Watch the Wall, My Darling

Dilapidation has an exquisite, poignant beauty. It confronts you with the arc of history: here is the end, what was the beginning? What was the vision? What was the story? What was the cost? Was it joyful? Whose weary legs laboured up and down those steps? Who waited anxiously in stormy darkness, arrival overdue, straining to hear squeaking rowlocks, snapping ropes or luffing sheets?

The OS say this is a pier. Technically, I think it's a jetty, but maybe they do not distinguish. The guide book says it was for the transport of cattle to and from summer grazing on the uninhabited small islets. Another adds that it was for the import of coal (this is how it all began - the first steps on the road that led to the warmest Remembrance Day ever).

But we are in the land of 'whisky caves'; a secluded harbour in a remote corner of an island far from the attention of law and state. This is placed not by the road, but across the loch, accessed from a quiet cart track, in the shelter of the hill, with a good view of all its approaches

This is a hard land; the living is not easy. A little dropped cargo from passing boats would have made life easier. A few unlabelled bottles going the other way would have helped open hatches and seal lips. None of this is the laird's concern

If history is just stories we tell each other about the past, then I like my story - it has enough colour to match the jetty wall