OLD COTTAGE, SOUTH UIST


When I came to live on Lewis, I was still smarting from the comments of a friend(!) down South who, after a night on the red wine, accused me of being staid, resistant to change and set in my ways. Well, after nearly five years of coping with unpredictable weather, Hebridean tradesmen, building Inspectors and suicidal sheep and collies on every road, I think I can claim to have improved.

Friday afternoon was a test of my adaptability, which, smugly, I think I passed.
Having spent the week toiling in Uist, I was looking forward to coming home and taking up my other role as deputy assistant potwasher at a wedding in our community hall, on Friday evening. Arriving at Benbecula Airport at 4pm for the flight home, I ought to have sensed trouble when the usually dour man from the airline rushed up to me with a big beam on his face and asked "Do you want the good news, or the bad news?".

The conversation then went like this:

Yours Truly -- " Give me the good news please."

Airline Man -- "The Icelandic ash cloud hasn't grounded the planes today"

YT -- " How about the bad news then?".

AM -- " The Aircraft has broken down".

YT -- " When will it be fixed?".

AM -- " Not today"

YT -- " When is the next plane back to Stornoway?"

AM -- " On Monday"

YT -- " How am I going to get home then?".

AM -- ( big self satisfied smile) " I'm going to send you to Glasgow"

And that folks, is how my twenty five minute flight took three and a half hours. Big boys plane to Glasgow, followed by half an hour on the tarmac there. Loaded up with passengers and then an hour in the air to Stornoway. Landed at 7:30pm. Drove to the Wedding in time for the first wave of dirty plates and got home at midnight.

This has been a very good week for nature. Got strafed by a short eared owl in Uist and now have three greenfinches visiting the birdtable each day. I've been watching a white wagtail around the house for the last few days and there are violets in flower on the croft.
One evening after work, I drove up the steep road to the radar station at Cleitraval on North Uist, where there is a recently created viewing point with a telescope. On a clear day, there are tremendous views of St Kilda, The Monarch Isles and a host of other places. Sitting there quietly, it was a joy to watch a male Hen Harrier hunting on the surrounding croft land. Most impressive of all though this week, was a visit to Barra, where the North end of the island near the airport is currently carpeted with millions of primroses in full bloom. A glorious spectacle which I enjoy seeing every year.

There is a belief held by some in the crofting community that White Tailed Sea Eagles are responsible for killing and taking a large number of lambs each Spring. As the number of Sea Eagles have increased here following successful reintroductions, the clamour to do something about their alleged impact on lamb mortality has grown louder. A scientific study, undertaken by the Food and Environment Research Agency and published last week, seems to show that the Eagles are largely innocent. Using radio tracking, fieldworker observations and examination of debris in Eagle nests, the researchers discovered that sea birds such as Fulmars are the main source of prey for Sea Eagles and that less than two per cent of deaths among lambs could be blamed on them. It will be interesting to see if these findings are accepted by shepherds.

In a list published in the Stornoway Gazette, the local Council have named eleven Primary schools in these islands that they intend to close down and a further three where they propose to discontinue junior secondary provision. Education is highly prized here and many children do very well in Island schools. Among the reasons for this are small class sizes, committed teachers and a firm belief that children benefit from being taught in schools sited in the centre of their own village communities. If the proposal to close these schools goes ahead, the displaced pupils will have to be bused to larger, distant schools and spend more time away from their homes each day. So much for fostering community ties among the young and hoping they will remain on the islands when older. Shame on the local authority.

EARLY SUNDAY MORNING, GREAT BERNERA


Spring is sprung, the grass is riz, I wonder where the airplanes is? Those pesky Icelandics. First cod wars, then financial meltdown. When those tactics failed to bring the UK to heel, plan C, a volcano, worked very well. In common with the rest of the nation, the Outer Hebrides has been brought to a shuddering halt by ash clouds smiling down on us from the ether. With only propeller driven aircraft and pilots who like to fly at 75 feet so that they can do a bit of sightseeing on the way, we expect our planes to fly through treacle. Not a bit of it. We've been grounded for most of the last couple of weeks and Loganair only started flying again yesterday afternoon.
I've been working in Uist all week and as a consequence of cancelled planes, had to come back as a foot passenger on the Sound of Harris ferry and then hitch a lift to Stornoway from a fellow traveller. Very exciting. The boat snakes its way round a myriad of sparklingly beautiful small islands on passage from Berneray to Leverburgh and I've always thought it rates as one of the great ferry journeys of the world, especially on a gloriously bright and warm April day. The crossing takes one hour, cheers up the spirits, costs £6-25 and is a real bargain. The 60 mile trip from Leverburgh to Stornoway is pretty good too and even more so when someone else is driving, allowing me the luxury of staring open mouthed at the spectacular Harris scenery without worrying about keeping my eye on the road. Luskentyre beach and the surrounding mountains are magical in any light and quickly followed by the grandeur of West Loch Tarbert. The drive through the Harris Hills over the Clisham is a joy that I would willingly pay money to experience, although I confess to feeling a bit carsick when going round hairpin bends and looking down into the valleys hundreds of feet below. The road North from Bowglass to my house is always of interest as the hills recede, the moorland opens out and the colours of the land change rapidly from the moonscape grey of Harris to hundreds of shades of green and brown in the peatlands of central Lewis.

The realities of earning a crust though are that in ordinary circumstances, it's much quicker and time efficient for me to fly to Uist every fortnight for work, so I usually have to reserve the pleasures of the road and ferry journey for when I am in my own time and have friends staying to show the islands off to.



Regular readers will know that I'm obsessed with trying to see and photograph the Snowy Owl that turns up here every year and which has evaded me so far. Well, the beast is back and in spite of being the most recognisable bird on the planet, continues to hide from my binoculars and camera. It was spotted on St Kilda a couple of weeks ago and seems to fly in a circuit between there, Balranald on North Uist and Barvas on Lewis. Everytime I get wind that Hedwig is in town, I stop what I'm doing and invest huge amounts of energy and diesel in driving like a demented thing to the latest sighting spot, only to be told ' It's been here for days posing, but flew away fifteen minutes ago'. A second Snowy Owl has been spotted on the islands and there was some hope that the two of them would meet up, bill and coo and breed, but the experts now think both of them are males.

Following a long dark, quiet and largely solitary Winter, new activity is taking place all around the croft, village and island. A pretty Wheatear is sat on a rock outside of the kitchen window as I write this and a pair of Greenfinches are visiting the birdtable every day just now. Greedy and aggressive Gulls and Hooded Crows try to muscle their way in for the food I still put out for the Rock Doves and Starlings, but there seems to be plenty to go round. The tadpoles in the drains are developing and the sheep are grazing well and are more active and vocal now that the last of the snow has gone and the high winds are easing
Plenty of folk are out on the moor on the Pentland Road cutting peats for next Winter and the first wedding of the year took place in our Community Hall last Friday. We have at least four more weddings booked at the Hall throughout the summer, at which I hope to be offering my potwashing skills and one of the concerts during the Hebridean Celtic Music Festival in July will be held there. I'm pleased to announce that I've now got tickets booked for myself and visiting friends to see Runrig in the big blue tent on the Castle Green in Stornoway during the festival.

OLD MISSION HALL, LOCHCROISTEAN, UIG, LEWIS

FORMER SCHOOL, KALLIN, GRIMSAY, NORTH UIST.

COTTAGE, BARRA.

