[Vwoolf] Fw: Barra & Skye

[Adolphe Haberer]

Dear Stuart,
I ha


2014-07-04 13:52 GMT+02:00 Stuart N. Clarke <stuart.n.clarke at btinternet.com>
:

>    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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>
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