FOULA HERITAGE

Foula - The Edge of the World

WIRELESS IN NORTHERN ISLANDS

From The Scotsman 09/04/1924

SIR ROBERT HAMILTON (L., Orkney and Shetland) asked the Postmaster-General whether, in view of the fact that the gratuitous service of operators could now be secured both in Foula and Skerries, thereby reducing the costs to a minimum, he is prepared to install wireless communication between these islands and Lerwick in conjunction with the Scottish Board of Health, and whether the Post Office estimate of £290 a year for maintaining a wireless installation on a small island includes the cost of operators.

The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr Hartshorn) writes in reply: - I regret that even if the gratuitous service of operators at Foula and Skerries be secured I cannot undertake to install wireless communication between those islands and Lerwick except upon guarantees being received from the interested parties to defray the loss which would be incurred in providing the service. The estimate of £290 a year for the maintenance of each service includes a sum of only about £20 for the cost of operating. The revenue which would be obtained from telegraph business at either of the stations would be extremely small.

PARLIAMENT.

HOUSE OF COMMONS

ISLAND COMMUNICATIONS.

From The Scotsman 21/07/1926

Sir ARCHIBALD SINCLAIR asked the Under- Secretary to the Scottish Board of Health whether, in view of the need, particularly on the ground of public health, for the improvement of communications between the Island of Stroma and the mainland, the Government would consider experimenting with the installation of low-power wireless telephony on the duplex system on this island.

The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND – The establishment of communication by wireless telephony between the Island of Foula and the mainland of Zetland for medical service purposes is under consideration at present. Should the arrangements, which it is hoped to make in that instance prove successful, and not unduly expensive, I shall be glad to consider whether assistance can be given from the Highlands and Islands (Medical Service) Fund towards the cost of similar arrangements for other islands to which the ordinary telegraph and telephone services do not extend.

WIRELESS TELEPHONY FOR SCOTTISH ISLANDS.

From The Scotsman 28/07/1928

Sir ARCHIBALD SINCLAIR (L., Caithness and Sutherland) asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he would state what result has attended the experiments which have been made in the establishment of communication by wireless telephony between the island of Foula and the mainland of Zetland and between any other islands in Scotland and the mainland; and whether, in view of the need particularly on the ground of public health, for the improvement of communication between the island of Stroma and the mainland, the Government would consider experimenting with the installation of low-power wireless on the duplex system or any other system.

The SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Sir John Gilmour) writes – A proposal by the Scottish Board of Health to have wireless telephone apparatus provided for communication between Foula and the mainland of Zetland for medical purposes is not being proceeded with at present owing to the expense involved in installing and operating suitable apparatus for that limited object. As regards the second part of the question, I am informed by the Postmaster-General that he has installed experimental short-range wireless telephone apparatus between islands in the Channel Island group for the purpose of testing its efficiency for Post Office purposes, and it is obviously desirable to await the result of the experiment.

WIRELESS TELEPHONY IN THE SHETLANDS

From The Scotsman 27/11/1934

A system of wireless telephony has recently been established between Lerwick and the outlying group of small islands known as Whalsay-Skerries, which have hitherto been without telegraph or telephone facilities. Lerwick and Skerries are twenty-three miles apart, and the apparatus employed is said to be the first of its kind to be used in this way in Britain over such a long distance. The cost of the service is being borne by the County Council, Post Office, and other interested bodies, and it is hoped that there will eventually be similar connection between the remote islands of Foula and Papa Stour and suitable points on the Shetland Mainland.

SHETLAND’S WIRELESS SERVICE

From The Scotsman 31/01/1935

Sir ROBERT HAMILTON (Lib., Orkney and Shetland) asked the Postmaster-General if he could make a statement as to the provision of wireless communication between the mainland of Shetland and the islands of Foula and Papa Stour.

The ASSISTANT POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Sir F. Bennett) – Inquires as to the possibility of affording a telegraphic service with Foula and Papa Stour at reasonable cost are in hand, and I am trying to find premises on the mainland of Shetland suitably situated for a wireless station to serve both islands. Owing to the nature of the coast and its sparse population, this presents some difficulty.

