Undiscovered Scotland

 

"The Gravity of Feathers: Fame, Fortune and the Story of St Kilda" by Andrew Fleming is an important book and one that deserves to be read by anyone with an interest in Scotland and its islands.

Over the years, indeed over the centuries, many accounts have been written about life on St Kilda, a remote archipelago some 40 miles west of the Western Isles. The last 36 permanent residents were evacuated in 1930 and a traditional way of life that could trace its roots back for millennia simply stopped. The story of St Kilda is inevitably tinged by a sadness informed by the knowledge that the islanders' way of life was coming to an end.

In this book, Andrew Fleming sets out to tell the definitive story of St Kilda using the widest possible range of source material. His approach has allowed him to take a rather different view from most of the many previous authors of books on the subject, who tended to conclude that the eventual evacuation was an inevitable result of "the shortcomings of the islanders' collective mindset"; or the limitations of an insular population that "couldn't cope with modernity".

What we get in "The Gravity of Feathers" is a much more nuanced analysis and a much more compelling one. It's hard not to think of this as a book that tells the definitive story of St Kilda, and a book that will be of lasting value having, quite literally, rewritten the history of the archipelago.

The publisher's description gives helpful detail about the book: "When the last 36 inhabitants of St Kilda, 40 miles west of the Scottish Hebrides, were evacuated in 1930, the archipelago at ‘the edge of the world’ lost its permanent population after five millennia. It has long been accepted that the islanders’ failure to adapt to the modern world was its demise. Andrew Fleming overturns the traditional view. Unafraid of highlighting dark times, he shows how they sacrificed their reputation as an uncorrupted, ideal society to embrace and exploit the tourist trade. Creating a prestigious tweed, exporting the ancestors of today’s Hebridean sheep, the islanders gained access to consumer goods and learned how to play politics to their advantage. This book tells the absorbing and eventful story of St Kilda from up to the evacuation and its aftermath. Previously untapped sources and fresh insights bring to life the personalities, feelings, attitudes and rich culture of the islanders themselves, as well as the numerous outsiders who engaged with the remote island community."