Our cottage was a typical Butt and Ben, the design found all over the Highlands; a rectangular shape consisting of three rooms and attic space, with an outside lavatory. According to Wikipedia, it is a two-roomed dwelling, perhaps because the third room is very small, but in many cases still held a double bed and a chest. The Butt is an all-purpose room, a kitchen, living room and bedroom in one tiny space, the bed encased in an alcove in the wall and hidden by a curtain or shutters. The Ben room was usually the best room. Again with a box bed, fireplace and possibly easy chairs.
Some cottages had extra porches at the front, and others had extra rooms added on with their own door, a granny flat would be the modern-day equivalent.
We had a black Dover Range with a boiler to one side, so there was a supply of hot water. The box bed had been converted into fitted cupboards. We had a table and chairs, two comfortable chairs by the range and a chaise longue in worn brown leather which could be converted into a bed. 
No TV in those days but the wireless (radio) was constantly on, giving us news of the outside world. I particularly remember the children's program, 'Listen With Mother,' at about two o'clock every day.
Before the days of Calor gas, I vaguely remember the Tilly lamp being suspended from the ceiling.
Later that was replaced by the most modern of modern inventions, Calor gas. Gas lights replaced the oil lamps, and cooking was now done on a gas cooker. For washing clothes, we had a gas boiler, a Godsend for my mother who had previously scrubbed my father's boilersuits which stank of oil and fish, on the step outside. She even had a gas iron!
Being the gas engineer for the district was yet another job for my overworked father. He was now a crofter/fisherman/occasional lighthousekeeper and Gas representative. During the time he did spend at home, he taught us to play chess, draughs, Monopoly and cards (the only games we owned) and played hide and seek with us or read from Alice and Wonderland, which seemed to be the only children's book we owned. He read it in put-on voices and always made it sound different somehow. We loved those readings! Other indoor games we played were Hide the Thimble, I Spy, Consequences and The Minister's Cat.
Our small back room was referred to as the Closet, or scullery. In there we stored food, drinking water brought from a well, and a small table holding a basin beneath a tap. Water for washing came from two large tanks outside and was piped through the wall. they either caught rainwater or were filled manually during dry periods. Our roof was not slate, tile or even thatch, but flagstones quarried locally and cemented together.
My parents slept in the Ben end, and the children slept in the attic. My father was handy and fashioned two bedrooms up there, one for my two brothers and one for myself and my sister. It wasn't a high attic and standing upright was impossible for an adult. The staircase was very steep, not dissimilar to a wooden stepladder, for comparison.
We often had relations come to stay for a holiday. At those times my parents gave up their bed and somehow managed to squeeze in beside us! Our wee room was than wall-to-wall bed!
Left was the view from our skylight. We called it The Chapel, but it was never used as a place of worship in my lifetime.
The kirk, standing roughly in the middle of the island, is the kirk. It was well attended on a Sunday and still stands proud to this day. With its steeple, it can be seen clearly from the mainland.
The manse is attached to the far end and is now used as a home for the owner.
The public phonebox was not added until 1953.
After the last sad service, the bible was left open at the last reading, the hymn books left open at the last hymn ever sung in that wee kirk, 'God be with you till we meet again.'
That must have been a very poignant service indeed. I can just imagine the congregation filing out in silence, hearts too full to speak. I was just a young child, and none of it touched me.
Unfortunately, the building has been emptied and is now used as a store.
Above are the children of the Sunday School on that same last day. I'm the one with the long legs in the middle!
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