Fair Isle
Farewell from Fair Isle
Posted by Malachy Tallack - 28 January 2008 10:01
Malachy Tallack's last blog from Britain's remotest place reflects on a very different way of living
When I began writing these short pieces for the New Statesman a year ago, I was reacting in part to what I felt were misrepresentations and misunderstandings of life in the Northern Isles that were appearing with some regularity in the national media.
The islands, and Fair Isle in particular, were portrayed as somehow old fashioned – relics of an era long ...
Shetland's proud musical tradition
Posted by Malachy Tallack - 21 January 2008 13:12
The tunes and players of the islands are today recognised around the world, writes Malachy Tallack
I am in Glasgow this weekend, visiting friends and attending the annual Celtic Connections festival. This event, lasting several weeks, and spread across numerous venues in the city, attracts artists and visitors from all over the world.
This year, as part of the festival, a special “Shetland night” took place in the Royal Concert Hall, attended by around 2000 people. The concert, which included ...
Turning 100
Posted by Malachy Tallack - 14 January 2008 09:51
The creation of Stewart’s spinning wheels is an incredibly involved process, with each of its many parts individually constructed from wood, metal or leather
The stamp on the wood identifies the maker, and in the centre of the stamp is printed its number: 100. Stewart Thomson turns the spinning wheel carefully with his hands, explaining what each part does, and how it is made. This particular one, beautifully constructed from spotted sycamore, is the hundredth that he has built.
Around the room are six or seven other ...
New Year in disguise
Posted by Malachy Tallack - 07 January 2008 11:48
Strange guizers see in 2008 on Fair Isle
As I write this, Fair Isle has been cut off from mainland Shetland for about ten days: no boats, no planes. In part this has been due to a festive break for the ferry and flight staff, but the weather has also done its bit, serving up a severe easterly gale that lasted several days, and which made off with my neighbours’ poly-tunnel, among ...
Seeing the light
Posted by Malachy Tallack - 17 December 2007 11:46
Fair Isle's two lighthouses have been central to the commmunity for the last 116 years
During these long winter nights, one of the things I find myself noticing more are the island’s lighthouses. Fair Isle’s South Lighthouse is less than half a mile from my house, and lying in bed I can see the beam against the walls: four flashes, one after the other, repeated every 30 seconds.
There are two lighthouses on the island, one at the ...
Preparing for winter
Posted by Malachy Tallack - 10 December 2007 11:24
Malachy Tallack muses on the beauty and brutality of a Fair Isle winter
Traditional cultures have always sought, and found, balance within the natural world, and in their relationship to the lands and landscapes that have sustained them. And winter, it seems to me, is the time when we are reminded most forcefully of that balance.
Here in Fair Isle, as in other northern places, winter is the most animate and aggressive of seasons. To imagine ...
Guilty pleasures
Posted by Malachy Tallack - 03 December 2007 09:59
The trials and tribulations of knitting a gansey
Okay, so I gave in to temptation. I admit it. But what’s wrong with that, tell me? What shame in that? After all, it’s only a jumper.
Yes, after some days of deliberation, hesitation and procrastination, I finally sat down at the knitting machine and made myself a jumper. And I have to say, I’m rather pleased with myself. And it.
I had forgotten how much work was involved in ...
To knit or not to knit?
Posted by Malachy Tallack - 19 November 2007 14:30
Malachy Tallack wrestles with his desire to knit, a practice synonymous with his Fair Isle home.
A strange and unnatural urge has come over me this week . . . I am thinking about knitting a jumper.
For the past two years, a knitting machine has occupied the corner of our kitchen, and I have barely looked at it for most of that time. But suddenly I find myself compelled to create something on it; a desire that is ...
The story of Fair Isle's Heinkel
Posted by Malachy Tallack - 12 November 2007 11:55
The contribution made by Shetland Islanders during the wars plus the story of the plane that crashed on Fair Isle
While Shetland can, at times, feel remote and separate from world events, the wars of the past hundred years have affected these islands no less than anywhere else.
During the First World War, Shetland lost more than 600 people – a higher proportion of the population than any other part of the UK. Fair Isle itself saw eight men fail to return ...
Down the food route
Posted by Malachy Tallack - 06 November 2007 11:53
In his latest blog entry, Malachy Tallack charts the course of food from the field to the freezer
There are those who argue that anyone who is willing to eat meat should also be willing to kill it themselves, and I can certainly understand the logic of that statement. There is a huge degree of pretence in much of the food that is consumed today.
The supermarkets are filled with pre-prepared and packaged meat, to which everything possible has been done to try and disguise the fact ...
Going home
Posted by Malachy Tallack - 29 October 2007 13:36
After spending several weeks on the road supporting Runrig Malachy starts the long journey home from London - until the weather intervenes...
Having been in England touring for the past three weeks, it felt good to be on the way home again.
I took the nine o’clock train on Wednesday morning from London King’s Cross and gazed out of the window as we rolled northwards towards Edinburgh. The clutter and bustle of the city soon gave way to green, and the urban interventions grew increasingly infrequent the closer to Scotland we became. ...
At the obs
Posted by Malachy Tallack - 01 October 2007 12:15
Fair Isle's rich bird life tempts many visitors to this remote place. Many of them stay at the island's Observatory which began life in the 1940s...
For most places in the UK the end of summer means the end of the tourist season; for us this is not the case. Late September and October are high season for birds and, consequently, high season for birders.
The island feels full of life at this time of year. Small clusters of people wander endlessly around the roads and fields, with an identical look of quiet, concentrated optimism ...
Death by water
Posted by Malachy Tallack - 24 September 2007 16:08
Now, as in the past, the sea functions as both giver and taker of life
Early on Sunday morning, a Polish yacht with seven crew was rescued 30 miles to the west of Orkney. It had been due to arrive in Aberdeen the previous day, but had lost radio contact and had not been heard of since Monday, shortly after leaving Keflavik in Iceland.
The yacht had been suffering engine trouble, but finally managed to restore communications late on ...
The Trust and us
Posted by Malachy Tallack - 17 September 2007 18:08
The National Trust for Scotland saved Fair Isle in the 1950s but things have moved on in the intervening years prompting Malachy to ponder the alternative of community ownership
Fair Isle stands out among Shetland’s 17 inhabited islands for a number of reasons. One of these is that the island, along with the vast majority of the houses, is owned by a single landlord: The National Trust for Scotland.
The relationship between the National Trust and the island is often cited as reason for Fair Isle’s continuing success as a community, and ...
To the market
Posted by Malachy Tallack - 10 September 2007 14:50
Fair Isle's lambs are on their way to market and prices are down again - bad news at the end of five months of work
It is five months since they were born, since the early mornings and late nights of those few weeks, checking everything was going smoothly. But now it is time for the lambs to go.
The vast majority of the croft-reared lambs in Fair Isle will leave the island during the autumn. The first to be shipped left last week.
In the past, two ...
