Uploaded May 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
"Anybody can be a landlord, without knowledge, or conscience, or good intent. All he needs is money."
A report by Christopher Brasher.
Once, the people of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland owed their allegiance to one lord - the Lord of the Isles. Now, in the 1980s, things are very different. On the misty Isle of Skye, in the past few years, several thousand acres of land have changed hands.
The new lairds are a very mixed bunch - Ian Noble is a merchant banker, Sir Kenneth Alexander former chairman of the Highlands and Islands Development Board, Johannes Hellinga is a Dutch cattle dealer and Ian Anderson is an internationally famous rock star with Jethro Tull.
Brasher travels to Ornsay, Waternish, Raasay and Strathaird to meet some of the new landlords, find out how they are managing their new estates and ask whether or not some control should be exercised over who can become a laird.
He also speaks to some of the local people who live and work under these lairds - ferryman Alistair Nicholson, farmer Ian McKinnan, former Raasay House worker Kate Gillies, Waternish crofters Charlie McKinnan and Mr Ferguson, and a group of locals who have returned to Skye from mainland universities, tasked with rejuvenating the Fearann Eilean Iarmain estate.
Clip taken from The New Lords of the Isles, originally broadcast on BBC One, 25 March, 1981.
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"Anybody can be a landlord, without knowledge, or conscience, or good intent. All he needs is money."
A report by Christopher Brasher.
Once, the people of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland owed their allegiance to one lord - the Lord of the Isles. Now, in the 1980s, things are very different. On the misty Isle of Skye, in the past few years, several thousand acres of land have changed hands.
The new lairds are a very mixed bunch - Ian Noble is a merchant banker, Sir Kenneth Alexander former chairman of the Highlands and Islands Development Board, Johannes Hellinga is a Dutch cattle dealer and Ian Anderson is an internationally famous rock star with Jethro Tull.
Brasher travels to Ornsay, Waternish, Raasay and Strathaird to meet some of the new landlords, find out how they are managing their new estates and ask whether or not some control should be exercised over who can become a laird.
He also speaks to some of the local people who live and work under these lairds - ferryman Alistair Nicholson, farmer Ian McKinnan, former Raasay House worker Kate Gillies, Waternish crofters Charlie McKinnan and Mr Ferguson, and a group of locals who have returned to Skye from mainland universities, tasked with rejuvenating the Fearann Eilean Iarmain estate.
Clip taken from The New Lords of the Isles, originally broadcast on BBC One, 25 March, 1981.
You have now entered the BBC Archive, a time machine that will transport you back to the golden age of TV to educate, entertain and enlighten you with classic clips from the BBC vaults.
Make sure you subscribe so that you never miss a single stop on our amazing journey through the BBC Archive - youtube.com/c/BBCArchive?sub_confirmation=1
You can also dive into plenty more BBC Archive on our website - bbc.co.uk/archive
