John Hole's Diary of our stay in the Shiants                 Back to Home Page

Diary of John Hole
Scout Troop Leader
and member of the Shiant Islands Expedition

Friday 8 August - September 12th

1958

(Alan and I had been at the Arran summer scout camp just prior to 8 August. Thus we reached Kyle before everyone else (via a night on Glasgow Central station and c/o Inverness). We spent the spare four days strolling with a tent (a new Tinker tent purchased by me on behalf of the expedition) into Skye - in theory looking for Michael Money who as an old boy had just been store keeper at the camp. We failed to find Michael but walked in as far as Sligachan. While there we caught and cooked a vast salmon that had been marooned in a pool in the virtually dried up River Sligachan)

(The following are some extracts of a pretty varied personal account! Apologies where necessary to everybody.   References to Alaska, Greenland, and so on may puzzle non-members;  because the islands looked on the map like North and South America, we used those geographic names to refer to those parts of the islands.   The isthmus was Panama, Eilean Mhuire was Greenland, and the North West part of Garbh Eilean was Alaska. )

Friday 8 August

The camp packed, scouts who remained travelled to Glasgow where self, Alan Trist, Collier and Michael Money slept on the station. A wonderful situation arose in which we (Alan and self) had our kit at St. Enoch's station, Michael, his at Queens Street, we slept in Central station and Alan and I left from Buchanan Street station ....

....Alan is vexed at my vagueness about the expedition especially my lack of bird knowledge. But then information was hard to come by from Adrian and Mischa and the scout camp took a lot of organisation which took up my time. But perhaps I have tended to regard Shiants as a holiday rather than as an expedition. Camped late in Kyle after a perfectly wonderful time with magnificent views on the train approaching during the late afternoon.

Tuesday 12 August They arrived today and the peace of the place was shattered by the intrusion. In actual fact their arrival was quite cheering. The Lochinor came in and, at last, the expedition was together for the first time! We have an incredible lot of baggage and equipment and tomorrow we will use the big crane to load it. Where it has all come from one hardly likes to ask. Our ten pounds can hardly pay for our meals in Kyle let alone anything else.  We examine engines in the station, swing on the children's swings and eventually go to bed on the football pitch. Very hard, the football pitch. Will it rain? Will it be rough? What will the islands be like? The midges are terrible.

Wednesday 13 August The fishing boat Isa is not as small as I had imagined. The day is very misty and dull. Mr. Cameron and his crew of two schoolboys and his brother are very Scots and talk about the last war in the Hebridees. The Isa leaves, bows up and stern low in the water. Inside it is very snug. Lunch. It rains and the mists close in. We chug at speed through flat seas and misty bulks of islands. Some of us stand in the drizzle and peer forward getting steadily soaked. Suddenly people claim to see lumps which 'must be them'. I can see nothing. After a while it seems they must be right. The rain pours down and the mist darkens into two distinctive lumps, one the house island and the other the separate Eilan Mhuir. We anchor and, in pouring rain, ferry the crates and the boxes to the shore. The house is in much better repair than we had anticipated. While the tents are put up, a meal is served in the house. People seem capable and practical if rather downcast by the rain. We have a roaring fire in the kitchen. Another tent up and we go to bed surprisingly happy. The food is tremendous. The only trouble, it seems, is that it is exactly the same for every single day of the whole month.

Thursday 14 August Yesterday the islands were distinctly unfriendly. Today they are warm and welcoming. The sun is out, the sky is blue. The islands of Lewis and Harris can be seen. There's a seal in the bay. It's only marred by the noise of the motor and the junk washed up on the beach which tends (with, of course, the house) to dispel the virgin atmosphere of an uninhabited island. Tents up. Exploration by boat and foot. The northern island is really quite large and, in fact, in the middle of it one might be on a hillside on the mainland.

A vast supper. Looking after four primi is an exacting, terrifying and rather enjoyable task. Today has been wonderful. Things like the sun, rowing through the natural arch (are we the first to do it?) and the vast meal made it so. As we wound back from puffing the boat up above the high tide mark looking like smugglers in the dark, we all agreed it was fine.

Friday 15 August 2.28PM. The only noise is the rain and the crackle of the radio warming up - then: 'Stornaway tower, Stornaway tower, this is Westminster calling Stornaway tower, are you receiving me?' The expedition sitting around the Dexion table listen in amused slence. Alan and Martin smoke. At the other end of the table, Tim is reading the Reader's Digest, one arm over the wireless. To his left, along the table, David is also reading. Opposite them Alan and Martin, only half perched on the packing case seats argue about their birds, draw maps, trace maps and write in their estimates of breeding birds. Martin smells of Fulmar. Mischa calls up Stornaway again. People dip into the Lifeboat biscuits. The usual (already!) jokes are made about them. Suddenly: 'Westminster, Westminster, this is Stornaway tower ...etc.' Very faint radio contact is made. It's bad because of the weather - but contact has been made.

