Isolated on their island at the edge of the map, they were supposed to be “the only people in the world who feel the sweetness of true liberty”; innocent and simple folk with a way of life suspended in the past. For the Victorian tourists whose steamboats made the considerable journey across open water bound for the fashionable destination of the St Kilda archipelago and Hirta’s village bay, it was expected to be a voyage to a lost world of Gaeldom where time stood still. What they may not have anticipated, however, were the very savvy and surprisingly demanding islanders that greeted them.
St Kilda Cottage No. 1 and village (Image: Philip Schreiber - National Trust for Scotland) Far from naïve innocents described by 17th century traveller Martin Martin as “the happiest people in this entire globe”, they were greeted by islanders far more worldly wise than they expected. St Kildans still clung to their own old ways; a unique community in a challenging landscape, known for abseiling down sheer cliffs to snatch seabirds for food and defying wild winters in isolation from the outside world.
But, as a new book which explores in depth St Kilda and its people, these were no cocooned natives with little grasp of the modern world. Indeed, they were as sharp as a tack; harassing visitors to give up their ‘tabac’ and ‘smoke’, and who not only understood the benefits of having souvenirs on hand to sell, but mercilessly hustling them into emptying their pockets to buy.
