- 6 months ago
Scotland’s Outer Hebrides look idyllic. But the population is plummeting. A Sense of Community meets those fighting to save their island way of life.
Scotland’s Outer Hebrides are known for their spectacular cliffs, pristine white sand beaches, wildlife and rich history.
Residents live in small towns and villages scattered across 15 islands. But today, these communities are under threat.
Scotland’s Outer Hebrides are known for their spectacular cliffs, pristine white sand beaches, wildlife and rich history.
Residents live in small towns and villages scattered across 15 islands. But today, these communities are under threat.
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TVTranscript
00:00Welcome to the Outer Hebrides, Scotland.
00:16The Outer Hebrides are a chain of islands off the west coast of Scotland.
00:21Fairly sparsely populated, it's got some spectacular scenery.
00:37You'll be on a beach and the sea can look absolutely beautiful Caribbean blue.
00:42We are a very close-knit community. Everybody knows everybody.
01:01We're not without challenges. Our population has halved in the last 60 years.
01:07We don't have enough people to work all the jobs that are going here.
01:13It's a really alarming scenario that we've got.
01:17Depopulation is something that we can change if we're just a wee bit more assertive
01:22and rebuild our communities rather than just lament their loss.
01:26I absolutely feel blessed. And every time we go out on the boat, you know, we get this excitement like, what are we going to see this time?
01:36It's constantly wild. It's always keeping you on your toes. But it doesn't matter what the weather is doing. The colours are always spectacular.
01:46It's Jornawy Coast Guard.
01:47It's Jornawy Coast Guard. Loughlin, Loughlin. We'll be in the Loch Rolge area for the next two to three hours.
01:53My dad is very involved with the sea as well. He runs a boat tour company here where they go out and look for wildlife and take tourists out around the island.
02:03We have loads of animals here. We have loads of animals here. We've got otters, seals, whales, dolphins, eagles, everything. And there is no place to go out on the island.
02:10Quite like the outer Hebrides.
02:11I have been wild swamish.
02:12I've been wild swamish. My dad is very involved with the sea as well. He runs a boat tour company here where they go out and look for wildlife and take tourists out around the islands.
02:23We have loads of animals here. We've got otters, seals, whales, dolphins, eagles, everything. And there is no place quite like the outer Hebrides.
02:36I have been wild swimming my entire life. If it was up to me, I think I'd be in the
02:45sea 24-7. This is probably the warmest time of year, sea temperature-wise. Right now it's
02:54about 14 degrees, which is roasting. But in winter, it drops to sort of 5 or 6 degrees.
03:06People, even in the whole of the Outer Hebrides, know me as the Hebridean mermaid, or our mermaid.
03:14I started swimming with a monofin, with my feet stuck together, and then I got a tail,
03:22although I thought it was so weird and I'd put it off for years. But I thought, life's
03:27too short, why not just do it? The look on fishermen's faces when they see
03:34me swimming around disbelief. I think at first they'd probably think I'm a seal.
03:44And then the pandemic hit and I posted a video online and the reactions were actually quite
03:51positive. It just seemed like a sort of breath of fresh air for the world.
03:55I think I've definitely become an unintentional influencer here. I hope to be someone who
04:09represents our way of living and the sort of paradise that I see in it.
04:15I hope to be in it.
04:17Wee, wee, wee, wee, wee.
04:40Come by, come by, come by.
04:43Come by, come by.
04:44Come by, come by.
04:46Bolt, stay.
04:48See, they haven't been working today.
04:50They're full of beans.
04:52Come by, come by, come by.
04:58It's not an easy place to live.
05:00You've got to work hard to live here
05:02and you only get out of it what you put into it.
05:04When you're outside in the winter
05:06and it's raining and there's mud all over the place
05:09and your boots come off in the mud
05:11and you're up to your knees
05:13and it's just like, why am I doing this?
05:15Why am I here?
05:20A perfect day is when nothing goes wrong.
05:23Because something always goes wrong.
05:27I spent my whole life being a crofter
05:29so it's second nature to me.
05:31A croft is a piece of land.
05:33The way that crofting is different to farming is,
05:36first of all, I do not own the land.
05:38I am a tenant.
