From Unst with chocolate and some quite good music

As I write I'm in Unst, northernmost island in Shetland indeed the UK, where I have a contract to do some tourism development work. I have just had lunch at a chocolate manufacturing facility, or at least in the room next door. And very nice it was too! This week's Beatcroft Social on Mixcloud features four Unst-related pieces of music, from spoof power-hair-metal through choral traditionalism to a beautiful piano-led Unst Bridal march. And of course whisky. Or in this case, Whiskey.

Lots of other great stuff too, I think, from Robin Trower to JJ Cale, King Creosote to Tuff Love. I hope you like it.

The Beatcroft Social Volume 4 (Unst tendency) by Tom Morton's Beatcroft Social on Mixcloud

Sun, stents, peats and motorcycles

Thinking today of friend, music fan and motorcyclist Hugh Docherty, of Kilmarnock via Aberdeenshire, who has had a very similar cardiac experience to myself (two stents to my one) following a heart 'incident' at an East Fortune motorbike race meeting. He's in good spirits, but this angioplasty business is different for everyone. I had a dreadful time for the first month, then a worse time, and then a slow recovery over the past six weeks until now I'm feeling almost normal. Not liking the drugs, but they're non-optional if the heart is to keep pumping and the blood flowing. Which is generally desirable. At least for me.

Our back garden tonight

Work today has been mostly to do with the Destination North Isles Project, which aims to put together a three-year tourism development plan for the Shetland islands of Unst, Fetlar and Yell. I'm currently doing some tourism development work for Unst, but a combined 'Great Northern' campaign would I think benefit all the communities. I'll be in Unst tomorrow (two ferry rides and an hour in the car). Very busy there at the moment with UnstFest. Check out the programme at www.unstfest.org

 I've also been relaying accommodation vacancies on the island for the weekend, which is set to be the busiest of the summer. unstnorthernmost.co.uk if you're interested. The afternoon brightened into a lovely evening, which saw Martha and Susan at the hill to raise our peats (the first process of drying after cutting). Mysteriously, they already have been raised. Nobody knows who's done this, or if they do they're not saying. But whoever you are, thanks a million.

Folk seem to like my Beatcroft Social Mixcloud music radio show (number three in Mixcloud's 'Classic Rock Chart!') Did a little work on a new show for Monday, with a high and rather beautiful Unst element. Dedications to Hugh (probably something about bikes; I'm getting twitchy during my first summer without one for a very long time)and for Gerry McGarvey, the only Shetland parliamentary candidate to have a song written about him by the Pearlfishers! Check the three current shows out at www.mixcloud.com/tom-morton2

 Oh, and I'm reading Daniel Woodrell's The Maid's Version, which is southern gothic so crisply written you can smell the Ozark dust.

Drift: Soundscape and Sculpture, Skaw Beach, Unst. Part of UnstFest

On arrival at Skaw, Unst

 I wish my thumb hadn't been so sore. I wish the weather hadn't been so cold. But on the 10th July, adjacent to the UK's Most Northerly House at Skaw, Unst, on one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, it was absolutely freezing and my thumb, recovering from being shut in the door of a Volvo XC90 (fully closed and locked) began to ache, spectacularly.

Which meant I rushed the last 10 or so of the (suggested) 45 minutes it takes to tour Vision Mechanics and Nordland Visual Theatre's installation 'Drift', and became increasingly irked by the somewhat florid Zetlandic musical pastiche hatched by the estimable Eddie McGuire to accompany the caped Drifter on his or her beach odyssey.  Songs were sung and a poised script read (in mostly convincing
Zetlandese) by Gerda Stevenson, all conveyed to me in digital purity via a kind of appropriate thumb drive. And headphones.

The compulsory cape didn't help. If it had been made of wool-lined Gore-texed oilskin it might have aided my concentration, but as it was, I felt like a bedraggled T in the Parker using last year's embarrassing waterproof. Still, if I was cold, think of the Vision Mechanics staff who are taking this show around Scotland (Burntisland and Nairn done, St Cyrus and Eigg to go). They're camping for the duration, in a classic canvas bell tent. Ah, but it has a cast-iron stove. That's very nearly cheating.

