Living in a world less busy

(Photo by Klaus/Wikimedia Commons)

There can’t be many writers who publish their first book aged 80. That is what Mary J MacLeod has done with ‘The Island Nurse’, a book I have been reading for the past few weeks. Her memories of living life as a nurse on a remote Scottish island more than 40 years ago made for a fascinating read.

In 1969 Mrs MacLeod and her husband George lived in the south of England. But they had become disillusioned with their way life and all its pressures. They wanted to live a life less cluttered and frantic.

They followed their dream and relocated with their young family to one of the remotest parts of the British Isles — the Hebridean islands off of Scotland’s northwest coast. It was a world apart from the life they knew. On the island Papavray (the island’s true identity is concealed to protect the privacy of those mentioned in the book) indoor toilets were still a luxury, while television was viewed with suspicion and even terror by some of the older residents.

Nurse Mrs MacLeod soon became entwined in the lives of the island people, getting to know their stories, their troubles, their joys — and a few secrets — as she and her family found themselves increasingly touched by the warmth of the remote community.

By the end of the book, the author refers to the many characters she met half-a-lifetime ago as ‘the dear, unique people who still live on that remote, rocky island’.

In ‘The Island Nurse’ (published in the US as ‘Call the Nurse’) Mrs MacLeod takes us on a journey that captures the nuances of island life. It is a touching memoir that traces many stories across the seasons of a year, from births and marriages, to tragedies and deaths. Keeping chapters short and fast-moving, Mrs MacLeod crams a remarkable number of vignettes and incidents into 300-odd pages.

In one chapter a window has to be removed to allow a bed-bound patient to be transported to a hospital, while there is a sinister reason behind a mysterious night-time rendezvous at a remote section of shore.

There are intricate portraits of her neighbours, and description of the hardships of island life. The author herself experiences some of those trials, including having the steering column of her car break on a remote mountain pass. She returns to her abandoned vehicle hours later to find a concerned islander has fashioned a temporary repair using sticky plasters that holds together until she gets her car home.

She joins the crofters one day sheep shearing high on the hillsides, where chatter, stories and jokes are shared, and sandwiches and Thermos drinks are consumed. As the bright afternoon turns to early evening Mrs MacLeod dallies, ensuring she is the last to leave the high vantage point. It gives her the opportunity to observe the village and the crofts far below. She writes: “Gradually, as the peace of the evening settled over the glen, I began to see little plumes of blue smoke rise from the chimneys as folk lit their fires. I listened — even distant voices had stilled, the hill was quiet once more, and I was left in the silent clamour of remembered noise.”

The author writes in a style that makes you feel you are right there, listening to the conversations as they happen and seeing the events unfold. When Mrs MacLeod turns her thoughts to her surroundings, she shows a talent for descriptive and evocative turns of phrase. The sea is “silver in owl-haunted moonlight”, while later in the year, as the evenings draw in, she drives along the island’s narrow, uneven roads “between small lochans with the brown peaty water winking at us in the failing light”.

A dozen or so islanders meet at a tiny croft for a ceilidh of drinking, unsophisticated entertainment, poems, songs, stories, jokes and reminiscing about “times gone by and people long dead’. Mrs MacLeod notes that once the small croft is full of people, and with a big peat fire generating heat in the fireplace, it soon becomes unbearably hot. “It seemed to me that ceilidhs were not ceilidhs unless everyone was perspiring freely by the end of the evening,” she writes.

Filled with stories that reflect the day-to-day lives of people far removed from the bustle of mainland towns and cities, Mrs MacLeod has impressively reflected the humour, warmth and culture that holds together these distant communities.

  The Island Nurse is published by Mainstream Publishing in the UK and Random House in the USA.