SMILE PLEASE

Sue Anderson

I came to Coll with sixteen bags and boxes, two cats and a bicycle.

After a short seasonal job in Mrs. Stewart's Cafe ( now The Bistro), and two and a half years with the Project Trust, I set up my small photography business under the Enterprise Allowance Scheme. The £40 a week allowance in the first year helped me to survive and without it I would not have succeeded.

Living on an island has many advantages. Trying to run a small business on an island has no advantages whatsoever. Indeed I would not recommend the idea unless you are confident in your capabilities, very versatile and are prepared to work hard at something you believe in.

Essentially you have to create a product that supplies a demand and, ideally, fills a gap in what is now a highly competitive market place. Doing this on an island is much more difficult because you always have to take into account the extra freight charges of bringing materials in before processing and finally sending out to the customer.

More and more people are starting up small self-employed businesses in remote areas in an attempt to escape the pressures of city life. Don't however, be fooled into believing that you will leave the pressures behind. They are still there; the stress is just in different areas. The simple delivery of mail becomes a real worry - bad weather can mean no ferry and no mail at all. In the winter, in Coll, you have to allow for the ferry only coming in three times a week. Try and explain that to people who can get two deliveries a day on the mainland. These transport reasons why you can't reach a deadline on a delivery can sound quite prehistoric to those 'over the water'.

Above all you have to be well organized. In my business things would just seize up overnight if I ran out of film and the only two local shops had none in stock. I once ran out of sellotape. So had Coll - and Woolworths in Oban was closed.

I chose photography as a extension of my hobby; I had no technical qualifications. An 'O'Level in Art and a tiny Box Brownie started me off as a teenager. My father encouraged and inspired me over the years to persevere. I am still learning and still trying to take good photographs.

Perhaps the most valuable advantage of working on and from an island is the help and support from people in that small community. I could not have survived without a little help from my friends - from the postman to the shopkeeper, the piermaster to the hotelier, the farmer to the handyman, not forgetting the family at Acha who brought me to this magical island called Coll in the first place. My business only works because of all of them.