Corrugated iron was commonly used as a building material here until relatively recently for both domestic and commercial properties, because it was cheap and quick to erect. In recent years, many corrugated iron buildings have been demolished, blown down, or left to slowly rust and rot to the ground. They sit much better in this landscape than many modern kit built houses or churches and I like to photograph them as I wander around the islands, before they disappear completely. The buildings shown above have survived better than most.

I've been on holiday for the last two weeks, visiting friends and family in the South and had great difficulty getting back to Lewis. Is three days from Yorkshire to Stornoway a record?

Tuesday saw me driving North and I decided to stay overnight in Perth. Wednesday morning was bright and clear, but the weather lady on BBC Scotland said that the A9 to Inverness was badly affected by drifting snow. Our hero, a sceptical soul at the best of times, decided to try to get through just the same and surprise, surprise, ground to a halt at Blair Atholl. The very helpful police officer standing in the road and looking very cold told me that my chances of getting any further in the by now blizzard conditions were about the same as hell freezing over. Turning the car round, I made my way over to Crianlarich with the intention of taking the A82 to Fort William. This time, I listened diligently to the radio weather person, who said that the A82 was passable with care. Well, not by the time I got there it wasn't. Just North of Tyndrum, the road was covered in impacted snow and several vehicles had skidded off the carriageway into ditches and were clearly going nowhere further that day. Being the single minded sort of chap that I am, I persevered until, to my great surprise, I found myself in a stationary queue of about a hundred cars and lorries. Oh the companionship and the glorious opportunity to whinge about the weather with a fellow traveller. Unsurprisingly, another policeman arrived and he announced that he was only going to allow four wheel drive vehicles to proceed. I don't have one of those, so had no option but to go back again. At this point, it was early afternoon and I was desperate to get to Ullapool to catch the evening ferry to Lewis. Things did improve a bit then. I waved down a motorist going the other way, who told me that the West coast Connell to Fort William road was snow free and so it proved. Fort William to Inverness was a bit tricky, but not too much of a problem and I headed off to Ullapool in good time for the 17:35 ferry. Plain sailing? Oh dear me no. 3:30 in the afternoon and I get a text on my mobile phone from Calmac saying they had decided to cancel the Stornoway ferry because the wind was blowing in the wrong direction. The end of my problems for the day? Not really. Then had difficulty finding somewhere to stay for the night in Ullapool because lots of other people heading for the ferry were also stranded overnight. The ferry finally left an hour late on Thursday morning and the crossing was so lumpy that a number of children on the boat were suffering from severe sea sickness, the poor mites. I finally got back to my village later that afternoon and have never been so pleased to arrive home. Given the recent appalling weather, I expected my humble abode to have blown away or fallen down, but happily, all was well and within an hour, the stove was chugging away and the house became cosy and cheerful. I love a happy ending, don't you?

Sadly, there has been no happy ending for Highland Airways, which collapsed and went out of business whilst I was away. Loganair have temporarily taken over some of their contract work, including the subsidised daily Stornoway to Benbecula flight and the newspaper delivery from the mainland. At present, newspapers are arriving by ferry and sales have slumped by more than half because islanders are fed up of getting their papers late in the afternoon, or not at all if the ferry is cancelled, which is happening frequently in the current poor weather.

I'm off to work in Benbecula and Uist for the week from tomorrow morning and have yet to see if Loganair will honour my Highland Airways ticket. Life is so much more exciting and unpredictable here than it was in the South, which is generally to my liking.

As I write this, it's blowing a right Winter hooly and easy to forget that Spring is really here. There are some clues though. I've got sheep back on the croft, there are lambs everywhere and in spite of it pouring with rain today, I've just seen a man on the Pentland Road cutting his peats. That signals the arrival of Spring here just as powerfully as does the hearing and sighting of the first cuckoo down South.

SCREEN MACHINE, AT LOCHMADDY COMMUNITY HALL, NORTH UIST

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a monster articulated lorry containing an eighty seat cinema. Screen Machine travels around the more remote parts of the Scottish Highlands and Islands showing movies to communities that are more than a one hour drive to any other cinema. It is very popular and sets up shop in the car parks of village halls, hotels or anywhere else with accessible toilets and an area of flat ground big enough for it to park on. Screen Machine charges £6 per full priced ticket but has to be subsidised to enable it to pay its way. It has a single driver/operator to make it all work, supplemented by a locally recruited usher at each venue. After arriving at a particular site, the driver uses a built in diesel generator to power the hydraulic rams, steel wires and pulleys which open out the sides of the lorry and transform it into a proper comfortable cinema with fixed seats like any other.

There is a cinema at An Lanntair in Stornoway, so Screen Machine doesn't visit Lewis, but it travels regularly to Harris, North and South Uist and Barra. When I came across it at Lochmaddy two weeks ago, the films on offer were Avatar and Sherlock Holmes.

Almost overnight, Winter has disappeared and Spring has taken over. The countryside is waking up and becoming noisier. Day time temperature is round about 10-12 degrees.

On Barra a few days ago, the crocuses were in full bloom, as were the lovely little tete a tete daffodils, but my village is about a hundred miles North of Barra, colder and I have no flowers to see yet.

I do have dozens of frogs frantically pairing in all of the drains on the croft though, leaving masses of spawn everywhere. Frogs may be declining elsewhere but we could export them with plenty to spare. As in previous years, the colour range is amazing. Very few are green. This morning, I came across brown, orange and yellow frogs and some of almost a black colour. They croak very loudly when mating, which, I think, makes them an easy target for the big Grey Heron I saw perched statue like by one of the drains near the house this morning. Easy pickings for that particular bird for the next few days.

The Harris Tweed industry seems to be experiencing a welcome and overdue revival just now and may be on the verge of becoming trendy. Pete Doherty, the larger than life frontman from Babyshambles, has commissioned a local designer and tailor to make him a rather nice three piece Harris Tweed suit. There he was, splashed across the front page of last week's Stornoway Gazette, looking resplendent in his new clothes. The designer said he was a lovely man to work with and it will be interesting to see how far the tweed industry tries to develop this new image and promote tweed products to a much younger and more fashionable market than it has done previously. I'm very fond of the 1980's herringbone grey tweed jacket in my wardrobe - or would be if it still fitted me - but it's hardly the last word in high fashion.

The Hebridean Celtic Festival takes place in July again this year and the line up has just been announced, with Runrig as headliners on the Saturday night. Long before I came to live here, myself and a few friends used to enjoy going to Runrig concerts every year in our local concert hall. This Summer, the same friends are coming to stay with me on Lewis for a bit of a house party and to see Runrig performing on home territory. Should be great fun.

EAVAL, NORTH UIST, FROM GRAMSDALE, BENBECULA.



Throwing open the curtains and windows early this morning, it was hard to believe that only two or three weeks ago, we were in the middle of the coldest and harshest winter experienced here for many years. No sign of snow anywhere today. Even the hills have lost their white topping because of the rapid increase in temperature during the last few days.

With the sun shining brightly, visibility crystal clear over the lochs and mountains and a voice in my head shouting ' Up and at 'em ' at me, I was on my way to Bernera at 7:30am, looking for Eagles.
Bernera has a population of both Golden and Sea Eagles and several days ago, a friend phoned me to boast of having spent the afternoon sat in the garden watching a pair of Eagles circling and cavorting immediately above the house. Although I am only a few miles away, I don't see Eagles around the croft very often and have to content myself with Buzzards, Hoodies, Ravens and the occasional Peregrine rocketing by.
Incidentally, I do like the acrobatic, social and entertaining Raven, which is quite common on the island, but I was astonished to read on the http://www.western-isles-wildlife.co.uk/ website that 536 of them were counted leaving the Stornoway rubbish dump on Wednesday evening. That would have been an amazing sight and I'm sorry I missed it.