Still, I recommend Drift, partly because I'm a sucker for this kind of art-in-the-environment show, partly because some of the images are hauntingly odd and lovely, and partly because the story is so magnificent.

Every Shetlander and Soothmoother should know it: Betty Mouat, 61, sailing from Grutness to Lerwick to sell her knitting in January 1886. The crew of her boat are swept overboard, and Betty, alone and starving in storm after storm, is swept helplessly around the North Sea for a week, until the boat grounds at Lepsøy in Norway, with Betty safe, well and telling her tale for another 30 years. Drift delves beyond the surface narrative to examine what Betty's innermost thoughts may have been, and very haunting, yet uplifting it is. I particularly liked the meditation 'chapel' based on Romans Chapter Eight, Betty's favourite Bible verse: 'No condemnation'.

The drive to Skaw from Norwick is a piece of theatre in its own right, and Skaw itself is truly one of the world's wonders. If you can't get there (Drive to Aberdeen, 14 hour ferry to Shetland, hour's drive to Yell ferry, half hour across Yell, ferry to Unst, drive to top of world, descend to beach at end of world), then try to catch Drift in its other locations. You'll probably like the music more than I did.

But this is Scotland (and indeed Shetland, and in this case Unst) in July. Wrap up warm, and mind your fingers when shutting that car door.

UnstFest info: http://www.unstfest.org/

More about Drift and Vision Mechanics: http://visionmechanics.org/portfolio/drift/

Tonic for Unst as gin production set to start

Tonic for Unst as gin production set to start

(See full story and Smirk cartoon in this week's Shetland Times; available for Pagesuite PDF download here (£1): http://www.shetlandtimes.co.uk/ )

Britain’s most northerly gin distillery is set to begin operations in Unst next month. And it will have a true Shetland flavour, with botanicals such as juniper sourced in the isles.

The Shetland Distillery Company, headed up by Scotch Whisky industry veteran Stuart Nickerson, applied for planning permission last year for a boutique whisky distillery in one of the disused RAF buildings at Saxa Vord.

Whisky production is still Mr Nickerson’s intention, but any spirit produced in Scotland has to be aged for a minimum of three years before it can legally be sold as whisky. Gin, on the other hand, does not require ageing.

“I can confirm that we have ordered a gin still and that it will be installed at Saxa Vord in June,” Mr Nickerson said. “At the moment we are still finalising the secret recipe but our plans are to include at least some botanicals from Shetland, and preferably from Unst, in the first few batches.

“Eventually, we hope to source all the botanicals from Shetland. With the use of polytunnels you can grow most things.”

Mr Nickerson added that though no official name for the gin was being released, “we do have something in mind.”

This is not the first ‘Shetland gin’, and neither is it the first to be associated with a planned whisky distillery. It will, however, be the first spirit legally distilled in the isles. The controversial company Blackwood’s, under the management of Caroline Whitfield, first announced plans for a whisky distillery at Catfirth in 2002, and later transferred attentions to Unst. It produced Blackwood’s Dry Gin, distilled on the Scottish mainland but with botanicals allegedly harvested in Shetland.

The company went into administration in 2008 but, under new ownership, continues to make and market two varieties of ‘Shetland’ gin, as well as ‘Premium Nordic Vodka’ and Jago’s Vanilla Cream Liqueur, all manufactured on mainland Scotland.

Mr Nickerson is in partnership with Frank Strang, owner of the Saxa Vord site. In an article for Shetland Life last year, he said he was enthusiastic about Shetland as a site for a distillery, “because it is the last remaining part of Scotland that doesn’t have one. And it is the most northerly - it’s got a fantastic USP. And once you get to Shetland - I’ve lived in Orkney, I’ve lived all over the mainland - but Shetland has something unique, definitely.”

END