Enjoy Shetland on the small screen.
1)
There's a moment in the latest series of the BBC crime drama Shetland when the camera pans slowly over the cliffs of Eshaness, north of the Shetland mainland.
The volcanic cliffs plunge into the indigo sea, its white waves. When I saw that shot, I quickly forgot the plot and imagined myself walking along those wind-blown cliffs, as I'd done many times before.
I never watched Shetland, which follows detective Jimmy Perez as he chases murderers and human trafficking rings across the subarctic Scottish archipelago. I didn't need to tune in to get a taste of the islands when I lived relatively close and could visit whenever my schedule allowed.
But when I posted photos of Shetland scenes on social media, the comments invariably referred to the show. In response to a shot of a lodberrie (a stone house built over the sea) in Lerwick, the islands' capital, a friend exclaimed: "That's Jimmy Perez's house!" I was once told that a stretch of golden sand that had caught my eye was at the centre of a drug-smuggling plot.
I'm not going home to Scotland this winter, so I'm watching Shetland on TV instead. Season 6 premiered in the US last month on BritBox, but I'm working through the episodes from the beginning, hoping to see familiar landscapes.
2)
Many visitors to Shetland have the opposite motivation: They long to see in person the landscapes they've only seen on screen. The show, which does an excellent job of showcasing its setting, has done wonders for tourism.
Between 2013, when the show premiered, and 2019, leisure visitors to Shetland increased by 53 per cent. A 2019 survey by VisitScotland, the national tourism body, found that 38 per cent of island leisure visitors cited the TV show as a reason for visiting. Of those, 87 per cent said "Shetland."
"A Danish couple were inspired to travel to Shetland to get married on the cliffs of Eshaness," says Steve Mathieson, Shetland Development Manager at VisitScotland, "and American visitors have travelled here with the sole intention of finding parts as extras."
3)
Writer Laurie Goodlad, a tour guide, has written Shetland-themed self-guided tours for the islands' tourist board. She says the show has had a positive effect beyond boosting tourism. Ten years ago, if you said you were from Shetland, people wouldn't know where it was."
4)
"Shetland is based on the novels of Ann Cleeves, who worked on the Fair Isle in the mid-70s. The island is also the setting for her 2010 novel "Blue Lightning", adapted for the show's second series.
Twenty-four miles off the mainland, Fair Isle is Britain's most remote inhabited island and is widely known for its bird observatory, where Cleeves worked as a cook.
In the summer of 2017, I followed in Cleeves' footsteps and got a short-term volunteer job at the observatory. I worked in the small bar for a few hours each evening in exchange for room and board—the rest of the time I spent exploring the island. Although only about three square miles, the coastline is so rugged with 'geos' - deep crevices in the cliffs - that it takes longer to walk around the circumference than you might think.
I walked across sloping emerald moorland and along the sharp edges of cliffs that plunged into the foaming sea, then sat down to watch the puffins that surrounded me as they returned to their burrows after a day's fishing. Twice, I saw pods of killer whales once they were hunting in the harbour as I stood on the pier just a few metres away.
5)
Those two weeks on Fair Isle, filled with such moments of intimacy with nature, sparked my love of the islands and inspired repeated visits to the archipelago.
Shetland comprises around 100 islands, 16 of which are inhabited. The mainland, the largest and most populated, is usually at the centre of the action in the television series. Its coastline, shaped for millennia by the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, is a place of dramatic beauty. Yet it's a low-key island, still undisturbed by mass tourism, and its beautiful beaches are often empty.
Shetland was part of the Kingdom of Norway from the 9th to the 15th centuries, and the archipelago is steeped in Norse heritage; Shetland's Nordic cross flag flies everywhere, and streets have names like King Haakon and King Harald.
Archaeological gems on the mainland include Jarlshof, with Bronze Age, Iron Age, Pictish, and Viking ruins, and the 2,000-year-old Broch of Mousa just off the coast. But the island is not stuck in the past: It has a thriving contemporary art scene centred on its modern waterfront venue, Mareel.
6)
Although there's a lot to see, I visit repeatedly to soak up the elemental experience of just being there. There's often a chance of being delayed by bad weather, so it's a place that forces me to be present, pay attention, and practice a slow approach to travel.
