Early morning at Easter 2007 saw my husband and me watching the place of my childhood floating in the dawn mists of the new day as the wake of the boat creased the waters of the Solent.
We were heading for Benbecula to view our dream home and felt like new age pioneers choosing a less materialistic future. But like the seagulls that circled above our heads, I did feel doubts flit across my mind. You never know if your choices are the right ones until you make them. Looking at the flyer of the house on the bay, I was convinced we were making the right choice.
Times past
The Isle of Wight, still visible in varying shades of lavender and blue, rested peacefully on a silver sea. I reminisced of times long ago and of Dad’s tales of his childhood, the times when he would go fishing at Rocken End, Blackgang. To get there you had to traverse a path only locals knew, through bracken and then sliding across blue slipper and seaweed covered rocks. With fishing rod in hand and a bucket of bait in the other, I doubt he slipped, but if he had I’m sure he wouldn’t have cared. Pockets stuffed with useful gear: string, penknife and boiled sweets coated in fluff for an energy boost on the go. My brother used to fish there at times too. I did go down there once, and got hopelessly lost.
The Back of the Wight is a formidable geological feature of chalk cliffs being formed around 30 million years ago. It stretches from St Catherine’s Point in the east, rising 300 feet above the English Channel, to its end near Freshwater in the west. Cleft from the Dorset’s coast no more than 9,000 years ago, with the iconic Needles which were formed two millennia later. The erosion of the soft cliffs reveals Cretaceous rocks and creates a fossil hunter’s paradise. As we began to lose sight of the Needles, I felt my own formative years on the island also drifting away. Ahead was an alien landscape, culturally and literally, hewn from folklore and legend.
Journey to Benbecula
A word of warning – Scotland is not just a little bit of land at the top of England. It is roughly the same distance from the south of England to the borders as it is from the borders to the top of Scotland. We made the ferry to the Outer Hebrides by the skin our teeth. Booking is essential and we had not done so; we were lucky to board the only ferry from Oban to Lochboisdale on South Uist that day. The Outer Hebrides is remote and the journey can take between under two hours to over four hours depending on the route and the weather. Planning is the key, although things don’t always go according to plan!
Benbecula, referred to as The Dark Island in Gaelic poetry, is more mysterious than dark, formed three billion years ago as Lewisian gneiss rock – the oldest in Britain and truly the rock of ages. Easy to imagine mermaids singing where the shore meets the sea. Disembarking the ferry on this sunny day at Easter time, we sped to viewing the ‘House of our Dreams’. We spent hours appraising our pending ‘Grand Design’, piling layer upon layer of fantastical virtual features onto our future home. We sparked off each other – Mum and Dad’s bedroom would be over there, we would have ours just here and the extension would be absolutely marvellous if built where that rickety old lean-to is …
Home sweet home?
We surveyed our domain and our mind’s eye saw us having our breakfast on the decking we had built beside the white sandy beach; it was a spitting distance from the back door. You could fish from the garden. Looking out across the bay, the purple pastel hues of the Monarch Islands were mistily sketched across the horizon.
Mum was blind now and had always wanted a cottage by the sea. Her disability would not have hindered as the other senses would reveal the wonder of the seascape – the sound of the waves, the scent of the ocean and the sandy salt spray on the lips. Dad and Mum would just love this. Stationed at Campbeltown as a Leading Wren, Mum was looking forward to a return to Scotland. Sadly, she died before having the chance to make the journey.
Absently we noticed the huge rock formations scattered in the fields. How very picturesque everything was. All was right with the world and our dream was going to be a reality. With a light heart we returned for the night to the B&B, sitting down to a sparse evening meal but, in our minds, feasting upon a luscious creamy dessert of ‘do-ability’ washed down with ‘dream vision alcohol’ The rose tints of our glasses were thus re-enforced and we slept, dreaming of the renovations to come in our home sweet home.
Dream home truths
The following day, our B&B hostess presented us with perfectly boiled eggs, casually remarking:
“Was that you I saw looking at the cottage by the bay?” I nodded, feeling the rose-tinted glasses I’d been wearing sliding slowly from my nose.
A stage whisper hissed like a deadly snake from behind the kitchen door.
“Don’t interfere!” The soft Hebridean lilting voice of the host sounded, ironically, ominous.
We shivered and asked for clarification.
“Did you notice the huge boulders, scattered in the fields beyond the cottage?” asked our hostess.
We confirmed that we had. Those huge rocks, that seemed as though they had been a part of a giant’s game of boules, were the sea defences … that, was before the storm brought them ashore and far inland. The house too, was breached by the waves.
Where to next?
We returned homewards, despondent but reassuring each other that we would do more research before venturing onto our next property. We really did mean to do exactly that. We realised that the Scottish property system was quite different from that in England and Wales. This was one more learning curve on our great adventure.
Benbecula would seem to have been a disaster but we proved to ourselves a number of things on that trip: the house prices were affordable for the type of smallholding we were looking for; the scenery was spectacular; the light quality quite incredible and, the feeling of freedom that such a landscape could provide added to our sense of wellbeing.
We were unaware that the oncoming global financial crisis would mean that we would have to make an impulsive decision – especially if we were to grasp the Hebridean home we had set our hearts on.
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