Reportage · Shetland
The last ferry to Fair Isle
It carries the post, the shopping and anyone who needs a hospital appointment. When the weather turns, the island keeps its own counsel for a fortnight.
The Good Shepherd leaves at seven, and by half past the mainland is a rumour behind us. There are nine passengers, four crates of milk and a washing machine lashed to the deck with the confidence of a crew who have done this every week for years.
For most of the year the crossing takes two and a half hours. In February it takes as long as it takes, and sometimes it does not happen at all, which is a sentence the islanders say the way other people mention rain.
“You do not move here for the view. You move here and then the view is what you have.”
The washing machine belongs to a family who ordered it in March. It arrived on the mainland in April. It is arriving on the island today, and nobody involved considers this remarkable.
Contents · Issue 14
Three days on a boat that runs twice a week in summer and less than that in winter, with the twelve people whose post, groceries and hospital appointments depend on it.
Forty years after the closure, the building is a climbing centre and the pension scheme is still being argued about in the county court.
The library everyone wanted demolished is now listed. A look at what changed, and whether it was the building or us.
Eleven years of minutes, reproduced in full, on the subject of one shed.
Four issues a year, no advertising
£42 a year, posted. There is no digital-only tier because the typesetting is half the point, and no advertising because we tried it once and hated the magazine it made.