by Ann Cleeves
The Vidlin party was to celebrate the wedding of Steven and Charlotte. Steven Robertson is the actor who brings Sandy Wilson to life in the TV series. He also played Jimmy Perez in BBC Radio 4’s adaptation of White Nights, so I was aware of his work and was delighted when I found out that he had been cast as Sandy. It’s fantastic to have a Shetlander as a regular member of the show. And now another actor who grew up in the islands – Marnie Baxter – will join him, so we’ll have two authentic Shetland voices.
St Ninian’s Isle.
My husband and I travelled to Shetland especially for Steven’s party and had decided to use the ferry – perhaps not the best idea at that time of the year. It had been a rough crossing, we didn’t get much sleep and we were still feeling a little light-headed and weird in the evening when we arrived at the Vidlin hall. It had been decorated for the event with bunting and balloons, and there was a big banner with the happy couple’s names on one wall. The Cullivoe band had already started playing, and during the bridal march Steven and Charlotte paraded around the room to the applause of family and friends. When I lived in Fair Isle I’d started to learn some of the steps of the more common dances, but the memory had faded and I was put to shame by even the youngest children, so for most of the party I sat and watched the action. I was a disengaged observer, a state when most writers are at their happiest.
Halfway through the evening there was a break for supper. There is a tradition that the young friends of the bride and groom serve the meal, and the food is traditional fare too. In Vidlin that night there was lentil broth, followed by cold meat and bannocks. The meat was salt beef and reestit mutton. I was chatting to poet and broadcaster Mary Blance, who is an old friend (and who coached actor Brian Cox on his accent when he played Magnus in the TV episode of Raven Black). She mentioned that the food we were being offered was known as ‘bannocks and flesh’ in the islands. And just that phrase was enough to give me the idea for the start of my next novel. The word ‘flesh’, after all, comes with baggage – there is something sinister about it, especially if it’s being eaten. It makes me think of cannibalism, and also reminds me a little of the ritual of Holy Communion. So it conjured up the traditions of the islands, but set them within a wider context.
Sandwick Beach on Unst.
And as I was sitting there watching – still feeling a little strange because of the ferry, and feeling an outsider because I couldn’t join in with the dancing – the premise of the novel arrived like a wonderful form of magic. Sometimes a novel comes after weeks of deliberation, of grappling with stray notions and ideas; there are false starts and weeks of discouragement. Thin Air felt more like a gift. In the book I would bring a group of educated thirty-somethings from London to a wedding party in Shetland. They would bring with them the confidence of people who have a comfortable income and a sense that they understand the world better than the islanders, who seldom travel away from home. One of them would be a specialist in legend and folk tales, and another would be a television documentary-maker. They too would be outsiders looking in. Almost as if they were visitors to a human zoo, they would be interested in island customs, but they would appear superior and a little patronizing. Then, as the book progressed and bizarre events occurred, they would realize that their knowledge and experience of the city would be unable to help them.
Old and new Unst.
Thin Air isn’t set in Vidlin, where the book was conceived, but in Unst, Shetland’s most northerly inhabited island. Unst is two ferry rides away from Lerwick, and I wanted to send my fictitious group of friends to the furthest extreme of the archipelago. And I changed the time of year, so that the hame-farin’ takes place in midsummer, the natural season for a Shetland party, and to give another example of the extremes that the island can provide.
It’s said that Unst has a ghost. She’s called the ‘White Wife’ and she appears to lone male drivers when they’re driving down the road from Baltasound late at night. The Unst brewery has named a beer after her. The White Wife didn’t seem a very interesting apparition to me, so I created my own ghost, a young girl called ‘peerie Lizzie’ (‘peerie’ is the Shetland dialect word for small). In the story Elizabeth Geldard was the daughter of the big house, who was drowned in 1930.
This scene comes from the beginning of the book, where we first meet the child who could be ‘peerie Lizzie’:
From the hall behind her came the sound of the band finishing another tune, laughter and the clink of crockery being washed up in the kitchen. On the beach below a couple sat smoking. Polly could see them only as silhouettes. Then a little girl appeared from nowhere. She was dressed in white and the low light caught her and she seemed to shine. The dress was high-waisted and trimmed with lace and she wore white ribbons in her hair. She stretched out her arms to hold the skirt wide and skipped across the sand, dancing to the music in her head. As Polly watched, the girl turned to her and curtsied. Polly stood and clapped her hands.
She looked around her to see if there were any other adults watching. She hadn’t noticed the girl in the party earlier, but she must be there with her parents. Perhaps she belonged to the couple sitting below her. But when she turned back to the tideline the girl had vanished and all that was left was a shimmering reflection of the rising moon in the water.
The lighthouse on Muckle Flugga; Out Stack is just visible on the right.
There is nowhere further north to live in the UK than Unst. Apart from the stacks of Muckle Flugga and Out Stack, the next land north from the top of the island is the Arctic. Muckle Flugga has a famous lighthouse built in 1858 during the Crimean War by David and Thomas Stevenson. It is claimed that the men’s nephew, Robert Louis, based his Treasure Island map on Unst, a place he visited when his uncles were working there, though we don’t know that he actually wrote the book on the island. Perhaps the place sparked the idea for the novel, just as the wedding party in Vidlin sparked the idea for Thin Air. I’d like to think so.
