‘We can recognise fellow residents’ footprints on the beach’: Life on Britain’s loneliest islands

In summer, the school run from tiny Bryher, in the Isles of Scilly, to the primary school on St Mary’s involves scrambling over rocks towards a fluorescent sea and then hopping onto a boat with the local teacher. In winter, such is the lack of light pollution, the nights are inky-black save for the moon reflecting on the surface of the water.

Issy Tibbs, who grew up on a farm on the island and returned to run a fudge business and rent out holiday accommodation, paints an idyllic picture. “Our summers were spent with complete freedom messing around on the farm – growing our own little gardens and playing on the beaches while Mum and Dad worked,” she says. “I feel like I know every part of the sandy paths and farm tracks that wind around Timmy’s Hill on the east side of Bryher.”

Ranging from inhospitable dollops to perceived paradises, our 200-or-so inhabited islands are a varied bunch. There are tax havens and pockets of poverty, French-leaning îles and rocky smudges on the way towards Scandinavia. And there’s no doubt that, for those of us on the mainland, life on Bryher and the rest holds a certain intrigue. Can it really be as different as it appears from over the water?

For Rachel Hazell, a teacher, bookbinder and author, who spends part of the year on the Scottish island of Iona, there’s a shedding that takes place on the long journey from the mainland. From Edinburgh, it’s a seven-hour trip involving a train, two ferries and a bus.

“I love taking public transport, because then I can look out the window. You leave Glasgow and see the whiskey barrels all stacked up and then the stations become fewer and farther between, and then you have these amazing sea lochs and landscapes,” she says.

Iona, where St Columba and his 12 followers built an influential abbey back in the 6th century, is one of a handful of “thin places” around the UK, thought by the Celtic Christians to be areas where the earth touches heaven. On lesser-inhabited islands such as Iona, without the noise of new restaurants, bars and shops and the obstruction of skyscrapers, stories have carried more easily across the years, too. The vague intersection where history meets myth becomes even blurrier.

We’ll never know whether St Columba really banished all women from Iona to the nearby Eilean nam Ban (Womens’ Island), while time has romanticised the lives of the smugglers and bootleggers on the island of Arran, off Scotland’s west coast. A couple of hundred years ago, they were responsible for the illicit trade in “Arran water” whisky. These days, Arran is home to the far more respectable Lagg Distillery, overseen by manager Graham Omand.

It’s an hour-long ferry ride from mainland Scotland, but Arran really does seem like its own world. Grey squirrels haven’t made it to the island; there are only red ones in its trees. The rest of Scotland’s “big five” are here too: red deer, otters, common seals and golden eagles.

“Geologically, it’s unique,” says Omand. “You’ve got such large hills and mountains just on the doorstep from where the ferry is, essentially. The Highland Fault cuts right into the middle of the island. There’s a lot of farmland in the south with rolling fields, and the north is all mountainous. You don’t see that anywhere else.”

There’s a downside to being cut off from the mainland, though. What are novel inconveniences for tourists (delayed ferries, patchy internet) are niggling issues for residents.

In the same boat

Amid delays and cancellations, Arran islanders have been eagerly awaiting a new ferry that’s now six years overdue. And though the island is big enough to sustain a few supermarkets, Omand pays a premium for everyday goods due to a lack of choice. “We have Co-ops, and they can be more expensive than some other supermarkets. I can’t go to Lidl, I can’t go to Aldi. My chicken breasts are £7 and I just have to deal with it,” he says.

On Bryher, one of the things that Tibbs misses from 10 years spent on the mainland is a good takeaway. “The convenience of being able to call someone to deliver food when you can’t be bothered to cook blows my mind,” she says. “The other thing I love with mainland life is that, if something goes wrong you can nearly always just phone someone for a solution – a plumber, an electrician, a mechanic. On Scilly, if your vehicle breaks down, it could take weeks to get it fixed.”

She is also gearing up for her eldest daughter heading to secondary school in 2025, boarding on St Mary’s from Monday to Friday. “I did it when I was a teenager,” says Tibbs. “I’m dreading it, but she is very excited. They are far more hands-on than when I was there, and the off-island children love it. It gives them a chance to form friendships with children from all the other islands and take part in more after-school activities.

“At 16, the girls will go to the mainland for sixth form. I have been saving since they were babies as the accommodation is expensive. But I’m still a long way off.”

