Part I: Seals teeth and whales ears - Scott Polar Research Institute ...

Next day Brenda was off Rona at midday in a moderate swell. The boat took Jim
in to inspect the eastern landing, but it didn't look too good, so we had lunch
aboard before the boat went inshore again. Eventually we landed all our gear by
means of a small motor boat, which had to come in to a certain rocky ledge - the
only suitable place. We were then able to land the gear and then moved boxes and
packages up to the grassy part on top and set up the two Antarctic pyramid tents
in the shelter of the "fank", a stone-walled sheep pen from former days. We passed
a good night in the tents and woke to a fine day, with a slight breeze.
We carried our gear on Commando carriers over to the south side of the island,
where the original inhabitants used to live. Last century the island supported
about 30 people - who must have had an unusually hard life. There were five
households in the seventeenth century but no one has lived there since 1844 and it
is still very seldom visited. The islanders lived in stone houses, sunk into the
ground and covered with peat. We took over one of these, now known ironically
as ‘the Manse’, open to the sky and about 18 by 8 ft in size. We fitted a ridge-pole -
an old ship’s spar - roofed it with tarpaulins and brought over several loads of
equipment and food. We stuffed turf and moss into the cracks in the walls, making
a comfortable abode by the time we had finished Although it was draughty and
damp, it made a secure home for the rest of our stay. We had to weight the roof
down with stones and criss-crossed ropes to prevent it blowing away in the gales!
We had a calor gas stove to cook on (2 burners) and a paraffin lamp. Our
accommodation was rather Spartan, with a rough earth and rock floor, over parts
of which we had spread a tarpaulin. Despite the fact that we had removed angular
stones and attempted to make the floor smoother, it was un comfortable, but we
were usually so tired that we quickly fell asleep and slept like the proverbial logs.
Also, between us we had about ten different varieties of malt whisky and one of
our evening activities was to have blind tastings to see which came out best. This
also made for a good night’s sleep!
One reason for living here was that the only suitable water supply on the island
is on the South coast - presumably the reason for originally siting the settlement
there. The island first came to public attention when the Scottish naturalist Dr
Frank Fraser Darling erected a simple hut and lived there for a year with his wife
and family in the 1930s. He wrote a successful book ‘A naturalist on Rona’ about
the experience published in 1936. According to Darling the village is the site of a
stone age settlement. He was a mentor and good friend of Morton’s, who has
published books about him.
Just north of the dwellings is St Ronan's cell, a chapel and a burial ground. St
Ronan was a hermit monk of the eighth or ninth century and his cell is about 12 ft
by 8 ft. built in dry stone, the 10 ft high walls leaning inwards and narrowing to 2
ft apart at the top. It is linked to the larger rectangular chapel by a low doorway.
There are three crosses in the burial ground. Sloping south from the village there
are about 12 ha of lazybeds, soil banked in low ridges, giving the hillside a striped
appearance in the long evening shadows.
Our water supply was from a spring down the slope, near the shore and we
had to carry our supplies up from there. The domestic arrangements were
primitive and the food was rather basic - cooking on primus stoves. I was
introduced to the scottish "bap" - a circular bread bun, about 5-6 inches in diameter
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