Special delivery: postcards from the edge of Scotland

POSTCARDS sent from St Kilda nearly six months ago have arrived 600 miles away in Norway.

The contents of a mailboat launched from the National Trust for Scotland property on 29 July, 2011, were discovered on the island of Frøya on 2 January.

Farmer Knut Wågø found the mailboat – a small wooden vessel containing a letter, usually sealed in a cocoa tin or plastic box – while walking his dogs on the beach.

Traditionally a sheep’s bladder was used as a float, but it is now a fishing float.

The first mailboat was sent out as a distress signal in time of famine by John Sands, a journalist, who was stranded on St Kilda during the winter of 1876.