Hazell notes that power cuts can be an issue on Iona. They mostly happen in winter but, if a cable goes down, it can be days before things are fixed. “When the power goes off and I’m not connected, I’m a little bit like a robot that’s been unplugged. Then I think, there are plenty of things I can be getting on with,” she says.

Her zen approach might be influenced by her three stints in Antarctica, including one as the resident deputy postmaster on Goudier Island, where she was marooned with a handful of other staff and enough supplies to last five months, reliant on passing ships for fresh food and running water. “You have to have enough to survive on the island, in case nobody is able to reach it, but there was great pleasure in visiting ships inviting us on for dinner,” she recollects.

Click here to view this content.

Even by Hazell’s accounts, though, Iona’s winters can be dark and hard. The Scottish Isles are renowned for their storms and changeable weather. On the Orkney Island of Papa Westray (population: around 90), newcomers are regarded with interest as the days draw in.

“Locally there’s the idea that if incomers [people moving in] survive a couple of winters, then there’s a good chance they’ll stay there for good,” says conservationist Tim Dodman, who has lived there since the 1990s.

Outside tourist season, some islands seem almost deserted. During the pandemic, Hazell revelled in Iona’s isolation. “We’ve got this beach, and there were so few people about at the time that we’d recognise people’s footprints on it – like, ‘Oh, that’s David. He’s been running,’” she says.

And while some might find tiny populations claustrophobic, community spirit is a big draw for others. On Papa Westray, most residents are involved in the island’s day-to-day affairs to some extent.

There’s a community-owned shop (as well as imported goods, it sells fresh produce from the community market garden). The community runs a hostel so that visitors can stay overnight on the island. Community members have also recently invested in houses that can be rented out to young families, helping to sustain the primary school in the process. Dodman even volunteers at the fire station.

Though much on Papa Westray is community-owned and run, other islands have benefited from the “Amazon effect”. Hazell tells me that Iona’s postman used to cycle round by bike; now he needs a van for all the deliveries. But there are some things that even Jeff Bezos cannot control. “​​Fog means you are never guaranteed anything,” says Tibbs. “I broke my foot earlier this year and waited three weeks for an X-ray as the radiographer, who comes on a Thursday, was fog-bound week after week.”

Close encounters

Not all of Britain’s islands are so cut off, of course. Some, such as the Isle of Wight, are tourist favourites. Others, including the Isle of Sheppey, are barely islands at all, linked to the mainland by road and rail.

Around an hour’s drive from London, Sheppey has never been exactly desirable. In the 18th century, the dockside slum of Bluetown was notorious for its drink-fuelled brawls, prostitution and even malaria. When the Sheerness Dockyard closed in 1960, it made 2,500 employees redundant. Parts of Sheppey are still among the country’s most deprived areas.

All of this has led to bad publicity, but for Martyn Miller, who has lived there his entire life and is now the estate foreman of the island’s 3,300-acre Elmley Nature Reserve, it will always be home. “I love island life,” he says. “People think it’s quite strange, but what is strange? I could never imagine living anywhere else.”

Miller is pleased that Elmley is helping to shift people’s perceptions. Londoners come to stay in its chic huts and admire Sheppey’s misty plains and burgeoning wildlife. He would love to see even more visitors. “I don’t think people make enough effort to come and see it. It’s only 10 minutes’ drive from Sittingbourne, but Elmley just feels like a completely different place,” he says.

A lack of tourists is not a problem on the Isle of Wight, which has a year-round population of less than 150,000 but sees more than 2.6 million visitors per year, according to the tourist board. There are pluses and minuses to the influx.

Some ferries use dynamic pricing for car passengers, which makes trips to the mainland expensive for islanders during the summer months despite resident discounts, while seasonality impacts employment, according to Del Seymour, the manager of gallery and live venue Quay Arts. Many young people head to the mainland for more opportunities, as do those with serious illnesses who need better hospital facilities.

For Seymour, the pluses always outweigh the minuses. Those ferries sponsor some of the Isle of Wight’s most exciting events, and he’s been able to book some surprisingly big acts for Quay Arts, who he believes have been drawn by the island’s charms. After a decade spent there, he still feels lucky. “Sometimes I look out of the window and I can’t believe this is the UK,” he says.

Click here to view this content.