Wednesday 20th Tim and I cook. It becomes very routine. First of all a quick recce over today's food parcel. How can it be produced differently? Although all meals contain gimmicks, people are already giving their allowance originality by producing it merely in a different order. Soon we will have porridge for lunch and stew for breakfast. We decide to cheat and produce someone else's good idea again - with our own variations of course. Then a driftwod, wet rubbish peat fire is lit with great difficulty and much smoke - it makes the kitchen more 'homely'. All food, however fantastic, is received by those in the marquee fairly well - unless some heinous crime such as burning or omitting the salt is discovered. What would pass as 'the usual stodge' in College Hall is here universally voted 'jolly good'!

Then the awful task of washing up! This is worst in the evening when everyone is living it up in the marquee. However today we are lucky and a slight wind which threatened to fell the Dexion supported marquee forced the occupants to desert the place for bed or for the house kitchen. Consequently 'life' in the evening centred around our washing up.

Thursday 21st Tonight we had a tremendous row around the south island. During the day, the circumnavigation of the north island had been made. So the boat had to be returned to the right side of the isthmus. At 9.30PM in a calm sea and under a beautiful arc of a moon Tim, Roger, David and I rowed back round under dark morose cliffs with the faces of the oarsmen lit up by the hurricane lantern. The slight swell of the sea made the row quite exciting and showed up the incredible phosphorescence which glowed like an electric beam in the wake of the boat. The squeak of the rowlocks and the darkness of the cliffs and the business of picking our way carefully round the southern tip of the island made us feel as if we had been thrust into Treasure Island.

Saturday 23rd August My nineteenth birthday! Oldest member of the expedition. And what a glorious day it has been. Easily the best yet.

Woken up by Mischa calling Stornaway (8.35AM) who wanted to know exactly where the camp was so as to inform BEA captains where to look when going over (off their proper course!) We are famous!

Crawled out of the tent and trailed off to read the base met station. A yacht was in the bay - The Goosander belonging to Sir Ivor Cacahan. His brother came ashore (very public school - 'Stowe and the Grenadier Guards'). He gave us some bread, some fish hooks and took our mail. We all took a pretty instant dislike to him - ' Say, chaps, is that your scoffing tent?'

After he went, we went on a glorious tour of the stacs off Alaska in the boat. The sea just like a continental lake - glassy flat - blue sea, blue sky. Wonderful, but wonderful sunset. Had coffee in honour of my birthday! It is amazing how beautiful these islands are. They have an unexplainable aura about them. This must stem from their feeling of uninhabited remoteness. Although the existence of the house makes them less brutal than they might be, one always knows that when the expedition leaves, the islands will be left to the sole charge of the sheep.

Monday 25th It was The Dam Busters all over again! We had our first drop of mail. The sky seemed to be filled with this low flying, droning Shackleton making its dummy runs. It was all terribly exciting and a bit confusing as they eventually dropped the mail (none for me) on the other island where Roger, Alan and Martin are birding. I shall never forget the sight of this great aircraft flying so low over Greenland through the smoke of the verey light that they fired. It was very fine. Much running about, shouting and photography. The newspapers they dropped with the mail were all awful Sunday ones.

Friday 29 August Nice day. We go fishing (Mischa, Adrian and myself). As we near Greenland, and as Roger and I were intending to join the sub-expedition, I am dropped off in just my shirt and shorts. We wait all evening for Roger and eventually I curl up in a borrowed sweater on a spare groundsheet in the Tinker tent to sleep. Not so bad. However Roger arrives at 11.15 PM (!) with my sleeping bag and some clothes. Alan and Martin brought him across in foul weather. We will be picked up tomorrow.

Saturday Marooned! After a very fine but very windy day, Martin and Mischa battle over as we strike camp. They have a hell of a row. They tell us it is impossible to take more than one person back in the boat as it will ship too much water. They take David giving us water and food to last with. A bloody row back in which they are almost taken out to sea. Our hearts are in our mouths as we watch them battle against the wind. But they manage. At night we converse between the islands in morse. We complain of lack of salt in the stores provided us to last until the storm blows out. Mischa (recalling Lord B-P's earnest advice) celebratedly flashes back: 'Use ants'!

