The SS Politician was a cargo boat that ran aground in 1941. She would have been just another statistic of a wartime shipping loss if it was not for one thing: she contained 22,000 cases (264,000 bottles) of scotch. It was the habit of Hebrideans to look at all wrecks on their shores as bounty to be rescued from the being lost, irrespective of the niceties of the maritime salvage laws. The fact that a Scotch-drinking writer by the name Compton Mackenzie lived on a neighbouring island and decided to use it as a basis for a humorous story meant that Politician was immortalised in the book and two films that go under the name Whisky Galore. There is a darker side to it all – and the book's pompous figure of Captain Waggett was, in reality a customs man named McColl, who persecuted and prosecuted anyone who had taken from the wreck. – SchroCat (talk) 19:31, 20 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
