A SPECIAL event is being held tonight to celebrate a legendary cartoon character who was created by a son of Staffin.
The adventures of the legendary ‘Angus Òg’, which was penned by Ewen Bain, will be showcased in Staffin Hall at 7pm in an event organised by Skye and Lochalsh Archive Centre.
One of Scotland's leading comic book artists Frank Quietely - who has worked on Judge Dredd, X-Men,Superman and Batman - will be discussing the impact of Angus Òg with Prof. Laurence Grove of The University of Glasgow.
Angus lived in the fictional village of Drambeg in the Utter Hebrides and his sayings and quick wit were rumoured to have been based on some of the characters Ewen came into contact with locally, as he spent many summer holidays in Brogaig at the family home.
The popular cartoon character was enjoyed across Scotland and appeared in the Daily Record and Sunday Mail until Ewen's death in 1989. His ashes were interred with his parents in Sartle cemetery.
The event comes after the appointment earlier this year of Katharine MacFarlane as the Archives Project Officer for Angus Òg, after the collection was donated by Ewen's daughter Rhona Flin.
Katharine, who stays in Kilmaluag, is leading the development of the cartoon collection now held in the Archive Centre within Portree's Elgin Hostel. Katharine’s role includes undertaking research into the collection, the conservation of items and the co-ordination and delivery of a community engagement programme and innovative exhibition.
This is the first public event and Katharine said it was important it should be in Staffin given Ewen's strong family ties and the inspiration for many of his characters and stories. Teas, coffees and refreshments will be provided by The Hungry Gull.
Ewen's daughter Rhona Flin, who also spent a lot of her childhood visiting Brogaig, donated £1,000 to Staffin Community Trust in 2022.
Ewen was born in Maryhill in Glasgow in 1925 to his Skye parents and was the youngest of three children. Each year in July there was great excitement when they would get the train to Mallaig before sailing to Skye. Ewen’s mother stayed with the children during July, and in August there was further excitement when his father arrived in Staffin for his annual holiday.
It was described by Ewen’s late wife Sheila, who wrote: “This was much more than a family holiday – it was ‘coming home’ and the welcome, of course would be in Gaelic."
The carefree summers of his boyhood ended with the outbreak of the Second World War and Ewen trained as a coder and spent most of the conflict sailing between Gibraltar and West Africa on convoy-escort duty. He trained as a teacher and taught in a number of Glasgow schools before becoming a full-time cartoonist in 1969.