WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE AN ISLAND KING?

Northern Advocate, 9 July 1938, Page 12

WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE AN ISLAND KING?

IN a recent issue of the London “News Chronicle” K, de Winton Wigley had a most interesting article dealing with the islands which lie off the coasts of Britain. He says that islands make a special appeal to an Englishman. Ho was born on one, and it is natural that he should look upon the sea as his rightful boundary and as the best of all frontiers still. Which probably explains the brisk market in islands and islets off the British coasts in recent years. There is an atmosphere of peaceful seclusion when the waves beat on all sides of one’s own estate, and a reassurance in knowing that quite a lot of trouble, interference, annoyance and other people's woes will not be bothered to come visiting by motorboat.

There are more than 5500 islands around the British coasts, incredible as the figures may appear to be. Something like half a million people live on the islands, and they speak four languages other than English—Welsh. Gaelic, Erse and Norman French. Mr Wigley does not speak of the big islands, such as Anglesey, but rather of the peppered specks—the Lonely Islands.

The census shows that there are three Briti'sh islets each with only one inhabitant. Six support two people each, and there are islands only the lighthcusemen live. Thd most northerly dwelling in Great Britain is the light-keepers’ house in Muckle Flugga, which is north of Unst in the Shetlands, and is itself the most northerly isle in Britain. S'.. Kilda, in the North Atlantic, 100 miles west of the Scottish mainland, is, or was, until the authorities evacuated its population 0f ; 36 in 1930, the loneliest of our inhabited isles.

Fingal McQueen was the ‘‘King” of St. Kilda and many of his subjects had never seen a tree until they landed on the mainland. Taps, gas, kid gloves, and even stairs were unknown to them. Most of them had never voted, none in the whole community had ever figured on a crime sheet and few had seen a 'policeman. There have been plenty of applications since the evacuation, from people who want to settle on St. Kilda, and some of . the St. Kildans asked to return.

No use buying an island unless your health Is excellent, says Mr Wigley. Rich or poor a lord as you may be, there will be hard work to do and plenty of exposure.

You will probably be cut off from the doctor in wild weather, a stranger tc luxuries like fresh meat and milk, and often down to bare necessities, but if isolation is what you seek, you will find it in the isles. On the Flannans. beyond Lewis, throe lighthousemen lived alone. A weird story is told of the complete disappearance of all the lightsmen some years ago. No trace of them was ever found. li sounds like Barrie, but the probability is that the men were blown into the

Our farthest isle is Rockall, out beyond St. Hilda, and the Shetlands are the most northerly group in Britain. They arc 50 miles north of the Orkneys with lonely Fair Isle solitary in between. The group is made up of 100 isles. 29 of which are inhabited and the total population is 27.000. Ninety islands and islets make up the Orkneys where 26.000 people live.

If these Northern islands are ever taken out of pawn their value in the English market will suffer. You knew they are in pawn?

Well, says history, when Margaret of Denmark married James 111 of Scotland her father agreed tc pay a dowry of 60,000 florins. The islands were handed over in pledge. He paid only part of the dowry and the islands have been attached to Scotland ever since. A Scottish judge has said that if the debt were ever paid we should have tc- hand them back. With nearly 500 years’ interest it looks like another unredeemed pledge.

Bardsey is an island at the north of Cardigan Bay to which a few years ago I put out with members of the lifeboat crew at a time when the islanders had been marooned for weeks. It was no good giving the children the little metal discs called pennies, as there were no shops on the island. We were advised to take sweets. The King of Bardsey then was Love Pritchard. He was 83, had inherited a tin crown and his palace was a tiny cot.' His subjects numbered 35, and all left the island because of that two miles of fearful sea which so often shut them out of the world. Another colony went tc- Bardsey later, but, says Mr Wigley, I understand the population is again shrinking. It is on Bardsey that a light-house-keeper has laid out his own nine-holes golf course.

Hundreds of other isles are scattered about the coasts and several famous people seek quietude on them. While the peasants who have to wrest their living from the scanty soil and the harsh seas are often driven in to kinder places, the people who can afford to make isolation comfortable are buying their homes. And now what sort of sea-girt kingdom would you like to reign over and about what price will you pay? In 1936, 24 islands were sold and many

more wore in demand. Three in the Hebrides sold for £3OOO and another group of five off Scotland, with four inhabitants between them, went for £4OOO. For £4OOO another buyer bought an island on which stands a mansion reputed to have cost £30,000 to build. Lots of .people pay £I2OO for an ordinary London suburban villa. For that amount a London woman doctor bought an island with a seven-roomed house as well as the boats in the little private bay. - * Would something about £6O suit if you? That is the cheapest island sale f- I can trace. It was an isle not far 'f __ from Milford Haven, and another of 0 two acres, not far away, went for £9O. Within 50 miles of London, off Essex, there are two islands which |l were sold in recent years, one for £2OO and the other for £SOO. Sglll You can pay more. I read that Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour ;% i was once sold for £ 127,000. The 1m | Mayor and Corporation of Great Yar„k - mouth, on the other hand, found that -% \ the sea had given the town an island !ik \ of sand for nothing in Yarmouth jl : Roads and one day they sailed out wt and “took possession.”

When you buy an island you buy the rabbits, the plover, the snipe, the wild geese, the off-shore fishing, probably two or three beautiful little beaches, a cottage or cottages, perhaps ancient “ruins” and old-fashioned implements—anything may be in the lucky-bag. So, if you want peace, a seclusion kept inviolable by the sea. a virtual kingship and a new freedom, be insular, buy an island and become one of Britain’s Robinson Crusoes.