Scotland | St Kilda | interviews with islanders | Documentary Report | 1972 

It does us islanders good to remeber that we are an indigenous people with our own culture, our own tales and our own songs. We'vw been hwre since the ice retreated making our lives at the edge of the world. We don't see ourselves as superior to anyone but we have a culture and we want ro celebrate and remember.

I celebrated my 21st birthday on this island (1959) as a member of the Royal Signals attachment. One of the most beautiful places I've ever been to. I hope I can revisit one day.

Very moving and, with the passing of the last St Kildan, Rachel Johnson, last year, this first-hand verbal history becomes even more important as a link to a time & place now so very much lost to us.

A wonderful piece of history. My father, a radio operator on Fleetwood trawlers in the 1920s, would call at St Kilda. In February 1928, whilst serving on the ST Cuirass, he responded to a distress call from the steam trawler Briarlyn which had run aground off North Bay, Hirta, in bad weather. Four men were rescued, but sadly eight were lost without trace.

this brought tears to my eyes watching this much respect to the people of St Kilda

The stories of how the inhabitants climbed the stacks to collect birds were insane. I went to St. Kilda recently and saw those stacks and trust me some of them are like 400 m high

I’ve just finished reading two novels by Karen Swan, The Last Summer, and Few Stolen Hours. She painted a remarkable picture of these islands during the time of the evacuation. So now I have to read all I can about these people…

God bless the people of st Kilda. A lost generation.

Such a shame they didn’t get to ever go back, and the man who said that they should have received government assistance instead of the evacuation was honestly right. I can’t imagine how hard it would have been to transition from a centuries old lifestyle to 1930s Britain

werry sad i come from faroe islands my grandad told me storys abouth st kilda he loved the island its a hard like to live on small remote islands they did live in the same way they live in my country of the birds and wath sea can give harvesting nature in a sustainable way here they shared eggs and birds with the people ther cud noth go and harvest sad to se its abandoned the bigg mineland wanth to own us buth noth help us

Thanks for uploading this. I would also love to see the full, original film!

Love the song at 5.18. It seems to emulate the actions and song of birds in the rise and fall melody and the little upward sweeps and darting high notes. I'm assuming it's Gaelic and the subject matter is birds since it's played on the segment of film dealing with the fulmers but I defer to someone who has a greater knowledge of the language/song. The song at 2.30 was powerful too. Great documentary. Thank you for posting.

nice and sad story...like to visit this place....greetings from croatia

The islanders accents are fascinating, because we know that English wasn't their first language.

Would love to go one day, me fella is a Norwegian, and ive been many times over in Norway with him this do look abit the same and it looks lovely... ruff in the winter time doh, same as Norway is out by the sea country side where me fella grew up...we live in Liverpool now.

It's some place. Have visited twice. Felt I didn't want to leave but it would have been a long Winter.

As a Sailor, I remember once it was a nightmare in August to sail to Harris, think about 110 miles of open Atlantic, these are some hardy people.

Thank you very much for uploading this.

St Kilda is remembered in Melbourne Australia.

These were a tough breed of people to live in such harsh conditions without electricity or running water or any other creature comforts we take for granted today.

I saw someone in another newer video of St Kilda saying the last evacuate is now dead 😭 So this is the voices of historie. I hope the master tape is vel taken care of.

Thanks so much for uploading this!

Very interesting and moving.

Just watched the video to the end & interested to see the mail drop. During my time on the island we relied on the fishing trawlers bringing the mail out. My mailing address was: R.A.G.W.R. Det., St Kilda, ℅ Boston Deep Sea Fisheries, PO Box 99, Dock Street, Fleetwood, Lancs. The trawler could arrive at any time of the day or night. No one minded the blaring klaxon wake up in the middle of the night as the designated crew rushed down to the jetty to launch the boat. They came back with mail & fish galore! Afterwards I think some were issued with a tot of rum. I loved my time on the island (2 x 3 months stints), loved the weather & walking the hills. Only wish I'd had a colour camera at the time.

I hope they preserved the names of the houses and places on the island from those people. They would have known which family lived in each house and they would have had names for many parts of the island to say "I'm going up to xxx" I would love to know that.

it was.......a far better place. well done! well done!

This is edited down... any idea where I can see the rest of the footage?

At the first sight of an automobile, they ran as fast as they could...wow

A very interesting documentary. Alas, it's peppered with ads. An ad or two would be fine, but the sheer number of ads in this is just greedy.

My right ear loved this

It's hard to imagine that people once lived here and it's so sad

It's a shame they all left,they should of been giving help from the government and others to keep there heritage alive.

Their problem was not inhabiting the island. The island just needed skilled medical workers and even a small hospital to aid the sick.

From 5.18 min onwards you hear the "St. Kilda Bird Song", I have it on record, shall look for the singer later.

