Mary Buchanan stands just five feet two inches ( 157cm) in her stockinged feet which probably helps explain why she is such an extraordinary human dynamo. What she lacks in height she more than makes up for in energy. It’s not just ideas that are constantly buzzing around in her head; her hands are always busy as well. Even on the odd occasion when she does sit still in front of the television she has to be doing something creative, something that engages her overwhelming desire to be productive. Scotland needs a lot more Mary Buchanans.

After she graduated from the Glasgow Domestic Science College – affectionately known as the “Dough School” where she specialised in Dress and Design she completed a secondary schools teacher training course, taught for a while in Glasgow and in 1981 moved north with her teacher-husband Jim to the tiny village of Poolewe one and a half hours beyond the Highland capital, Inverness and just across the bay from the famous sub-tropical gardens at Inverewe.

There she founded Slioch Outdoor Equipment, a company specialising in high quality made-to-measure outdoor clothing. Her products were so outstanding that they won contracts to supply all the Royal Air Force mountain rescue teams in Britain as well as all the Search and Rescue helicopter crews in the country. The business was so successful that after five years of steady growth her husband quit teaching and joined her full time.

But, after 18 years it was time for a break. They sold the business, converted an old cow byre in the back garden into a studio, installed a kiln and a potters wheel and started to think about other outlets for their creative energies.

“I have always had a particular interest in Scottish history,” Mary says, “and especially that period in the 17^th and 18^th centuries when much of the Highlands was so rough and wild. I thought, how marvellous it would be to create a kind of window on that lost world, a device which would allow people to peep back in time, to see exactly how the clansmen of the Highlands actually looked, how they dressed, and what arms they carried. The idea was to create clansmen in miniature with every aspect of their dress and their appearance reproduced in absolutely authentic detail. I wanted the clansmen to be so lifelike that they would become heirlooms which would be passed down through the generations.”

Mary spent months researching in museums and libraries throughout Scotland where she read books, letters and articles written by Highland travellers. She distilled all that into  the creation of what she calls Càdadh Heritage Dolls. Càdadh (pronounced Ka-doo) is an old Gaelic term for a kind of tartan plaid used in hose.

Although Mary refers to her creations as dolls, they are in fact much more than that. I doubt that anyone would dispute that they are indeed works of art. Each has a traditional porcelain head, arms and legs and, with each face hand-painted, no two are the same. The wonderful bushy beards, shoulder-length hair and eyebrows are all made of mohair. Mary hand-spins wool for the Highland bonnets, knits them with ultra-fine needles and then boils them so that they shrink down to an authentic felted texture – exactly as they were made in the 17^th century. “The shirt is made from linen,” she says, “and this was apparently the only undergarment worn by the Highlanders. It came down to the knees.” The jacket which is also fashioned from woollen cloth is short and flared from the waist. The cuffs and the jacket front have tiny buttons made from oak and birch twigs.

The Càdadh Clansmen wear the ancient form of the kilt, known as fealeadh mhor, the Gaelic term designating a plaid which, somewhat like a sari, is folded and draped, fastened around the waist with a leather belt and pinned at the left shoulder with a brooch. The excess plaid is tucked into the belt at the front creating pockets where as Mary says “all sorts of things could be stored”. All the tartans are hand-woven to scale in the traditional “ancient colours” of the clans.

Mary makes virtually every part of the doll herself – by hand – and that includes the leather belts, scabbards and boots and the beautifully wrought targe or shield. “The targe is made in several stages,” she says. “First a circle of leather is cut and wetted so that the design can be hand-tooled onto its surface. Then it is dyed and given an antique finish, mounted on a cork base and fastened with brass nails before the leather backing and straps are attached.

The Clansman’s shoes are made from a single piece of leather fastened with a long leather thong which threads through the shoes and winds around the ankles.

The Clansman’s basket-hilted sword is one of the few accoutrements that Mary has to source outside her own workshop. The miniature swords, precise in every detail, are beautifully hand-crafted for her by Thomas Yeudall, the renowned Ayrshire armourer. Each of the brooches has been designed by Mary. They are then cast in pewter by David Hinwood, a specialist in Celtic jewellery. David Hinwood also models and casts the beautiful little dirks for the Càdah Clansmen. 

Mary’s proud boast is that each one of her Clansmen is unique. “ The face, beard, hair and eye colouring is different for each one,” she says. “All the Clansmen are made to order and now, especially from the United States, I’m getting orders for particular coloured eyes and hair to perhaps fit in with the kind of family characteristics that Scottish emigrants took with them into the New World.”

Mary has over 82 clan tartans which are especially woven. Each clan is to be represented by a “limited edition” of just 30 clansmen – with each one signed and numbered. Each of the Clansmen comes in his own beautifully-finished wooden box complete with embroidered velvet lining. But Mary Buchanan’s creativity has not stopped with her Clansmen replicas. She has also turned her attention to making exceptionally cute little rag dolls or CheckMates as she calls them. These are available in all the traditional Scottish tartans with each doll being given a Gaelic name (and instructions on how to pronounce it).

Each Càdadh Clansmen requires more than a week - 40 hours of painstaking work - to put together which is why they retail for £425. I think they’re worth every penny. Mary’s CheckMate ragdolls sell for a modest £27.  Visit www.cadadh.co.uk for further details.  

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