HOUSE OF COMMONS

WIRELESS COMMUNICATION IN SHETLAND

From The Scotsman 01/08/1935

Sir ROBERT HAMILTON (L., Orkney and Shetland) asked the Postmaster-General if he could state the position regarding the application by the Zetland County Council for the installation of wireless communication between the islands of Papa Stour and Foula and the mainland of Shetland.

The POSTMASTER-GENERAL – A letter stating the terms on which a wireless service could be provided was sent to the Zetland County Council on April 25 last, and I understand that the Council are now pursuing the question with the other authorities concerned.

TELEPHONE SERVICES FOR REMOTE ISLANDS

G.P.O. Reply to Shetland County Council’s Inquiry

From The Scotsman 31/01/1936

The G.P.O. in a letter to Shetland County Council in reply to the Council’s inquiry regarding the provision of telephone facilities for the islands of Foula and Papa Stour, state that consideration has recently been given to the general question of providing telephonic communication for the more remote islands in the Scottish region, including Shetland, and that the position is being examined in detail to determine under what conditions services can be provided on an economic basis.

In view of this development, they state, it seems desirable to defer action for the present regarding Foula and Papa Stour, and to treat as a whole the question of a service to and within the Shetland Islands. When a definite scheme is put in hand the Council will be informed.

LONELY FOULA

Regret at Removal of Wireless Set

POST OFFICE’S SCHEME

[FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT]

From The Scotsman 23/10/1936

LERWICK, Thursday Night

The final phase of the evacuation of the film company who have been working on the Island of Foula for three months is being carried through at this moment. The Vedra sailed to-day from Scalloway for Foula on the weather moderating, and is engaged, so far as is known, in taking off the nine people who remained behind on Tuesday and could not get out yesterday because of heavy seas.

The main body, who arrived here on Tuesday, are engaged “shooting” final cliff and sea scenes just outside Lerwick, while the Vedra is completing her task at Foula.

The most pathetic part of the parting from the Foula people is that the wireless installation, hired by the film company, is being packed up and taken away from the hundred islanders, who are thus being thrust back into their old position of being entirely without telegraph or telephone, possessed of only their motor boat, and in bad weather completely cut off from the outside world, sometimes for as long as six or eight weeks at a time.

PURCHASE SUGGESTION

Regarding this wireless apparatus, a suggestion to buy it was recently made to the General Post Office, but on Tuesday – the day the main film party were being taken off – the County Council, sitting in Lerwick, had read to them the Post Office reply, refusing the offer on the score of cost, and because it was planning a big tele-communication system to include all outlying islands in the North, and on which it hopes to commence work early next year.

In view of the repeated delays in this matter, however, regret is being expressed here that steps were not taken to retain the wireless installation temporarily on the island pending the carrying out of the Post Office scheme. I understand that moves are being made in Lerwick by the County Council to suggest to the Post Office that a set should be hired and sent to Foula with an operator as a temporary measure.

PROLONGED ISOLATION

Even if the Post Office does not start work on the tele-communication scheme early next year, it is almost certain that without a temporary wireless set the Foula people will, during the forthcoming winter, have to endure repeatedly complete and prolonged isolation from the whole outside world.

The question is being asked in Shetland – Since the isolation of the film company for one week evoked such widespread interest, what will be done the next time a hundred men, women, and children are isolated on Foula for two months?

Request to Post Office

NEEDS OF LONELY ISLANDS

[FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT]

From The Scotsman 24/10/1936

LERWICK, Friday Night

SHETLAND County Council have telegraphed to the General Post Office, urging that a wireless installation should be retained in Foula, pending the carrying out of the Post Office telecommunication scheme.

The neglect of her outlying island has always been a sore point with Shetland. Two years ago the Post Office successfully carried out an experiment with beam wireless telephony between Lerwick and the Out Skerries, which have thus been linked up with the Mainland.

