The Scottish Radiance Book Shelf

Clinging to the Edge
Journals from an Orkney Island
by Jim Hewiston

Most people will admit to a passion for islands. For some it's the romance of a Swiss Family Robinson adventure, for others simply the discovery of a hideaway where a genuine sense of place and community can still be found. There is no doubt, however, that this Islomania, as Lawrence Durrelll once describes it, does exist.

Intriguingly, for many of Scotland's remote islands , plagued in the twentieth century by depopulation, there is a growing realization that harnessing this island fever could play a significant part in their long-term survival as communities. Papa Westray, a mystical island of monks, is hardly more than a dot on the map of Scotland, yet it has a remarkable record of habitation which spans more than 5,000 years - a continuity of settlement difficult to match anywhere in the world. only in the past 20 years though, has the world at large come to know the treasures of Papa Westray.

This far flung Orkney Isle and journalist Jim Hewiston found each other in the early 1980. With its 25 households, 70 or so permanent residents, a mini-economy based on cattle, sheep and shell fishing, the island sustains only a fraction of the population it did a century ago.

"Clinging to the Edge" brings together eight years of articles, essays and diary jottings which portray a fascinating island battered not just by Atlantic storms but by the pressures of contemporary economic. It provides a series of snapshots of life on the ocean fringe, the strains, stresses and joys of being part of a compact community still living, more than most, but a world apart.

As society becomes more uniform and featureless, the colour and character of Papa Westray portrayed in these pages surely indicate why the loss of any island community would make Scotland a poorer place.

History/People * 6 1/2 x 9 1/2 * 224 pp * 15 color and 15 b/w photographs & illustrations throughout
* ISBN 1 85158 821 3

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