Lesley Riddoch is one of Scotland’s leading broadcasters and she is famous for her interviewing prowess. She came to Balloch Library to discuss her book Riddoch on the Outer Hebrides. Although Lesley had to compete against the deciding matches of the Scottish football season there was a large crowd eager to her views on this culturally distinctive and beautiful area of Scotland. It was to prove to be one of the highlights of what has been a very successful Booked 2008.

Lesley told us about a two week trip to the Outer Hebrides in which she cycled around and interviewed people for the purposes of a radio programme and the book. Her thoughts on the Outer Hebrides proved to be thought-provoking, wide-ranging and possibly, controversial. She feels that in many respects that the Outer Hebrides are a microcosm of Scotland’s strengths and failings. We are inventive but we are poor at commercialising our inventions. The Outer Hebrides have often been the site of illicit whisky stills for centuries but there are no commercial distilleries on them. The past weighs heavily on the present in the islands and landscape is replete with meaning for the Gaels. Lesley feels that there is a grief in Gaelic culture and this can largely be attributed to the impact of the Clearances. She said that all Gaelic songs “are about the desperate, the dumped and the deid”. This focus on the past often means that people are not fully engaging with the challenges of the present and the future. There is still a yearning for the land even though it is extremely difficult to make a living from it; Lesley believes that the Outer Hebrides should be fully exploiting wind and wave power, which could make the islands an energy power-house and also bring about an economic transformation of one of the poorest areas of Scotland.

Lesley’s survey of the Outer Hebrides was delivered with great vigour and humour. She told of the laid-back attitudes in Barra where a shop signs proclaims “Open except when closed”. Although the islanders try to resist the encroachment of the modern world, which is often seen as a materialistic virus, they are making accommodations with modern technology such as mobile phones, in an attempt to keep young people happy. As one islander said, “If they can’t text and send pictures of their spots to another, life’s not worth living. When the sun shines there are few more beautiful places than the Outer Hebrides (there are five different words for blue in Gaelic indicating all the different tones of the sea), as was illustrated by the stunning slides that accompanied Lesley’s talk. She was asked many questions about the future of the islands and the Gaelic language and she effortlessly reeled of facts and figures to back the points she made. Lesley signed copies of her book and the laughter, discussion and debate continued until we all left late into the evening.