Lesley Kahney will be spending the next few weeks volunteering on the little island of Eilean Ban.
Lesley has swapped the new city of Milton Keynes for the six-acre nature haven off the coast of mainland Scotland, which was once the residence of author and naturalist Gavin Maxwell.
Lesley will be keeping Total MK updated on her experiences during her time at Eilean Ban...
I’ve just reached Eilean Ban and will be volunteering here for the next two months.
I will live on the island in a bedsit in the old lighthouse keepers’ cottages on Eilean Ban, which is Gaelic for White Island.
Eilean Ban was the final home of Gavin Maxwell, author, naturalist, painter, and adventurer.
He is perhaps best known for his book ‘Ring of Bright Water’, which tells the moving story of his life with otters. Many people make a magical connection with his story, either through his beautifully written book or through the 1969 film by the same name.
Gavin came from an aristocratic background and led a sheltered childhood, finding boarding school at the age of 10 an unhappy experience.
His early experiences formed his love of nature and wildlife, and his books describe his unique way with animals, such as his ability to call wild geese to him as they flew overhead.
After a period as Lieutenant Instructor in the Special Operations Executive in Scotland during the Second World War, an unsuccessful period of running a Shark Fishery on the Isle of Soay to support the small local population, and a stint of being an artist, Gavin travelled to Iraq with Thesiger, a then famous explorer and travel writer.
There began his love affair with otters.
With little means to support himself, Gavin was given use of the cottage at ‘Camusfearna’, in the Western Highlands, and spent summers with his otters, learning and writing about his life with them.
Tragedy was to befall his haven, his ‘Avalon’. The house down on the beach by the ‘Ring of Bright Water’ made by the sea burnt down, killing one of his otters, Edal, with it. Gavin, heart-broken, moved to live on Eilean Ban, an old lighthouse island off the Isle of Skye for less than two years before he died in 1969.
The island now supports the Isle of Skye Bridge and is leased by the charitable trust the Eilean Ban Trust who run a Visitor Centre in Kyleakin on the Isle of Skye and offer tours round Gavin’s final home.
There is also a holiday let inside one of the lighthouse keepers’ cottages, a wonderful place to spend a holiday.
This will be my home for two months. I’ll be volunteering in the Visitor Centre and giving tours round the island, museum and lighthouse on other days.
It’s been a wild start with wintry weather but the trust support is immense.
I know this will be an experience to cherish. I hope to be painting and meditating in between volunteering duties.
Further information can be found at http://www.eileanban.org/