A beautiful film, thank you for uploading it. I wonder what the music was

A great pity the names of the islanders are not featured. Nurse Williamina Barclay in her olde age is clearly recognisable but the others? I went to St Kilda in 2017 after 30 years wanting to do so and when you have read everything you can about it, you are familiar with its inhabitants. I miss the names

It is sad to see the islandabandoned.

They did all that to set up the soldiers on the island they could have helped The Islander stay there and made a viable way for the young people to keep making their life there in and or to travel back and forth from their there... would have been ways to help save the the culture valuable to all and the community of people who had lived there for centuries!! it's just so sad that resources weren't pulled together for that yet the resources are available for the military... story worldwide... a bit disheartening!! If they have been helped to stay there I bet they're tweed today would fetch a pretty penny :) also I'm wondering why there wasn't more mention of them making use of food from the sea seems like between the animals that naturally live there and they domesticated animals they could have had a really good way of life was just some assistance for some technologies and ways of doing things that would make life easier and easier on the island... and also maintain the uniqueness of living on the island which is remote and is harsh but beautiful

I’m sure the lady weaving in the 1928 film of the occupants of the island is the same lady speaking at 1.18 in this piece of film what do you think?

Whats the song in the beginning?

Magical!....

Shame that the interviewees aren't identified.

Content & peaceful. That is all I'd need for peace. So sad their way of life is over. Harsh, but simpler times.

oh my, this is a moving film. about folk's like the pep's back home on Fugloy back in the day can someone please tell me what the song name of the Church scene ? 02:30 in the film, thank you

just like when they resettled the towns in newfoundland canada. the people even look the same.

I love how the 2nd guy said that he moved from St Kilda to London. I suspect that he had a much better life than everybody else from there.

So many young people and whole families had left the archipelago during the last 30 to 40 years they were there, that their life was no longer sustainable. Climbing those cliffs is not a job for weens and elderly. Contact with the outside world really doomed the settlement. That's a sad fact that's been repeated around the world whenever a primitive (in our eyes) culture has been discovered. Contact changes the culture, no matter the good intentions. One of the Pipers for the Scottish Folk band, the Tannahill Weavers, wrote a beautiful lament in memory of the St. Kildans. It's entitled "Leaving St. Kilda." It will bring tears to your eyes.

The only thing better would be closed captions. The accents are hard to understand for some of us.

It is stated by the commenter that : «after the U-boat attack... » with no mention of this attack before or after, so I suppose this is cuts from a longer television broadcast, put together?

What happened in 1930, why did the islanders have to leave?

Like watching the 19th century in colour

What a wee shame. The latter and last years on this wee island sound really bleak because they just had to get prepared for Church on a Sunday, a 3 hour service. Their last 24 years there could have been so much happier as the kids weren't even allowed to play. Did have a wee chuckle at 15.15 mins in though. 😊

There is no mention of which clan. One lady says her father was the Laird but again no mention on a clan. The also said the people who left the island had a hard time. How? Did the people on the main land help or ignore the St. Hila's?

Id love to go there, is it open to tourists?

what is the song at 2.30? can someone tell me?

So sad they left and I think there are very many who would swap their lives to live on St Kilda, no need for money his you have food and shelter.

I have a few stories to tell iwas in the royal engineers 6 months on stkilda so if you grab a sandbag I’ll begin

Whyd they keep cutting the video 😤😤

Creepy "children of the stones" soundtrack at 2:22

Audio doesn't work

“100 miles west of bugger all” 😆

Is the sheep population still there ?

No one is mentioning the feet??

It is all hidden in the loch along with the sound. That's why the people abandoned the place, no sound!

Terrible sound. Can't hear anything☹

Should have subtitles, it's a hard accent to understand.

Graveyard is the future of the original fauna, Partition some land from the sheep....The sheep are introduced, after all . .,

the video had no sound

Do they all have the same surname? 😏

Maybe it is a good thing to repopulate the island again now, maybe with today's tech it will be much easier for the new inhabitants

I disliked St Kilda and the St Kildaians ; the place I found wet and the people rude. They had the fine qualities which bore me - thrift and industry and long-faced holiness, and the young women are mostly great genteel boisterous things who are no doubt bedworthy enough if your taste runs that way. (One acquaintance of mine who had a St Kilda clergyman’s daughter described it as like wrestling with a sergeant of dragoons.) The men I found solemn, hostile, and greedy, and they found me insolent, arrogant, and smart

Alba gu bràth

Life was not sustainable. Contact with the outside world made them realise they need not suffer hardships. I read about the terrible death rate due to tetanus of 60% of babies. Preventable, and a terrible death. Then the migration of the able bodied men to Australia, leaving the old, the young and the women, meant the old subsistence means of living was over. It’s tempting to be sentimental, and it is a loss of a unique culture, but seriously, people would not want that hard life again. Not to mention the harsh form of Religion that oppressed them.

Bizarre accent