A footnote from one of “the children”

My first impression of Coll as the boat drew near to its low grey rocks, on an equally grey morning, was one of bitter disappointment. My only knowledge, at that time, of the physical aspects of Hebridean islands was gleaned from photographs of the magnificent Cuillins.

"Where is the grandeur, and what about the towering peaks?" I asked myself.

But my spirits rose as we bumped and clattered along the stony road towards the East end and they positiviely soared as the sun came up and we topped the summit of Windy Gap.

Confronted, then, by the happy prospect of "home" being a neat and cosy caravan for the next two weeks, washing in the sparkling burn, sand and sea on the door-step, not to mention rabbits galore. I ran and danced barefoot, amongst the myriads of flowers with a joie de vivre that I still sometimes experience on Coll forty years later.

Susan (Tunnell) Checker.