Returning to this morning, I would like to tell you that there were Eagles everywhere on Bernera, so tame that they came to feed from my hand. Regrettably, integrity compels me to tell the truth, which is that all I saw during two hours of wandering were Lapwings, Buzzards and amazingly, someone hanging their washing out on Sunday. Nevertheless, it was a spectacular early morning, the light was terrific and I thoroughly enjoyed myself just pottering about. Standing on a hill overlooking Bosta Beach, I could see Otter tracks on the sand below me and experienced a real 'glad to be alive' feeling for the first time this year.

A colleague at work, not prone to exaggeration or telling tall tales, told me an interesting story yesterday she had heard from her neighbour. The neighbour was driving through Breaclete, in the centre of Bernera and was scared witless when a large object landed on her bonnet and bounced on to the road. She stopped a short distance away, looked back and saw a rabbit, still alive. As she was deciding what to do, a Golden Eagle flew down, scooped up the poor animal and disappeared into the nearby hills with it. The bird had obviously caught the rabbit earlier, lost its grip and dropped it on to the car, before plucking up courage to retrieve it.

Now that the Stornoway-Ullapool ferry is sailing regularly on Sundays, the campaign to open the Lewis Sports Centre in Stornoway is gathering pace. Although the sports facilities in Uist open on Sundays, the Western Isles Council refuses to allow the citizens of Lewis to use the modern and expensive sports centre on the Sabbath, under pressure from the Lord's Day Observance Society and the Church as a whole. Remember that pubs and hotels are allowed to open and the licenced garage that opens on Sunday has queues of people waiting to buy alcohol. The plane flies and the ferry now sails, but there is this concerted rearguard action to keep the gym, swimming pool, sauna and other facilities closed.
The vocal campaign to open the Sports facilities received a lot of publicity recently when a Stornoway woman applied for legal aid on behalf of her ten year old daughter, claiming the Council's refusal to open the Sports Centre is a breach of her daughter's rights under equality discrimination legislation. The application for legal aid was refused, but a group of pro Sunday opening campaigners are now seeking a Judicial Review.
The use of a child in this manner by a parent makes me squirm with distaste, but the anti Sunday opening lobby seem little better. One of them, an articulate professional writer, sent a letter to the local Hebridean News website which concluded:-

" We are fighting against the tide to protect the unique culture of this community and the interests of its most vulnerable workers from a campaign dominated by malevolent home grown atheists and a bunch of colonial incomers."

This, so far, is the quality of the tactics on both sides. Use children, or blame the non believers and incomers.

GRIMSHADER TURBINES


The recent snow and ice are just a receding memory here now, with photographs being the only evidence that the island was completely white two or three weeks ago. Although the temperature is rising slowly and we've had some gloriously sunny days recently, it's still too cold to predict that Spring is on its way. Having said that, the daffodils shoots have emerged this week and there are some early lambs about. I'm being a bit of a wimp though and confess to having just bought a bag of kindling instead of getting my backside into the freezing shed to chop some up myself.

Down in Uist earlier this week, I listened to a tirade from a colleague who was complaining that more money is spent here on 'Otters Crossing' warning signs than on road safety instruction and signage for local children. I don't know if that is true, but driving on the Eriskay Causeway a day or two later, I had just passed the first otter crossing sign when right on cue, an otter ran in front of the car and only narrowly avoided being squashed under my front wheels. After leaping on to the side wall of the causeway, the animal stopped to have a good look at me before gracefully hurling itself into the sea.

Wind farms are a big issue here and a couple of years ago, a famous battle was fought to prevent 181 turbines being built all along the Barvas Moor from Stornoway to Ness. The anti wind farm protesters won the day on that occasion but no one is under any illusion that that is the end of the drive to cover the landscape with windmills. As far as I am aware, the three turbines shown in the picture are the only commercial windfarm currently operating on Lewis, but not for long. A Mr Oppenheim, the owner of Eishken Estate, some 20 miles South of Stornoway, received approval about a month ago to create a windfarm on his land. His original application was for permission for 133 turbines, but the final approval is for only 33, which presumably, he believes he can make money from. It's being claimed that 150 full time equivalent jobs will be created for the construction phase of the windfarm and 1% of the ongoing turnover will be used 'to enhance the ecological and cultural heritage of the Eishken Estate'.

The Stornoway Gazette reports this week that the Western Isles Council has to make budget savings of £10 million over the next few years and proposes to cut the number of schools here by half, to 21. The targeted schools have been named, causing great anger among parents in those catchment areas. Local education provision is considered vitally important in helping these remote communities to thrive and attract young families. Opposition to the closure plans is being mounted all over the islands, but it seems inevitable that some schools will have to close eventually, meaning lengthy daily bus journeys for many children and continued depopulation in some areas.
Lochmaddy, in North Uist, with a population of about 300, has a bank, ferry terminal, shop, petrol pumps, two hotels, Post Office, Arts Centre and Museum. The school roll is currently 10, rising to 14 in August and an expected 20 pupils in the next couple of years. It's a lively, successful village, popular with holidaymakers and parents of school age children are outraged at the plan to close their school.

A man living in Stornoway, who has Prostate Cancer, has hit on a novel way of raising money for Macmillan Nurses. He has apparently worked as a brewer in the past and using his contacts in the industry, has persuaded the owners of a brewery on the mainland to allow him to use their premises and equipment to produce a strong bottled beer. He has called his 6.9% beer 'Brewers Swansong - A beer to die for' and describes it as a sweet valedictory mild. He is selling the brew now, the proceeds going to Macmillan. Not sure how much he has raised yet.

The new Lewis Distillery, Abhainn Dearg, is in production now and have announced that their first single malt whisky is to be bottled early next year in time for sale at the 2011 Royal National Mod. Visits to the distillery are welcomed. Further details from http://www.abhainndearg.co.uk/.

Finally, silly joke of the week.

Two snakes are moving through the jungle.
One turns to the other and asks 'are we venomous or constrictors?'
Second snake replies 'for goodness sake, why do you want to know that?'
First snake - 'I've just bit my lip.'

STORNOWAY CAST IRON RAILINGS

Now, you may not have given much thought to metal railings previously, but I think they are very lovely and well worth blogging about.

I attended an undistinguished inner city redbrick Victorian school that shared its architect with the nearby prison. The school, which I loathed, felt like my own prison and was surrounded by high brick walls to stop the likes of me from escaping until the bell went at the end of the day and the gates were flung open by the commandant caretaker. When I couldn't stand the pain of being shouted at in French, or being hit on the back of the head by the maths teacher any longer, I liked to walk out of class and escape via the one low wall at the back of the school, which had had its iron railings cut off at the base many years before. Those railings and similar ones attached to houses, schools and other buildings all over the United Kingdom, were hacked off and melted down to be made into tanks, guns and other items throughout the Second World War. At the time I used to play hooky from school, I was deeply grateful that our railings had been taken, allowing me to exit education, walk to the river and spend the rest of the day smoking fags and wondering what life would be like in the real world.

Very few railings survived the need for iron for the war effort, except for those in Stornoway.

