Sep 20, 2001
Switch
Where we are going tomorrow, there are no modern amenities: official. Yahoo news covers a story in which a mother dashes 900 miles to deliver a GameBoy that her son forgot to pack – when he was going to the Isle of Iona on a school trip.
I don’t know about no amenities – my mum certainly has a telly, though I’m not sure that’s she’s watched it at all in the last five years, and fair enough, she doesn’t get channel five (but she should count her blessings, really), and ok, I’ll concede that in order to get a mobile phone signal my little sister has to go down to the beach and stand on a rock holding the phone at arm’s length, but you know, there are modern amenities on Iona. Honest.
Not so at Camas, though. Camas Tuath is an outdoor adventure centre on the Isle of Mull, a few miles from Iona. It’s based in four abandoned quarrymen’s cottages, which have since been used as a salmon fishing station and a rehabilitation for Borstal Boys. To get there, you need to walk a couple of miles across a peat bog and over a mountain – there is no road in, no vehicle access, and everything that needs to get to the camp (food, propane gas, firewood) has to either be hoiked in on the backs of visitors or staff or brought around the coastline by dinghy.
In 1995, I worked at Camas, and loved every minute of it. My sleeping quarters consisted of a garden shed, whitewashed inside, overlooking the sea. I swam every morning, though it was freezing. There was no electricity at the camp, and no running water, (and definitely no hot water), which meant doing everything by candlelight, from evening ablutions to ghost-storytelling around the fire (lit to scare off the midges).
The kids that came to stay at the camp, took part in kayaking and climbing and orienteering every day, as well as lots of team-building activities, brain-games and trust exercises. They mostly came from inner cities around the country, usually showed up in sparkling brand new trainers, carrying a portable stereo, booming dance music. When they asked where they could plug it in, we laughed. They echoed, hollowly “you mean you have no electricity? Like none? Not even a little bit?”
One of the first things I did when I started work there was buy a white plastic lightswitch from the local post office shop and screw it to the door jamb of the common room, where people usually spent each evening. That night, and throughout the rest of the season, I took great pleasure in catching kids unaware by asking them to switch the light on when dusk drew in. Out of habit, they lunged for the switch, and then, when nothing happened and they realised they had forgotten that there was no electricity, they blushed furiously and we had a good giggle. Funny? You bet. Cruel? Nah, not really.
Life without modern amenities was good, up there – it was simple and enjoyable. If anyone comes running up to me as I board the ferry at Oban, telling me I forgot my laptop, I shall fling them (and it) into the murky water by the ferry terminal. So there.
