Special delivery for Doris!
By Lorraine Shearer
(Story dated: Thursday, 11th May, 2006)

It’s amazing what you can do with a couple of pieces of wood and an old pair of knickers - as an Orkney mum and daughter found out last week.

Doris Shearer, of Airy Cottage, Stronsay, received a surprise letter in the post, a delivery she describes as nothing short of a miracle.

For it had been sent nearly a year ago in a specially made mailboat by her daughter, Ingrid, while she was working as part of an archaeology team on St Kilda.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Doris said. “Neither of us thought for one minute that the letter would actually get to me.”

The mailboat, HMS Gusset, during sea trials prior to her big launch. The large red ship in the background is The Electron, which visits once a month with supplies for the island.

Ingrid, who now lives in Glasgow, explained that the making and launching of a mailboat has become something of a tradition during the annual pilgrimage to the remote island.

“The first St Kilda mailboat was sent out as a distress signal in the winter of 1876 by John Sands, a journalist who was stranded there during a famine.

“They were sent in small wooden ‘boats’, maybe a foot or so long, with a hollowed-out cavity to house a sealed tin of letters. A sheep’s bladder was attached to the back of the boat for extra buoyancy.”

Ingrid has been on St Kilda three times with the Glasgow University archaeological research division and department of archaeology, and each time, a boat has been built and sent off with messages for relatives.

However, this is the first time that a mailboat has made it ashore, but Ingrid explained that a radical new design possibly helped.

“Our work party decided on a new design, using a catamaran-style hull and a pair of knickers as a sail - hence the name HMS Gusset. It was quite a controversial design, but our naval architects, John Osborne and Chris Smith, have been vindicated.

“None of the mailboats from my previous work parties were ever seen again! We think this one reached Benbecula and was sent from there.”

The mailboats are carried by the Gulf Stream and usually reach land in Scotland or Scandinavia. In 1999, a mailboat sent with greetings to the new Scottish Parliament actually arrived within a few weeks.

St Kilda, which is the remotest part of the British Isles, lying 41 miles west of Benbecula, in the Outer Hebrides, is one of only a handful of places in the world to have triple World Heritage Site status.

Special delivery, for Doris Shearer.

The native islanders, the last of whom were evacuated in 1930, used to eat puffins for a snack - just like a packet of crisps.

The Glasgow University team have been involved with research on the island since 1991 and have worked closely with the National Trust for Scotland, which owns the island, and Historic Scotland.

The actual fieldwork is undertaken each year by two National Trust work parties under the supervision of two professional archaeologists from Glasgow.

“The overall aim of all the archaeological work on St Kilda, is to investigate the history and development of settlement on St Kilda and how the inhabitants adapted to the extremes of climate and topography,” Ingrid explained.

“It’s a real privilege to get to work on St Kilda. It’s such a cliché, but it really is an awesome place. Although I’ve been out there three times now, it still takes my breath away.”

The traditional view that St Kilda was remote and inhospitable, with insular inhabitants, is now being challenged, thanks to the work of the archaeology teams.

“We’re finding prehistoric pottery and stone tools that show close parallels with material found on sites of a similar date in Orkney and Shetland.

“Sometimes people need a reminder that islands are only remote when you look at them from the mainland,” Ingrid said.

The breathtaking majesty of St Kilda.