Case study: ‘No regrets about moving, I love it’

CHRIS Brown, 53, a historian, lives at Voe, 25 miles north of Lerwick, with his wife Patricia, 63, who is headteacher for the primaries at Voe and Mossbank. They moved to Shetland two years ago from Kennoway in Fife.

“I have lived in quite few rural areas and Shetland is a belter,” he said. “I had never been to Shetland before my wife got her job here but I absolutely love it here. I don’t regret moving here for a second. It’s brilliant.

“What I really love are the extremely long summer days, the remarkably friendly people – you are drawn into the community without noticing it. Very shortly after we came here, I found myself volunteered to speak at a conference and during the talk I said ‘I’m not a local – I’m an incomer’. But afterwards two people came up to me and said I had nothing to worry about not being a Shetlander. They said ‘None of us are Shetlanders – we are all incomers, even it was generations and generations ago’.

“The only drawback is the cost of flights. They are ludicrously expensive. The weather is not necessarily a great point but it’s much better than I expected.

“I thought last winter wasn’t that grim but all the locals told me it was a really, really bad winter. The property prices are excellent.”