On an island called Unst, right at the top of the Shetlands, there’s a bus stop. It might be the best bus stop in the world.
The tiny shelter has a comfy armchair, paintings on the wall, fresh flowers, knick-knacks, books and a computer in case you get bored. It’s all provided, gratis, by people from the local community, just to make life that bit more pleasant.
It wouldn’t last five minutes elsewhere in Britain. Things would be stolen or vandalised. But it’s on an island, and islands are different. They have an otherness, a removal from the norm, which springs from geography, but ends up being much more than that. They’re out there, in more ways than one.
Believe me, I know. There are about 1,000 islands around Britain, and I recently spent four months travelling round some of them. What they all have in common, what makes them so exciting and magnetic, is that otherness.
The tiny shelter has a comfy armchair, paintings on the wall, fresh flowers, knick-knacks, books and a computer in case you get bored. It’s all provided, gratis, by people from the local community, just to make life that bit more pleasant.
It wouldn’t last five minutes elsewhere in Britain. Things would be stolen or vandalised. But it’s on an island, and islands are different. They have an otherness, a removal from the norm, which springs from geography, but ends up being much more than that. They’re out there, in more ways than one.
Believe me, I know. There are about 1,000 islands around Britain, and I recently spent four months travelling round some of them. What they all have in common, what makes them so exciting and magnetic, is that otherness.
It starts with the journey. Getting to an island requires planning and consideration; it can be unreliable and challenging, so it becomes an event in itself. They get harder to reach — and, in many ways, harder to live on — the further north you go. In the Shetlands and the Hebrides, survival is a constant battle against the elements.
On Eigg, a tremendous little place in the Hebrides, I was climbing An Sgurr, the central volcanic peak, with Scruff, my local guide (and, in the way of islands, a fisherman, builder and lifeboat man). It was fine weather when we started, but then the rain came, and the wind.
What a wind. A blast almost blew me up a canyon, and as I was getting my breath back, Scruff calmly mentioned that a 120mph gust had taken his roof off the year before. I wondered what it did to you, living in a place where that could happen so casually. “Oh, islanders are a bit more patient,” he said with a wry smile. That’s resilience for you.
All across the northern islands, you feel a powerful sense of community. It’s as if the surrounding circle of coastline concentrates and focuses it. And the marvellous thing is that there’s no tension between that and tourism.
Visitors aren’t about to spoil these places; they enhance them. The money they spend goes towards keeping the islands alive — and it’s a particular type of tourist who visits an isolated northern island. They don’t want a casino, they don’t want a bouncy castle.
It’s not much good for Americans, because there’s no cable TV or ranch dressing. People come to see the flora and fauna, and to appreciate the place for what it is, so the welcome’s still genuine.
They come for the beauty, too, of course. Barra is officially the most beautiful place in Britain. I’m not sure how they measure that — by length or by weight? — but it certainly is lovely: the contours, the colours, the beaches. (It has the only airport in the world where the beach is an official runway, which is rather fun.)
It’s a hard life, though, and the sense of togetherness is just as strong. While I was there, I happened to meet three different people whose lives had been affected by a drink-driving death. They all talked of being “enveloped by care” from the whole community. What a wonderful phrase. What a wonderful thing.
The Isle of Man was a complete contrast. Life is faster, busier; and, among some people (those who have moved there for the low tax rates, generally), there’s a smugness that grates a little. Still, there’s an awful lot to like. It has a beauty of its own, and some fascinating people.
I met a man called Desi, who had worked for two years as the warden on the Calf of Man, a tiny island off the coast. We talked one evening, just as the sun was sinking, bathing this tiny island he loved in golden light.
I think he hadn’t had an easy life on the mainland, but when he spoke about living alone on that wild place, he just glowed. “The thing is,” he said, “when you live on an island, you are somebody.” That’ll stay with me.
Sark is somewhere I’d love to return to. It’s a tiny dot in the Channel Islands, with just 600 or so residents, and until a few months ago it was the last feudal territory in Europe. It felt like it, too. Life moves very, very slowly.
There are no cars allowed — you can have a tractor if your work demands it, but otherwise it’s horses, cycles or your legs. I went everywhere on a bike — great fun, especially in the dark, with no streetlights.
They had their first full democratic election last year, and I was glad to see that they voted to keep many of the old ways. What they have is worth preserving.
There was so much more: Piel Island, in Morecambe Bay, where I saw the coronation of the local king — by tradition, he’s the landlord of the pub; Forvik, in the Shetlands, where the only resident, Stuart Hill, has declared independence, and stamps your passport on entry.
