From Foula to Fair Isle Grand Tours of the Scottish Islands

The Scottish coast,

an astonishingly intricate combination of rocky headlands

and beautiful beaches.

And lying offshore - a dazzling array of islands.

It's an obvious fact that being surrounded by water

can make islands awkward places to get to.

Stormy seas and unpredictable weather can often mean

that island life is intriguingly different.

I've always been drawn to the alluring magic

of the Scottish islands,

and in this series I'm setting out to explore their amazing riches.

Travelling from Foula in the far north to the Bass Rock in the south.

Crisscrossing the country from east to west.

There are nearly 300 islands big enough to lay claim to the name -

and that's not counting the myriad of stacks and skerries

that surround the 6,000 convoluted miles of coast

that I'll be exploring from the Atlantic Ocean to the North Sea.

For the first of my Island Grand Tours

I'm heading to Foula and Fair Isle,

the remotest island communities in Britain.

Thought so remote that the Romans once described Foula as

"Ultima Thule" - the edge of the world.

The island of Foula is officially the second remotest inhabited island

in the whole of the UK. And to get there,

travellers of old had to negotiate 16 miles of wild water

west of Shetland.

You can still take the boat of course,

but thankfully there are other quicker and more convenient

alternatives available, which is why I'm taking the plane.

The Shetland Islands Council

operate an air service four days a week to Foula.

The plane is a small one, but then the population of Foula isn't big.

At the last count, there were just 32 people living there.

As Foula comes into view

I can make out the nine square miles of cliff-girt terrain

that make up this rugged island.

Now here we are, Terminal One, Foula Airport.

Everything takes place in there.

Check in, passport control, baggage reclaim.

I'd say that was a pretty impressive and efficient use of space.

Experienced travellers

often say that the journey from airport to hotel

tells you everything you need to know

about the place you are visiting.

What's true of New York, Tokyo or Dubai

is surely true of Foula -

where the sense of remoteness is palpable.

In the past especially,

living on a small island could be a real struggle for survival,

and down the centuries

Foula has had more than its fair share of hardship.

The population peaked in 1881

at 267 souls,

but since then, numbers have declined steeply.

People moved away to find an easier life

and alarmingly, disease once took a heavy toll.

At the turn of the 17th century,

an epidemic struck -

it was called "the Muckle Fever",

but we know it as smallpox.

It wiped out 90% of the island's inhabitants.

Understandably, island people used to put

visiting strangers like me in quarantine.

Now I like to consider myself to be in, well, robust health,

and I'm hoping that the man I've come to visit

is going to take a lenient attitude to the whole idea of quarantine.

Well, he should do because he runs the island's only B&B.

Now, Bryan... Yes, Paul. ..is it safe for me to come through?

Er, I'll stand upwind of you, you're all right.

I understand there was a tradition of a quarantine for 24 hours.

It's not a tradition, it's ongoing, it's an active thing, yeah.

I don't have any diseases, not that I know of.

Well, you see that's the thing, you've maybe come in

carrying something you don't know of and it'll develop. Right.

So you've three days for it to develop and then you're OK

to go and meet people and they won't catch anything.

So was there a history of disease spreading through the island?

Yeah, well, smallpox just halved the population in the early 1900s.

Did it really?

And then there was the influenza, which in the Second World War,

it just decimated everybody and again half the population were gone.

Bryan is originally from Edinburgh

and moved to Foula over 30 years ago to run his B&B.

So what was it? Was it the remoteness

that attracted you to the island, would you say?

Well, no, I just looked it upon as the last frontier more or less

cos there was no electricity, there was no running water,

there's no services of any kind

and there was an opportunity to build something from scratch.

Like most islanders, Bryan has more than one job to make ends meet.

Skipper of the boat, B&B,

road maintenance man,

lighthouse keeper and grave-digger.

And grave-digger? Yes.

Fortunately not a lot of call for that one.

Bryan also keeps some sheep to supplement his income

and when he's not tending to their needs,

he's happy feeding his pet bonxie, Bob,

a great skua with a ferocious reputation.

But Bryan has him eating out of his hand... Well, almost.

Are you going to catch it? That's it.

Whilst it's OK for bonxie Bob to fill up on titbits,

getting supplies for anyone else can be problematic.

This was once the island's shop and post office,

but it closed years ago.

All groceries and booze now have to come in by boat or plane.

Even worse, there's no pub.

Flouting quarantine etiquette,

I meet up with two island women, Penny Gear and Fran Dyson-Sutton.

I told them I wasn't contagious and they both agreed to guide me to see

Da Sneck o da Smaallie, whatever that is?

Sneck means a small gap,

a crack like a notch. Ah-hah.

And Smaal is small and lie is slope.

Right. So, it's a gap in a slope? Yeah.

And where do those words come from? They're Norse words.

Right, and er, Foula, is that a Norse word as well?

That's the Norse, well, it's from Fuglaey

and Fuglaey is the Norse word for "island of birds".

Ah, Fuglaey. How long have you both lived here?

I was born here, so I'm a native, I've been here all my life.

So you're Foula? Foula through and through? Yeah.

Fran, how long have you been here?

Oh, I've been here for four years now.

Right. So not too long.

You're not quite a native yet? No, not yet.

'As we make our through a small glen known as Da Daal,

'I spot some bonxies ahead, some of Bob's relatives I suspect.'

It doesn't actually look much like a sea bird I have to say.

Looks more like a buzzard.

I would class it as a bird of prey as well as just being a sea bird,

it's very opportunistic. Right, is it?

Yeah, and they're not just content with chasing

the puffins and gannets to drop their food,

some of them specialise in chasing them to catch them and eat them.

They'll try and drown the puffins,

they'll hold then under the water.

We saw a bonxie at one point that was,

it looked like it was drowning itself until we realised that

actually it was holding a puffin under the water.

They must be quite difficult birds to learn to love.

During the breeding season,

bonxies defend their nests by dive-bombing intruders.

Luckily for us, these birds haven't laid their eggs yet,

so we get off lightly, as we make our way to Da Sneck o da Smaallie.

Now this looks very steep down here, Penny.

It's such a very dramatic space, isn't it? It is.

It's a huge gorge.

It's like a Grand Canyon of Foula.

Yes, it's Foula's version of the Grand Canyon.

Penny and Fran disappear down a pothole in the cliff face,

which gives access to Da Lum,

a narrow chimney that drops precariously

to the bottom of Da Sneck,

where I enter an eerie, dripping, moss carpeted world.

Look at these huge chalk stones just balancing up there.

There's hundreds of tonnes of rock just waiting to fall on my head.

I think it's best not to think about that

when you're just about to walk underneath it.

'Penny tells me that Da Sneck is one of Foula's secret places.

'Folk who've left the island often return to enjoy its daunting

'and dangerous delights.

'At last we emerge onto the shore,

'where the Atlantic surf pounds the cliffs.

'This is an awe inspiring place.

'Penny and Fran love it here

'and I can appreciate how such wild beauty can get under your skin.

'Penny has told me that on the west side of the island

'the cliffs are even more dramatic.

'Unfortunately on the way I encounter more of

'bonxie Bob's relatives,

'this time they're not so indifferent to my presence.'

Yah!

Argh! Get off.

Phsssh! Phssssh!

'This band of bonxies have certainly upheld their clan's reputation

'as fearless protectors of their territory.

'But it doesn't seem fair to antagonise them for too long.

'And with scalp intact, I depart in search of a more restful sea view.'

'The cliffs on Foula are utterly amazing,

'they rise to a dizzy 1,200 feet above the sea.

'In the summer months,

'they teem with tens of thousands of breeding sea birds.'

This magnificent sight is called "the Kame",

and it's just a gnat's whisker off

being the highest sea cliff in Britain.

And as you can see it's home to

thousands and thousands of sea birds.

And it's incredible to think that back in the old days,

men and boys would climb these cliffs and collect the eggs

and the birds and take them home for their dinner.

'I am fascinated by the hardiness

'and resourcefulness of the islanders who once thrived here,

'eking out a livelihood in the harshest of environments.

'A man who can tell me more about the traditional way of life

'is Eric Isbister.

'Eric lives in a house without electricity or running water

'and he describes himself as one of

'the last real Foula folk still alive.

'His family began crofting here nearly 200 years ago.'

It must have been quite a tough life in those days?

Well, yes crofting was quite hard work here.

You had to produce everything that you ate

and it was all done by hand, there was no machinery then.

Every family had maybe five or six cows,

and you had maybe a good number of sheep

and you had to grow all your own vegetables, everything.

We were still doing that up until the 1960s,

early '70s, well, '80s really.

'A film shot in 1972, shows life on the island as Eric remembers it.

'Here, he appears with his mother and father digging in the fields.'

Well, I suppose as a crofter

it's one of the traditions that you turn your hand to anything.

And what about building a house?

I mean, was that something that people would do in the past?

Well, yes, every house in Foula was built by whoever owned it.

Usually there was some people who were better at building than others,

but most men folk could do a bit of building.

My grandfather and my granduncle, or great granduncle, I think,

built this house.

'It was in the family home that Eric and his father,

'an accomplished singer/songwriter

'were filmed playing to an admiring audience of island folk.'

'He wrote four or five songs and he wrote some fiddle tunes.'

He actually made some fiddles as well. Did he really?

Yeah. He was a highly skilled man then?

Yeah, probably his biggest skill was actually boat building,

he built, I think, nine full-sized boats during his lifetime.

Eric has left Foula just twice in his life,

the first time was when he went on the only holiday he's ever taken -

travelling all the way to Shetland with his old dad.

What did you think of Shetland?

Well, it's not quite a patch on Foula - I mean scenery-wise we have,

well, I mean Ronas Hill is the only hill

that's higher than Foula,

and they don't have cliffs like us at all.

It was OK I suppose, a bit crowded.

A bit crowded?!

As I prepare to leave Foula,

I'm impressed by the passion that Eric has

for his windswept island home.

You just can't get the beautiful north out of these Foula folk.

Returning to Shetland, I take the ferry

to my next destination -

Fair Isle,

the remotest island community in Britain.

'Up on the bridge I chat to skipper Neil Henderson

'who's a Fair Isle man.'

Me mum was fae Fair Isle.

And me father's fae Unst

and I was born in Stromness in Orkney,

so that makes me the average North Isles man,

so I tend to think of myself just being the Fair Isle man but...

Fair Isle lad.

..I can put on an Orkney accent no trouble.

PAUL CHUCKLES

But these are wild seas are they not?

Not today, no, this is lovely,

I've actually ordered this for the rest of the summer.

Fantastic. Yeah. Is this flat calm for you, then?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, gosh, yeah.

What's it like in winter?

Well, you can get really rough.

The biggest wave I've taken this boat o'er is 11 metres.

Yeah.

Being surrounded by stormy seas means that Fair Isle can be cut off

for weeks at a time.

Which is hard to imagine today as the island seems to be living up

to its old Norse name Frioarey, which means "peace island".

I think the Vikings who named it were on to something,

this place is GORGEOUS.

A peaceful, cliff-girt haven in the sea.

With 70 residents,

Fair Isle has more than twice the population of Foula

and, unlike Foula, it has a shop.

It's also rumoured that there's a bar somewhere on the island,

so things are looking up.

Despite its diminutive size, Fair Isle punches way above its weight

in terms of brand recognition.

Its name is broadcast four times a day on the shipping forecast,

because Fair Isle is also the name of a sea area.

But perhaps the main reason that most people have heard of Fair Isle

is because of the knitting patterns

that have made this tiny island world famous.

'From the 1920s right through to the 1960s,

'Fair Isle knitwear was highly fashionable.

'Up at the island museum,

'Stewart Henderson tells me more about the history

'of these beautiful, woollen garments.'

The Vikings, they settled this area

and a lot of the patterns that you find here are very similar to

patterns that you find in Scandinavia,

indeed all round the northern periphery.

In the days of sail,

Fair Isle was in the middle of a major international shipping route

and islanders were able to swap knitwear for goods or cash.

People here were living very much hand to mouth,

they had to grow all their own food.

The winters could be quite severe

and they were making virtually no money.

So anything extra was a huge benefit.

Trading with foreign ships

spread the work of Fair Isle knitters across the seas.

In 1902, the garments got a marketing boost

when the crew of the Scotia Antarctic Expedition

chose the jerseys to keep out the cold.

But real popularity came when King Edward VIII was painted

posing with his favourite pooch wearing a Fair Isle V-neck.

'Back at Stewart's home, his wife Katrina

'and her neighbour Holly are busy knitting.

'There's a cruise ship coming in two days' time

'and they want to have as much as possible to sell the tourists.

'It's highly skilled, painstaking work.'

Do you think there's ever been a desire

to really get the industry kicked off in a big way on the island?

Would it ever be possible to do that

because it's such a famous name isn't it,

as a brand name, Fair Isle?

But if you're talking about a big way, you're going,

you're talking about going into electric knitting machines

and doing more or less what they, well, what you're going to get

from Japan or somewhere else, large scale.

It would be knitting,

electric knitting machines and linking machines -

and you're getting totally away from the tradition that way.

What takes us about ten hours to knit,

they would be doing in, oh, a tenth of the time almost

on their knitting machine.

In which case you would become more of a finisher rather than a knitter.

I think the term knitter would disappear.

And this is a craft, this is a...

It is a craft. ..real genuine handcraft isn't it?

Oh, yes. Uh-huh. Yes. No, no, it is a craft.

The fame of Fair Isle knitting owes much to its strategic position

in our northern seas.

But this location was to become a liability

during the Second World War.

Just before Christmas 1941,

the Luftwaffe attacked this lighthouse, and the bombs that fell

killed the assistant keeper's wife and badly injured their daughter.

And then just a couple of days after New Year,

the Germans returned with deadlier force -

and this time the bombs killed the keeper's wife and their daughter,

and a young gunner who was defending the lighthouse.

And their names are commemorated by this plaque over here.

Now it's terrifying to think that even in such a remote place as this,

no-one was safe from the ravages of the war.

But this mini Blitz in the Battle of Britain

wasn't all a one-sided affair.

In January 1941,

a German Heinkel came down after a dogfight with the RAF.

And this is the wreckage of the plane.

But after the war, when the skies no longer threatened the island,

Fair Isle became a target for a different kind of aerial interest -

twitching or bird watching to be precise.

Fair Isle is an important breeding colony for thousands of sea birds,

it's also a vital stopping off point

for migrating birds, and there are more rare species found here

than anywhere else in the UK, making this island a twitcher's paradise.

We're very, very keen to see the Fair Isle wren

and we saw it yesterday, a great thrill.

We saw an osprey the other day

being pursued by a number of oystercatchers,

that was a good sight.

We've had three, what they call British rarities this week,

a Blyth's reed warbler and two thrush nightingales.

We are very fond of the puffins.

I think it's not the most spectacular bird maybe,

but it's definitely the cutest.

The unique status of Fair Isle as a place to study

and understand bird migration, was first recognised in the 1930s.

Today, the whole island is owned by the National Trust For Scotland,

which seeks to encourage birds and bird watchers alike.

To get an idea of the ornithological riches on offer,

I'm joining the island's keenest young bird watcher

for some elementary instruction.

Henry can certainly tell his bonxies from his kittiwakes.

Henry, what do you think we're going to see today?

Erm, like, lots of the sea birds really.

Erm, also a lot of,

maybe a puffin or two,

it's not the best time of year, but we might see some.

'I was once a proud member of the Young Ornithologists' Club,

'but sadly I've forgotten most of what I once knew.

'So I'm hoping that young Henry can jog my bird watcher's memory.'

So what can we see? What's that down there?

They're guillemots, the common guillemots.

They look like penguins? I know!

They're related to the auk family which is sort of the penguin family.

Really? I think.

What else have we got?

There's a lot of fulmars nesting over there.

Yeah, where are the fulmars?

See there's that white ledge,

then just above that there's three birds. Oh, yeah!

Of all the sea birds that you're familiar with, Henry,

which one is your favourite?

Oh, that's a hard question.

What about puffins, do you like puffins?

Yes, I do enjoy puffins actually.

So how long does a puffin live for then?

About 36 years.

That's a long time.

That's older than you!

It's almost four times your age.

Is it older than you?

Er, well, I'll keep you guessing.

Not as old as me actually.

'There's something about Henry's accent

'that suggests he's a bit of a migrating bird himself,

'a suspicion that's confirmed when I meet his father,

'artist Tommy Hyndman, on the golf course.'

Now, Tommy, I can tell from your accent

that you're not from these parts, is that right?

No, I'm from North America.

Really? Yeah.

You surprise me.

Yeah, I'm from Saratoga Springs, New York.

'Tommy has lived on the island for seven years

'and often plays here, so I'm already at a disadvantage.

'The weather's not helping either.

'I can hardly see the greens through the fog on this,

'Britain's remotest golf course.'

When the Northern Lighthouse Board

sent their Scottish lighthouse keepers to Fair Isle,

they brought with them their families and their traditions,

and with it of course they brought a couple of sets of golf clubs.

And on the croft land they devised a little golf course.

In those days, they would use steamed pudding tins...

Right, empty I hope?

Yes, they'd use those for the holes

and the pin wouldn't have a flag on it,

but it was just a broomstick stuck in the ground.

Pretty rudimentary stuff? Pretty rudimentary stuff.

I should just warn you, I'm a pretty good player.

You beauty!

Way... Hoh!

It's disappeared into the mist.

No, I see it. No, no, I see it. It's miles away!

It's not too bad. Not too bad? Well, let's go and find those balls.

To be honest,

finding anything on this fairway might be a bit of a problem,

as it currently looks more like a demolition site than a golf course.

Thankfully there are just six holes to play.

The place is full of rocks, now what's the story behind that?

Well, in February...

..the wall of the lighthouse was washed out by humongous waves.

As a matter of fact, they were actually the highest waves

in the world that day. Really?

They knocked out the walls

and smashed into the generator room and it was quite scary actually.

As we pick our way through the rubble,

Tommy tells me how he was inspired by

the tradition of Fair Isle golfing.

Of course when the lighthouse was decommissioned,

you know no-one's golfed since,

and I thought, "Well that would be an interesting thing to reinstate,

"it would be something to do besides bird watching."

Right, so it's a tourist attraction? Yeah.

Perhaps it's the thought of playing such a unique and remote course

that sharpens my competitive instincts.

Damn it.

And so a leisurely round of golf becomes a clash of Titans -

until we're on the final green.

Oh, no! No! No! Stop!

Into the sea.

Did you hear it?

Oh, well, I think that's me out of the game really.

There's a lot at stake here now, Tommy.

Oh! You're a gentleman, sir, I enjoyed that.

The humiliation of my golfing defeat lifts with the mist,

revealing Fair Isle touched by the light of a setting sun.

Climbing a steep and rocky headland,

I'm stunned by the beauty of this magical, peaceful island.

What better way for me to end my Grand Tour of Foula and Fair Isle,

than to watch the sun set over the sea from these fabulous cliffs.

Join me on my next Grand Tour, when I'll be voyaging south

to experience the delights of Loch Lomond and its landlocked islands.

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