to Eilean Rìgh The island has the remains of two
Iron Age forts. In the 1930s, the island was home to
Sir Reginald Johnston, retired tutor to
Puyi, the last Chinese emperor. Johnston modernised the houses, built a
Buddhist temple, and even flew the
flag of Manchukuo in the Chinese-style gardens. Chinese servants lived in the farmhouse. In the multiple Oscar winning film by Bernardo Bertolucci
The Last Emperor, Johnston was portrayed by
Peter O'Toole. The property was purchased by a retired Indian army officer, Major Campbell, who lived in it with his family until the outbreak of the
Second World War; Campbell believed that a German submarine had entered the loch during the First World War and had caught sheep. In 1959 it was purchased by
Wilfred Brown and his cousin Robert Banks Skinner. They believed that in the future the UK would become crowded and the island would be a place for some privacy, but it was largely used as a holiday home. In 1992 it was sold to
James Waldegrave, Viscount Chewton. The current owner is a Scottish-based ex-financier, Christian Siva-Jothy, who bought the island from Viscount Chewton in 1998. He substantially renovated the properties on it, installing mains electrics via an undersea power cable, a new fresh water well and telecoms via a microwave link. The island was for sale from 2013 for over a year but was taken off the market early in 2015 when Siva-Jothy sold his estate in the north of Scotland and moved back to live permanently on Eilean Righ. Siva-Jothy and his wifewho studied Mandarin at
SOAS, where Johnston had been the first professor of Chinesenow reside full-time on the island. ==Footnotes==