Anthrax Island: Gruinard Clearances & Deadly Experiments

Stories of Scotland

Annie and Jenny

History, Places & Travel, Society & Culture

4.8 • 728 Ratings

🗓️ 4 May 2020

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jenny and Annie find stories of Gruinard Island, a small island just off the West Coast of the Scottish. From this one little piece of land, they uncover harrowing and painful stories of the Highland Clearances. They discuss the kelp processing industry on the Western Isles and the impact it had on crofting communities. They learn about an unsympathetic landlord and the strife of tenants. Next, they go into the dark history of Second World War biological weapon testing on the island. They ask how could an island be left with deadly anthrax for decades in the midst of idyllic scenery. Jenny looks into Dark Harvest Commandos who fought for the British Government to decontaminate Gruinard. This episode ties together controversial land management decisions, past and present. Please be advised this episode discusses government testing of biological weapons on livestock. Get bonus content on Patreon

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Imagine sweeping through green fields, floating five feet above ground, sun on your face as you slide by on track to your destination.
0:11.1	Not a care in the world as you simply lean back and before you know it, you're there.
0:16.8	London to Birmingham from just £16 each way.
0:20.5	Avanti West Coast.
0:22.1	Feel good travel.
0:23.8	Exclusions and limitations apply.
0:25.6	Full terms and conditions can be found at avantiwestcoast.coast.com.
0:28.0	UK forward slash plan.
0:52.2	Hello. Hello and welcome to Stories of Scotland, a podcast where we delve deep into the archives and the outdoors to bring you stories of Scottish history and environment.
0:56.2	I'm Annie and I'm Jenny and this week we'll be looking at one of my favourite footnotes in Scottish history, Grenard Island. This tiny island is
1:02.6	also known as Anthrax Island and as we found out Annie it has a very dark and deadly history.
1:09.4	Yes and I'm really interested in Greenard Island too, because it holds
1:14.2	this strange yet alluring dark tourism atmosphere to it. So in this episode, we'll be taking a trip to
1:21.8	Greenard and looking at it from the past to the modern times. Now most of what we know about
1:27.4	Grenard is from the last
1:28.8	two centuries, so we'll be talking about the island as a place of kelp-crofting clearances
1:36.0	and also as a place of deadly anthrax experiments that started in the 1940s. And I can't wait for all
1:43.8	this. But right before all that Annie, the island itself.
1:48.0	Grunard Island is an unassuming little lump of rock
1:52.0	situated just off the north-west coast of Scotland.
1:55.0	And when I say just, I mean just.
1:58.0	It's actually surrounded by the mainland on three sides, so it's sort of nestled in this
	...

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