New Beginnings

Making a New start

A move from London to the Outer Hebrides.

Many years ago I decided to become a Special Constable in the Metropolitan Police.  Do my bit for the community, I thought; be a helping hand to people in trouble, I thought.  I was prepared to be grilled by the Police about my motives for joining, but I was not prepared for the questions, the amazement and even hostility of my middle class left-wing friends.  After a while I became so fed up with the raised eyebrows and the question “Why?” I began to say “because I want to wear black stockings and hit people”.  Just to shut them up.

I felt much the same when we announced our plans to move to the Outer Hebrides.  The same shocked chorus of “Why?”  Why on earth would anybody move out of a smart London suburb into the middle of the Atlantic?  Looking at my life, tied to the house with a small baby, the weekly pram push to Sainsbury’s and back, walking the dogs, doing the housework, I thought “why NOT?”

We placed our advertisement in the Stornaway Gazette.  HOUSE WANTED TO RENT BY PROFFESIONAL COUPLE.  Best not to mention the baby and the two large dogs we thought, leave that till later.  There were three responses.  one in South Uist, and two in the North.  My Husband would be working in the middle island, Benbecula, and the three were joined by causeways, so all were possibles.  We immediately booked our flight for a long weekend of house hunting.  One change of planes at Glasgow.  Simple.

We were in the Café at Glasgow Airport eating doughnuts and drinking tea when the island flight was called.  My Husband was unconcerned.  He had done the journey several times and knew for sure that they would call us more than once.  Twenty minutes, and no second call later we panicked, grabbed our belongings and ran to the check in desk.  The one plane of the day to the Islands had left without us.  Was there nothing to be done?  The ticket clerk was game to try, grabbed our paperwork and ran with us out of the terminal onto the tarmac.  Our plane was moving out ready for its take off run.

It had snowed in Glasgow.  I was carrying a baby in my arms, and in my London clothes.  High heeled patent leather boots, ankle length skirt, long tunic, ropes of beads and long hair flying, chasing a moving aeroplane.  Unbelievably we were spotted.  The plane slowed.  The plane stopped.  The staircase was moved up, the door opened and we climbed aboard to much laughter and applause.  We hadn’t even arrived on the islands and we were already famous.  We would always be known in the years that followed as “The people who stopped the plane”

The flight was smooth and uneventful, and we settled comfortably into the little hotel on the harbour of North Uist.  Our first visit was to the house on the South Island.  It was pouring with rain and dark.  The house was immaterial.  Its position in the shadow of the only real mountains on the islands was just too depressing for me.  It had to be “no”, and we returned to the Hotel disappointed and damp.

Next day the sun shone and we set out feeling more cheerful to see the Northern houses.  The first was large and airy, but at the end of a mile of track that had to be negotiated in a Land Rover.  Sadly, another “No”.  Then there was the third.  Standing with its back firmly into the wind and overlooking a small loch, the house had a homely feel, and was just the right size in a small township about a mile from the sea.  Swans went about their business out on the loch, and a heron, ignoring us, fished in the shallows outside the kitchen window.

We looked at that calm sunlit day, and we didn’t see the long dark days of winter, hear the howling gales, or feel the driving rain.  I looked at the shiny peat stove and the open fires and saw myself making delicious cakes and breads, and sitting with family and friends in the warm fireglow.  Not cleaning them out in the early morning and struggling outside with buckets of ash in all weathers.

We saw the space and the freedom for our little son and the dogs to play and run wild in safety.  We didn’t think of a five year old who would have a two mile walk to school every day.

We looked out over sun bright water rippling in a soft breeze, we heard the larks above us and the distant rhythm of the great Atlantic, and we just looked at each other and said “WHY NOT?”