Far away view of island life causes a stir

Published on Monday 14 July 2008 22:25

SHE may never have set foot in the Hebrides, but an author's "uncanny ability to recreate the bleak reality of a Gaelic-speaking island community" has won her a prestigious award.

Clare Wigfall scooped the BBC National Short Story Award, worth 15,000, for her story The Numbers, part of a collection called The Loudest Sound and Nothing, published last year.

London-born Ms Wigfall, 32, who lives in Berlin, admitted she had never been to the Hebrides, but said she would like to visit.

The story tells of a young woman who lives on an unnamed island and has a preoccupation with numbers.

Martha Kearney, a writer and broadcaster who acted as the judges' chairwoman, said: "Clare's evocation of superstition and frustrated lives on a remote Scottish island is an act of historical ventriloquism."

Yesterday, however, islanders gave a mixed reaction to the portrayal of island life.

Marlene MacDonald, marketing officer with Sabhal Mor Ostaig, the Gaelic college in Skye, said use of words such as "ken", "afore" and "broon" are more Scots than Gaelic.

She added: "All the names in the story are Gaelic, so the author is obviously trying to make a Gaelic connection, but the language in the narrative is very Scots.

"It also mentions the island population being a non-religious people, but that's not true for the west coast islands."

She also questioned the "bleak reality" of island life: "I suppose looking at it from a London perspective it was bleak but it wasn't bleak for the people all the time."

But Donald John Maciver, a Lewis-based Gaelic consultant and book reviewer, said the book was "sensitively written" and the use of Scots words was "a very small thing".

But Murdo Maclean, a Lewis-based writer, said: "This is a superficial scan at a Hebridean island community. Rather than being Godless, even remote islands were fiercely Presbyterian and instead of being bookless every home would have a Bible and Catechism."

A tale that is filled with the folklore and superstitions of the Western Isles

SET in the Outer Hebrides, The Numbers is about a woman preoccupied with the number eight, who counts to protect her from bad luck, and it is infused with the folklore and superstitions of the area.

Peigi has all but given up on finding an ideal man until a former school friend comes back into her life to transport island women to the herring gutting. The islanders fear "boggarts" that live in peat bogs and lure unwary people to their deaths. But returning home one day, the howling she hears comes from a more worldly creature. An extract is carried below: