Unstoppable An Island Parish

94 miles north of the Scottish mainland,

where the blustery Atlantic meets the North Sea,

lies Shetland, an archipelago of some 100 islands,

mostly uninhabited.

Until the late 15th century, they belonged to Scandinavia.

Being closer to Bergen than Edinburgh,

the islanders remain proud of their Norse heritage.

Recently, new riches have been discovered

supplementing the island's staple of farming and fishing.

The most northerly island is Unst,

where locals mix tradition with innovation

to survive in a fast-changing world.

It's summer here and the crofters Charlie and Bertie Priest

get acquainted with the bonxie, the most fearsome bird on the island.

And local entrepreneur Frank Strang has an idea to put

Unst on the world stage with a music festival.

We could fall flat on our faces. Nobody could turn up.

And will the big event prove too much

for some of the local performers?

I'm scared I'm going to mess it up.

Come on. You're just nervous. You'll be all right.

It's mid July and, in Britain's most northerly parish,

Barbara Priest calls the congregation

of St John's Church, Baltasound, to their regular Sunday service.

It will be taken by David Cooper,

minister to this parish for over seven years.

Today, his service is taking a musical theme.

Music in my life is huge.

It is, of course, very important to Shetland.

Take the fiddle down from the wall and give us a tune.

It's a way, not just of bringing the family together,

but the wider community as well.

Really, no event can take place without there being some music.

This morning, to mix things up,

David has chosen an unusual hymn to start the service.

Just for a moment,

you are not only congregation

gathered in the parish of Unst,

you are the D'Oyly Carte chorus on stage for all the world.

We'll be singing Courage, Do Not Stumble

and a stirring tune from Arthur Sullivan,

so a touch of Gilbert and Sullivan thrown in.

# Courage, brother, do not stumble... #

Over the last 100 years,

this church has traditionally been bolstered by military personnel,

who have been based on the island,

now long gone.

But a recent addition to the congregation is Mother Mary,

the island's very own Eastern Orthodox nun.

She came to Unst eight years ago,

drawn by its isolation and rugged beauty.

One of her favourite meditative spots is the northernmost tip

of the island, where the Atlantic Ocean meets the North Sea.

I come here pretty regularly, really, to pray.

I feel that it's part of my vocation here.

This striking, blustery headland has also played a prominent role

in warning Unst of approaching invaders,

once Viking longboats,

later German battleships,

and, more recently, Russian submarines.

Unst, having the most northerly coast of Britain,

was very strategically important

to protect the North Passage between Russia and the Atlantic.

Over here, we have Skaw,

where there was a presence during the First World War

and the Second World War.

And, then, if we span round here, I can see Saxa Vord,

which was where the RAF were during the Cold War

and they helped look after the radar mast,

which is still working and still observing and protecting Britain.

The old base at Saxa Vord was once home to specialist radar personnel,

but, when the Cold War ended, the Ministry of Defence sold it off.

The domestic quarters have since been redeveloped into a hotel,

brewery and gin distillery.

The entrepreneur behind it all

is former flight lieutenant Frank Strang,

who today is holding a meeting to discuss a bold new idea

for the old Air Force base.

OK, Lisa, do you want to get into artists and the line-up?

-How many artists have we got?

-It's about 30-something.

-And the Americans?

-Yeah.

-OK.

So, if every artist brings their family, we are quids in.

LAUGHING

Frank has come up with a plan to showcase

Unst's unique musical talents,

alongside a few big names from America.

Music and the arts really run through the whole DNA of Shetland

and especially Unst

and, in an effort to try and bring more people to Unst,

what we decided to do was to hold

Britain's most northern music festival.

Frank's vision is for several open-air stages

and on-site camping for visiting festivalgoers.

Up here, we are heading towards the Astroturf,

which has got the most magnificent view

and if God could come down and give me one wish,

somehow we'll make this the venue.

We have brought some power in here from the officers' mess site

and we've got a couple of portable stages.

What I'd would love to do is to turn this into a proper outdoor venue

with a roof on it.

What's that movie?

Field Of Dreams. Build it and they will come.

HE LAUGHS

The former base is also home to Britain's most northerly charity shop.

Frank has given over the old supply building to the Barrack Stores,

which is run on behalf of Baltasound Kirk by Barbara Priest,

the church's bell-ringer.

You never know what's going to come in

and you never know what is going to sell.

We've had some pieces for months and you think,

"I wonder if that will ever sell,"

and somebody comes in and says,

"That's exactly what I'm looking for."

That's half the fun of it.

Is there anything you have been stuck with for absolutely ages?

Hm. That would be telling.

SHE LAUGHS

The shop has already raised over £6,000 for Kirk refurbishments,

but the building is only on loan to the church.

The agreement is if they need to use this space,

then we vacate.

So we're hoping that doesn't happen.

Three miles further up the road from Saxa Vord

is the most northerly dwelling in the whole of the British Isles.

It belongs to 58-year-old twins, Charlie and Bertie Priest...

..islanders whose family have been on Unst for over ten generations

and who still work the family croft

where they graze their sheep.

But crofting alone won't pay the bills,

so they both have other jobs, too.

Charlie helps run the local shop, the Final Checkout,

and is the island bus driver,

while Bertie runs a garage.

The twins have lived on Unst all their lives

and, being crofters, have not only communal grazing rights

but peat rights on the moor below the old radar station.

Waiting to lend Charlie a hand is twin brother Bertie.

The brothers keep the essential tools for the job

in their specially instructed peat house...

..the ripper, the tushkar, and Shetland spade.

These types of tool have been used by crofters all over the islands

and West Coast for hundreds of years.

Peat is a fossil fuel made of decomposed organic matter

that has been compressed over a few thousand years.

When dried, it can be burned.

Crofters have traditionally used peat to heat their homes.

Whilst it might seem like a bargain to a crofter like Charlie,

apart from the hard graft of cutting the peat,

it then has to be stacked and left to dry

before it can be taken off the moor.

But the twins are not alone on the moor.

They're soon joined by the infamous Shetland bonxie.

The bonxie is a big, aggressive bird.

Its real name is great skua and such is the fearsome reputation

of skuas that the Royal Navy named a dive-bombing aeroplane after them.

The bonxie is a migrant bird that loves to breed here

on the peat moors or Unst and with its audacious flying skills,

survives by stealing fish in the air from other birds.

Known also to dive-bomb humans when approached,

the twins handle these birds with great caution.

The brick-sized pieces of wet peat need to be left for about two weeks

to dry out and the twins will return in a fortnight

to check up on their stack.

At the Final Checkout, Charlie's workmates Pat and Lorraine are busy

stocking the shelves for the anticipated crowd of music festivalgoers.

Well, hopefully, if it all goes to plan,

then it'll be a yearly event.

-It's a very ambitious plan, but hopefully it'll all go good.

-Yeah.

I hope it does. I hope that they all come back again.

You know, if you're attracting bands from America then hopefully they'll

go back and say, "You should go and play here,"

and we might get a few more bands.

But Pat and Lorraine's role in the event goes far beyond being

just spectators.

Their own band has been billed to play on the main stage.

Very excited, yes.

We're just used to being on our own than playing in concerts.

Maybe the odd wedding we have played at, but with all these bands coming,

-it's... Yeah, we're glad to be part of it.

-Mm-hm.

# ..And once it has begun

# Won't stop until it's done Sinking in... #

-INTERVIEWER:

-Are you ready for the festival?

-No.

Do we sound as if we're ready for the festival?

THEY LAUGH

At the Tea Rooms in Haroldswick, master baker Victoria Mouat is also

getting excited about the music festival.

Her daughter's school choir has been invited to take part.

Maisie loves singing.

She loves singing, she's always sung.

She sings around the house, sings in the shower.

When she first started singing, I didn't really

think very much of it, because she couldn't sing very well.

SHE LAUGHS

But then she just seemed to find her voice and now she sings quite well.

Her auntie, my eldest sister, she sings opera.

