Nor were the people deprived of official proclamations. On 2 April 1901, the Westminster Gazette announced: ‘His Majesty’s ship Bellona left Greenock yesterday for St Kilda. The captain will land with a party of marines and bluejackets and announce the death of Queen Victoria and read the proclamation of King Edward’s accession. Under the British Standard, the party will present arms, and the band will play “God Save the King”.’ The British monarchs have visited practically every corner of the globe, but it was not until August 1971 that Queen Elizabeth II became the first to set foot on what is the most westerly point of her kingdom.
Isolation makes for limited knowledge. In 1697, the St Kildans were intrigued by the samples of writing shown to them by Martin Martin and were amazed that people could express themselves and communicate with others in such a way.
When a St Kildan was taken to Glasgow in the early part of the eighteenth century, he was worried by the patches worn by the ladies of fashion because he thought they were blisters. He was astounded and frightened that there could be so many people in the world as were to be found in the city, and when some big loaves of bread were placed before him he could not make up his mind whether they were stones, pieces of wood, or made of the flour and water the local inhabitants told him they were. Another islander was shown St Mungo’s Cathedral in Glasgow at about the same time. He remarked that the pillars and arches of the church were the most beautiful caves he had ever seen. He was taken aback by the size of Glasgow and was surprised that people could move about from place to place in carriages pulled by horses.
Even knowledge of things natural, like animals and plants, was limited on Hirta. The islanders were never to know what a pig, a bee, a rabbit, or a rat looked like. They never saw an apple until 1875 when John Sands took three with him to the island. They had no idea what a tree looked like, for no trees grow on St Kilda. It was not until a few of them began to venture forth to the mainland before the evacuation – some for a holiday, others in search of work – that they first saw and then came to know the hundreds of objects that are part of everyday life on the mainland. For centuries the St Kildans measured time by the motion of the sun from one hill or rock to another and by the ebb and flow of tides. Even in 1909, the Old Style Calendar still operated on Hirta. Unlike Scots anywhere else in the world, the St Kildans celebrated New Year on 12 January.
The fear of the incomprehensible and unknown made for a deep attachment to their island home. Even as late as 1875, John Sands discovered, ‘All beyond their little rock home is darkness, doubt and dread – incomprehensible to us.’ The physical size of their world and the small number of persons involved in it made for the existence of strong relationships within the community. St Kildan was inextricably bound to St Kildan. All of them were tied emotionally as well as physically to their desolate rock in the Atlantic. Even if it had been possible, few islanders ever wished to leave St Kilda. Ewen Gillies was one of the few who ventured forth into the big world that lay beyond Hirta.
Born in 1825, Ewen spent all his childhood on the island, and when the time came to settle down he married the daughter of one of the elders. At the age of twenty-six he decided to leave the island and seek his fortune in Australia. He sold up his croft, furniture, and unwanted effects for £17, and with his young bride decided to go to Australia, where he was first employed as a brickmaker.
After six months he became bored, left his job and took to travelling. For two years he explored the virgin lands of Victoria digging for gold. He had luck and bought himself a farm. Owing to a lack of capital the farm proved an unwise investment, and within two years he was off to New Zealand to dig again for gold, leaving his wife and children at Melbourne. In less than two years he was back again in Australia to find that his wife, thinking she had seen the last of him, had married someone else. Disillusioned but not dismayed, Ewen packed his bags and sailed for North America.
Like many penniless immigrants, Ewen Gillies joined the Union Army. After getting some money together he deserted the ranks when word got round that gold was to be found in California. For six years he worked in the gold mines with considerable success. With his fortune, he decided to return to Australia and claim his children. Reluctantly, his wife finally agreed to surrender them, and not wishing to stay in Australia any longer than was necessary, Ewen packed up his belongings and set sail in 1871 via London and Glasgow for St Kilda. He was welcomed enthusiastically by the islanders, but to a man who had been round the world St Kilda offered little, and after only four weeks Ewen and his children set sail for America.
Eleven years later, after he had settled his family in the New World, Ewen again found the call of St Kilda too strong to resist. Yet again, he set out for the isle of his birth. This time he proved too much for the St Kildans, and after a short stay he found himself no longer welcome on the island and set sail once again for Melbourne. He had, however, stayed long enough on St Kilda to fall in love with a local girl. His second bride found the Australian climate little to her liking and was homesick. Eight months later the couple were again on St Kilda.
The St Kildans, distrustful of his wisdom and overpowering self-assurance, finally forced him and his wife to leave. Ewen boarded the first boat to reach St Kilda in the summer of 1889, and made his way to Canada where he spent the remainder of his life.
The hospitality of the people of Hirta, however, was normally something that visitors could not easily forget. ‘The people’, wrote a former schoolmaster, ‘were exceedingly kind to me, quite a different character they had to what was presented to me on landing. One has to stay some time amongst them to know them thoroughly.’ Nor was their concern confined to those who chose to live amongst them.
The St Kildans frequently had to play hosts to unfortunates who found themselves stranded on the island. On 17 January 1876, some of the crew of the 880-ton Austrian ship Peti Dubrovacki were shipwrecked. Three of the crew, including the captain, stayed with the minister while they were on the island. The remaining six were quartered with the islanders, each home taking in a man or two by turns for a few days at a time. The St Kildans showed themselves to be generous to those in distress. ‘I myself’, wrote Sands, ‘saw a man take a new jacket out of the box into which it had been carefully folded, and with a look of genuine pity, gave it to the mate to wear during his stay, as the young man sat shivering in an oilskin.’ The St Kildans had not only studied the parable of the Good Samaritan, but throughout history followed it. A people used to deprivation, they could feel for those forced to accept the same condition. But nine sailors were additions the people could scarce afford to feed. It was mid-winter and the owner’s boat was not expected until the spring. John Sands realized that contact with the mainland must somehow be made before the St Kildans as well as their uninvited guests starved.
Sands first got an idea when he observed that the St Kildans used reeds in their looms. He was told that they were salvaged from the beach, and deduced that the currents of the Atlantic, namely the Gulf Stream, must have brought them to Hirta. He decided that the same currents could be used to send a letter from St Kilda to the mainland. In January 1877 he set about constructing a vessel to convey a message that would inform the mainland of the existence of the band of shipwrecked Austrians.
‘On the 29th, the captain and sailors called on me and felt interested in seeing a canoe I had hewn out of a log,’ wrote Sands. ‘I had written a letter and put it into her hold, enclosed in a pickle bottle. The sailors, glad of anything in the shape of work, helped me to rig her and put the iron ballast right, and to caulk the deck. We delayed launching her until the wind should blow from the North-West, which we hoped would carry her to Uist or some other place where there was a post. A small sail was put on her, and with a hot iron I printed on her deck, “Open this”.
‘The captain brought me a lifebuoy belonging to the lost ship, and said he intended to send it off. I suggested that another bottle be tied to it with a note enclosed to the Austrian Consul, and that a small sail should be erected. This was done and the lifebuoy was thrown into the sea and went away slowly before the wind. None of us had much hope that this circular vessel would be of service. She was despatched on the 30th and strange to say, reached Birsay in Orkney, and was forwarded to Lloyd’s agent in Stromness on 8 February, having performed the passage in nine days.
‘On 5 February we sent off the canoe,