Some dismiss him as a nutter, but he’s far from that: he’s making a point and doing it in a charming, brave way.
For all their diversity, our islands do have something in common. Being physically disconnected might just seem like an inconvenience, but it has deeper implications for the way islanders are.
It comes back to that journey. It’s never reliable — a fog or high seas and you can be cut off, in some places for weeks. On a whim, nature can throw your plans into turmoil. That’s healthy: it forces you to think again, take stock.
Most of us are insulated from nature and chance — we have the illusion that we’re in control. For an islander, however, the uncertainty of nature is part of the fabric of everyday life, and that does something to your psyche.
It gives a sense of perspective. Paradoxically, being on these small, confined places gives you a breadth of vision that’s hard to achieve on the wide open spaces of the mainland. And we could all do with a little bit more of that.
On Eigg, a tremendous little place in the Hebrides, I was climbing An Sgurr, the central volcanic peak, with Scruff, my local guide (and, in the way of islands, a fisherman, builder and lifeboat man). It was fine weather when we started, but then the rain came, and the wind.
What a wind. A blast almost blew me up a canyon, and as I was getting my breath back, Scruff calmly mentioned that a 120mph gust had taken his roof off the year before. I wondered what it did to you, living in a place where that could happen so casually. “Oh, islanders are a bit more patient,” he said with a wry smile. That’s resilience for you.
All across the northern islands, you feel a powerful sense of community. It’s as if the surrounding circle of coastline concentrates and focuses it. And the marvellous thing is that there’s no tension between that and tourism.
Visitors aren’t about to spoil these places; they enhance them. The money they spend goes towards keeping the islands alive — and it’s a particular type of tourist who visits an isolated northern island. They don’t want a casino, they don’t want a bouncy castle.
It’s not much good for Americans, because there’s no cable TV or ranch dressing. People come to see the flora and fauna, and to appreciate the place for what it is, so the welcome’s still genuine.
They come for the beauty, too, of course. Barra is officially the most beautiful place in Britain. I’m not sure how they measure that — by length or by weight? — but it certainly is lovely: the contours, the colours, the beaches. (It has the only airport in the world where the beach is an official runway, which is rather fun.)
It’s a hard life, though, and the sense of togetherness is just as strong. While I was there, I happened to meet three different people whose lives had been affected by a drink-driving death. They all talked of being “enveloped by care” from the whole community. What a wonderful phrase. What a wonderful thing.
The Isle of Man was a complete contrast. Life is faster, busier; and, among some people (those who have moved there for the low tax rates, generally), there’s a smugness that grates a little. Still, there’s an awful lot to like. It has a beauty of its own, and some fascinating people.
I met a man called Desi, who had worked for two years as the warden on the Calf of Man, a tiny island off the coast. We talked one evening, just as the sun was sinking, bathing this tiny island he loved in golden light.
I think he hadn’t had an easy life on the mainland, but when he spoke about living alone on that wild place, he just glowed. “The thing is,” he said, “when you live on an island, you are somebody.” That’ll stay with me.
Sark is somewhere I’d love to return to. It’s a tiny dot in the Channel Islands, with just 600 or so residents, and until a few months ago it was the last feudal territory in Europe. It felt like it, too. Life moves very, very slowly.
There are no cars allowed — you can have a tractor if your work demands it, but otherwise it’s horses, cycles or your legs. I went everywhere on a bike — great fun, especially in the dark, with no streetlights.
They had their first full democratic election last year, and I was glad to see that they voted to keep many of the old ways. What they have is worth preserving.
There was so much more: Piel Island, in Morecambe Bay, where I saw the coronation of the local king — by tradition, he’s the landlord of the pub; Forvik, in the Shetlands, where the only resident, Stuart Hill, has declared independence, and stamps your passport on entry.
Some dismiss him as a nutter, but he’s far from that: he’s making a point and doing it in a charming, brave way.
For all their diversity, our islands do have something in common. Being physically disconnected might just seem like an inconvenience, but it has deeper implications for the way islanders are.
It comes back to that journey. It’s never reliable — a fog or high seas and you can be cut off, in some places for weeks. On a whim, nature can throw your plans into turmoil. That’s healthy: it forces you to think again, take stock.
Most of us are insulated from nature and chance — we have the illusion that we’re in control. For an islander, however, the uncertainty of nature is part of the fabric of everyday life, and that does something to your psyche.
It gives a sense of perspective. Paradoxically, being on these small, confined places gives you a breadth of vision that’s hard to achieve on the wide open spaces of the mainland. And we could all do with a little bit more of that.
