Echoes of Caithness in Patagonia
Recorded 6 years ago
About this recording
Helena Altstadt (née Bain) is the granddaughter of George Bain and Helen Mackay, two of the original Caithness pioneers who settled in Patagonia.
Here Helena recalls how her Granny and Grampa adjusted to life in Patagonia while retaining many of their Caithness traditions in terms of what they ate and how they lived.
She suggests that this was a way of keeping alive memories of their homeland.
George and Helen only returned to Caithness once.
George Bain was one of five brothers and two sisters who left Mavsey, near Lybster and Helena remembers how the family would gather together on the beach in Patagonia to celebrate the New Year.
All of the brothers returned to Caithness for wives and Helena has always wondered how they arranged to meet these future wives.
Helena recalls that education was important to the Caithness families, sending their children to school in Buenos Airies and on one occasion George Bain employed a live-in teacher from Scotland.
Helena tells how at first George Bain built a small house but as time passed a bigger house was built to accommodate a growing family.
She also tells that because of the relative isolation how they established small graveyards on the estancias.
Helena made this recording in her dining room in the town of Comodoro Rividavia, Patagonia during one the trips to research the book Caithness to Patagonia.
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