His name I proudly call.
But the Barra Politician
Is the greatest of them all.

A RARE bottle of whisky salvaged from the sunken cargo ship which inspired Compton MacKenzie's famous novel, Whisky Galore, is to be sold at auction. The bottle of Ballantine's is thought to have been recovered from the wreck of SS Politician in the 1950s or 1960s.

The cargo ship ran aground in a gale off the Outer Hebrides, near the island of Eriskay, in 1941 - with 264,000 bottles of whisky onboard. Islanders, deprived of the drink because of war-time rationing, started looting the ship, retrieving some 24,000 bottles from the Politician's hull. In 1947, Scottish author Compton Mackenzie wrote the novel, Whisky Galore, based on the incident which, two years later, was turned into an Ealing Comedy film of the same name.

In 1987, eight bottles were retrieved from the wreck, which still lies submerged off the coast of Eriskay, and sold for £4,000. Despite extensive salvage efforts in 1989, only 24 more bottles were recovered. The bottle is to be sold with photographs of the salvage operation at Bonhams annual Scottish sale in Edinburgh. It is expected to fetch up to £1,800 at the sale, which is on between 17 and 20 August.

BEHIND the bar at Neil Campbell's pub in Eriskay, the most desired bottle of whisky lies largely untouched. The prized item draws admiring glances from visitors at the approach of the 70th anniversary of it finding its way to the island in circumstances that have become part of Scottish folklore.

On 5 February 1941, the cargo ship SS Politician ran aground on the island of Calvay, off Eriskay, on its way to Jamaica and New Orleans. On board was a collection of items, most famously, more than 250,000 bottles of whisky. It was seen by many as a gift from the sea and islanders set about "saving" the cargo.

Seventy years on it remains one of the most romantic island tales. The people of Eriskay, in the Outer Hebrides, awoke on 5 February 1941 to find a cargo ship, the SS Politician, aground off their island. A wreck was not unusual but for islanders struggling to get by on wartime rations, the cargo was astonishing: 250,000 bottles of whisky.

What happened next was immortalised in the film Whisky Galore! Seventy years later, on the little island of Eriskay, the real story of Whisky Galore is still being written.

Two rare bottles of whisky salvaged from a shipwreck which inspired a book and film are to be auctioned. The collectors’ items were part of the cargo on the 8,000-ton cargo ship the SS Politician which sank off the shores of Eriskay in the Outer Hebrides in 1941 and inspired the book and film Whisky Galore. The bottles, which have documents of authentication, are to be sold as a pair by Britain’s biggest internet-only auction site Scotch Whisky Auctions, based in Glasgow, with bidding opening on Saturday and closing on May 5.

Scotch Whisky Auctions director Bill Mackintosh said: “Everybody loves the idea of the wily islanders diving to the bottom of the wreck and coming back up with bottles of whisky which they would then hide from the customs. But it is true that there are only eight which have been authenticated recently, and these are two of those which were sold at Christie’s some time ago.” The eight bottles surfaced in 1987 when local man Donald MacPhee from South Uist in the Outer Hebrides explored the wreck and found his liquid treasure. He sold them at auction with Christie’s and received £4,000 for his loot.