She's got a beautiful voice and I think she's probably taken

it from there, because I can't sing, so it's not from me,

and it's not from her dad, because he can't sing either.

# Seems like everybody's got a price... #

In a month's time, Maisie and her classmates will be the first

to take the stage, performing in front of a crowd of music lovers

as well as the big-name acts from America.

It's nerve-racking because they're really good singers and musicians

and stuff, and, like, we're just kind of, like,

little people in the background.

The Little Baltasound choir. So...

# ..It's not about the money Money, money...

# We don't need your Money, money, money

# We just wanna make the world dance... #

Although the sun is currently shining

over at the old Air Force base, festival organiser

Frank Strang has had to take a difficult decision.

Bad weather is forecast for the weekend of the festival

and he's had no choice but to requisition the former

military base's supply building that he loaned to the church.

This is the final clearance sale.

Unfortunately, because of the weather, we need to get everyone

inside and the only building that's of a size was the supply building,

so we had to serve notice to quit in a very nice way to Barbara

and the team.

With the festival's opening night just a few weeks away,

the conversion work has to start immediately.

I found a glass shade which I think matches

something in the house. For 50p we've got a good spare.

Thank you. Thank you.

But everyone is taking it in good spirits,

including David Cooper.

Now this enormous cavern is going to be full of music.

Converting a vast, empty supply room into a working music venue is

a mammoth task, so Frank's called in the big guns.

Most of my team are ex-military,

so we're planning this like a military campaign.

That's Sammy, man of all trades - mountain guide,

ex-international judo player, RAF PTI, carpenter, sculptor.

If you can get the door, I'll get this. If you get the door...

Retired Sergeant Mark "Sammy" Samuels is Frank's old Air Force pal

and he's going to head up the construction team.

Yeah, there's a fair bit to do, but we've got a cutting list

and a working out list. We just crack on and get them done.

The schedule's a bit tight, but even if we have to work 'til

late on in the evening, or very early in the morning, we can do it.

Many hands make light work.

Get the whip out.

In just a few short weeks, Sammy has got to create a bar...

..build a stage...

construct a lighting rig, and put in a sound mixing desk.

Handling logistics is Frank's wife, Debbie.

Nobody can find it at the moment, so let him know

and just say, you know, get on his way to Aberdeen,

because that's far more important, that him and the toilets arrive.

-DEBBIE LAUGHS

-Thanks. Bye.

We can manage without a tent.

We can't manage without 20 toilets, can we? So, that'll be fine.

It just goes on and on, but it's great. It is all coming together.

But Frank dreams of entertaining more people than just

the local crowd who turn up at the festival.

There we go. Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy.

He's going to broadcast the Unst music festival around the world live

-over the internet.

-What we're trying to do is to put Unst on the map.

If we can pull the numbers in and create the excitement

and stream the concert out, people will know where we are.

I don't know how many people are going to come.

It could be that we have a party with 100 of my new best friends,

or we have six, seven, 800 people here over the weekend.

I really don't know,

but the logistics have been put in place to support

six, seven, 800 people.

On the hillside above the old Air Force base,

the twins are back to see how their peat stacks are faring.

The last few days have seen heavy rain

and the old peat road has become impassable even for their 4x4.

So they have to continue the journey on foot, which is

bad news for Charlie - he's left his wellies at home.

The boys are anticipating that with all the recent rain, their peats

will have had little chance to dry out.

So, with the peats sufficiently dry, Charlie and Bertie

can now proceed to phase two of the process,

known here in the islands as raising the peat,

which involves placing the blocks in intricate patterns.

In less enlightened times, whole families were involved in peat

cutting and this backbreaking work was given over to the women.

The men would cut, but the hardy womenfolk would raise.

After all their hard work,

the twins are off to their own peat house for a little refreshment.

Charlie and Bertie built this home from home on the hill 20 years ago,

although there's been a peat house on this spot for over 100 years.

And in the twins' peat house, the tradition is every visitor,

wherever they're from, is invited to sign the guestbook.

The majority of Charlie and Bertie's childhood friends from this,

their Sunday school photograph, still live and croft on Unst.

