St Kilda: Life & Lore

Stories of Scotland

Annie and Jenny

History, Places & Travel, Society & Culture

4.8 • 728 Ratings

🗓️ 14 May 2022

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jenny and Annie explore the far edge of the Outer Hebrides, St Kilda. We look at the wonders of climbing the stacks of St Kilda, and the seabirds that create a symphony.We see through the eyes of Evelyn Heathcote, as she spends the night in a sea cave with a group of Gaelic psalm-singing St Kildans. We examine the folklore and landscape of this unique and special place. You can support Stories of Scotland on Patreon! www.patreon.com/storiesofscotlandThis is part of the Radical Mountain Women, funded by the Royal Society of Literature. Some of the music you heard in this episode was beautifully played by Nicky Murray and Chloe Rodgers.A special thanks to the School of Scottish Studies Archives for letting us use these Gaelic Psalm recordings:Salm 68, Contributor: John MacLeod, Fieldworker: Thorkild Knudsen, SA1963.44.A2, The School of Scottish Studies Archives, University of Edinburgh. [https://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/track/74853]Salm 118, Contributor: James Smith, Fieldworker: Thorkild Knudsen, SA1964.103.B3, The School of Scottish Studies Archives, University of Edinburgh. [https://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/track/75665]References:CANMORE, ‘St Kilda, Hirta, The Amazon’s House’, https://canmore.org.uk/site/3960/st-kilda-hirta-gleann-mor-the-amazons-houseC. Maclean, ‘Island on the Edge of the World - The Story of St Kilda’, Cannongate Publishing, 1977. E. J. Clegg & J. F. Cross, ‘Aspects of neonatal death in St Kilda, 1830-1930, Journal of Biosocial Science, 1994. G. F. Geddes, ‘The Amazon's House, Hirta, St Kilda – A Conservation Statement’, unpublished report for the National Trust for Scotland, RCAHMS Mss 6341, 2011.E. Heathcote, ‘A night in an Ocean cave’, World Wide Magazine, Vol 5, 1900. E. Heathcoat, ‘A summer Sojourn in St Kilda’,Good Words, Vol 42, 1901.N. Heathcote, ‘Climbing in St Kilda’, Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal, Vol 6, 1901.‘More About St Kilda Underground Houses,’ The Scotsman, 1928.National Trust for Scotland on St Kilda, a World Heritage Site: www.nts.org.uk/visit/places/st-kildaNational Records of Scotland, ‘Stories from St Kilda’ https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/research/learning/features/stories-from-st-kildaP. Stride, ‘St Kilda, the neonatal tetanus tragedy of the nineteenth century and some twenty-first century answers’, Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, 2008. Get bonus content on Patreon

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Stories of Scotland, where in this episode, through the portal of the Scottish Mountaineering Journals, we are continuing our gaze at landscapes of the past. I'm Jenny, a woman of the present.
0:25.6	And I'm Annie, a person of the archives. This is an exploration of the Scottish environment funded by the Royal Society of Literature.
0:34.6	All right, so where are we off to in this episode, Annie of the Archives?
0:40.4	We are riding on the wings of a fulmer to St Kilda, the most western group of islands of the
0:47.9	Outer Hebrides.
0:49.9	This fulmer is a gracious seabird whose flight is sometimes compared to a spirit or a ghost.
0:59.0	Oh, it's so lovely.
1:01.0	The filmer's home is where the ragged northwestern edge of Scotland unravels into the Atlantic Ocean.
1:10.0	40 miles from the nearest island, the people who call this land home remain quite isolated from the rest of the country until their eventual evacuation in 1930.
1:22.6	Mainlanders of the UK have always been fascinated with St Kilda.
1:28.3	In the 1800s, having been left behind by the socio-economic evolution of the British Isles,
1:35.3	the horseless, roadless and currencyless island held a certain otherworldly mystique.
1:41.3	By the late 1800s and early 1900s, curious tourists could board the
1:47.2	Donara Castle steamer boat in Glasgow and make the two and a half day journey to Hertha,
1:53.7	the main island of St Kilda, where the small population lived. Norman Heathcult, an author,
2:00.4	naturalist and avid climber was one such tourist.
2:03.6	He spent time in St Kilda in 1898 and 1890 and wrote a piece on St Kilda climbing for the Scottish Mountaineering Journal of May 1901.
2:18.3	The island of St Kilda is probably unknown to most, if not all, the members of the Scottish
2:26.3	Mountaineering Club as a climbing resort. I will try to give some details about the possibilities
2:32.3	of this lonely group of rocks as a field for the
2:35.7	mountaineer.
2:37.7	I do not wish to encourage too many people to go there, as there is not enough room
	...

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