The Life and Death of St. Kilda


Book Description

The extraordinary story of the UK's most gruelling and spectacularly beautiful islands. Tom Steel's acclaimed portrait of the St Kildan's lives is now updated in this reissued edition.




Child of St Kilda


Book Description

Norman John Gillies was one of the last children ever born on St Kilda, five years before the whole population was evacuated forever. People had lived on these islands for over 4000 years, developing a thriving, tightly-knit society. Why and how did this ancient way of life suddenly cease in 1930?




The Lost Lights of St Kilda


Book Description

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE RNA HISTORICAL ROMANCE AWARD 2021* *LONGLISTED FOR THE HIGHLAND BOOK PRIZE 2020* 'Desperately romantic, lyrically written and with a fascinating plot' Katie Fforde Chrissie Gillies comes from the last ever community to live on the beautiful, isolated Scottish island of St Kilda. Evacuated in 1930, she will never forget her life there, nor the man she loved and lost who visited one fateful summer a few years before. Fred Lawson has been captured, beaten and imprisoned in Nazi-controlled France. Making a desperate escape across occupied territory, one thought sustains him: find Chrissie, the woman he should never have left behind on that desolate, glorious isle. The Lost Lights of St Kilda is a sweeping love story that crosses oceans and decades, and a testament to the extraordinary power of hope in the darkest of times. 'A gorgeous, melancholy love story.' The Times 'An undeniably haunting love story.' Sunday Times




The history of St. Kilda


Book Description







St Kilda Snapshots


Book Description

This text is based on a collection of photographs belonging to the late Lachlan MacDonald, who was born on St Kilda in 1906, left at the evacuation in 1930, and died in 1991. They include many images never before published of life on St Kilda before and after the evacuation.




St Kilda


Book Description

A detailed yet accessible account of Britain's most remote island. This new book explodes the myth of St Kilda as a 'lost world', demonstrating how, for 3,000 years, it has been connected to and influenced by communities across the Hebrides and Highlands of Scotland.




Acland Street


Book Description

Unique in Melbourne's history, Acland Street has been the home, playground and business address for millionaires and paupers, members of parliament, creators of the culture, sex workers, criminals, migrants from Europe and Asia and the most staid and most 'out there' people in the city. It was the first named street in St Kilda in 1842, and until the 1880s, Melbourne's most desired address. From the 1890s, when many of the mansions became boarding houses, and certainly after World War 1, it was a magnet for European migrants, single men and women and those from less acceptable sub-cultures including artists, musicians, writers, the LGBTI community and anyone who was poor but wanted the joys that life near the sea could provide. It has been and remains impossible to pin down economically and socially. Acland Street has, for more than a hundred years, conjured fun, food and good times and continues to be one of our city's most loved places. "Judith Buckrich's splendid salute in Acland Street: The Grand Lady of St Kilda is an energetic, evocative portrait sweeping from St Kilda's leisurely colonial days to its crowded, non-conforming present, Dr Buckrich captures all the complexions and contrasts, controversies and crises of this enigmatic, ebullient, sometimes gracious, sometimes sleazy bayside haunt - it seems too tame to call it a suburb. This is an important, exciting and immensely entertaining history of one of the more attractively idiosyncratic of metropolitan 'Grand Ladies'." - Brian Matthews.




St Kilda


Book Description

Using a 'battered medium format camera' once belonging to Fay Goodwin, Alex Boyd captures the archipelago of St Kilda in a new light, from a 21st century perspective. From the crumbling Cold War military base to the wild beauty of the natural landscape, this collection of photographs is both an ode to the history of the islands and an insight into the modern day lives of those who live and work on St Kilda today.




St Kilda and the Wider World


Book Description

Forty miles out into the Atlantic from the western isles of Scotland lies the archipelago of St Kilda. Home to human populations for more than 4000 years, the islands inhabitants were evacuated from the main island in 1930 leaving it as a haven for wildlife, a tourist destination and workplace for those studying and monitoring the islands ecology and its radar station built in the 1950s. Many of those writing about St Kilda have emphasised the remoteness and insularity of its environment, describing its population as having endured a wretched and isolated existence marooned on an archipelago miles from civilisation. In this book Andrew Fleming challenges such interpretations. His history of the islands reviews the archaeological evidence for the first inhabitants before 2000 BC, how they lived and survived, and how they became integrated into the wider world. Much of the book focuses on more recent times where documentary sources relay in great detail the lives of St Kildans over the past few centuries; how they farmed, administered justice, took on communal responsibilities, their religious, and other, beliefs, the impact of visitors to the islands, and how events outside of the islands had an impact on their lives. Described as a historical drama, this is an excellent story of a remote island community which has been mythologised by many commentators. Superb photographs do much of the work of description.




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