Isolated Scottish Islands

From The Scotsman 24/10/1936

The problem of lonely Scottish islands which are cut off from all communication with the mainland, sometimes for weeks and months, in stormy weather, was recently brought to the fore by the adventures of a film company, which was temporarily marooned on the Island of Foula, in the Shetlands. Shetland County Council have now telegraphed to the G.P.O., urging that wireless should be installed on Foula. It is claimed that the wireless installation hired by the film company proved a great boon to the islanders. The Post Office intends to start work early next year on a tele-communication scheme, to include all the outlying islands in the North, but it is argued that Foula should have a temporary wireless installation for the forthcoming winter months, when the islanders are likely to be isolated from time to time. There is, it appears, a nurse on Foula, but no doctor; and on Papa Stour, another Shetland island, there is neither doctor or nurse. It is claimed that three times during the past two years calls for a doctor from Papa Stour have had to be sent by visual Morse signals, and that it would not be possible to send such signals Foula to the Mainland in an emergency. It is further claimed that the signals from Papa Stour would probably not have been seen had the weather not luckily been clear at the time. The problem is not confined to the Shetlands. Earlier this week the lack of a wireless station in Stornoway was complained of. It was stated that, owing to the interruption of telegraphic communication, which naturally is most likely to occur during a storm, the Stornoway lifeboat was called out unnecessarily, and was recalled from Kyle of Lochalsh, 70 miles away, being in consequence absent from its base for 17 hours. For outlying communities such as that of Foula, the difficulty would appear to lie, not in getting help through on account of stormy conditions at sea, but in appealing for it. The islanders have boats to send to the mainland in an emergency. But their craft are too small and often primitive, and might be unable to face seas which would present fewer difficulties to a larger and more up-to-date vessel. In the cases on Papa Stour already referred to, medical aid was brought to the island by a Shetland lifeboat. Doubtless the Post Office is justified in believing that the scheme of tele-communication being planned will provide a complete solution of the problem. But the anxiety of the islanders that the scheme should meet no delay, and that in the meantime a wireless apparatus should be installed on Foula for the coming months, is understandable.

G.P.O. AND WIRELESS FACILITIES FOR FOULA

From The Scotsman 31/10/1936

In reply to the appeal by Shetland County Council for provision of temporary wireless transmitting apparatus on Foula pending the installation of the Post Office tele-communication scheme, the Post Office state that they are now making every endeavour to provide a temporary wireless service for the island during the winter months until a permanent apparatus is available. The Post Office add, however, that they are unable to say at present whether this will be possible. The County Council have replied thanking the Post Office for the letter, but emphasising the disappointment felt at the failure to retain the communications provided by the Marconi installation used by the film unit which recently visited the island. This installation is now back in the South, having been transported by the film unit’s supply vessel, which after being held up by the renewed gales, left Scalloway on Wednesday forenoon, and reached Aberdeen on Thursday night.

FOULA AND WIRELESS

From The Scotsman 05/11/1936

Lerwick, Shetland, November 2, 1936

SIR, - This is no doubt a rather belated letter on the above subject, but it is not so very long since the recent gales permitted us in Shetland to see The Scotsman for 24^th October, in which you were good enough to call attention to the isolation of Foula and other islands in a leading article, an action much appreciated. On 29^th October the Post Office informed Shetland County Council that they are now making every endeavour to provide temporary wireless for Foula for this winter, but at the time of writing nothing more definite has been heard. For more than one reason, therefore, I feel called upon to give your readers the benefit of a fuller explanation of this case than has hitherto been possible for want of time.

May I say briefly that the liability of Foula to isolation is due almost entirely to its total and (for Shetland) remarkable lack of sheltered harbours and creeks, which makes it impossible to embark on or land from any kind of craft, very often at a time when any seaworthy craft, big or little, is in no danger or serious difficulty on the sea itself. Foula lies really in mid-ocean, and the seas around it so quickly “get up,” and keep running so high, that even while they are doing no more to craft at sea than heaving them up and down, they make landing or embarkation at Foula impossible. This is the main difficulty, and not anything amiss with the local craft, including the Foula motor mail-boat, which in size strikes the happy medium between handiness for dexterous management at the shore and bigness sufficient for safety at sea, and which also, following the usual Shetland build (which reproduces the lines of the Viking ships), belongs to one of the most seaworthy boat-types in the world.