By great good fortune, it was considered uneconomic to cut down the railings and ship them over to the mainland for melting down, so they remained exactly where they were and are now proudly preserved and beautifully maintained, as you can see from the pictures. Although I have posted photographs of only a few of these domestic and church railings, there are literally dozens of them attached to houses all around the affluent central area of Stornoway. I love them. A couple of years ago, the town museum put on an exhibition about the local ironwork and provided a guided walk to see them, but they are quite close to each other and easy to find without a guide.

After the snow and cold spell of two or three weeks ago, the temperature here rose and the thaw set in, until Tuesday of this week, when it started to snow all over again. Many of the minor roads are iced over and dangerous now and likely to remain so for a while because the council is rationing the road salt it has available. This is the coldest and darkest Winter we have had since I came to live on Lewis and I won't be sorry when it ends. My weather gizmo tells me that it has been below freezing outside the house every night for the last three weeks and I've used as much central heating oil in eight weeks as I usually use in six months.

The prolonged cold weather has brought in more birds to the bird table than usual and the Grey Lag geese are working their way through the accessible grass on the croft.

The positive side to all this is that the hills and moors look stunning covered in snow, a sight we don't see most Winters.

The recession, which Government spinners tell us has ended, continues to take its toll here. The Western Isles Health Board has a several million pound deficit and is talking of the possibility of redundancies.

Highland Airways, which is in very serious financial difficulties, stopped selling tickets one day last week and is now hanging on by the skin of its teeth. In addition to flying a number of routes and contracts on the mainland, the airline operates the daily Stornoway to Benbecula service and the government assures us that it has a contingency plan if Highland Airways goes out of business. The airline itself is desperately trying to obtain refinancing or a new owner and says it hopes to survive. It continues to fly just now but the 100 plus ground staff and pilots they employ are pessimistic about the future of the company.

Two more dead whales have been washed up here in the last week or two. A 26 foot Minke whale was found on a beach at Point, above Stornoway and a 45 foot, 35 tonne Sperm whale was discovered on the shoreline of Taransay, Harris.

The Harris Tweed industry has gone through very difficult times in recent years. The average age of weavers has been increasing year on year and there have been no training courses for some time, partially because there has not been enough work to go round. There seems to be something of a revival in the fortunes of Tweed weaving here though and two local mills are going from strength to strength. As a consequence, a mainland college, in conjunction with the Jobcentre, are running a 12 week Harris Tweed Weaver training course commencing in March. This is good news and it will be interesting to see later if the course is fully enrolled.

The other heartwarming story of the week occurred over in Uig, here on Lewis. There is a community owned co op at Timsgarry, which provides a lifeline grocery, petrol and post office service to one of the remotest communities in Britain. The shop thrives, but its elderly delivery van was on its last legs and there was no money in the pot to replace it. Just as the shop committee were considering how to raise funds for a new vehicle, an anonymous donor has purchased and given a £16000 refrigerated new van to the shop so that deliveries to the local community can continue uninterrupted. A generous gesture on the part of some kind soul.

The West Highland Free Press reported this week that a North Uist fisherman has developed a serious eye infection requiring hospital treatment after he looked skyward whilst out fishing and was hit in the eye by seagull droppings. He says he was left partially sighted by the incident, but mercifully, is now improving. Most unfunny. Remember you read it here first.

Does anybody have any idea why this blog won't allow me to paragraph? I include paragraphs as I write, but they disappear and squash up the entire script when I press the publish button. What am I doing wrong?

GARDEN BIRDTABLE

THE HOUSE AND CROFT THIS MORNING

New year, new beginnings. Having had a break of several months, I've missed writing the blog and have decided it's time to start again, although perhaps less frequently than before.

Since I last blogged in October, life here has continued in an easy, comfortable and relatively stress free manner. It's three years since I moved into this house and eighteen months since the renovation was completed. Although there is some evidence of cowboy building, most of the work is of reasonable/good quality and I hope to continue living here for the forseeable future, or until life presents an unexpected turn, which tends to happen to me every now and then.

There have been changes at work recently and I now spend about fifty percent of my time working in Uist and Barra. That has both benefits and disadvantages just now. I love working independently and getting on with the task in hand unsupervised and still can't believe that I'm being paid to toil in these spectacular surroundings. I've always had a great fondness for Uist, although there are too few facilities and shops for me to think about living there permanently. Lewis seems to have the right balance of amenities, scenery and gritty dourness to suit me and keep me here for the time being.

The downside of spending half my existence in the Southern Isles is that I get fed up of living from a travel bag and going back to a guest house in the evenings, however pleasant. I like my own house very much and would prefer to return here every night, given the choice. Also, I've always wanted to develop the croft and keep livestock, which is not possible whilst I'm away so often. It still feels a bit like I'm living to work, like I did in the South, but surrounded by more beauty and with fewer pressures. Mustn't grumble though, because the general quality of my life has improved no end since I landed in the Outer Hebrides four years ago.

Talking of the weather, what a week. I've always been ready to stress to visitors that it is warmer here than you might think and that snowfall is a rarity. Well, there you go then. We've had lots of snow recently, see photos, and it's not risen above freezing in seven days.

I was away for Christmas and returned here before New Year, intending to take part in Hogmanay festivities. Following a five hour delay at Gatwick, which set the pace for the day, the plane arrived at Inverness just as the runway was closed because of heavy snow. We circled for three quarters of an hour until the airport was opened again and then I had to listen to the nice lady from Flybe telling me off for being late for my connection to Stornoway.

After finally arriving back here just before the local roads became unsafe to drive on, there was so much snow on New Year's Eve that I couldn't move the car and spent the evening watching the telly and drinking cocoa. Oh the excitement.

I'm still on holiday from work this week, which is just as well because I couldn't get the car down the drive for three days until yesterday because of depth of snow. Felt no need or compulsion to dig myself out. Plenty of food in the larder and ample supplies of coal, wood and peat to keep warm.

The birds are finding it much harder to survive in this weather and I make a point of feeding them every day. Apart from the usual Rock Doves, Starlings, Blackbird, Buzzard and Hooded Crow, I've had one or two less common visitors to the garden in the last few days. This morning, a Raven came to strut its stuff, much to the annoyance of the smaller birds and yesterday, a Woodcock arrived to take shelter under the front wall.

I'm off to the Balti house in Stornoway with friends now. Happy New Year to you all.

RESTORED COTTAGE, SOUTH UIST.



When I started this blog two years ago, my intention was to give an account of life here from the point of view of an incomer and to provide a running record of the trials and triumphs of renovating an old cottage.
Now that the house renovation is complete, my daily existence has settled down into a generally repetitive and dull routine. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find enough really interesting events to enthuse about and I think the last thing readers want to hear of are my adventures strimming grass, hanging washing out, cooking soda bread and mending punctures. That would bore most people rigid and leave me wondering about the true purpose of life.
I'm also running out of tourist attractions and sights to photograph and write about and there are a lot of books available which do it better.

For those reasons, I've decided to make this my last regular blog and would like to thank all of you who have taken the trouble to read it and send comments.

Tea, coffee and a chat are offered to any readers who happen to be visiting Lewis and fancy a natter. Email address is lewispot@yahoo.co.uk. Bye for now.

STINKY BAY, BENBECULA.




When the wind blows in a particular direction, the Sulphurous smell of decaying seaweed blows all round this bay, hence the name. Apart from the stench, which I don't mind, this is a very beautiful place with lots of wading birds and tremendous views of the hills of South Uist.

