Last
week was sublime and ridiculous. I leave it to you to decide which is which.
After
Friday’s Riddoch Question’s prog I rushed out the door of Abertay to Edinburgh airport, a
flight to Stornoway and a message about car hire which was the first truly relaxing
thing I’d heard in days –the car is unlocked in the corner of the car-park and
the key will be under the mat. And it was. I bumped down to Tabost, the Lewis
crofting township near Balallan where Angus and Mary McDowall live – they’d
invited me to open the Lochs Agricultural Show. First though I’d to use their computer to send a column to the Sunday
Post – see me, see Lorraine Kelly? When she’s not there we’re like twins!
Next
morning the household of sons, daughters and friends were enlisted to get stalls,
tables, burgers, onions, buns and people up to the showsite. All I had to do
was make myself heard over the classicly inaudible PA system and say something
meaningful about windfarms and how to stop dissent stifling progress in
community projects. Of course everyone
locally is so polite, I still don’t know if I succeeded.
Far
more importantly though I drew the winning raffle for a new car – and selected
from the 13 thousand odd tickets, a non-driver courtesy of a bar in Stornoway.
Well, good luck to him. After a bonzer feed at the Erisort Inn, it was back on
the computer to write a Scotsman column (and you think I have weekends off!)
and then, finally, with Sunday dawning blue and sunny and warm, it was off up
the highest hill on the Hebrides, the Clisham
itself.
Now
unquestionably I’m not as young as I was, but although it’s only 800 metres high
(and starts at 150m), it was a huge effort! The top steepest half of the hill
is covered in large rocks, and you wobble on them at your peril especially when
you’re up there alone and last (as usual) But what a view from the top and what
a fabulous range of hills are tucked in between the Clisham and Scarp. I’ll be
back!
I
drove round to Uig where B&B maestros Elma and Angus Morrison had waited
(two hours!) to have dinner with me. Next day it was a veritable pea-souper,
but I was up at 7am to get the Seatrek boat to St Kilda. We set off into the
swirling grey cloud, and didn’t leave it for four of the longest hours I’ve
ever spent; cold, a bit bored and aware that the same journey awaited us on the
return journey. Possibly my mood rather
infected everything after that. St Kilda appeared suddenly out of the gloom –
I’d been hoping to savour the approach, to get a sense of the overwhelming
remoteness and loneliness of this Island on
the Edge. But it was utterly invisible till the last minute – and the first
thing I saw, bathed in dazzling sunshine, was a collection of ugly, square,
concrete and corrugated iron army buildings and a giant transmitter on the
hill. The delicate pattern of the islanders homes either side of the famous
“street” was hard to focus on beside this modern jingoistic bric a brac of war.
Maybe that’s my failing. The hills were covered with hundreds of cleats, like
tiny black houses where some of the gannets, fulmars and other birds the
islanders lived on were dried and stored. Amazing effort and ingenuity – beside
the amazing ugliness of the MOD’s creations. Soay sheep were everywhere grazing – though we were
shown the wall islanders had painstakingly created to keep the sheep out of
their pastures. Seems a shame we can’t see how beautiful the machair or their
crops might be without a thousand nibbling gnashers.
I
have to be honest and say the journey back was an ordeal. Despite an apparent calm
on land, there was a swell and tide behind the boat and a wind heading the
opposite way. Result – choppy seas, lots of spray and four more cold hours in
the featureless grey – interrupted by a fabulous glimpse of Stac Lee near
Boreray a few miles from Kilda.
The
crew and staff on the Uig boat were great – but eight hours with just three hours
ashore is a big ask – and before you say it, I know it used to be even longer!
I
flew off Lewis this morning – the plane was unaccountably late and left me with
no time to collect my baggage in Edinburgh
before running onto the next flight to London,
where I recorded an edition of Radio 4’s Great Lives about the late David
Ervine with several authorities on Ulster politics including Gerry
Adams. Do I sound like I’m suggesting a callous terrorist had a great life? I
hope not. Judge for yourself when the programme is played in August. More
details soon. And by the way isn’t the lack of internet connection at Terminal
Five so LAST CENTURY!!!!!
