'My father has been building unusual things on the island since before I was born'

Where is it? The Hebridean island of Coll. Why do you go there? Because every single time that ferry docks and I walk down the springing gangplank and breathe in the salt air, the seaweed and yes, the sheep s***, I think: “This was the right decision.” And it always is.

I can’t think of anywhere else that happens. How did you discover it? Forced labour. My father has been building unusual things on the island since before I was born, so I first visited when I was tiny, pitching in with my bucket and spade.

But it was really only when I started going out there with him on work trips as a teenager that I began to fall under Coll’s spell. It has been drawing me back ever since. What are your favourite memories? Once I was walking along the road there with my wife Marisa, back when we first got together.

It was a beautiful, golden summer evening, the kind that never really seems to end. We were miles from the village, right out in the middle of nowhere, when a lad passing in a battered pick-up stopped to invite us to a party on the other side of the island. I know him a little now, but I didn’t then; he was just being friendly.

We hurried back to the cottage, grabbed a bottle and made our way there through the dunes (it’s not a very wide island), and bar the beasts we didn’t see another soul the whole way. The party went on and on, well into the wee small hours. The Hebridean island of Coll (Image: Callum Robinson) Eventually we staggered back hand in hand along the.