Not such splendid isolation
A lockdown cycling odyssey Simon Parker set out on to stave off his anxiety disorder hit the skids when he reached a lonely North Unst
As I stomped over north Unst’s rolling hills of sodden, spongy peat, the silver-grey Atlantic swept westward in silky ripples. The waning autumn sun fractured into low, rusty beams and where the sea melded with the sky, I could just make out the flatbed shadow of a distant oil tanker.
This was the furthest point of walkable Britain, and I was the country’s northernmost human. Further north than St Petersburg or Stockholm, just Iceland and the Faeroe Islands lay between me and the North Pole. The air tasted cool, thick and green, like a dew-covered compost heap. But I was still short of the very end of the line. I continued over a potholed headland, with just a few soggy sheep for company, then scuttled down a slope of pickled, salt-sprayed grass where a pair of jet-black ravens jabbed and slashed at a rabbit’s mangled carcass. One misplaced foot and I would have plunged into the frothing sea or – a slightly better outcome – broken a leg tumbling into a concealed bog. I didn’t have any phone reception, just an instinct that I was heading the right way. So, I simply walked and walked until there was almost no earth left to carry me.
Perhaps it was foolish to be out there on my own, but I couldn’t bear the idea of cycling the length of the country and not actually clapping eyes on Britain’s northern point. Even if that meant a stubborn prologue in the wrong direction. Finally, after nearly 90 minutes, I saw what looked like a giant bowling pin perched on a pebble. Rising up from a serrated, slate-blue islet, it was the 64-foot-high Muckle Flugga Lighthouse. For over 150 years, “the Flugga” – as Shetlanders affectionately call it – had signalled the extreme north of our green and pleasant land. But as the rain sloshed in from the west, it seemed to sit precariously at the summit of a wholly different, uneasy country. A nation now divided by regional lockdowns, policed by millions of all-seeing eyes, peeking out over surgical face masks.
The Flugga was built in 1854 by the engineering brothers Thomas and David Stevenson. It was originally used to protect ships during the Crimean War, and then in the 20th century it became an optimistic maritime turning point at the confluence of the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea. The lighthouse was automated in 1995, but until then it had been Britain’s northernmost inhabited island. Lonely lighthouse keepers survived with little more than a radio – and their memories of home – for company.
The most famous of them, Lawrence Tulloch, had been a cricket devotee just like me. Growing up in the 1950s he used his pocket money to buy batteries for an old valve wireless, and then whiled away his blustery teenage summers listening to the clipped tones of commentators Brian Johnston and John Arlott on the BBC’S Test Match Special radio programme. Between 1970 and 1979 he was not only Britain’s northernmost lighthouse keeper, but he also proudly laid claim to the title of “Britain’s northernmost cricket fan”.
In August 2010 he appeared on Test Match Special, when England faced Pakistan at Lord’s. I remember being stopped in my tracks by his soft Scottish inflection, sprinkled with a hint of Shetlander-scandi twang. For the first time in my life, I learned of a windravaged squiggle at the top-right corner of the British map, the most socially distant household in the country.
Tulloch died in 2017, before I could get
One misplaced foot and I would have plunged into the frothing sea
up there to try and meet him, but for a few solemn minutes I paused in the presence of his excited ghost.
By the time I finally reached my bike, the sun was already teasing the southwest horizon and a hooley was blowing in from the sea. I figured I had an hour before dusk and maybe three hours until pitch black, so I clipped into my pedals and began to roll tentatively south. Way off behind me the Flugga’s lamp had started its computerised nightly cycle, flashing every 20 seconds toward the Arctic and then back to Britain. But ahead of me, the Shetland Islands rose and fell in a low and long undulation, like the rippled backbone of a giant iguana. I had no idea where I was heading that night, so I just followed the lonely single-track road. South, south, wherever it may flow.
I’d been desperate for isolation and to be free of people. But all of a sudden, I was actually there, feeling hopelessly alone. I’d naively envisaged cycling under a burnished Indian-summer sky, with Shetland ponies skipping beside me in breezy meadows. A few friendly locals would pop out to wish me bon voyage. The reality was considerably and embarrassingly different.
The first house I passed was a derelict croft, more Wicker Man than Last of the Summer Wine. A dozen or so sheep couldn’t even be bothered to muster a single “baa” between them. Then, in the first hamlet, Burrafirth, there was no sign of human life at all, apart from a laminated A4 sign on a fence post, advertising a two-bed house for rent at £275 a month. A cheap place to welcome in Armageddon, I thought to myself. Free up some extra cash for booze and strong opiates.
After half an hour of sweating and panting my way up a few gentle hills, I reached the small village of Haroldswick, where, at last, I spotted a postman holed up inside his bright-red van. “I’m trying to get south,” I shouted from about 30 feet away, to which he responded with a look of wide-eyed horror. “I’m sorry, I can’t hear you,” I said, clip-clopping toward him in my cycling shoes while winding down an imaginary car window with my gloved right hand. As I edged closer, I saw that he was veiled behind a face mask, goggles and latex gloves. In almost full PPE, he resembled a brain surgeon moonlighting for the Royal Mail. “I wonder if you know the way south,” I said again. At which point he shooed me away from his window, revved the engine a few times in neutral and then sped off into the distance.
My biggest fear had been realised within just the first couple of miles. And it had happened in one of Britain’s most isolated corners. I’d wanted this journey to be about meeting new people and telling their stories, while selfishly rediscovering my own sense of intrigue and wonder in the world. I needed these people – to help me heal in a way I couldn’t quite work out.
But they didn’t need me. What if no one wanted to speak to me? I couldn’t force anyone. Was I destined to spend the days alone on my bicycle, then my nights in a damp tent? I wondered if the whole silly idea was out of touch with the actual mood of the nation. I feared my actions might be brandished as egotistical, narcissistic and irresponsible. I cycled into a gloomy dusk while torturing myself with fictitious headlines. “Imbecile journalist revealed as Covid-19 superspreader.” “Petrified postman speeds off remote Shetland cliff.” “Cyclist abandons bike ride due to gangrenous saddle sores.”
Riding Out: A Journey of Love, Loss and New Beginnings by Simon Parker is out now, published by Summersdale Publishers at £16.99