St. Kilda, August 1930.

Silence surrounds mystical St Kilda 90 years after mass evacuation of residents

Silence surrounds mystical St Kilda 90 years after mass evacuation of residents

The residents of St Kilda left their homes for the last time in 1930.
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The silence is the first thing that strikes you about St Kilda: the stillness around the dilapidated old buildings which once housed a thriving island community in the Western Isles.

This was the remote archipelago where generations of redoubtable men and women defied the elements, the spartan conditions and being detached from their neighbours in the Western Isles and the rest of Scotland with a fierce commitment to self-sufficiency and creating an environment which sustained life for 2,000 years.

The population was never more than 2,000 at any time in its history despite the constant threat of disease. In 1684, an outbreak of leprosy afflicted the residents, then in 1724, a “contagious distemper”, thought to have been smallpox, ravaged their numbers and only four adults survived out of 24 families.

Because there were no spades at his disposal, one of the survivors is reported to have dug 11 graves with the back board of a wool card, which was only 18 inches by nine inches in size. It must have taken him days of endless toil. Yet, although the epidemic killed 17 heads of 21 families and left 26 orphans, the St Kildans endured
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PS Peoples of all color of their skin and ethnical origin have suffered in this society, therefore all human beings matter