Nor would a lifeboat better the situation; the lifeboat has been found invaluable for Papa Stour, for taking in a doctor through seas which an ordinary boat could not survive, just because Papa Stour has more than one sheltered harbour where the lifeboat could land its passengers once it won through to the island. But in Foula, weather calling for a lifeboat would make landing from it impossible.

“What then,” it may be asked, “would be the use of wireless? You cannot send stores or a doctor over the ether.” There are several valid answers to such a question: -

(1) Wireless would enable a doctor to send instructions in regard to any case of illness which had got beyond the capabilities of the nurse resident on the island. This kind of thing has several times been successfully carried out between ships at sea. On Foula there is an increasing proportion of old people liable to ailments.

(2) In case of a real shortage of necessary food following very prolonged isolation, which is still possible, an aeroplane could drop supplies on the island, but only if wireless enabled islanders to say whether this operation (which might be fraught with some risk to the aeroplane from whirlwinds off the high island hills) were really necessary. When a shortage of food was reported among the film unit on Foula a few weeks ago, Highland Airways telegraphed their Lerwick agents offering the services of an aeroplane to do just this very thing. A similarly generous offer would no doubt be forthcoming for the sake of the islanders themselves if need arose – it would not be asked for unless there really was need.

(3) Wireless would enable the island women to know how their men had fared when they had gone to the mainland of Shetland and been detained by bad weather springing up. In this connection, Mr Michael Powell, author and director of the Foula film, made the following very pertinent remark in an interview in Orkney: - “The thing that people do not realise about Foula is that when their little mail boat goes off to the Shetland mainland, and is not able to get back because of bad weather, it may be eight weeks before the islanders get to know whether or not their men are drowned.” Perhaps the “eight weeks” of this kind of thing does not occur very often, though it is possible, but a few days of such uncertainty is bad enough. Nobody minded when the situation could not be bettered. But we do feel in these days of wireless that it should no longer be.

(4) Wireless might enable a check to be put on the depletion by trawlers of the close inshore Foula fishing grounds. I know how reluctant people often are to bring trouble on trawler fishermen, who have a hard life and are under strong economic pressure to poach. But if ever, as is to be fervently hoped, the trawling question is taken firmly in hand, as it has not been yet, wireless will play a great part, especially in a place like Foula.

Finally, if the question is raised, “Why encourage people to stay on Foula?” I would remind readers that Foula is not the tiny, barren islet that some reports have appeared to indicate, but an island over three miles long by two and a half miles at its broadest, with arable land and pasture, strategically situated in the midst of some of the finest natural fishing banks in these northern regions, and ever captivating, not least to its natives, in its glorious and majestic scenery. In a free country people have a right to live where they choose, and to expect a share of national services; and the unkindness which I am told was actually, if unintentionally, involved in the compulsory evacuation of old people from St Kilda (a barren and unproductive island, which Foula is not) is not a thing to be contemplated for Foula, so long at least as there remain on it any of those old and worthy people who are, without exaggeration, deeply attached to their island. Even the ultimate evacuation of Foula by a younger generation is not, and should never be, regarded as a certainty. – I am &c.

HOUSE OF COMMONS. MONDAY, December 7

The SPEAKER took the chair at 2.45

ORKNEY AND SHETLAND

TELEPHONE EXPERIMENTS THIS WINTER

From The Scotsman 08/12/1936

Major NEVEN-SPENCE (U., Orkney and Shetland) asked the Postmaster-General what progress had been made in the direction of providing telephone communication between Shetland and the mainland, and between the various islands and the mainland of Shetland and Orkney respectively.

The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Major Tryon) – The proposals for the provision of trunk telephone service between Shetland and the mainland of Great Britain, and between the various islands and the mainland of Shetland and Orkney, involve a large amount of detailed investigation. The matter is being actively pursued, and this winter further experiments are to be made on the spot in order to determine the suitability at all times of the year of ultra-short-wave wireless telephony for the purpose of extending telephone services to these islands.

TEMPORARY SERVICE FOR FOULA SOON

Major NEVEN-SPENCE also asked the Postmaster-General if he had considered the offer made by a film company to sell to the Post Office the wireless apparatus with which they maintained contact with the outer world during their residence in the Island of Foula last summer; and what decision had been arrived at.

