Soay

I have not been to Soay for ages, indeed on the first and last occasion we were summoned into a house for a dram or two by a local man. When I noticed the shark fishing stuff hung on the walls I realised who our host was — the legendary Tex Geddes (Gavin Maxwell's partner in their unsuccessful post 2nd World War shark fishing enterprise) who was then very much in charge of the island. Their exploits were brilliantly captured in Gavin Maxwell's 'Harpoon at a Venture' published some years before his much more famous otter book (Harpoon at a Venture. Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1952). There are still some remains of the shark fishery buildings by the harbour. Tex died in 1998. Now the permanent population is down to three if that, but one of them, Anne Cholawo, has written a splendid and charming account of her life there (Island on the Edge, A life on Soay. Anne Cholawo, Birlinn, Edinburgh, 2016).