Inner Hebrides
The poet Sorley MacLean was born on Raasay, the setting for his best known poem, "Hallaig". George Orwell wrote much of the novel "1984" whilst living at Barnhill on Jura and J.M. Barrie wrote a screenplay for the 1924 film adaptation of "Peter Pan" whilst on Eilean Shona. Cressida Cowell, the author of "How to Train Your Dragon", spent childhood summers in the Inner Hebrides and has stated that they are "one of the most beautiful places on Earth" and "the kind of place where you expect to see dragons overhead".
Cy McLean
Cy McLean was born in Sydney, Nova Scotia, and relocated to Toronto, Ontario. He formed his first band as of 1937. He was a pianist, who supported himself as a musician through working as a messenger at the Toronto head office of Bell Canada. He became known as the leader of Toronto's first black dance band and, as of the 1940s, led Canada's only full-scale black orchestra. McLean is credited with training many Canadian jazz musicians of his time. He and his band developed their music career through playing at non-union establishments, due to being unable to join the local musicians union. The band became quite popular, and during World War II was sponsored by Lifebouy Soap to tour southwestern Ontario. McLean and his band played in areas of Ontario where a black person had not been seen before. He and his band were sometimes barred from restaurants, in addition to being initially denied union membership. Despite these events, McLean chose to perform exclusively in Canada, stating that "people (in Canada) aren't like they are in the United States. I've never wanted to go down there, for that reason."