Now that the house is renovated, I need to turn my attention to improving the croft. Having had no maintenance for many years, the fencing is in poor condition, with a number of posts rotted at ground level, making it easier for sheep and cattle to force their way on to my land from the adjacent common grazings. Although some running repairs have been done this year, hundreds of yards of fencing needs to be replaced soon, but to avoid bankruptcy, it will have to be done a section at a time. I'm going to look for a local fencing contractor, with the intention of having all the fencing replaced during the next couple of years, as I can afford to pay for the work. No amount of sheep will justify the expense of replacing the fencing, but it can't stay as it is and I don't want my neighbours complaining about my insecure boundaries.
On the positive side though, the fence posts are only rotten at the base and along with the peat, will provide free fuel for the stove for a long time.

While I was away on holiday recently, I missed an important local news story. Some months ago, the Ministry of Defence and the Government Defence contractor, QinetiQ - what a silly name - announced that it planned to operate the Hebrides Missile Range remotely, from Aberporth in Wales. This plan would have resulted in the loss of about 125 jobs in the Uists and would have had a catastrophic effect on the local economy. Fortunately, common sense has prevailed and after some persuasive lobbying by local community leaders, the Government has thrown out the scheme to transfer to Wales. How long the jobs in South Uist and St Kilda will be safe for, is yet to be seen.

Salmon farming has provided a lot of employment here in the Outer Hebrides for a good many years, but has been in decline for some time. Large International companies have progressively bought out the smaller operators and jobs have been lost recently through amalgamations, closure of fish factories and economies of scale. Interesting to hear this week then that one of the biggest Salmon producers has announced plans to develop supersized offshore fish farms in the Minch, which will potentially create up to 40 jobs here in the islands. At present, most fish farms are small, quite close to the shore and the workers go out to them each day. The proposed new fish farms would be much bigger, further offshore and would be staffed by a crew of up to six workers who would live on site, in purpose built residential accommodation . Presumably, they would work 2-3 weeks on the farm, followed by onshore leave, just like oil rig workers do.

There was a curious occurrence this week at Coll beach here on Lewis when a woman out walking came across hundreds of washed up Starfish on the sand and rocks. They were apparently of different sizes and some were alive and some dead. The finder said that most of the Starfish had disappeared by the following morning and she thought they might have been eaten by gulls. Why were the Starfish stranded on the beach?

It's that time of year again when the lambs are sent off to the abattoir and I get a carcass or two as payment for letting my neighbour graze his sheep on my croft. He arrived yesterday with a very large plastic sack containing enough meat to keep me going for many months and it's now in the freezer. The lamb was raised on this croft, on land never contaminated by herbicides or pesticides, but did have to be taken to Stornoway, fifteen miles away, for slaughter.

I do have a problem with rushes, especially at the front of the croft and will have to decide whether to spray or not, next Spring.

There was a Fred Karno moment here yesterday when I was doing some cooking. I got distracted by a phone call, the kitchen got smoky and the mains operated fire alarms went off like the Bells of Hades. Rushing to open windows all over the place, I managed to catch my hand accidentally on a piece of pottery I have had for a long time and smashed it to the ground, where it lay in dozens of pieces. The pot had a value, so I rang the insurance company, who confirmed that I was fully insured for accidental damage and said they would be delighted to pay for a replacement. Before we got any further though, the nice lady on the phone asked me if I realised that the sum total of my insurance excess and the loss of no claims bonus if I made a claim, would come to almost exactly the value of my broken pot. In these circumstances, the nice lady observed, I might not want to make a claim after all.
Oh well.

ASTOR AND THE STORNOWAY FERRY


This picture shows the Stornoway - Ullapool ferry, 'Isle of Lewis', about to pass the cruise ship 'Astor', which was moored in the approach to Stornoway harbour when I took the photo a few weeks ago. The ferry, quite a big boat itself, was completely dwarfed by the 'Astor', one of many tourist ships stopping off at Lewis during the Summer. The passengers are treated to a cursory, whistle stop tour of the sights of the Island, which benefits from income from coach and guide hire and money spent in Stornoway shops.

Having spent almost three weeks away from home visiting family and friends, it was a strange feeling to return here to peace , solitude and almost spooky quietness. Little has changed in my absence. The grass has grown a bit, the Rock Doves were sat on the bird table waiting for my return and the sheep launched themselves at me as soon as they saw me through the kitchen window, in the vain hope that I might have a bucket of supplements for them.

Any hopes that the peace and quiet would continue were dashed yesterday when we suffered high gusting winds all day and night, which kept me indoors, threatened to bring the roof off and signalled the arrival of Autumn with a vengeance.


What a change today though. The sun is shining brightly, there is little wind and I've just taken an early morning walk down the croft. The white horses on the loch have gone, the buzzard is irritating the ravens and the sheep are grazing contentedly again. There are few flowers about now and the landscape is slowly changing from a rich green to a dull brown.


I feel quite exercised about the sheer volume of unsolicited junk mail that has arrived while I was away and which is destined to go straight to the recycling bin, unopened. I make concerted efforts to let these companies know that I don't want their mailings, but still it arrives in ever increasing quantities. A friend I stayed with last week receives two or three unwanted phone calls EVERY evening from people trying to sell goods. That would drive me insane if it happened here. Fortunately, I never get unwelcome cold calls for some reason and long may that continue.

I'm having extraordinary difficulty in motivating myself to do anything constructive since I got back and have been avoiding starting on the long list of domestic tasks that badly need attending to. All I really want to do just now is to sit in a chair in front of the stove reading books. That makes me feel guilty though, so every now and then I have to get up to hoover round, put some washing in the machine, or wash some pots, to justify my existence. Very sad. Goodness knows how I'm going to get my act together to go back to work tomorrow.

Now for nature notes. When I was growing up in England, most houses nearby, including our own, had colonies of House Martin nests under the eaves. I spent many happy hours watching these pretty birds flying to and fro and have had an affection for House Martins ever since. Some time ago, I read somewhere that they don't occur, or nest, on Lewis. I know the first isn't true because I saw two of them flying around the house earlier this Summer. Consequently, on a whim, I've just bought a pair of artificial Martin nests on the internet and have fixed them under the roof above the kitchen window. They ought to be well weathered by nesting time next Spring, so we'll see if they manage to attract occupants.

The reintroduction of Sea Eagles to Scotland continues to be successful and this years survey show that there are now over 200 individual birds throughout the country, with 46 breeding pairs. Ten pairs of Sea Eagles are breeding in the Outer Hebrides, including one new pair which has set up a territory here on Lewis. Thirty six chicks have been raised this year and one interesting snippet I came across is that the Sea Eagles on the Isle of Mull have become such a tourist attraction that they are boosting the economy there by about £2 million every year.

Finally, the drive to protect wading birds from predation by hedgehogs has restarted for the Autumn season. Twelve trappers have been employed to operate hundreds of traps placed throughout Uist and Benbecula in an attempt to catch any remaining hedgehogs which avoided capture during the last trapping campaign in the Spring. As before, all the beasties they find will be lovingly cared for by Uist Hedgehog Rescue prior to release in suitable locations in South West and Central Scotland.

FLANNAN ISLES. FROM MANGERSTA, LEWIS

FORMER FLANNAN ISLES LIGHTHOUSE SHORE STATION, BREASCLETE, LEWIS.

I've always been fascinated by unsolved mysteries and remember being intrigued as a child when told about the disappearance of three lighthouse keepers from a lighthouse in Scotland many years before. All memories of that tale slipped firmly into the back of my mind though until I came to live here and was reminded of the strange events that occurred at the Flannan Isles light in December 1900.

