Ultima Thule<\/em> in this regard.<\/p>\nAs a second theme, I\u2019ve always been held in thrall by redundancy in a historical sense and images of human experience that are vivid, passionate and now quite beyond reach. Of course, this is true of history in general but has been emphasised for me in particular ways. As a young boy, I loved football and supported Crewe Alexandra. Researching the history of the side, I discovered that it was formed from a cricket club in 1877. Considering these distant matches, I also became interested in the fate of another northern team, Accrington Stanley. This faraway side has something in common with St Kilda: frustrated hopes and dreams, exhausted passion, an unfeasible way of life and, eventually, abandonment and evacuation.<\/p>\n
If Accrington Stanley has made something of a comeback in recent years, as I believe it has, then so also has St Kilda, with its double World Heritage status, military significance and resident groups of volunteers. You can stay in The Street now, although there are no longer gannet guts on the floors. Soay sheep still roam the island, with fleece like dreadlocks.<\/p>\n
A third theme in my journey towards St Kilda was a gift subscription to the National Geographic, generously awarded one Christmas by my Great Aunt Eva, a splendid woman who took mustard with every meal, even fish. I loved the arrival of the bright yellow packages all the way from the USA, with their contents of brilliantly exotic photos, colourful map supplements and adverts for Chevrolet Impalas and colour television sets. They set me off on a course of social anthropology and a hunger to explore the far flung places in the world which, sadly, fifty years later I have barely begun to do.<\/p>\n
Small communities with their custom and practice are interesting in themselves but so too are their links with neighbours. St Kildans appeared remote, primitive and stupid to many Victorian (and later) visitors but the most perceptive writers emphasise their links with neighbouring Harris and Skye, fifty miles or so across the Atlantic. The network of survival, trade, belief and cultural shift is endlessly fascinating.<\/p>\n
The history of St Kilda reminds us of the ever present closeness of tragedy. Here is a retelling in song of a story from Martin Martin, when men were out taking birds from Boreray when their boat, the only one on St Kilda, was lost and they had to wait eight long weeks for rescue.<\/p>\n
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