Unst has the monopoly on north. Britain's last outpost in an upward direction is two ferry rides away from the Shetland mainland and has, naturally, Britain's most northerly church (Haroldswick Methodist), brewery (the excellent and aptly named Valhalla) and post office (Haroldswick again, about to close as the postmistress is retiring). Britain's most northerly blade of grass and lighthouse are on Muckle Flugga, the rocky outcrop off the Hermaness nature reserve.
Towering over Unst, though, is the hill called Saxa Vord, and towering over the Unst economy for the past 40 years has been the RAF early warning station that bears its name. RAF Saxa Vord was crucial during the cold war, when its radar tracked Soviet aircraft through the Iceland Gap and Unst-based operators guided Strike command fighters to intercept them.
The incursions have largely stopped. The Soviet Union no longer exists. And the delights of digitisation have meant that the array of grim-looking blast-proof hardware glowering over the landscape can be controlled from hundreds of miles away.
This is what led to the Strategic Defence Review decision that most of the service personnel at Saxa Vord would be moving out over the next two years, that Unst would be losing a third of its 900-strong population and almost half of its schoolchildren, and that anything up to 80 civilian jobs would go, adding to the misery of the closure to oilfield activity of the airport two years ago, which cost 40 jobs.
Just imagine what that means: 120 jobs lost in a civilian community of just 600. Half the schoolchildren gone. The economic, social and cultural power of one-third of your fellow islanders ripped away.
No other base has such a close relationship with the local community, as it is the main employer and there is such a small number of people on the island.
The Holyrood minister Wendy Alexander found such an exercise of imagination beyond her. Wasn't this oil-rich Shetland, she shrugged to a deputation of Unst folk? Help yourselves, she told them. Anyway, military stuff is Westminster's responsibility. The central belt is where the poor live . . .
And where Labour's power base lies. But I forgot: this is a coalition administration, isn't it? Shetland voted Lib Dem, but that shouldn't count against it. Anyway, she's right. Nobody's starving on Unst.
It's just that there could be hardly anyone left on the island to starve a decade or so after the RAF leaves. The drift away of native islanders has already begun - within the past two months three young families with school-age children have left. What has been a vibrant 1,000-strong community could be down to 400 by 2011. Schools and shops will close. Such industry as there is will evaporate as ferry sailings become less frequent. It's the peace dividend.
In Unst, they have begun fighting the last battle of the cold war, lobbying everyone they can think of for help, cajoling exiles to return and punting deliberately daft ideas such as leasing the coastline to a landlocked European state so it can station a navy there. There is no resentment toward the embarrassed RAF personnel, but sometimes you can sense the horror people feel about the future. The MoD recently completed 62 new houses for military use. They are superb, state-of-the-art dwellings with sensors that switch on heating when a body enters a room. They have full-length conservatories, three bedrooms and integral garages. They cost anything up to £250,000 each (!) to construct due to the condition and remoteness of the site.
And every single one could be razed to the ground. There are already 40 empty houses on Unst, and prices are the cheapest in Britain. The RAF "palaces" might be sold for as little as £300, or simply demolished to save them being bought and stripped for materials.
During the cold war, Unst had its neck on the block, targeted by Soviet missiles, facing obliteration in a flash. Now, pulling out, the MoD will admit no obligation to help regenerate the economy it is devastating, other than by leaving behind, maybe, some houses nobody wants, a few vehicles and, still, the risk that if things go horribly wrong in Russia, someone will still nuke the place for its unmanned radar.
Unst deserves better. It has the best beaches, the best beer, the best boats and the best bread in Shetland. But the survival of the community in any viable sense is under threat. It could be Britain's northernmost tragedy.
