[ISL] "Scotland enjoys the rebirth of its idyllic island life"

[rfmcdonald]

I am not sure if Kevin McKenna's article in The Guardian is justified. Can Scots reading this jump in and say this qualified optimism is justifiable?

In those far-flung outposts of Britain’s influence where diplomats circle the Chesterfields of an evening and gossip over brandy, an old story is never far away. It is the story of a meeting – never recorded – that took place between officials of Britain and Norway to discuss the matter of how one might go about depopulating one’s islands. It is whispered that the government of Norway, restored once more following the Nazi occupation of the second world war, approached the UK seeking advice on a robust strategy towards its islands.

Happily for future generations of Norwegians, their postwar government ignored what Britain told them, which was to evacuate the islands on the grounds of cost and security and gradually cause them to run down. Norway’s island communities thrived and became a powerhouse, while Britain’s suffered from a policy that has since been described as one of “benign neglect”. In Scotland, which has 99 populated islands – two-thirds of the UK’s total – it wasn’t until the creation of the Highlands and Islands Development Board in 1965 that its islands began to thrive once more.

Still, the cost of public services in these areas, per head of population, is higher than anywhere else in the UK.

Islands are an economic and administrative nightmare for those countries who were bequeathed them in the Earth’s infant years. So much toil and trouble for so few people: why can’t folk just be sensible and live on the mainland where they can be reached much more cheaply? Don’t they realise how difficult it is to defend these places?

Earlier this month, the tiny Hebridean island of Muck (population: 30) sent out a global appeal via social media for a primary teacher for its seven children. The school’s popular teacher had quit and none of the initial six candidates followed up on their initial interest, as the reality of life on an island without a shop and cut off from the mainland for several months in the year began to dawn on them.

Yet following the Facebook appeal, Highland Council has been swamped with applications from all over the globe for the £35,000 a year post, which brings with it a three-bedroom flat and, in the opinion of the last teacher, Julie Baker, “a short commute and stunning views over the sea to Ardnamurchan Point”. These places might be remote and require small triumphs of human endurance, but people will always want to live in them.