The first picture, which I took last Sunday morning, was photographed from a distance of about twenty miles, from the West coast of Lewis near Mangersta. The lighthouse itself is positioned on the highest point of Eilean Mor, the larger island on the right of the photo and can just about be seen if you are able to expand it on the computer.

The Flannan Isles lighthouse was designed by David Stevenson, built by George Lawson of Rutherglen and was lit for the first time in December 1899. Building it must have been an extraordinary achievement because all of the materials used were hauled up the 150 foot cliffs from moving boats in the turbulent seas below.

The lighthouse, landing stage, stairs and railway tracks cost a total of £6914, no mean sum over a hundred years ago. An additional £3526 was spent on building the shore station at Breasclete, Lewis, shown in the second photo. The lighthouse was manned by three keepers at all times with a rotating fourth keeper who did regular relief duty and like the other keepers, lived at the shore station in between stints on the light. The Breasclete shore station has been maintained in lovely condition and since becoming redundant in 1971 when the light was automated, has been converted into a block of flats.

I digress, so back to the tale. On 15 December 1900, about a year after the Flannan Isles light was commissioned, a ship steaming past the Flannans saw that the light was not operational and reported this when they berthed at Oban. Poor weather prevented the relief lighthouse tender Hesperus from leaving Breasclete pier immediately, but the boat eventually reached the lighthouse at noon on 26 December, when the relief keeper was put ashore. He found the beds unmade, the clock stopped and no sign of any of the three keepers. With the aid of a seaman and the second mate of the relief boat, the relief keeper made a thorough search throughout the lighthouse and immediate surroundings but could find no trace of the missing men. The lighthouse lamps had been cleaned and refilled and the only untoward finding was an overturned chair in the kitchen.

Later on 26 December, the Hesperus returned to Breasclete on Lewis, leaving behind the relief keeper and three volunteer seaman to operate and maintain the lighthouse. The Captain of the Hesperus sent the following telegram to the Northern Lighthouse Board that day:

"A dreadful accident has happened at the Flannans. The three keepers, Ducat, Marshall and the Occasional have disappeared from the island. The clocks were stopped and other signs indicated that the accident must have happened about a week ago. Poor fellows must have been blown over the cliffs or drowned trying to rescue a crane or something like that."

The fate of the Flannan Lighthouse keepers remains a mystery to this day and every now and again, a new explanation or theory emerges. The official investigation at the time concluded that the most likely occurrence was that all three keepers were outside of the light trying to secure a box in which ropes were kept, when they were hit by extra large waves which struck them with immense force and swept them away.

The poet Wilfrid Wilson Gibson wrote a poem entitled Flannan Isle about the disappearance of the keepers. It's too long to print here, but well worth searching it out on the internet.

All well here just now. The temperature is dropping by the week and we've already had some ferocious winds which prevented the ferry leaving the harbour one day earlier this week. I'm off on my holidays in the morning, so it will be about three weeks before the next blog.

WILD ORCHIDS AT THE CALLANISH STONES.



The tourists have almost gone now, although there are still a few people in camper vans parked up in remote places, enjoying the mild weather. This has been a bumper season for visitors, probably because of the big reduction in ferry fares this year. Most of the camper van owners behave reasonably and considerately but for some reason, one of them decided to park in my driveway one night last week without a by your leave to me. I only find out he was there when I went to work early the following morning. He told me that he thought he could park anywhere in the Western Isles, so I gave him one or two suggestions.

No problems at the Towers this week. The car is behaving itself again and the mackerel are biting once more. The weather is changing rapidly and there is a definite Autumnal feel descending on the island. Even so, there are still plenty of flowers on the roadside verges, including the bright, cheerful and poisonous Ragwort, the striking orange Crocosmia and pretty blue Scabious.

I now spend more and more time working in Uist and Barra, which means that the croft is not getting as much attention as I would like and bits of it, especially the garden ground, are beginning to look decidedly scruffy. I'm very pleased to have my neighbour's sheep grazing the land, which keeps it in reasonable order, but I do need to replace quite a lot of fencing in the near future to keep it secure and stop it looking derelict. My plans to have a lovely tidy and productive croft with my own sheep and polytunnels seem as far away now as they did a couple of years ago when I moved into the house.
The problem is that the day job is taking up so much time that it's severely interfering with my original scheme to lead a fulfilling and reasonably self sufficient life. Widespread Sabbath Observance here also means that there are only six days available to work outside and five of those are spent away earning a living. I suppose I could have anticipated this when I came to live here, so mustn't grumble.
I'm not proud of my next revelation, but I have to confess that I do spend some time working in the shed with the door closed, on Sundays. I take the view, rightly or wrongly, that as long as I'm not offending my neighbours by making any noise or working on the land, It's my business what I do inside. I wouldn't dream of hanging washing out or gardening, but I do like pottering inside the shed, which is crammed to the gunwhales with rubbish and needs much sorting out. Lots of the junk in there is left over from the house renovation and a few months ago, I discovered Freecycle. This is an online facility where you can advertise goods you have surplus, or seek items that you want. No money can change hands for goods that are offered or sought and the whole idea is that stuff you don't want goes to somebody who does want it, rather than to the landfill site. I've managed to pass on an old stove, a desk and lots of building bits recently and am now beginning to see some daylight in the shed. A few more Sundays and with a bit of help from Freecycle, the shed will be usable again. There are branches of Freecycle all over the UK and maybe round the world for all I know.
I would rather spend my life ferreting about in the shed and growing things in polytunnels, but my full time work is still enjoyable and important to me and it's not an unsatisfying existence by any means. Still, I quite look forward to having more free time in retirement, which is probably a few years away yet.
I do enjoy living in such a beautiful place and whilst It's difficult to manage the croft productively just now, I can't imagine moving somewhere else unless circumstances change drastically.
Also, the house has developed a warm, welcoming and homely feel to it in the year since the renovation was finished and is a pleasure to live in.


In the last blog, I mentioned that some rich bloke had isolated himself on the small island of Scaravay in the Sound of Harris, in an attempt to withdraw himself from a forty year cigarette habit. He was planning to stay in a tent or a bothy for a month but someone has just told me that the weather has defeated him and driven him home early. I really would like to know if he has given up the fags, so feel free to let me know. I can't find anything recent about him on the internet.

GEARRANNAN BLACKHOUSE VILLAGE, LEWIS.

Gearrannan Blackhouse village, which is now a major tourist attraction, is sited on the Westside of Lewis, near Carloway. The village was lived in until 1974 and is thought to have been the last group of blackhouses to be inhabited in the Outer Hebrides.
After lying empty and derelict for many years, a trust was established in 1989 to undertake the ambitious task of restoring the entire village. The project took about ten years to complete and is now a great success. There is a Youth Hostel, a number of self catering cottages, cafe, shop and museum, as well as public toilets. The village sits in front of a pretty cove and there are wonderful views all around. It's a bit of a gem and I suggest you stop what you are doing right now, get on a bus/bicycle/train/ferry/plane/car/walk and come and see it. For more information about Gearrannan, go to http://www.gearrannan.com/.

It's been a bit of a struggle this week. Most things that could go wrong have done. My car decided to break down with gearbox trouble and is now sat in a compound at the garage waiting for some obscure spare part to arrive from England. Goodness knows when it will be mended. There were no hire cars available, possibly because of the sheer volume of tourists we have on the island at present, but the garage staff came to my rescue and have loaned me a car until mine is fixed. That's very nice of them and they will get a Christmas card from me.

