Island's school to be reopened for single pupil

Their decision was taken last week even though the cost of reopening the school, closed five years ago, is in excess of 50,000 a year.

The new family - who have one child of primary age and one of nursery age - will move later this month into one of the stone-built white crofts which dot the isle's east side.

The council, which has been criticised over school closures elsewhere on the islands, acceded to their placing request after lawyers warned that it risked going against a statutory requirement in the Education (Scotland) Act requiring it to ensure adequate provision.

It will now appoint a principal teacher, relief teacher and part-time clerical assistant to work in the outpost. Together their annual salaries will total 56,786.

Papa Stour's councillor Frank Robertson said that a price could not be placed on the rebirth of a community on the verge of extinction only a few years ago. "From time to time I get people calling me up thinking about relocating to Papa, but the first thing they ask is about education facilities," he said.

"That's been the main factor in them deciding not to come. The reopening of the school is a major milestone for the community, although anybody that settles there has to be very inventive."

The prospect of Papa Stour becoming uninhabited is a clear danger, with its population standing at just a dozen, compared with 360 in the 19th century and 100 in 1940. Only one indigenous resident remains: John Scott, a 65-year-old crofter.

The new family will bring the number up to 16, but only after the school reopens on 26 October will it become clear whether Papa Stour is in for a fresh start or yet another false dawn.

However, other inhabitants are not so optimistic, warning that they have seen numerous families come and go over the years in search of "the good life", and that the latest may prove no more hardy.

The divided opinion is indicative of the troubled and outright hostile environment on Papa Stour in recent years, which led to the school being mothballed in 2005.

Jane Walker, at the time the mother of the isle's only pupils, took to schooling her children at home after learning that teacher Simon Calvin had given a witness statement to police confirming her husband John had thrown a bucket of dog dirt over the head of local minister the Reverend Adrian Glover.

The previous year, Glover had been accused of shooting Walker's sheepdog, but was acquitted. Walker was fined 600 at Lerwick Sheriff Court for the subsequent assault.

All the parties involved in the dispute have since left Papa Stour, but a fractured community spirit remains on the three-mile-long isle.

Jane Puckey, a community councillor and former teacher on the island, said that other families had arrived in recent years and asked for the school to be re-opened, only to leave "within a few weeks".

She explained: "The community is understandably cautious. In the past families have come looking for the good life, and the school has opened, but after a short while they leave."