Unst is twelve miles long from north to south and five miles wide from east to west, and it has a population of approximately 700. It’s a very scenic island and some Shetlanders who live in the town of Lerwick have holiday homes there, to which they can come during summer weekends to relax. It’s that sort of place: relaxed, sociable, with some beautiful sandy beaches and great walking. Unst has its own festivals and traditions and even holds its own Up Helly Aa – in fact it has two fire festivals, one in Uyeasound and another at Norwick.
The Keen of Hamar.
The island has two National Nature Reserves, one at the Keen of Hamar and one at Hermaness. The Keen of Hamar is famous for the flora that grows on the serpentine fellfield there. Most important is a species of arctic chickweed only found on the island. Its significance was first recognized by a young Unst botanist called Thomas Edmondston. He published a paper describing the plant in 1843 when he was just eighteen, and since then it has been known as Edmonston’s chickweed. There is a sad ending to his story, however. He became a professor of botany at the University of Glasgow at the age of twenty, but died only a year later when he was on a scientific expedition to Peru.
Edmonston’s chickweed.
The boardwalk through Hermaness Nature Reserve should be safe!
A bonxie.
I first visited Hermaness, Unst’s second National Nature Reserve, on my first visit to Shetland in 1975 and was astounded by its spectacular cliffs and the ferocity of the breeding great and arctic skuas. Great skuas, the heavier browner species, are called ‘bonxies’ in Shetland and the name is now common among birdwatchers throughout the UK. The skuas are fiercely protective of their breeding sites and dive at anyone who dares to wander close to their nests. They tend to aim for the intruder’s highest point and, when walking over the hill there, I often put my hand in the air – I’d rather be hit by a passing bird on my hand than on my head.
Amazingly, a black-browed albatross, only found in the southern oceans, arrived on the cliffs in Hermaness in the early Seventies a
nd returned there each spring until the late Eighties. The bird was an adult when it first came to Unst, so the albatross is clearly a long-lived species. In 1976 it even built a nest. Many birdwatchers made the pilgrimage to see it, and it was known affectionately as Albert.
Looking south from the Knab Golf Course in Lerwick.
The Tall Ships Race in 2011.
If Shetlanders enjoy partying in summer, they also love visitors to come and party with them. Festivals are organized throughout the season and there are hundreds of local events, from sailing-club fish-and-chip suppers to organ recitals. Interested visitors should check out Promote Shetland’s website for details. In June there is the JAWS music festival – this celebration of Jazz and World Sounds describes its programme as ‘music with bite’! July is the time for the Shetland Nature Festival, when there is a tour of the special geology of the island and local experts will help you to spot birds, animals and even whales.
In August the annual week-long Fiddle Frenzy takes place. Based in the Mareel Arts Centre in Lerwick, but with the opportunity to visit and play in other venues, the festival gives musicians the chance to learn more about the distinctive Shetland tunes and fiddle style. There are workshops for every standard of player, and for those who prefer to listen rather than play there are a series of evening concerts and fringe events.
The famous Tall Ships Race has visited the islands twice and each time has been an occasion of great excitement. The most recent visit was in July 2011 and the ships received a fantastic welcome in Lerwick, with a food-and-craft fair and live music at the pier. Some of the tall ships called into Fair Isle, and the islanders (including some of the men) had knitted dozens of bonnets to barter with their visiting guests. This was to remind people of the time when islanders traded knitwear and fresh produce with the seamen on the big ships that occasionally called into the isle. Unfortunately the weather was unkind to Shetland for the 2011 race. There were unseasonal gales and rain, though the beautiful ships sailing away from Lerwick down the sound still made a wonderful sight.
Sunday Teas in North Roe, 2015.
I was in Shetland that week for a wedding. My friend’s daughter had planned a ceremony on the site of the Ting, the ancient parliament; the nearby fields were owned by her uncle and he was happy to give her the use of them. There were tents for supper and for dancing, but the wedding itself was planned to take place outdoors. Luckily the rain held off until the couple were married, but the wind was so strong that the marquee sounded a bit like a grand boat under sail itself, as the canvas billowed and creaked in the gale – perhaps this was appropriate, because the bride was a marine engineer who had worked on a sail training ship.
The informal and very friendly Sunday Teas have become a major part of a Shetland summer, and indeed have become so popular that they now take place in other seasons too. They are a great way for outsiders to meet local people and experience something of the island way of life. The Sunday Teas take place in community halls and are fund-raisers for local charities or groups. Everyone is welcome. The guests pay a flat fee of a few pounds, and in return can help themselves to as much tea and as many home-baked cakes, scones and bannocks as they can manage. Occasionally there is live music, often there is a plant or bric-a-brac stall and there is always good conversation and fantastic baking. The following week’s Sunday Teas are advertised in The Shetland Times, which is published every Thursday and read by everyone, and details are also broadcast on BBC Radio Shetland’s ‘What’s On’ diary on Friday evenings.
A pair of fulmars.
Cliffs on Bressay.
