Tavish Scott: Another generation flies the island coop

LIFE as an elected representative is not conducive to being a parent. My place of work is Edinburgh and the kids’ school is at home in Shetland. I’ve missed too many school parent nights, to say nothing of concerts and appearances of the children in one place or other.

But a politician is no different in this instance than a North Sea oil rig employee or the many people who work shift patterns overnight.

So, always being there – if only by phone, text or now Skype – has worked up to a point. But now, after 12 years of Dad being in Edinburgh through the week, the older kids are making their own way in life. Shetland encourages every generation to look out at the big wide world; a narrow, introverted perspective does not work in the Northern Isles.

This week I have ridden an emotional roller-coaster as the eldest son queued for the Edinburgh-Heathrow plane and then on to Auckland. He had wanted to arrive in New Zealand to support the Scottish efforts in last autumn’s Rugby World Cup, but Up Helly Aa did for that – a Shetlander invariably puts worldwide travel on hold until the galley has been burnt and so it has proved with the next generation.

Alasdair has family and friends to meet Down Under and work to keep him in spare cash. The family is relaxed about his big expedition. Time spent online also shows how well set up and welcoming New Zealand is to the younger generation from the old country. Shetlanders have been emigrating to the other side of the world for centuries. Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark has Shetland family. So, in a sense, it is as close as possible to going home. And yet … We all had butterflies as Alasdair made his last-minute preparations – passport, airline route, work visa and US visa waiver for Los Angeles – but it’s more that he just won’t be around for six months.

His older sister did all this two years ago. She is the self-assured and composed member of the family, so four months teaching in a primary school in Kenya’s Rift Valley was organised and committed to before anyone had even suggested that Sixth Year was looking a little dull now that she had met the entrance requirements for university.

Did I worry about my little girl? Yes, but I was told to get a life as she too boarded a Heathrow-bound plane before flying on to Nairobi.

But the younger brother is different because, unlike his sister, his chosen future didn’t involve four years at university. He, like so many of his peers, has not mapped out the perfect career path.

That is why time away from home with all its comforts is right. He worked hard for nine months at the local supermarket to pay for the trip. He will, as my former headteacher once said, leave as an adolescent and come home a man. Generations of young Shetlanders have done this before him – but by sea in the Merchant Navy. Today, they board a jumbo and fly away.

• Tavish Scott is the Liberal Democrat MSP for Shetland