Home, and other places

He has the face worn by many a Hebridean.

It is old, round and weathered – his rosy cheeks brightened by the sun setting to the west.

There is a boyish smile, and light in his eyes as he lifts his phone to capture the picture materialising before him. An image he must have seen a thousand times or more.

Behind his glasses, a tear catches the sunlight, though whether it's emotion or the chill October wind off the loch, it is hard to say.

In front of us, the MV Finlaggan from Islay is manoeuvring herself into the small pier at Kennacraig and this man I see will soon be going home.

As the years go by, I am more reflective of place. Perhaps we all are.

What fascinated me in those few moments was the child-like excitement of a man who has spent a lifetime going back and forth from that island.

How beautiful it is after all the years he has seen come and go, all the places and people he’s seen, that he still feels that way when the boat comes to take him home.

I have lived for the last 20 years or so in Edinburgh. It is a magical city in many ways, and I am privileged to be there, but for me it is not home.

I was born in Glasgow and raised in Dunblane. Wherever I spend the rest of my life, that town will always be my home.

For those of us who spent our early years at Dunblane Primary School, there is a complex and unshakable bond with the place that needs no explaining.

What happened there has played havoc with my emotions over the years, but the passing of the 30th anniversary this year feels like it might have put some demons to rest.

My mum’s hometown is Dundee, on the east of Scotland. My love for and memories of visits to my grandparents there, in the Dundee Corporation ‘prefabs’ of Craigiebank, is enduring and I think of them often. Occasionally, I will take a detour to those old streets, to do nothing other than remember happy times.

There are other places I have come to love and where I find peace.

My dad was born in the small fishing village of Port Ellen, on the island of Islay. What an idyllic place that must have been for a wee boy coming into the world in the late 1940s.

On Islay, and the huge wilderness of neighbouring Jura for that matter, the world seems to move at the pace of the tide - unhurried and indifferent to the urgency and short-termism that has gripped the mainland.

A love of these islands has been passed to me the way the tide moves: patiently, from my mum and dad, and his mum and dad and grandparents before him. I have passed it to my children, and I love the idea that, one day, the vast Atlantic beaches and dramatic sunsets that inspire and calm me will be enjoyed by their children.

Some 30 miles to the northwest lies the tiny island of Iona, which came into my life in the early 2000s. I have been there at least once a year ever since – only missing out in the year of that pandemic.

Iona is where Christianity first touched Scotland. Columba is said to have arrived there from Derry in 563, on a traditional Irish curragh with 12 companions. Though he is long gone, his presence, that sense of spirituality he brought to Scotland, settles over you as you step off the boat, and it’s a feeling that cannot easily be described.

If Islay moves at the pace of the tides, then Iona requires you to go slower still. While it is one of the most industrious places I know, sustained by some of the hardest working people I know, I go there to slow down and stop.

To listen intently to the sound of nothing other than a distant sheep or an oystercatcher, or to take a camera to the gold sand of the North End and capture the drama and colour of the changing weather, as the light and darkness compete over land and sea. Or just to sit on the beach with friends and a few cans and talk about everything and nothing.

When the last ferry of the day leaves the small pier at Baile Mòr for the short crossing to Fionnphort, you become, in that moment, a small part of the place, content to be held a little longer. When it is time to return home, something of me stays there, as it does on Islay too.

In recent years, I have also come to love the mountains of Scotland yet have no real desire to explore mountains elsewhere in the world. The ones here, shaped by ice and time, are enough of a challenge for me, and walking up and down them, with my dog Brèagh, has been good for my soul.

I often think about the old man at Kennacraig and the boat carrying him home. I understand him more as each year passes.

I long for home and these special places more, not less, and can only hope that, like him, I never stop feeling that same lift in my heart when I see them again.

Let’s go…

Malcolm Robertson