Folks from round 'ere...

I wanted to say something that would help capture something of the atmosphere of these islands and coastal regions. There is something very distinctive about them. First of all, a lot of the people who run campsites, cafes, hotels and so on here are English, mainly (from their accents) from the North of England. Often, people who've holidayed up here and decided to make a complete move. Every campsite I've stayed on bar one has been run by English people, but there doesn't seem to be any anti-English feeling. There is a bit in the cities - or I've experienced it in the past - but the nearest I've come to it here was a chap that was talking about a place called the Devil's Punchbowl near Moffat, which was a place, apparently, where 'Your people came to take the cattle from the Scots, but the mist came and covered them over'. I think at the time - and this was probably in the first half of the 18th century - half of 'my people' were living on the breadline droving sheep in the Welsh borders, while the other half were running a mill somewhere in Poland. But some people have long memories.

The population up here is sparse, and almost exclusively white. They have a struggle, particularly on the islands, keeping the schools open, because much of the industry has declined: many whisky distilleries have closed (including many famous ones on Islay - and if you are still drinking Islay malts, you may be using up the last of the stock) or been bought by large conglomerates. With fishing quotas becoming increasingly restrictive, and insurance going sky-high, much of the fishing has declined or disappeared. And cottage industries such as weaving have also more or less collapsed, leaving most of the jobs in seasonal occupations involved with tourism which can't always sustain large populations (and disappears in the winter). With the exception of oil boom areas such as Shetland and Aberdeen, there isn't much round here for young people to see as a lasting occupation. That means that there aren't enough children to keep a school going in a small place beyond primary level, and many children have to leave their island, or travel a lot of miles in buses, to go to secondary school. Much of the land is either moorland, or has rock so near the surface that the land isn't farmable and can only be used for grazing the hardier kinds of cattle and sheep. In some places there are still wild goats, who do well on this land, and indigenous ponies (such as Eriskay and Shetland).

Originally (and forgive any errors in this account: these are complex and emotive subjects, and my knowledge is only that of the layperson) the land was run by the Clan system, where people were largely in self-managing clan groups. As the clan system degenerated, many landowners who perhaps had made their fortunes through cattle-farming wanted to 'improve' their estates, and run them as private concerns - perhaps running sheep on the land - which put them at odds with the people who were their tenants. Many tenants, indeed whole villages, were 'cleared', often violently and forcibly, and people reallocated poorer land elsewhere, left to build their own houses and create crofting communities: these were smallholdings operating at subsistence level with a few sheep, cows, and pigs, and people were growing their own crops where the soil permitted. This wasn't wheat to sell, it was potatoes and vegetables for the family to eat. (By the way, a 'croft' is the name for the whole smallholding, while the building you live in is called a 'shieling': many people seem to think a croft is a building). Because there were few (or in some cases, such as Harris, no) trees, people cut bricks of peat from the moorland, dried them in piles, and used them on the fire (many still do: peat is the forerunner of coal, geologically speaking, and burns pretty well and with a sweet, distinctive smell). Many of the people given short notice to leave had nowhere to go, and so people either went and added to the poverty-stricken population in the cities, or scraped together the money for a desperate journey to Canada and America. Many didn't survive the journey, and you hear in both the Scottish and Irish folk song tradition lots of songs about leaving the homeland and about ships being wrecked in storms. But this is why there are so many Scots names in Canada (Nova Scotia, for example) and it now fuels a lot of tourism: people coming back to see where the original lands were. And there are often ruined cottages to look at as a reminder of where their ancestors came from.

