Minister seeks to explain Sunday closing letter to shop

Businesswoman Leona Rawlinson's partner believes local shops could "operate discreetly" on Sundays

A minister said a request was made to a businesswoman to close her shop on Sundays in a bid to encourage people to "enjoy the peace of the Sabbath".

Leona Rawlinson, who runs Tweed Tastic on Lewis, was sent a bible and a letter from The Lord's Day Observance Society, Lewis and Harris branch.

The Rev Greg MacDonald, a branch committee member, said the group had concerns about changes to tradition.

Ms Rawlinson has refused the group's request.

The Rev Greg, a Free Church of Scotland (Continuing) minister, told BBC Radio Scotland's Kaye Adams Programme that the shop owner should be recognised for her good use and promotion of locally-woven Harris Tweed.

But he said that, while people were free to do as they chose, he would discourage anyone who would listen to him from visiting businesses when they were open on a Sunday.

The minister said: "I would want everyone to enjoy the peace of the Sabbath.

He added: "We don't police people's private life. Our group is concerned about changes to the traditional day of the Lord's Day.

"The Lord's Day is a day of peace. It is not a day of profit and trading."

'Operate discreetly'

Ms Rawlinson's partner, Martin Flett, told the Kaye Adams Programme that she had not intended to open on Sundays when she first opened the shop in July.

The decision to open on Sundays followed Ms Rawlinson transferring the manufacturing side of her business from her home to the shop, he said.

Mr Flett said: "Because she had to go down to the shop to make things, she just thought why not open the shop door too.

"There were lots of tourists. Opening on a Sunday was to be just for five to six weeks in the tourist season."

He said the shop continued to be opened on Sundays to stand up to the "pressure" she had been put under to close, which included a suggestion in the letter sent to her that islanders would boycott the shop.

Mr Flett, who like The Rev MacDonald was born and brought up on Lewis, said he could remember at time when play park swings were chained up at dusk on Saturdays for the Sabbath.

He said life on the island "had changed a little" since then, and he believed that local Lewis shops could "operate discreetly" on Sundays.

He added: "If a sports centre, or a theatre or a couple of small shops want to open, it is not changing the dynamic of a community at all."