Did you know? During the Second World War, Tiree had a very active RAF Airbase, they were key to the success of the D-Day Landings.
I came across a large piece of eroded aluminium during one of my beach cleans a few years ago – the metal pitted beautifully by the motion of the ocean within this large pebble stone bay.  With some effort I rescued it from the tide and began to make heart shaped pendants, working with the essence and beauty of the metal.

Meantime I tried to discover what this metal had come from… eventually fate led me to meet a local historian. By this time engineering friends and I believed it was part of an aeroplane fuselage.  The bay from which I had my find was the one where all wrecked metal and war time debris was shipped out and taken for recycling – thoughts are that this piece fell from deck, perhaps during loading and left to the sea!

Several Halifax Aircraft and crew crashed or otherwise lost their lives here during those heroic and sad times.

The metal creating this jewellery was almost certainly from one of those, a fuselage section now forming hearts ~ a thank you to those souls of men never to return home.

Hand cut and finished by Artist Catriona Spink.