QnA with writer Adam Nicolson about the Shiant Isles before his Gairloch Museum event on Saturday
On Saturday writer Adam Nicolson, who once owned the Shiant Isles, will talk about them and share stories of them at an in-person and online illustrated talk at Gairloch Museum at 4pm. Below he answers some questions from Margaret Chrystall ...
Q How and when did your relationship with the Shiant Isles begin. What is your abiding recollection of your first visit – and your overriding sense of the place then?
A Adam Nicolson: I went first with my father when I was eight years old in 1966. He had bought the islands for £1,300 in 1937 when his granny died and left him some money. And, from that visit on, they were always the most marvellous connection between us. He loved them and I loved them and it was something we could share and talk about very easily and generously. It was something that connected us. On that first visit, I remember the excitement of it, the Morrisons on the herring boat from Scalpay chatting to each other in Gaelic, the islands slowly growing up from the horizon, then the sheer size of the cliffs and the density of the seabirds, a kind of miraculous otherworld. I had never seen anything like it, the noise, the strangeness, the power of the place.
Q Sea Room is the Shiants “ ... geologically, spiritually, botanically, historically, culturally, aesthetically, ornithologically, etymologically, emotionally, politically, socially, archaeologically and personally”. Happy it is a full description?
A It is impossible to describe anywhere fully. A place will always escape any description of it. But I wrote that book very, very quickly, in about three months, and it has the virtue of that: an entirely spontaneous account of this marvel-filled place, fed by my own experience of going there for two or three decades and, if I am honest, by the sadness of handing them on, of giving away something that had been so precious to me. But just as my father had given them to me, I felt it was my duty to give them to Tom, in the hope that he would derive the same richness from the connection as I had.
Q What does it feel like to have your own islands – though they are now Tom’s?
A I always resisted the idea of ownership as anything exclusive, of shutting anyone out or telling anyone that they were not welcome there or had nothing to do with it. The virtue in ownership, particularly of a place like that, can only be in openness. My father thought the same and throughout our time people were always welcome to stay there for free, with no contribution of any kind needed or expected. Any claim to own those islands has always seemed absurd in their presence. The essence of places like that is they are un-ownable.
Q What do you like to tell people about the islands. What would you like them to know or do you feel it is important for them to know?
A It is exciting to be there, as much on the sea around them as on the land. You do really need to know how to use a boat. And they are dangerous: people have died there on both sea and land. And they are revelatory: a visit to the Shiants can you leave you feeling that you have witnessed something completely out of the ordinary. And it is very uncomfortable: no swish modern facilities.
Q You have written many books – on topics including Homer, seabirds, poetry, Sea Room about the Shiant Isles and your latest, The Sea Is Not Made Of Water looks deep into rock pools – as well as the lives of some of the people who live by water. Does anything unite the diverse subjects that you have written and will write about?
A Crazily diverse! The only thing that connects them is that they are all about the experience of being alive. They all ask the same questions. What is the world like? What is life like? How have different people understood what it means to be alive? What can the natural world and the worlds of the past tell us about the enigma of existence?
Q Covid sees more exploring the UK. Encourage them west – and North?
A It might often be wet, windy and cold, but if you plunge into the great places of the north and west, you will find rewards that will stay with you for the rest of your life. It is a strange thing, but every day, even several times a day, the Shiants are in my mind.
Adam's talk about the Shiant Isles is at Gairloch Museum on Saturday at 4pm. Tickets £6. More information: www.gairlochmuseum.org/events
