From Tweed protector to broadcasting collaborator

One of her main objectives in this newly created position will be to develop collaborations with other production companies in order to maximise the value from Gaelic television’s own modest funding.

The appointment emphasises the importance now attached by MG Alba to co-funding, both with independent companies and broadcasters in other countries, to commission high quality material which would be far beyond its own resources.

When he was in the islands earlier this year and visited the Harris location of BBC Alba’s crime drama, “An t’Eilean”, BBC director general Tim Davie pledged support to the channel but also encouraged the belief that collaborations would be the most effective way of stretching its budget.

As HTA chief executive, Lorna has helped steer the industry through various challenges and raise its global profile. Innovations have included a highly popular visitor attraction which features weaving exhibitions, within the HTA’s premises in Stornoway Town Hall.

Reflecting on the “ incredible privilege and responsibility”, she said: “The Harris Tweed industry is unique. It creeps up on you and a passion for it grows in quite an unexpected way.

“Protecting our industry’s extensive portfolio of trademarks and the Harris Tweed brand, particularly in China, is a constant battle. It must be done or we risk losing all that was secured by the vision of those who registered the Orb trade mark in 1909 and again in the early 1990s to secure the Harris Tweed Act of Parliament.

“The iconic Harris Tweed label is highly recognised and desired and therefore highly copiable and attractive to infringers and fraudsters. I think people would be surprised at the pretty sophisticated and hi-tech armoury the HTA deploy in protecting this industry”.

Lorna said she was “particularly pleased that young people today know about, feel connected to and want to work in our industry. They see good jobs, offering career prospects in a very cool, sustainable industry. That’s a very different picture from the Harris Tweed industry I grew up with”.

She added: “I have been so fortunate to have great colleagues at the HTA, likewise out in the mills and in the weaving workforce too. Weavers are a wonderful breed unto themselves! This job has allowed me to travel all over the world and have a role in shaping and protecting something that really matters to me.

“I have met some very interesting people – all thanks to my job here at the HTA and I’m very grateful indeed”. We wish her the same success in her new role.