Potential islanders

I mentioned yesterday the large body of applications from people wishing to come and live on Canna. It is very unusual, I have to agree with Cathy [luddie343]. However, if there are that few residents to start with, it would make sense to put them through a vetting process.

It isn't just that any personality clashes should be spotted from the word go. Even that cannot be wholly foreseen. The BBC's Castaway 2000 project was an example in itself. Psychologists spent weeks selecting characters they felt should constitute a community. What a load of twaddle that turned out to be. The scorn is still close under the surface in these islands.

Vetting processes also turned out to be a failure in Muck, as I alluded at the end of my last post on Canna. Apart from the fact that himself turned out to be an arrogant so-and-so, and her upstairs a stuck-up bovine, there was the more important factor of weather.

Even our big ferry gets cancelled if the wind exceeds force 8, 40 mph. The ferry to Canna, Muck and their neighbouring islands Rum and Eigg is a lot smaller. So, you can get stuck there, with the hail clattering against the window, the wind shaking the house and daylight hourse from 9 am until 3 pm. My first winter here was punctuated by periods of insomnia if the hail did NOT clatter or the wind did NOT howl.

Having spent 2 years in these islands, I've got a small idea what constitutes a good island dweller. Living on the harbour front in Stornoway, I can see every boat that comes and goes. I am aware when the ferry is not sailing. So, I go to the supermarket, expecting empty shelves. Then you have the numpties who walk through the doors at Somerfields and have to pick up their jaws from the floor when they see no fresh fruit & veg, and no bread. And they do NOT believe it when they hear that this is caused by a cancellation of the ferry. Even if they were blown off their feet getting to the door.

Nonetheless, you can vet until you see blue in the face, but it all has to come out in the wash. The poor folk who fled Muck were top of the pops of the vetting charts.