Many visitors make the trip to Shetland just to see the magnificent spectacle of breeding seabirds. In summer the sandstone cliffs of Noss, Bressay and South Mainland become lively seabird cities. The noise is deafening and the smell – made up of guano and spilt fish – overpowering. At the bottom of the cliffs the ledges are occupied by shags and some cormorants. Higher up there are razorbills and guillemots, whose stubby wings propel them out from the cliffs to search for sand eels and sprats in the local waters. The biggest seabird in the UK is the dramatic gannet – startling white, with a yellow wash around the head and black markings near the eye. It’s an amazing sight to see these birds fold up their wings and dive from a great height into the sea for fish.
A nesting gannet with its chick. The nests are made of seaweed mixed with guano.
Puffins on Noss.
Gannetries can be found at the north end of Fair Isle, on Foula, on Hermaness in Unst and on Noss. Like many seabirds, gannets usually lay just one egg, so a lot of time and energy is expended on rearing a single youngster. Even further up the cliffs the air is alive with fulmars, wheeling in mesmerizing circles; and even against the background sound of the other seabirds, it is possible to hear the ‘kitti-wake’ call that gives this bird its name.
In the loose soil near the top of the cliffs, puffins make their burrows and lay their single white eggs. The puffins’ brightly coloured beaks are shed in winter, so the bill becomes dull then and much more utilitarian. But a summer puffin carrying ten or more sand eels back to its burrow seems a miraculous sight. How do they catch and carry all these fish at once? Some puffins use natural fissures in the cliffs as nest sites, some take over rabbit burrows, and others dig their own burrows with their powerful feet. Sumburgh Head, right at the south of Shetland Mainland, is a great place to see puffins. The RSPB has a reserve there, and most seasons a webcam is set up in one of the burrows so that you can see the birds, up close and personal. There are also organized boat trips throughout the summer to the seabird cliffs on the island of Noss, a nature reserve, and this is a unique experience for birdwatchers and photographers.
Harbour porpoise.
While in the southern oceans the staple diet of most seabirds is krill, in Shetland the sand eel is most important. These fish make up some 10–15 per cent of the total fish bio-mass in the North Sea and form the key food source for many of Shetland’s seabirds, including guillemots, puffins, arctic terns and kittiwakes. From the mid-1970s sand eels were fished commercially around the islands, and this was thought to be the main cause of the decrease in seabird numbers in recent years. The Scottish Office eventually closed the sand-eel fishery in 1990. When it opened again several years later there were strict time limits on the season, and restrictions on boat size and overall catch. Detailed monitoring of the sand-eel fishery now takes place.
If the seabird colonies in Shetland are thrilling, then a fin slicing through the water offshore can generate even more excitement among lovers of wildlife. Cetaceans – whales and dolphins – can appear at any time in Shetland’s waters, but are probably easiest to see in the calmer waters of summer. The smallest and most common marine mammal is the harbour porpoise, which has a very short, broad dorsal fin set midway along its back and a rather blunt head-profile. The animals show their short triangular fins when they surface for air.
Orcas, or killer whales, can also be seen at any time of the year, but they are more obvious in Shetland waters when they come inshore to hunt for common seal pups in June and July. They have been seen from the Queen’s Hotel on the waterfront in Lerwick – a real bonus for the hotel’s guests. The male orca is very dramatic, with a tall, black dorsal fin and a black body with white patches behind the fin and to the side of the head; the underparts are also white. The female orca has a smaller, backward-curving dorsal fin. These animals often travel in small family groups of three or four individuals. I remember the excitement caused when a group was seen from the Fair Isle mailboat on a calm summer crossing.
A puffin with a beak full of sand eels.
Orcas.
A minke whale.
A surfacing whale with a very long, sleek body and a small curved fin towards its tail is almost certain to be a northern minke whale, which can reach twenty-three to thirty-three feet long. This is the most common whale seen in Shetland waters, and animals reach their peak numbers in August. The usual sightings of minke whale
s are of single individuals, though groups of up to fifteen have been recorded.
While the long-finned pilot whale is only an occasional visitor, it has been recorded in pods of more than a hundred individuals. In the past these animals were hunted by Shetlanders; if they were seen to enter a voe, the islanders would launch their boats and drive the whales into the shallow water, where they would be killed. Now the pleasure for visitors and locals comes from the sight of these magnificent beasts, rather than from their slaughter.
Other whale species are rare in Shetland, though humpbacks are gradually becoming more common, with between one and three individuals seen annually, usually in late spring or early summer.
A range of dolphin species occur in Shetland’s waters. Risso’s dolphins have curved black dorsal fins and blunt heads and can be seen between April and November. In the deeper pelagic waters to the north and west of the islands the Atlantic white-sided dolphin can be found. They can also be seen from the east coast of Shetland Mainland, and in the water between Sumburgh Head in South Mainland and Fair Isle. Large parties of these animals – with numbers occasionally reaching 1,000 – have been recorded. White-beaked dolphin numbers peak between July and September; its distinctive tall, hook-shaped dorsal fin is black, behind the fin is a white saddle, and the tip of the blunt head usually has a white-tipped beak.