January 2021

Machinery of human illumination At 4.00pm, it’s light, fading. At 4.35pm, it’s darkness, falling. A January Sunday in Shetland, beyond 60 degrees north. I drive up to the Eshaness lighthouse, one of the Stevenson masterpieces, about six twisty miles from our house. On the edge of Shetland’s most spectacular cliffs. On the edge of the…

As Covid vaccination begins in our local community, I look back at the 18th Century Shetland crofter who pioneered inoculation against smallpox: Johnnie Notions This is the day the fightback began in Northmavine, the northernmost medical practice on Shetland’s Mainland Our local doctors and nurses have pleaded with folk to wear masks, to wash their…

Shetland always has something new to discover The plan was to leave Shetland on 23 December and not return until this week, having spent a leisurely Christmas and New Year with the extended family on the Scottish mainland, probably in a holiday house. There would have been dogs, children and their partners, grandchildren, even my…