David Torrance
Walter Humes
Iain Macmillan
Christopher Harvie
Mary Brown
Marian Pallister
Ian Begg
Ian Mackay
Bob Cant
Anni Donaldson
Alan McIntyre
Robin Downie
Jill Stephenson
Barbara Millar
Dave Harvie
Mike MacKenzie
Eric Sinclair
Catherine Czerkawska
Gary Dickson
R D Kernohan
Michael Elcock
Thom Cross
Lorn Macintyre
Douglas Watt
Islay McLeod
Andrew Hook
Angus Skinner
Anthony Seaton
Steve Tilley
Rose Galt
Bruce Gardner
Photograph by Mike MacKenzie
The sails catch a hint of offshore breeze, the engine is silenced and everyday cares dissipate in the soft sighs of the gentle sun-warmed sea. There is only time for coffee before we drop anchor off Belnahua, Easdale’s abandoned little sister.
A seal watches suspiciously as we row ashore. A hooded crow stands sentinel in the gnarled tree that grows tall out of the floor of a roofless building. Rows of ruined houses greet us like ageing friends, beaten down a little bit more at each visit. Ghosts speak to me across the span of a hundred years, of defeat and evacuation. Argyll’s answer to St Kilda.
Mike MacKenzie is SNP MSP for Highlands and Islands
Eric Sinclair
Photograph by Islay McLeod
Rackwick is unmistakably part of Orkney, yet utterly different from the rest of the islands. Choose a fine day, but remember that a single day in Orkney can capture all four seasons. Wear good walking shoes. Carry something to eat and drink. Take the ferry from Stromness to Moaness pier in north Hoy. Step ashore below the majestic bulk of Culags and Ward Hill. Walk up the long slope from the pier and into a valley between the hills. Once across the watershed, descend gently towards Rackwick.
To the right of the path is a crystal-clear burn and beyond the burn is Berriedale wood, the UK’s most northerly natural woodland. Linger there, if only to enjoy trees seen nowhere else in Orkney and the sound of woodland birds. Descend from this magical world the few miles to Rackwick Bay, where a wide valley slopes like an open palm towards a crescent beach. The beach is littered with huge elemental boulders. Towering cliffs stand sentinel at each end of it, with a vast sea beyond. Time seems to stand still in the salt air and seabird cries of this sheltered secret place. Return refreshed.
Eric Sinclair is a charity volunteer, writer and former secondary head teacher
Catherine Czerkawska
Culzean. Photograph by Catherine Czerkawska
Culzean is my favourite place to spend a day or even an hour or two, especially the walled garden with its restored vinery, its herbaceous border and fruit trees. Now that my husband has serious mobility problems, we sometimes take a picnic lunch to the sheltered tables tucked away at the far end of the garden. Even on a busy day it’s easy to get away from the crowds here and the scents and sounds of this garden are wonderfully evocative. But for me, the power of memory is an added enticement.
There are ghosts here, ghosts I’m very glad to see. Could that really be my late mum and dad, happily wandering off into the distance? And just out of the corner of my eye, I think I see dad’s dog, Bajka, for whom this place was a glorious playground. There’s a young student, bringing her books to these quiet gardens, early in the day before the visitors arrive. She looks a lot like me. That tiny toddler could be my son as he once was, engrossed in examining every little blade of grass. So many good days here. We can’t slow time down, but there are some places which hold our memories perfectly. It’s as though we step outside time and into eternity, for however brief a spell. For me, Culzean is one such place.
Catherine Czerkawska is a playwright and author
Gary Dickson
When my Edinburgh students asked me where I lived, I replied ‘on the Riviera’. Some thought I commuted from the south of France. But no, I said, ‘Portobello promenade’. The first time I saw the view from the flat’s bay window facing the Firth I was hypnotised. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. All the estate agent could say was ‘chill wind out here’. I thought Edinburgh folks were aesthetically blind. We bought the flat. American visitors would come and look, and I’d point to Fife and say, ‘we buy our Calvados there. Normandy is much closer than you think’.
I remember a day, a clear summer’s day, perhaps in July 1974, when, acting the waiter, I brought out two dry martinis (marinade for the green olives) for my wife and me to enjoy on the beach. As we sipped, we took in the panorama. Before us, the pale gold sand, then the waves, gentle that day, kids were swimming, a few rowers were out, no ships, sea gulls squawking overhead, and the coast, down to Cockenzie with its proud towers and up towards Leith. On the prom, neighbours chatted as they walked, there were kids and old folks, the world looked happy. It was an Italian-style passegiata. That day the Med came to Portobello.
Gary Dickson is formerly a reader in history and is an honorary fellow at the school of history, classics and archaeology, University of Edinburgh
R D Kernohan
You might think the perfect day begins with a truly ‘full Scottish breakfast’, in which a fish course of kippers or haddies is included. But it really begins when the rain goes off. Sunshine after summer rain is our equivalent of Browning’s dismissal of Italy’s ‘gaudy lemon-flower’ in favour of England’s noontide buttercups and orchard pear-blossoms.
That is when the sea sparkles and the distant isles are clearer than in our rare weeks of unmitigated sunlight. That’s when the painter sees the different shades and textures of Scotland’s greenery, so lush in Orkney, so speckled in the west with rocks and the coming heather or darkly-dappled by our native trees.
The end of the perfect day? Rummage in the scatterings of books in Scotland’s small hotels and holiday lets. Ignore the tattered best-sellers or airport-refuse and seek the relics of long before yesterday. R M Ballantyne in his prime? G A Henty at his most politically incorrect? An all-but-forgotten early novel of John Buchan? Perhaps ‘The Annals of the Disruption’ or if you’re very lucky Bonar and McCheyne’s early Victorian best-seller on their missionary travels to Palestine. Read till late in the night but keep plenty in reserve. The rain may return tomorrow.
R D Kernohan is a writer and broadcaster
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