While we’re in lockdown and I’m just mopping time with thoughts – not moping …
just on a very slow day-to-day travellator through the daily info-pack …
We are the
World Blogfest … was set up to bring positiveness and light
into this dark world of ours … originally before Covid, but now as the pandemic
cavorts through all populations …
St Kilda's geographical
position
… this is a reminder about how much joy a posted letter or
postcard can bring to the fragile, elderly, self-isolating peoples in this
world today.
The St Kildan islanders had learnt to communicate the need for help by launching tiny waterproof boats … in the hope that they’d be picked up by passing ships or make it to the mainland (over 40 miles to the north and east) …
A journalist, John Sands, in 1877 became stranded …
carved a little boat … let it out into the seas … the currents took it, within
9 days, to the Orkneys … when a boat was sent out to rescue him and nine
shipwrecked Austrian sailors.
Eight years later a huge storm battered the islanders
and their food stores … a young lad had known about the way of communicating …
made 5 boats and sent them out … one arrived quite quickly in Lewis … they
raised funds to provision the lost stores and launched a boat to bring relief. 
Please Open ... a boat launched in the 1930s
This practice was adopted and the tiny mailboats became famous in popular culture …
The islands were evacuated in the 1930s … but contact was maintained through military personnel, conservation workers, volunteers and scientists …
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| The children, who found the little wooden boat sent out in 2010 - here they are in 2020: c/o National Trust Scotland |
The archipelago is now owned by the Scottish National Trust … but when an archaeologist in 2010 decided to send out his own boat … with seven postcards to St Kildan contacts … who knew where they would end up …
… surprise, surprise and to much joy to four little ones in Norway – the boat, cargo intact, arrived safely on a beach on Andoya, north Norway – about 180 miles inside the Arctic Circle and over 1,000 miles from St Kilda – after ten years floating in the currents …
As the kids’ (twins aged 9, 6 and 4) grandfather says … what excitement and treasure this find has given them …
… then the recipients too … so many memories coming
back … the lad back in 1885 … one of his
ancestors, now in Norfolk, England, received a card …
 |
| c/o The Mail Oxford |
My mother and uncle, in their final years, were always thrilled to receive letters, or postcards from family and friends … something we might want to consider today …
We are the World Blogfest
In Darkness, Be Light
The full story of St Kilda mailboat's epic journey ...
Hilary Melton-Butcher
Positive Letters Inspirational Stories