Nowadays there is a lot of regeneration, with Government and European money for businesses and local subsidies. Incomers are often encouraged, particularly if they have a craft or skill or want to set up a business, and may bring children with them or have children to fill up the schools. The art and craft scene is reviving, and there is a lot of pride in local and community regeneration. Second-homers are frowned upon - although there is nothing as far as I know that can be done to stop it - because people leaving homes empty for most of the year, and not supporting local shops because they stock up in supermarkets before they travel up - means that they don't contribute to the local community or economy. Many people want to build or extend homes, and there are many new homes going up, but it's slow going, mainly because builders are in short supply, the season in which building is possible is short, and materials often have to be shipped long distances on ferry services that are themselves dependent on the weather. The influx of Polish builders has been a boon here, and I've seen quite a few sites where Poles are doing much-needed building and restoration work. And some of the children who went to University on the mainland are realising the value of the healthy, outdoor, non-materialistic lifestyle and wanting to return. To some extent, the internet has helped, as have industries such as fish-farming (whatever you think of it: it's not ecologically brilliant, but it has brought money in). Even if there aren't many shops, the doctors have open surgery in the mornings for anyone to drop in without an appointment, you can get a lift with the post on the Post Bus where there isn't a regular bus service (and often, there is, subsidised by the Council, but the buses are an hour apart. You just have to do things more slowly). There may not be a bank or a library, but RBS comes round twice a week in a van, as does the mobile library. There's also a boom in things like local indigenous food (cheese, fish, shellfish, and so on) and, of course, golf. The controversial wind-farms are springing up - some of them owned by the multinationals and serving the whole of the UK, so locally-generated income from these is minimal, but one excellent example is the Isle of Gigha, where they have three of their own turbines - Faith, Hope, and Charity - that supply the community and sell excess power off into the system.

The populations here are ancient, and the Islands in particular have a spiritual quality: it's not just the shifting mists and dramatic coastlines, but the feeling of a really antique history. It's hard not to get spiritual when you're standing there on a misty evening and you can hear the odd booming call of bitterns above the sound of the waves, and it doesn't get dark until nearly midnight and then for only three hours. There are many standing stones, tombs, fortresses and other remains of those populations. People seem to be stoical and humorous, hugely capable, and there is a lot of wisdom in these parts. And because life is historically tough, people seem to help each other out - there's a great sense of community, and people who contribute are welcome, wherever they're from. There's a respect for skill and education - it's not cool to be ignorant and disaffected, so the 'whatever' culture you see a lot of in London doesn't seem to exist so much here. And you read in the local papers of people being cautioned by the police for doing things like shouting at their girlfriend in the street, or being drunk and disorderly, which goes by the by in many English (and Scottish, come to that) cities.

It's not surprising in these wildernesses - often covered by either moorland or forestry - that there is an amazing array of wildlife. The red squirrel is alive and well up here, as are deer, otters, and our most rare birds of prey: Ospreys, Red Kites, Hen Harriers, and of course Golden Eagles. The corncrake and the chough are being looked after by the RSPB on some of the islands, in collaboration with the farmers - and these are some of the rarest birds in the UK. The islands are the breeding and/or feeding grounds of the largest UK - and sometimes world - populations of gannets, barnacle geese, and puffins. It's not unusual to see dolphins and porpoises, and you very frequently see common and grey seals. The odd whale passes by. There is talk of reintroducing beavers and wolves. But overall there's a sense of geography which I think we sometimes lack in more urban areas: you always know where you are in relation to the sea, and in relation to the points of the compass. It's a sort of connectedness to the features of the landscape (things like sea, hills, lochs, forests, and so on) that we don't use much in the city.

One of the things I particularly like about the islands is that you meet everyone in the village shop because you know exactly what time the ferry comes in that has the daily papers on it - and everyone goes down to get them at the same time. In some places, the traditions seem restrictive: some of the islands, for example, are very closed indeed on a Sunday, even to the extent that driving around is frowned upon. I am currently stocking up - rather like the second-homers - with things I know I can't get on the islands, because I'm off to Barra soon, beginning a month-long sojourn in isolated places. But I also know that I can probably ask just about anybody if I can park in their field, and it will probably be OK in exchange for a few quid and an account of where I've come from. I now haven't watched TV for a month, am reading local rather than national papers and listening to Radio Scotland, because things happening even as far away as Glasgow and Edinburgh seem rather away from this world. I probably won't be able to get fresh pesto, 'real' coffee, or nearly as many varieties of olives as I can in London. But seeing as I'm just as happy eating cheese and onion sandwiches and making my own soup, I think I'll probably survive.