05:40But as long as I use that land properly,
05:43agriculturally, that land cannot be taken off me.
05:47Crofting is a uniquely Scottish thing.
05:49Our family have been on that croft for a couple of hundred years.
05:55Crofting is a way of life.
05:57It is a job.
05:59It is a pain in my backside.
06:02It is something I love.
06:04It is my passion.
06:07We don't have loads and loads of sheep, each of us.
06:10You know, you'll have a few people will have, you know,
06:13maybe 20, 30, 40 sheep.
06:15So you get together and you do a lot of work together.
06:18If we're shearing the sheep, quite often it's done together.
06:25The crofts here, where I live,
06:27they're around about seven acres.
06:29I've got three of them.
06:32I use the covent grazing as well.
06:34So the covent grazing is the shared grazing
06:36that everybody can access,
06:38and that's tens of thousands of acres.
06:41The cows are able to roam over a large area.
06:48I've got to be careful about this one
06:50because she hit me a little bit violent at times.
06:55She hit me three times with her horns.
06:58Not the point of the horn, but like the front of it.
07:00It's like being hit by a baseball bat.
07:02And I ended up in hospital six months ago.
07:05These are Highland cows.
07:07They're a native Scottish breed.
07:09And I think they're gorgeous.
07:11They're brilliant.
07:12They look great.
07:17I live in Ness, which is a district
07:18right up at the northwest tip of the Outer Hebrides.
07:22What really bugs me is when people come here and say,
07:25oh, you're remote, you're isolated, you're cut off.
07:29I instantly turn it on its head and say,
07:31what am I remote from?
07:33This is the center of the universe,
07:35the center of my universe.
07:39I feel at home here.
07:41I know everybody.
07:42Everybody knows me.
07:43You drop me in the city and I'm anonymous.
07:45It's easy to be surrounded by people and be all alone.
07:48You're never alone here, even if there are fewer people around.
07:52We love our tractors.
07:56I remember the first time I went to the city and I was like,
08:00where do people keep their tractors?
08:02Because the world that I knew was everybody had their own tractor.
08:05So tractors are a big part of life here.
08:15It's difficult to describe because it's just a tractor run.
08:17It's fun.
08:18All the tractors gather, you know, at the start point and then they drive around the whole district,
08:27going through every village.
08:29The tractor run goes round, you collect the money,
08:31and we all know beforehand it's going to this family or that individual
08:36who everybody knows is having a tough time.
08:39So it's an out of Hebrides crowd funder, basically.
08:45It's important to have hub centers in your community that allow that community to thrive.
08:53I'm speaking to you right now from the Ness Football Club Social Club.
08:57This is a community owned and run facility,
09:01and it's one of numerous buildings like that within this community.
09:06How are you getting on, Alice?
09:09That's beautiful.
09:10It's a wee bit harder to get the pins into the wall.
09:23Across the Outer Hebrides, there are a large number of these historical societies,
09:28and they are recording the heritage and culture of these islands.
09:39It's an enormous joy to work in a place like this,
09:42and every day you're surprised by the things that people bring in.
09:47Quite often we get people donating photographs they find in their house,
09:52and often they don't know who the people are.
09:55So we have a group, the archive group,
09:58who come in every week looking up photographs,
10:01identifying the people in them for the records.
10:07You can see the history and the landscape here.
10:10It's everywhere you look.
10:11We have places like the Kalanish stones.
10:18We have old churches, monuments, lots of historic buildings.
10:26These sites show that there have been people on the Outer Hebrides
10:31for tens of thousands of years.
10:34The Hebridean society is traditional, it's spiritual.
10:51So in the last census, this area had the highest number of Gaelic speakers in Scotland.
10:57It's vitally important that we retain this information about our language,
11:03our heritage and our culture for future generations.
11:10So Mary Duff is a local musician,
11:13and teaches the children melodion.
11:17It's so important to keep those tunes and those instruments,
11:21keep them alive.
11:24Right, John, you start Lillian's second.
11:26One, two, three, four.
11:28Go for it, CJ.
11:29I'm just going to go for it.
11:30Just go for Charlie Mal.
11:33With one melodion, a whole village would come and just enjoy an evening of music and dance.
