St. Kilda - it's a long way from anywhere

(Edited and updated from 14.9.10)

I've never been to St. Kilda and I'm never likely to, but it's held a place in my imagination for over 25 years. A few months ago when a friend told me she knew someone who was there, and did I know anything about the place, I was immediately transported back to my first lecture as an undergraduate at the University of Bath in 1983.

It was the opening lecture in a module about the sociology of industrial societies, and we were introduced to the subject with a 30 minute description and analysis of the UK's last example of a pre-industrial society. I found it fascinating, so much so that for the first and last time I went out and actually bought a book from a recommended reading list! (It very quickly became my habit to just photocopy anything I really wanted in the library - allowing myself a maximum of 10 A4 copies per book.) It was Tom Steel’s, The Life And Death Of St. Kilda.

A quick rummage through my files and I find this;

'Topic 1 St. Kilda 6.10.83

St. Kilda died on 30th August 1930 when it's remaining 37 residents were shipped of the island to the Scottish mainland, so ending a 1000 years of occupation.
- social organisation of this pre-industrial society had finally broken down.
- economy of sheep for wool, sea birds for feathers and oil.
- no specialised division of labour, all were boatman/ weavers/ farmers, some sexual division of labour...'