Monday 1 September What a day! The day the Shiant Islands lifeboat took to the sea.At about 1.00 PM a BEA Dakota banked steeply over the low cloud. We thought he was trying to contact us but discovered on the radio that he was looking for a wrecked timber ship which was on the furthest Galta. We immediately set out in the boat. The cliffs all covered in mist - grey monsters. Then, suddenly, the Shack arrived. To drop mail. It drones incredibly low over the cliff and the sea. It looks like it's going to hit the cliff. It seems no more than 80 foot above the sea. It finally drops the mail in the sea by the house where in the grey light Alan swims out naked and manages to save it. In the mean time we have arrived at a veritable combined operation - there's a fishing protection vessel and a trawler standing by this terribly listing cargo ship. The lifeboats were down off their davits, people are being evacuated. We talk to the Stornaway lifeboat crew and eventually return to the camp having actualy done very little of use. Later we row back out to the Dixey Porr and give the lifeboat some letters home to post.

Thursday 4th It is 11 o'clock at night. An inky black night lit up by a half moon in the cloudless sky. No stars - they are hidden by the remarkable Northern Lights - Aurora Borealis. Above the inky oily sea, the sky looks like an under-developed scratched negative - curious dull lights and ever-changing colours - faded greens, reds and blues. The green is like cabbages - dark and dull, the red like a sort of brick red and smudged lipstick. Always changing. Meanwhile, a little boat, with Tim and myself in it, stands just off the shore bouncing on the swell under the moonlight. We watch the flashing torch on the rocks under the high cliff a few yards away. A squeak, a scuffle on the shore - another shag has been captured and, in a short silence - just the lapping of the waves - it is ringed. Then a flashing of the light and we row the boat in on the black swell. It grates on a rock. There is a splash, a muffled curse and Alan and then Martin board the stern of the boat. We quickly row away from the menacing rocks.

Friday 5th. It has been a very hot day. The food is not so fantastic as it was, but still reliably good and interesting although there is now perhaps a touch of sameness. This is probably because the early maxims of 'anything for a laugh' and 'chuck anything (and everything) in, it'll make a change' have worn thin. This is what we eat:

Breakfast: First oats and grapenuts (the 'grapenuts of wrath') Porridge was given up in the first weeks as being difficult to cook, difficult to wash up and disliked. Macvita (unless one has sold it in exchange for Kendall Mint Cake and chocolate) jam, marmalade and Maypole margarine. The main course in this meal is usually some light brown tasty concoction of yesterday evening's veg, powered egg, luncheon meat etcetera all fried up in a hash. Lifeboats and marge, jam etcetera to finish with the cocoa or ovaltine (powdered milk cooked in Ministry of Agriculture tins, difficult to keep from burning)

Lunch: a sparse meal. Lifeboats, Kendall, occasionally a savoury potato salad or the like but, nowadays, usually not. Chocolate, ovaltine biscuits, Robinade, fruitcake, oranges sometimes - but they are all gone now.

Supper: a battle of a meal. First, soup (packets, easy to burn). Then a mixed tinned stew plus veg. veg. veg. Dried vegetables provided by the Ministry of Ag. We have about six different sorts every night - cabbage, potatoes, spinach, swedes, beans, carrots, baked beans etc etc ad inf. These boiled up in the old pressure cooker are very good. Danger: they must be allowed to stand for about quarter of an hour to swell or they swell up inside one with excruciating results. Then, ginger pud (tinned) and the cream of the moment depending upon the ingenuity of the cooks (whisky is always good for cheers) then more chocolate, lifeboats, sweets (Trebor in tins) and ovaltine and cocoa.

I reckon we will have used 720 tins on this expedition.

Saturday 6th Only four more full days - six eight man food boxes remain in the newly scrubbed kitchen. We are beginning to talk of leaving, packing, Kyle, Glasgow and home. A little regretfully as it will mean work and real life again. These islands are so so pleasant, it is alarming to have to think of facing realities like university. It would be nice to stay here for ever. The islands are quite large really. Roger got lost just now going to the north island met station - it's misty and rainy up there.

Monday 8th We got a terrific shock this morning. We are noisily eating breakfast in the darkness of the marquee when a braw Scots voice says:' Are ye enjoyin' yoursel'?' This is apparently Finlay Morrison with his crew picking up sheep and lambs for slaughter. He informs us that everyone knows about our stay here. He tells us it's been in the Daily Record and the Daily Express!

Thursday 11th The Isa arrives and is filled with much sweaty labour. Some of the creates are bloody heavy! Then we leave the islands (for the last time?), never to hear Mischa's voice in the morning calling Stornaway, never to trek to the north met station at the crack of dawn, never again to whirl a salt particle slide, never to sweat at the oars of the leaky old boat and to stare back at the seals as they stare back at us. We leave with heavy hearts in a real sea fog - leaving the islands much as we came to them. This has been the best month of my life.

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