The weekend of the music festival has finally arrived

and so have the Americans, bringing with them some welcome good weather.

They've gathered in the Methodist church to stretch their vocal cords.

Amongst them are the two big names that Frank has recruited.

Jim Salestrom is a well-known lead guitarist who plays with

Dolly Parton.

I think if you would ask anybody in Nashville about bluegrass,

they would say, "Oh, yeah,

"it started over here in Scotland in the Shetland Islands,"

and that's where, you know, our heritage comes from, is from here.

Jim will be headlining the event with Livingston Taylor, the brother

of singer-songwriter James Taylor and himself a bestselling artist.

This is a magical corner of the world.

Congratulations to God on getting it really right, right here.

But, as the day of the concert arrives,

Frank's weather predictions turn out to be spot on,

which is good news for the Tea Rooms who are fully booked with

festivalgoers seeking a warming meal out of the rain.

In less than an hour, Victoria's daughter Maisie will be taking

the stage and her nerves are starting to get the better of her.

You'll be all right, you've got time, Nana will go back and get the purse with you.

Come on, you're just getting upset. You're just nervous.

You'll be all right.

She is very excited, yeah.

She's very nervous as well, there was lots of tears yesterday,

and we've made sure that she's got her words,

because she's scared that she's going to forget all her words.

I think she'll be fine, but she is very nervous, but it's all good.

Keep smiling.

At the festival, Maisie is not only going to be singing with her

school choir, she also has a solo number to perform.

It's a very big thing. I'm scared I'm going to mess it up.

Out on the Astroturf field,

some hardy music lovers have already pitched their tents.

No-one knows how many will turn up, but there's a supportive home crowd

ready to welcome the Baltasound School Choir on stage.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls.

My name is Jim Salestrom and I have the joy

of getting to introduce our first act.

The Baltasound Junior High students.

They're going to make some beautiful music for you.

Put your hands together, please. Welcome.

# It seems like everybody's got a price

# I wonder how they sleep at night... #

Back at the Tea Rooms, Victoria has got her hands full.

Trying to get everything organised

so that I can leave to be able to go and watch Maisie

sing her first solo.

# ..Can you feel that, yeah? We're paying with love tonight. #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

# Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene

# I'm begging of you Please don't take my man... #

It's Maisie's big moment and, true to her word,

her mum is there to enjoy it.

# ..Jolene, please don't take him even though you can... #

As is Jim, who knows how a Dolly Parton number should be sung.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

ALL CHEER

You made Mummy cry. You made Mummy cry.

She did really well. See, she made me cry.

She did really well. I'm so proud of her. She did brilliantly.

Next up, it's Pat and Lorraine.

They've played gigs before, but never in front of

so many fellow musicians.

It's been great so far, so, yeah, we're looking forward to it.

Main stage.

Please make welcome True North.

# Dream on in

# And once it has begun

# Won't stop until it's done Sneaking in... #

I love the music that I'm hearing.

Wow. Livingston Taylor - yay!

Altogether, 30 local bands play at the festival

and go down a storm with the crowd

and the thousands worldwide over the live internet stream.

Frank's dream has become a reality as Britain's most northerly

music festival draws to an end.

I'm very blessed that I have some dear friends in America

who are very accomplished musicians. They've come all the way to Unst.

They've come because this is a very special place.

So what I want you guys to do is to enjoy yourselves, have fun,

and let's go out on a high.

Time for the two Americans to take to the stage.

# In my mind I'm going to Carolina

# Can't you see the sunshine?

# Can't you just feel the moonshine?

# Ain't it just like a friend of mine to hit me from behind?

# And I'm going to Carolina in my mind... #

Wasn't that great? Wasn't that absolutely fantastic?

And I'm exhausted. Wonderful. I think we'll do it again.

-In the days to come...

-Hear us as we pray for those who work at sea.

..David Cooper joins Episcopal minister Neil Bryce

in a unique island remembrance.

It's very much a community event.

Community and the sea just run deep.

And Unst anglers take to the water...

-18lb.

-..to contest for local bragging rights.