Went fishing a couple of nights ago and caught absolutely nothing, but the ten year old boy fishing with his dad at the side of me managed to pull enough fish out to feed the five thousand. Oh the shame of it. To rub more salt into the wound, he came over, told me my weight wasn't heavy enough and offered me his spare. Still caught diddly squat and then went home after thanking the boy nicely.
Have bought a pack of Icelandic cod fillets ( line caught and on special offer) at the co op tonight and I'm going to pretend I caught them when I eat them tomorrow.

Lost my wallet containing money, cards, driving licence etc a few days ago and slipped into blind panic mode until I found it some hours later, in the kitchen waste bin where I'd thrown it. Then discovered an empty baked bean tin in the kitchen food cupboard, so assume I must have descended into a fugue state at some point as a means of avoiding stress caused by expensive broken cars and clever boys who can fish better than me.

In a further off message moment, I managed to fill my petrol strimmer with diesel, but in a stroke of good luck, spotted my deliberate mistake before any damage was done. It's time for a lengthy holiday I think.

That fine provider of fascinating facts, the Registrar General, has published statistics showing that the population of the Outer Hebrides has dropped by about 5% during the last ten years and continues on a downward trend. There is much wailing and beating of breasts about this in the local press and I rather suspect that in ten years from now, if the doom mongers are right, there will only be me, the harbourmaster and my neighbour's cat left on the islands.
A local councillor blames it all on "the general downturn in the economy and migrant workers leaving the islands in the wake of the contraction of the fish farming sector". All the Polish plumbers, including the one who walked out of my house renovation leaving me in the lurch, have gone home because life is now more agreeable in Poland than it is here.
Do you know, that in 2008, there were 346 deaths here and only 256 births? Perhaps the way to develop the economy is to turn the Islands into one huge Las Vegas style gambling venue and develop a side industry of coffin making.

On the other hand, there might be a future in promoting the Outer Hebrides as a world centre for retreats and alternative therapies. Scaravay is a tiny uninhabited 40 acre island in the Sound of Harris which seems to be owned by a man who is marketing 'associate ownerships' and various 'heritage artefacts' connected with the island, to romantics with spare money. If desperate to fritter away your fortune, go to http://www.scaravay.com/.
Last week, a man described as a retired millionaire banker, cast himself away on Scaravay for a month as a means of doing cold turkey to withdraw himself from a thirty a day, forty year cigarette habit and to lose weight. There are no houses on the island and he is apparently living in a tent, eating tinned food and jogging regularly. He has taken a guitar with him to learn to play and is dispelling boredom by listening to books on his Ipod and playing with his mobile phone, both of which are solar powered.

News headline of the week - ' Unstable plane hits Benbecula airport runway.'

Must have been very upset to take such drastic action.

OLD WHALING STATION, BUNAVONEADER, ISLE OF HARRIS.

This chimney, a few nearby ruins and some scattered whale bones are all that remain of the old whaling station down in Harris. It was operated by the Norwegians between 1903 and 1920, when Lord Leverhulme took it over and it continued to be run by his soap and detergent company, Lever Brothers, until it closed down in 1929.
The whaling station was successful for quite a long time, but in common with other more recent fisheries, became a victim of over fishing, leading to total collapse of the whaling industry locally.
When the station was fully functional, the whales were harpooned out at sea and then taken individually to the shelter of Village Bay at St Kilda. They were then towed, four carcasses at a time, back to this whaling station for processing. Boats took the whale products to Glasgow and returned full of coal for the whaling ships and the whaling station boilers.
The whaling station reopened between 1950 and about 1959, but the venture became uneconomic again and the operating company concentrated its efforts on catching whales around South Georgia in the South Atlantic.

Now we're on a whaling trip, we'll continue on the same theme for a while away from the Hebrides.

OLD WHALING BOAT, GRYTVIKEN, SOUTH GEORGIA

Having taken a couple of years to master the fairly basic skill of loading several pictures at a time on to this blog, I'm on a bit of a roll and thought I would dig out some other relevant photos I had tucked away and show you these.

As a child, I read Moby Dick again and again and was always fascinated by the adventures of explorers such as Scott, Amundsen and particularly Shackleton.

A few years ago, I decided to get off my backside, take myself to the verge of bankruptcy and go to Antarctica and all points South. I had an unfulfilled ambition to pay homage at Shackleton's grave at Grytviken, South Georgia, was quite keen to see a penguin in the flesh and was interested in the wildlife and recent military and social history of the Falkland Islands.

Well, leaving day came and with a fresh crease in my trousers and newly polished shoes, off I went skipping gaily to the airport.

Grytviken is an amazing place. Many Hebrideans have worked in the whaling industry there. The whaling station is now abandoned and is just decaying very slowly. The whaling boat shown above, one of several along the shore, looks as if the crew simply walked away one day and left it to its own devices. Which, I think, is exactly what happened. The whaling stopped and the men went home, leaving South Georgia to the penguins and seals.

SOUTH GEORGIA WHALING STATION

Whale boat propellors. Elephant seal snoozing in the middle.

WHALING STATION, GRYTVIKEN, SOUTH GEORGIA

I'm not absolutely sure, but I think these engines powered the boilers which rendered the blubber and purified the oil.

SHACKLETON'S GRAVE, GRYTVIKEN, SOUTH GEORGIA

A very moving experience to see where the great man is buried, but spoiled a little because these other tourists from a different ship refused to move to allow me to get a clear shot. There were a lot of visitors that day and my boat left first so this was the best I could manage.

CASUALTY OF WAR.

A very sad story to this picture. The grave, a few yards from Shackleton's last resting place, is occupied by Felix Artuso, a young Argentinian sailor. He was a Petty Officer on the Argentinian Submarine 'Santa Fe' during the Falklands conflict. On the 25 April 1982, the Santa Fe was sailing close to South Georgia when it was attacked by a British naval anti Submarine helicopter with depth charges. The Santa Fe sustained extensive damage in that attack and limped into the jetty at King Edward Point, Grytviken, where the crew abandoned ship and surrendered to British forces. On close examination by the captors, the submarine was found to be in a dangerous condition, primarily because it was leaking oil and chlorine gas and was losing buoyancy. There were also ready to fire live torpedos on board which were a concern.

A major headache for the British was that the submarine was moored at a jetty needed for other ships from the British task force and it was considered imperative that the vessel should not be allowed to sink at the jetty.

During the next few days, essential maintenance was carried out on the Submarine by some of the Argentinian crew, including Petty Officer Artuso, under armed British guard. The guards were not familiar with all the equipment on the sub and at some point during 30 April 1982, Felix Artuso was seen to move swiftly towards a valve which the guard thought was used to flood the boat with water. Believing the Submarine was about to be scuttled by the Argentinian sailor, the British guard shot him dead. When the valve was then examined, it was found to have a completely innocent purpose and could not have allowed water into the submarine.

The enquiry that followed found that the guard, acting under great pressure and with wrong information about the purpose of the valve, had killed Petty Officer Artuso mistakenly.

Felix Artuso was confirmed as having acted completely innocently and he was given a funeral with full military honours by the British and buried in the little cemetery at Grytviken, where he remains. Twelve of his comrades were present at the burial.

The Santa Fe was later towed out to deep water and sunk by the British.

I have been unable to find out if the Argentinian Government accepted the findings of the enquiry and have no idea why Felix Artuso's body has not been repatriated closer to his family in the Argentine.

The full Board of Enquiry Report into the death of Petty Officer Artuso is published on the Internet and provokes thought about the pressures and circumstances faced by participants in wartime.

