Somehow I knew that the train from Oxenholme to Glasgow would be late. It would not be an adventure if the British transport system was to disappoint us and be on time for once. The train was late and so that meant rather than catch the airport bus from George Square in Glasgow (fare £6) I had to take a taxi (fare £23 plus a substantial tip as the cabbie wasn’t having a very good day).
What I did not expect to find when I arrived in Lerwick on a hull-grey afternoon in early summer was a town where a declining fishing culture does not herald social problems, poverty or the degeneration of a community. This was not a town that was struggling, not by any stretch of the imagination. Let’s face it who cares about the white fishing when there’s black oil to be extracted from the fishes’ sleeping quarters! Now this is a prosperous town; that much is made perfectly obvious to all visitors. The place has good housing, the young people wear the latest fashions, the roads are excellent and there are no boarded up shops to annoy the eye on a lazy stroll along the shopping lanes. Yes, a 40-year marriage to the oil industry has been kind to the Shetlanders.
I was in Shetland for a particular reason: I was determined to visit Foula; very determined. Foula, from the Old Norse meaning ‘bird island’, lies far to the west of Shetland; it is home to the most isolated community in the UK. But my hopes of visiting this remarkable island were abandoned when I rang the local airline and was told that the Friday flight was already full. There’s only one other flight each week and that’s on a Tuesday and my schedule didn’t permit any extra days in Shetland. In addition to the pilot, the light aircraft can carry only seven passengers. Despite this, I remained determined to visit Foula.
So I checked out of my hotel in Lerwick on the Friday morning and drove to the tiny Tingwall Airport. I presented myself saying that I was hoping that perhaps there had been a cancellation or a no-show. But everyone who had booked had shown up. The flight was full. I felt despondent. In desperation I asked if it was a matter of weight rather than actual numbers. “Well, I suppose so,” said the uniformed lady in control. And that was it…I had found the chink… “Perhaps if you were to weigh all of us and our small backpacks…I mean my fellow passengers don’t mind, do you?” They looked at each other and replied, “Bah.”
Other staff members arrived, there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, soft whispers in tight huddles, furrowed brows and the calculator sizzled. I now felt very sure that I would be visiting Foula. Eventually the uniformed lady in control asked each passenger in turn to come forward and be weighed (on the same industrial scales as they weigh the bulky luggage, military hardware and crates containing governmental dispatches!) In truth no-one objected and after some further calculations and references being made to the official manuals, I was allowed to join the 1030 flight to Foula. My determination cost me £50 return.
The reason I wanted to visit Foula is simple: I wanted to photograph Da Kame, the island’s great seacliff. I have photographed other seacliffs such as Builacraig in Mingulay which is 213m high and Slieve League in Donegal, Ireland. Da Kame at 376m (1,233 feet) competes with Conachair in St Kilda as the highest sheer cliff in Britain. I collect seacliffs.
We landed on a gravel runway and without any hesitation I started climbing the hill aiming directly for Da Kame on the west coast of the island. It was a hard climb and the incessant attacks by great skuas and Arctic skuas (known here as ‘bonxies’or ‘Skootie Allens’) didn’t add much to the pleasure of climbing in 18 degree (and rising) temperatures. An hour-and-a-half later I was about a quarter of a mile from the cliff edge when a chilled seamist began trailing its sinewy, caterpillar-like body across the tops of the hills. I started to feel chilled and then I lost my bearings. Now before I left Sedbergh I had been seriously warned by persons close to me about going too near the edge of seacliffs. Those not so close to me would undoubtedly be happy to see me peer over a ledge that’s about to give way beneath me. I knew that my geographic knowledge of this island was not complete; I knew that there would be other sheer drops in the general area and not just the one that falls into the ocean. As I have said, I was determined to visit Foula; but I was also determined to return to the mainland. So I took a few photographs to show just how poor the visibility had become and how dangerous (and stupid) it would be to continue walking. I gave up…a wise move, but I was heartbroken.
Foula is five square miles of island. I know because for the rest of that day I walked the length and breadth of it photographing the landscapes, the bird life and one or two of the 25 people who live there today. The Foula folk still celebrate Christmas (Auld Yule to them) on 6th January and the Old Year a week later, according to the Julian calendar. The Old Norse language of the island was spoken up until the 18th century and the last person to speak Norn was Jeannie Ratter who died in 1926. In Foula today, however, you will hear several accents and languages: the Shetlandic/Norse dialect, a brag of Glaswegian and a hint of Suffolkese and South East Englandish. There is a primary school with three pupils and the good news is that there are four other children living in the island who are currently under school age. So the island has a future. And as I didn’t go to the extreme edge of the seacliff in the gathering mist, I too have a future.
Of course there’s always another way to photograph seacliffs other than clambering to the top of them and putting yourself in danger of falling over them. Just as the late afternoon flight back to Shetland was about to leave, I asked the pilot if he could fly us around the island’s west coast so that I could take photographs from the seaward side. “Oh well, y’know, it’s a…” Also, I asked if I could sit next to him in order to get the best shots. He raised his eyes to heaven, sighed noisily, muttered something about Atlantic turbulence, a dicey fuel tank, serious tailwinds and the likelihood of the death of all passengers. We’re doomed Captain Shetland, we’re doomed…!
But then he simply said “What the heck, we’ve got two planes,” and he flew his plane load of delighted though slightly airsick, passengers right around Foula to see the spectacular undulating rock formations of Da Kame.
Maybe he could hear in my voice that I was determined to visit Foula to capture a photograph of that outlandishly regal seacliff – ah the sequins of sea-queens.
Shetland’s salmon industry is flourishing these days and I met a man who is hoping that this rather alternative industry to the traditional sea fishing will bring him rewards. Jacob Bell fished for cod in what he and his mates are already calling ‘the sweet old days’. But on one expedition Jacob got his left hand caught in the boat’s winching machinery and he had to be airlifted by the RAF rescue helicopter when he and his crew were 45 miles out at sea on a rather foggy February day. Unfortunately Jacob’s hand had to be amputated and in the bar one night and he showed me the inventive mechanical substitute he now had. He doesn’t go sea fishing any more as he’s now having a go at the more lucrative smoked salmon business, though there’s tough competition around. In an effort to encourage him in his new venture, I did say that he had something of a head start on all of his competitors and perhaps he could capitalise on this. “Really,” he said, “What head start?” “Well,” I said “You could quite authentically advertise your smoked salmon as “untouched by human hand”!
Click here for Part II: Norway.
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