Scottish anchorages

More or less all the Scottish cliff nesting seabirds can be found on the cliffs on Sanday, about half a mile east of the lighthouse. There is a stack with loads of puffins, fulmars, shags, kittiwakes, razorbills and guillemots. Take binoculars and be prepared to be bombed by great skuas (bonxies). In the area, this is second only to Harp Rock in the Treshnish Islands.

And there are two delightful beaches, facing in opposite directions and therefore good in all winds – what we used to call the pirate beach (black sand and great views of Rum) just over the hill behind the round tower church (with the sadly deteriorating barn and the now almost inaccessible and very tiny 17th century Coroghon castle, once apparently a prison), and the white sandy beach just over the bridge to Sanday on the right.

Finally, and amazingly, there is a small cafe cum restaurant just along from the round tower church - Gille Brighde, Gaelic for Oyster Catcher. In 2008 it was closed after Wendy Mackinnon moved to Mallaig so her children could get to secondary school easier, an all too familiar problem in the remote parts of Scotland. However, in 2010 it reopened with Amanda McFadden and Aart Lastdrager now in charge - give it a try, I certainly will. The website is highly attractive. Phone 01687 460164.

Well, more amazingly there is a roll on roll off ferry pier even though there are no metalled roads on the island! Well done somebody for being generous to remote and rural communities.

The most authoritative book on Canna, a bit of a long read, is Canna, the Story of a Hebridean Island, by John Lorne Campbell (Canongate, 1984). He it was who bought Canna in 1938, lived here and nurtured the island for decades, and then gifted it to the National Trust for Scotland in 1981. He continued to live in Canna House until he died in 1996. There is a nice biography by Ray Perman, "The man who gave away his island, a life of John Lorne Campbell of Canna", Birlinn, 2010.

In recent years the National Trust has tried to attract families to live on the island but this has not been easy - many come with great enthusiasm and then leave after a few years. I guess you have to be a very accommodating person to live here, willing to muck in, not eccentric, and able to face the problem of your children having to go to the mainland for secondary schooling.