Saturday 20 June 1953 happened to be 18 days after the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and appeared to be the end of permanent settlement on Soay, south of Skye. The 27 residents had requested being evacuated to Mull and left on that day. It may have marked the end of one variety of life for what had had a Gaelic-speaking community. However, newcomers appeared and the population in 2001 was listed as seven. Gavin Maxwell wrote about his endeavours to set up a shark fishing station (pictured above) there in the 1940s and Laurance Reed's The Soay of Our Forefathers considers the longer history of the island.
Scottish Islands Explorer - monitoring island changes
No comments:
Post a Comment