11:40I feel it's very important to be a bridge from one generation to the next,
11:46so that we don't lose the unique and vital heritage that we have.
11:51My mother was born here, and all her generations of her family are from here.
11:59I was born on the mainland.
12:01I just really loved being here, and I always liked helping out around the croft and helping with the sheep.
12:08What I've learned from living out here is that you just have to take time and enjoy what's around you.
12:16Help other people and enjoy being part of a community.
12:20How was your holiday, Donald?
12:23Oh, it was fine, really. Fine.
12:25When I first joined the band, it was all older, 60-plus aged men that were in the band.
12:33This is where we meet every Thursday night and have done for the past 20-odd years.
12:38We sit, play some tunes and speak some yarns, some of them very long.
12:48I was quite shy when I moved here.
12:51Without the band, I wouldn't have grown into the person I am now.
12:56It was actually my uncle.
12:58He used to tell me to come along to the melodion band, and I was really grateful that I did.
13:02I used to enjoy sitting in the background and just listen and enjoy the stories.
13:13I really do miss those days. I didn't appreciate them at the time.
13:17When we lost my uncle, he was the first member that we actually lost,
13:22and it was very hard to come back into the band.
13:26Over the years, the numbers have declined.
13:28With losing members who have passed away.
13:33I do fear that the music will be lost.
13:36One of the things that keeps me coming back is to preserve it.
13:39If you drive around the island, you'll see a lot of empty houses.
13:53Many of those houses have been empty for 20, 30 years, possibly even more.
14:14Around about 2010, I started getting quite seriously interested in photography.
14:19And I think probably the old houses appealed to me because sometimes when I go in them, it's quite atmospheric really.
14:28You almost feel yourself imagining a little bit about a little bit about the person's life just by what you can see around it.
14:38the old houses appealed to me because sometimes when I go in them it's quite atmospheric really.
14:47You almost feel yourself imagining a little bit about the person's life just by what you can see
14:54around it. The first time my photographs were exhibited it did help to raise the issue put it
15:09more in the public eye. What's allowing some of this depopulation thing to happen is that so much
15:17of the land is owned by absentee landlords you know very wealthy individuals that own large slices
15:24of Scotland and they don't have that involvement with the actual place they're completely out of
15:31touch with people trying to make a living here.
16:01The sea's always been part of my family if you go back through my family tree our people have been
16:13here for hundreds of years my own family were cleared from their original lands to make way for sheet farms
16:21or shoot any states they were just told your time's up you've got to move on. People were forcibly
16:30either evicted and sent away to Australia to Canada to America or to the less hospitable parts of our
16:37islands such as the rocky east coast of the islands. It's almost a lunar landscape it's just like a
16:45massive quarry in places suddenly made life very difficult and I would say even today hundreds of
16:53years later there's a real frustration as to how we have been molded in some ways to be the community
17:01that we are today when there's been things taken away from us there's been a real resentment or a real
17:08lack of trust with land ownership my industry fishing is significantly impacted by depopulation
17:18there are boats going to sea with just one or two people when traditionally they might have gone to
17:26sea with four or five people so you've got a very small crew trying to do the work of many
17:31there are crews on trawlers working from these islands from Ghana and also from Eastern Europe to
17:42make up the shortage in labor there's businesses that are struggling all through the islands
17:49due to a lack of workers if you don't have people of a working age your whole economy stagnates
17:59I think the majority of people I went to school with have left as a local trying to meet someone here
18:08I'm related to most of the island so it's not ideal really we are desperate to get more young people
18:17here young families and to keep the life in the outer hebrides going the government started this scheme
18:26where they were offering 50 000 pounds to young people from the mainland to move to the outer hebrides
18:33and as far as I know it didn't really work they will struggle just as much as a local will what we
18:40need is to help people stay and money isn't the only answer you'll be paid to be here that's
18:49inherently unfair I'm glad it's been dropped I'm an elected official in the local government I was
18:56wanting to provide a voice on the rural areas because the rural areas are losing our young folk
19:02all the time to urban areas when I think about the football team the boys in the football team there's
19:1030 guys there there's quite a few of them we don't have partners if you go out on a saturday night
19:17there's no girls that was a joke I think part of the problem is that we have been exporting people
19:32for generations there's no easy answer to it it's about jobs it's about houses the distilleries is
