[Vwoolf] Fw: Barra & Skye

[Stuart N. Clarke]

I have been reading Jane Goldman’s "Two Postcards from Skye: Virginia Woolf in the Hebrides" in the latest VWM, where she quotes VW’s PC of Monday [27 June 1938] to Duncan Grant:

“This is the nearest I could get to the Isle of Barra. Skye is often raining, but also fine: hardly embodied; semi-transparent; like living in a jelly fish lit up with green light. Remote as Samoa; deserted: prehistoric. No room for more.”

Goldman:

‘On the reverse (more properly, recto) of the postcard to Grant is a photograph of Uig Bay, which, on the south western side of the Trotternish peninsula of Skye, is the point of departure for ferries to the other Hebridean islands, and apparently was selected, as Woolf writes, as "the nearest I could get to the Isle of Barra" (L6 248). It is not clear why Wooif harbored ambitions to get as close as possible to the tiny and beautiful island of Barra, the second southernmost inhabited of the Outer Hebrides, with two small townships, a couple of small fortifications and some Iron Age brochs, but perhaps it may more accurately fit Woolf's epithets for more populous Skye -- "Remote as Samoa; deserted: prehistoric." Yet the reference to Samoa suggests a primitivism associated with Stevenson and Gauguin, which would appeal to her postimpressionist correspondent, and Skye itself boasts numerous primitive sites.’

Well, I don’t think that Barra is particularly “beautiful”, but then I’m rather jaundiced about it.  We visited it from 9 to 13 May 2011, and I couldn’t wait to get away.  We went especially because it was where “Whiskey Galore” (“Tight Little Island”) was filmed, but of course the weather was uncertain and not that warm.  It seemed to me that the visitors were divided into 2 groups: those who had cars and were island hopping and those who couldn’t wait to don waterproofs and stout boots and walk along muddy seaside paths in stout boots against a sharp wind mitigated (or otherwise) by sunshine and showers.  We fell into neither category (how I wished I’d taken my driving licence and we could have hired a car), so we were reduced to mooching about and taking rides on the infrequent bus services.  We never managed to see an aeroplane landing or taking off on the beach (a famous tourist sight) and all “Iron Age brochs” were, I think, inaccessible by bus.  Perhaps you could get to one, but then you get off the bus and hang around, perhaps in the rain for 1½ hours waiting for the next bus.  As you will gather from the photos
https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=34efbc61c5dfb4e3&id=34EFBC61C5DFB4E3%211362&Bsrc=Photomail&Bpub=SDX.Photos&sff=1&authkey=!AP5GclNUucNnexI
as you bus around the roads, what you get is a barren landscape almost invariably populated by a house here and there, spoiling the barrenness (if that is your thing).

It’s a long time since I visited Skye, and I was prejudiced against it.  When I was growing up in Wimbledon, middle-class people visited Skye and raved about it.  When living in Stirling before the war, my mother would be asked why she didn’t holiday in Skye.  It’s got no trees, she would reply.  We’re surrounded by beautiful scenery here.  I want life – she meant Blackpool, or even Southport.

However, I did think that Skye was exceptionally beautiful and worth all the accolades that I’d heard.  So, don’t talk to me about Barra, although I’m still keeping an open mind about the Vatersay Boys
http://www.thevatersayboys.com/home.html
as long as I don’t have to go to Barra (or Vatersay) to hear them. 

Stuart
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