In the background of this photo can be seen old whaling ships, whale oil boilers and the Norwegian whalers church, which is maintained in pristine condition and is used regularly.

APPROACHING ST KILDA . Boreray, Stac Lee and Stac an Armin


Now that the Sunday ferry has sailed for the first time, the public opposition seems to have disappeared and daily routine on the Island is getting back to normal. There is a resigned acceptance that life has changed and among some people I've spoken to, the belief that an important part of local culture has been lost for good. There is already a demand for the golf club to open on Sundays and speculation that Tesco might try to do likewise before long.

In the meantime, before we're completely contaminated by the evils of the outside world, this is still a lovely and unique part of Britain, so please get on a plane or boat and come and visit.

Took a days holiday from work on Wednesday and went to St Kilda. There are two fast passenger boats operating out of Leverburgh in Harris, which make daily trips to St Kilda between April and September, weather permitting. I went with http://www.kildacruises.co.uk/ but http://www.seaharris.co.uk/ also go there. It takes about two and a half hours to reach Hirta and after a welcoming chat from the resident archaeologist, we had about five hours to wander round. A recently acquired ankle injury prevented me from venturing far, which is one of the reasons why the photographs were all taken around the village. The other is that tragedy befell me when my camera battery failed halfway through the day. I charged it fully the night before and it seemed fine, but simply stopped working as we were on our way to Soay, Boreray and the Stacs, so no photos of them then. Why didn't I have a spare battery? Because they are very expensive and I don't use my camera sufficiently to justify keeping a spare. AA's don't fit. Bizarrely enough, I had camera trouble on my last visit to St Kilda twenty two years ago, when the shutter jammed and I had to steal number one son's Instamatic from him to use.

Enough of this boring prattle. Here are some snaps.

Cleit (plural Cleitan)

Prior to the evacuation of St Kilda in 1930, these stone cells were used to dry and store birds caught for food, mutton, fishing nets and peat. There are hundreds of them scattered all over Hirta and the other islands in the group. The sheep now go in them to shelter and die.

Village main street

It was along the village street here that the famous St Kilda Parliament met each day. A number of the derelict houses have now been restored for use as accommodation for National Trust work parties, researchers and other staff.

Unrestored houses.

Some of the houses in the village have been left derelict and I don't think there are any plans to restore these.

Straggling main street.

Many Cleitan in the background. Water storage tanks on the hillside for current needs of the island. A desalination plant has been installed to cope with Summer droughts.

Restored houses.

These houses have been made habitable again by National Trust volunteer work parties who have worked on St Kilda every summer for many years. The Soay sheep wander freely all over the island.

More houses

These first few restored cottages house volunteers, the Museum and some staff. There was a line of cottages on this street from 1836, but these houses were built about 1860, by the laird. They were considered to be of a standard 'in advance of most Outer Hebridean Dwellings of the time'.

Soay sheep.

These primitive sheep, like Moufflons, have lived on Soay, a small island next to Hirta, for thousands of years. In 1932, a couple of years after St Kilda was abandoned, a number of them were taken and released on Hirta, where they have lived unattended and have generally thrived, ever since. They are much studied and there are usually University researchers on the island chasing round after the sheep. The numbers vary from year to year because the sheep are prone to population 'crashes', which tend to occur in four or five yearly cycles. They breed, multiply and survive well for several years, before a combination of poor grazing, parasites and harsh Winters causes large numbers of the weakest animals to die. At present, there are about 1900 Soay sheep on Hirta and the resident researcher told me that over recent years, the numbers have been relatively stable at about 2000, with a few more in good years and less after a cyclical crash. Like the Wild White Cattle of Chillingham in Northumbria, these animals are left to their own devices and receive no veterinary attention.

Soay sheep.

Although the sheep are unmanaged and undomesticated, the researchers capture them and stick ear tags on them. Presumably this is to identify individual animals and keep track of their age, breeding activities and all the other things that researchers want to know about. The sheep are never wormed or treated for illness and they shed their fleeces each year, so don't need shearing. A very good book on the subject of Soay Sheep is 'Island Survivors' by Jewell, Milner and Morton Boyd.

Soay ram .

About two thirds of the sheep are dark with the remainder being light like this ram. They shed their wool in June and breed in October/November. The rams have horns, while the ewes can be horned or polled. Ewe lambs can breed in their first year and live till they are over ten with rams surviving until they are about five. Obviously a stressful job.

Fishing boat Spinningdale.

In February 2008, this Spanish owned trawler ran aground by village bay and has been there ever since. There was some discussion about whether it should be left to break up in Winter storms, but eventually, the decision was made to remove it. A team of salvors was brought in from Spain, presumably by the insurance company and they are now busy manually cutting up the boat. This was all that was left on Wednesday and you can see one of the salvage team working on the deck on the left of the picture.

St Kilda defences.

In May 1918, shortly before the end of the First World War, a German submarine entered Village Bay, Hirta. After giving a warning to the islanders, it opened fire and the Church, Factor's house, store and a couple of cottages were damaged. The submarine then left, but the Commander was foolish enough to return three weeks later, when an armed trawler fired on it, killing three German sailors. The submarines conning tower was damaged by the shelling to the extent that it couldn't submerge and it limped away to the Flannan Isles, where it was captured by a British destroyer. The sequel to this was that this four inch gun was mounted overlooking the bay, but has never been fired in anger from that day to this.

Church interior

Religion was important to the St Kildans and the pulpit in this little church by the bay was said to be the biggest in the Outer Hebrides.

The church was obviously used for births, marriages and deaths but I'm not sure how willingly they attended at other times.

One contemporary visitor wrote:

" The Sunday is indeed a day of intolerable gloom. At the sound of the bell, the whole flock hurry to church in single file, with dejected looks and eyes bent on the ground. They seem like a troop of the damned, whom Satan is driving to the bottomless pit. With no floor but mother earth, and with damp sticking to the walls like hoar frost or feathers, the women sit in church for about six and a half hours every Sunday, with bare feet and legs, even in winter."

Goodness. Strong stuff.

School room

The Society in Scotland for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge set up the first school on St Kilda in 1709. The first schoolmaster arrived in 1884 and used a room in the factor's house to teach the children. At that time, there were fourteen pupils who were taught grammar, history, geography and composition. The schoolroom in the photo is attached to the church and was built about 1898. There were eight children attending school at the time of the evacuation in 1930.

Island of Dun.

This view, across village bay, shows a Cleit in the foreground and a number of moored visiting boats, including the one I went on. There was also another tourist vessel, a private yacht, a dive boat and a trawler. Cruise ships visit every Summer. Only a few years ago, St Kilda was considered remote and difficult to get to but there has been such an increase in visitors recently that the infrastructure and facilities available are not really adequate. A balance has to be struck between encouraging people to visit and maintaining the island in a manner that does no harm to the landscape. Whilst I was there, I heard it said that it might be better to ban tourists and keep the island in a time warp, but I don't think that is the majority view. The island staff I met were keen to pass on their knowledge and enthusiasm about St Kilda, but obviously aware of the dilemma that more visitors means more pressure on paths, toilets, staff time etc. There are no refreshments available and the little shop is not well developed.

Should St Kilda become tourist driven or left as it is?

St Kilda is probably the most written about small island group on earth and there have been many books published about the natural and social history, geology, archaeology and sheep. Lots of books about the islands are readily available on the Internet and the National Trust for Scotland does a decent little guide.