19:39brilliant because it's provided so many jobs and it attracts so many people and it's gained
19:44you know worldwide attention what drove me personally to get involved was because I grew up here the outer
20:01hebrides means everything to me my family have lived here for generations Scotland is obviously world famous
20:08for producing whiskey but because there was no history of distilling here there were no people
20:13qualified to do those jobs so the company invested heavily in employing people locally who wanted
20:19to have a change of career they came from lots of different backgrounds and they sent them off to
20:24learn how to become distillers there was no way we were going to fail at this you know we're all local
20:29we had to make it work and that did give everybody a real energy to to make it succeed we were a very
20:36small team of 10 people working at the facility that team over the years has grown to now 42 42 jobs is a
20:48lot in a small community of less than 2 000 people and we do have a young workforce we've also helped be a
20:56catalyst i think for some other companies to set up and they're also employing lots of people with great
21:03opportunities there's obviously limitations on an island you know there are limited ways to get
21:08here on the ferries accommodation is limited there is a need for better infrastructure the real challenge
21:15is that the young people that have come to work with us here they can't stay here because of lack of
21:21housing my partner and i rent a house on the edge of the ocean and it is in the middle of nowhere but
21:30we are absolutely in love with it and we are so lucky to have found it we really really struggled
21:38because everywhere is either a second home or it's just empty or it's rented out during the summer months
21:50tourism brings in a lot of money to our economy and it definitely is a huge benefit in some ways
21:58but socially it is very damaging to local communities here and especially during the winter months because
22:05it's such a seasonal industry that in winter villages are going dark because there's no one here
22:14i think the worst outcome would be that we end up with no young people here there is a possibility
22:23that a community could completely crumble i live in the bays of harris it's a district the population
22:32is a little over 700 people the the current landlord it's an english person that inherited it from
22:40somebody who bought it nearly 100 years ago the community are suffering because the income that's
22:47generated and going to the landlord is not being used here for anything since 2012 i've been part of
22:57a steering group who have been given the job of looking at the into the viability of a community buyout
23:04it's the landlord that basically suggested this you have a vote gauge the interest of the community
23:11if they send a strong signal that they want to go in favor of a buyout then he will enter into
23:18negotiations with us over a sale the community buyouts have been quite a thing in scotland in particular
23:25we are seeing bordering districts that have gone into community ownership they are managing to do
23:32developments and make improvements and we've seen growth we've seen the population increase in both of
23:38our neighbors and the bays of harris under that absentee landlord we kind of feel a little bit isolated
23:46and we've been left out i think we know best how to look after our own land when it comes to a buyout
24:01there's no guarantee that everybody's going to vote yes people are quite often scared of change
24:07you've got to be quite brave to take risks and not everybody is prepared to take these risks the vote
24:15has taken place and i'm quite apprehensive i i genuinely don't know which way people are going to have
24:25voted the turnout was 70.12 the question electors were asked are you in favor of community ownership
24:33of the bays of harris estate yes 290 no 170 yes well that was quite nerve-wracking i think the vote in
24:44favor is 63 percent it's a good night yeah still got a way to go we've got to get that whole deal
24:51settled with the landlord there probably will be arguments over what projects are pursued and what
24:59actually gets money put into it but i still feel that that's far more beneficial to have those arguments
25:08over that money because at least it's here and something will happen with it
25:12a lot of people lament the loss of population in the islands and look back rather than looking ahead
25:19and a lot of that lament is based in frustration over the injustices that were done previously
25:25i personally feel that we need to be looking ahead and be seizing every opportunity that we can to build a
25:31sustainable future for our community for our children
25:35what i like about the outer hebrides is the people we have a very very strong identity it gives
25:43us a real connection to where we live because the people here have had to work hard for our community
25:51what the outer hebrides means to me
25:59is happiness home feeling at one with where you are and the community that you're in
26:06the outer hebrides can teach the world to appreciate what's around them
26:18some places are worth struggling to live in and that it's worth the hardship it's not all about being
26:26modern and up-to-date and social sometimes it's just about what's around you
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