The POSTMASTER-GENERAL – The apparatus to which my hon. and gallant friend refers was dismantled some time ago. It was unsuitable for regular communication between Foula and the mainland. Considerable progress has already been made in connection with the setting up of a service at Foula, but it will be some little time yet before it becomes available. Arrangements are already in train, however, to give a temporary service, which I hope will be in operation within the next few weeks.

NO COMMUNICATION WITH MAINLAND

From The Scotsman 9/02/37

While the film unit were on the island last summer they had a wireless transmitter installed, and on their departure from Foula in October they offered to leave the transmitter on the island for the benefit of the inhabitants, but this offer was rejected by the Post Office authorities, who had made arrangements for the establishing of a beam wireless service for Foula.

The apparatus for this, however, arrived on the Shetland mainland too late to enable it to be transferred to Foula before the winter began, and the islanders are accordingly without any means of communicating with the mainland at present.

WIRELESS TELEPHONY IN SHETLAND

From The Scotsman 12/04/1937

Two Post Office headquarters engineers are at present in Shetland conducting wireless telephony experiments with a view, it is understood, to establishing the scheme promised by the Post Office for connecting Shetland to the mainland independently of the telegraph cables, which not infrequently break down.

A temporary wireless installation has been erected in Orkney, near Wideford Hill, Kirkwall, and it is understood that good results have been obtained between Shetland and Orkney. This scheme, when it materialises, will be useful for life-saving as well as for ordinary communication. The beam wireless telephony installation at present in course of erection on Foula is expected to be working this summer.

RADIO TELEPHONE FOR FOULA

Linking-Up Island with Outside World

From The Scotsman 19/04/1937

FOULA, 20 miles off the west coast of the Mainland of Shetland, will soon be joined to the Mainland by wireless telephone, as a result of Post Office experiments. Experimental conversations were made on Saturday, but it may be September before a regular service is inaugurated.

The Postmaster of Lerwick, Mr F. C. Young, had travelled to Foula to inaugurate the service, and he spoke over the air at 10.30 on Saturday morning. The first telegram to the island – the telephone is to be used for this purpose – from Lerwick was sent on Saturday, and when the service is in normal operation it will be possible to telegraph to and from Foula, from any part of the world.

The system used is an improved form of the beam optical contact wireless telephone, which has been in use for some time between Lerwick and Out Skerries. The Mainland station has been established on a hill at Sandness.

Foula was isolated for six weeks during the past winter, and the experiences during a storm of a film company on the island last October called widespread attention to the difficulties of the islanders.

WOMAN ILL ON ISLAND: DOCTOR’S RADIO INSTRUCTIONS

From The Scotsman 27/12/1937

The radio telegraphy system on the island was utilised on Christmas Eve to send out a message for medical help for a woman dangerously ill. The weather was too bad for a landing to be effected, but a doctor in Walls (on the mainland of Shetland) was enabled by the radio to send instructions to the nurse resident on the island.

On Christmas Day, the weather having moderated, the Aith lifeboat called at Walls, and took the doctor to Foula.

INFLUENZA ON FOULA

Radio Telephone Instrumental in Saving Life

From The Scotsman 04/01/1938

The Foula mail boat crossed to Walls yesterday in quiet weather, and brought the information that the influenza epidemic in the island is abating, there being now only six bed cases. The resident nurse is still ill, but the relief nurse is carrying on. The radio telephone on the island has been felt to be a great boon.

_______________________________________________

In 1954 the Foula telegraph system was adapted to a telephone system and a Telephone Kiosk was installed outside the Post Office. In the mid sixties, before STD became the norm throughout the country, the GPO came to Foula and asked if the islanders would install telephones in their homes. This was a huge boost to the islanders' morale, coming as it did not long after the Scottish Office had turned down a plan by the Shetland County Council to install running water throughout the island. The Scottish Office claimed that the island was likely to be evacuated and that they, therefore, could not sanction any such works in the island. The islanders finally got a water scheme in 1982.

Go to Top