Treasured island

Tamsin Calidas left London for a Hebridean crofter’s life. She found heartache, rejection by locals – and redemption through swimming

- Tamsin Calidas

I love myths. Myth is a fire that draws you to it. Its quivering flame crackles, combusting the dry kindling debris of our daily grind. An antidote to safe living is sensed pulsing, inexorably alive. A myth asks, would you dare to live a different life?

I was there, restless, searching, 15 years ago. A husband, but no children. Excitedly planning our move out of London, disrupting a too comfortable life. Two drams poured, my heart beating fast, holding a tiny advert for a derelict Hebridean island croft in 22 acres of wild, abandoned fields.

Outside, a darkening sky swept the fierce, lifting sea out of Oban Harbour to the gleaming horizon. One tiny island calling, far out beyond the salt breakers and the haunting call of the geese. All the romance of my own modern myth was there, rich, potent, echoing.

We were breathtakingly naïve and optimistic, planning our great escape to the smallest minutiae yet shockingly ill-prepared. For two idyllic months, the sun shone, the swallows flew and we lived outside. We had two bags crammed full of our small belongings, an old Vespa scooter, a gas camping stove and, when summer broke, an antique battered caravan. Sometimes, it was refreshing to realise how little we needed to live; at other times, it felt precarious.

Neither of us spoke of winter’s lifting seas battering the island, or fierce winds gusting through. Arguably, by our distancing ourselves from family, friends, culture and connections, our relocation inexorably propelled us out of kilter. Out in the islands, birds flock together. Survival depends on this.