So many live in Britain without ever visiting Mull or Jura or Staffa, but they can feel as close to paradise as anywhere in the worldLast week, as torrential rain lashed Britain, I relaxed with family and friends on a beautiful sun-kissed island, strolling across long, silver beaches, sitting in deck chairs admiring stunning scenery, and doing a couple of trips to other nearby islands, even more amazing than the one that we were on. Where was this paradise? Scotland.Mull, to be precise. It rained once, in the evening, and when morning came the skies were blue again.Sure, we were probably just lucky. The funny thing is, however, that every time I head for the Inner Hebrides in late May or early June, I have the same good fortune.It's like magic. On Jura a few years back, our problem was that we'd brought no sandals to protect the soles of our feet from the burning sand. When we went back to the same place the next year, we joked that having packed for sun, we'd probably be disappointed. We were not. If anything, it was even hotter. We all came back with tans.It is received wisdom that Scotland would be a great place for a holiday, if it wasn't for the rain and the midges. Neither tends to be a problem in late spring. And while this amazing weather is always a bonus, it's never actually counted on, or expected. It always seems like a miracle, an additional blessing on a holiday that would have been terrific anyway.I'd never been to Mull before, but I'd wanted to go since I was a small child. My parents had an LP of Mendelssohn's Scottish Symphony, with a photograph of Fingal's Cave on the cover. Fingal's Cave is on Staffa, the volcanic island near Mull that in mythology is the other end of the Giant's Causeway, in Ireland. It can be underwhelming, realising a childhood ambition. But not in this case. If there is a more staggeringly strange and beautiful chunk of geology in the whole of Britain ? an entire island created from hexagonal pillars of basalt, with various caves eroded into its sides and topped with a natural wildflower meadow ? then I stand corrected. But I'm pretty sure there isn't.We visited Iona, too, the small island St Columba is supposed to have alighted on, bringing Christianity to Scotland. It's the place were the early kings of Scotland were buried, and the late Labour leader, John Smith, is buried there, too. It's a cliche to say that a holy place can have an atmosphere of great spiritual peace, even for unbelievers. But our whole party felt it. We also liked the declaration of the religious values of the island, which pledged to defend the rights of individuals to express their sexualities freely. The fresh modernity of the view, in this ancient place, was touching and inspiring.Back on Mull, we barely scratched the surface when it came to castles, visiting only Duart, beautifully restored seat of the MacLean clan, and the faded magnificence of the gardens of Torosay. People forget how wonderful Scottish gardens are ? all that rain. But big, formal Scottish gardens make me sad now. Where we used to stay on Jura, there was a wonderful Victorian walled garden just above the island's most lovely beach. It was fabulously, imaginatively tended and home, thanks to the Gulf Stream, to many exotic specimens ? and open to the public. But an Australian hedge-fund manager, Greg Coffey, bought the estate a couple of years ago and closed the garden to the public, at least for now. He almost never visits. The story reminds me of Wilde's Selfish Giant. I can't bear the throught of visiting the island again, now its gone.Orwell wrote 1984 on Jura, and the house that he stayed in, Barnhill, is still there, complete with the old generator that he used to provide electricity. You can run the fridge off it, or the hi-fi, but not both. It's beautiful there, but isolated and stark. It must have been so cold, so smoky ? the worst possible environment for a man with tuberculosis.I visited Barnhill, which is still owned by the family who lent it to Orwell, with the writer Cressida Connolly, whose father Cyril was Orwell's great friend from their early childhood until he died, not long after leaving the island. The thought of him in that house, in winter, critically ill and struggling to finish the book before his life was snuffed out, was terribly moving. It was the early days of Big Brother, while we were first on Jura, and the teenagers had to be assured that they'd be able to watch it before they'd agree to go.We told them it was the perfect place to watch, so close to the real Big Brother house. They didn't have a clue what we were on about.Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty ? the KLF ? burnt �1m in banknotes on the island in 1994, in a magnificently rebellious statement about the ridiculous relationship between art and money. They're all go, culturally, these wee islands. Never a dull moment.Then there's the wildlife. You get quite blase about the deer, but you never get blase about the eagles. On Jura we all watched as a sea eagle dived and caught a fish, then bore it back to his nest in a pine tree. On Mull, we saw a golden eagle a number of times. One landed on a rock just yards from my 10-year-old. No price can be placed on moments like these. It's astonishing, really, how little these islands are visited, how under-used they are as holiday destinations, when they have so very much to offer. The Neolithic remains of Orkney, the Brochs of Shetland ? all these I remember in dazzling sunlight, set against clear, blue skies.As I look out of my window into my garden, I can see clouds of hot pink geraniums, the type that is endemic to the island of Madeira, and which reached my own patch via the gardens at Jura House, where each spring they stretch across large areas, singing against the orange geum and day lilies they are underplanted with. This year or last year, no visitor would have seen their colour and vibrancy, their flamboyant, unlikely harmony. It's a great shame so few people even knew these gardens were there in all the years that they were open to all. It's outrageous that hardly a soul knows or cares that this man Coffey has bought them and closed them.It's odd that more people don't realise that to live in Britain and never visit the islands of Scotland, is to cheat yourself of an experience that's close to heaven on earth. Weather ? and midges ? permitting.ScotlandWildlife holidaysUnited KingdomEuropeDeborah Orrguardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
No comments:
Post a Comment