"Sea Room" by Adam Nicolson

Date: 25 May 2012 19:55:07

I got this book from the library, but loved it so much I have just ordered myself another copy to keep, as I will definitely come back to it (sorry about the tiny picture!). Nicolson is from a pretty well-known family - amongst others his grandmother was Vita Sackville-West, and I am pretty sure his uncle was the artist Ben Nicolson. He is now a Baron, though he doesn't use the title (according to Wikipedia), and he has written on a number of subjects, most recently about the English gentry. His father bought three islands in the Hebrides, the Shiant Isles (which lie in the Minch just off Lewis, north of Skye) in the 1930s from author Compton McKenzie, and passed them to him when he was 21 (he did the same for his own son when he reached 21, he is the current owner). "Sea Room" was written a few years before he handed the islands to his son's ownership, and basically covers the history, geography, geology, architecture, botany etc of the islands as well as his own feelings and relationship to them. At heart it's a love letter, and is beautifully written. I loved reading Alastair MacIntosh's "Soil and Soul" about the community buy-out on the island of Eigg, and in general I am all for the community buy-outs, reclaiming the land from landowners with no interest in the community and landscape and history of the place they own. But here I was really torn - he had so much love, and respect, and care for the islands, as well as a deep awareness of his outsider status and the importance of the islands to the wider islands community, that it simply isn't possible to look at this in the same 'landowner=the baddie' way that you could on Eigg and other places. Definitely recommended, a beautiful book. There is more information (including a sample chapter of the book) on the official Shiant Isles website.