|
St Kilda
The 80th anniversary of the evacuation of St Kilda has just taken place. I don't for a moment blame the inhabitants for giving up on such a marginal existence - they had to live on seabirds and whatever crops they could grow.
As a soldier I had a couple of spells out there and it really is something else. The main island has cliffs of 1300 feet and I've stood at the top and thrown a largish rock which I've lost sight of long before it hit the sea below. And on the west side of Village Bay is a spine of rock averaging about 250 feet and peaking at 720 feet. In a good westerly I've seen the spray, coming from waves building up all the way across the Atlantic, coming clear over the top!
We once had a Spanish fisherman dumped on us for an injured hand who then comitted suicide by jumping off an 850 foot cliff from an overhanging rock which used to be a test for young St Kildans to stand on and bend and touch their toes to prove they were capable of hanging on ropes and netting seabirds for a living. I went down with the RAF Mountain Rescue Team which we called in to recover him. He'd made a very large dent in the turf when he hit it and the gulls/ravens had already had their share of him. I didn't have a lot of breakfast that morning...
The National Trust, in those days, used to run a small cruise ship up the west coast of Scotland once a year visiting various gardens/estates and with ultimate jewel, a call in at St Kilda. In my time, the soldiers caught a couple of dozen St Kilda mice (bigger and tamer than our normal UK house mice) and dipped their feet in cochineal. The National Trust visitors were enthralled photographing pink-footed St Kilda mice as a totally unique species. The National Trust were not amused!
But be assured, St Kilda, 40 miles out further into the north Atlantic than all the rest of UK, is big stern country, not to be messed with or romanticised. And in those days did they ever even have a bath? The mind boggles!
Tony.
|