I could take one of the few daily flights to Shetland, but I've always preferred the state of suspension that ferry travel offers, that sense of being neither here nor there. So I take the long way round, on the MV Hjaltland (the Old Norse name for Shetland) or Hrossey (Orkney) from Aberdeen. The journey takes 12 to 14 hours, and when I wake up in Shetland, I feel as if I've travelled far beyond the northernmost reaches of Scotland.
Of course, Shetland's literary heritage extends beyond Cleeves's novels. "Dispecta est et Thule" - which roughly translates as "Even Thule was seen" - wrote the historian Tacitus in Agricola, his account of the Romans' arrival in Britain in 98 AD.
The Romans believed that "Ultima Thule", first mentioned by the Greek explorer Pytheas, was an island beyond Britain that marked the edge of the known world.
In his 1870s book "Ultima Thule", explorer Richard Francis Burton suggested that it was Foula, Shetland's westernmost island, which the Romans saw in Tacitus' account.
7)
Foula has some of the highest cliffs in Britain, a large puffin colony, no shops and a population of about 30. When I visited in the same summer of 2017, I was the only passenger on the fishing boat that makes its way there twice a week in rough seas.
My sea legs seemed to pass muster with the crew, who cheerfully shared stories of previous passengers vomiting and curling up on the floor. The thickly bearded captain, Magnus, told me that while Fair Isle is the most remote island in Britain, Foula, with its more tenuous links to the outside world, is the most isolated. When I arrived, the island was so shrouded in thick mist folds that it felt like 'The Edge of the World', as director Michael Powell titled the 1937 film he made there.
8)
If the Romans had gone any further north, they'd have found the natural end of Britain. On Unst, Shetland's northernmost inhabited island, I walked through the seabird-filled Hermaness National Nature Reserve to the island's northernmost point. Just offshore, the uninhabited island of Muckle Flugga jutted out of the North Sea, crowned by a lighthouse built by Thomas and David Stevenson, father and uncle of the writer Robert Louis.
Although Foula and Unst do not appear on Shetland, the legend shows that Unst inspired Stevenson's Treasure Island. I can trace at least part of my wanderlust and love of remote islands back to the book, so when I first visited this extreme place, closer to Norway than Edinburgh, I felt strangely at home.
9)
The landmass on the map of "Treasure Island" bears a convincing resemblance to Unst. Still, Stevenson never revealed the island's location, telling the Sydney Morning Herald only that "it is generally supposed to be in the West Indies".
But perhaps even this vague direction was intended to fool travellers. He added that he was "careful not to give any indication as to its whereabouts for fear that there might be an undue rush to it".
Stevenson's comments foreshadow today's overtourism problem, but perhaps he need not have worried. Shetland seems unfazed by its small-screen fame. "We don't have the problem that you see in areas of mainland Scotland that have been used as filming locations and [become] overrun with visitors," says Goodlad. "Shetland will never have that," she says, simply because it's not an easy place to get to with limited transport links.
"People have to want to come here."
Savouring the Shetland Islands on the small screen
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/shetland-islands-travel-vacation/2021/12/16/ab43b172-5c2f-11ec-ae5b-5002292337c7_story.html
Dougie Henshall is Offski from the Shetland TV Series
https://www.jamespirie.com/blog/post/shetland-tv-series-rocked-by-change
Shetland TV Series (2013–) 8.3/10
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2396135/
Shetland TV Series - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shetland_(TV_series)
Michelle Dockery and Douglas Henshall on Network | National Theatre
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zozf5tk61tU&t=203s
The actors reflect on the challenges and rewards of performing the roles of Diana Christensen and Max Schumacher in Network. Chaired by Yasmeen Khan.
'Shetland' Season 3 episode guide
https://cultbox.co.uk/spoilers/episode-guides/shetland-bbc-season-3-episode-guide
Shetland Season 3, Episode 2
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3nx9ev
Mystery channel
https://www.mystery.co.jp/join/?argument=J6kw6fU6&dmai=MYS_202212_BCIJ
Foreign drama "Shetland" Season 1 Mystery set in Scotland, Shetland Islands
https://note.com/yyy1994/n/n70c6cefad1b2
Fire festival celebrating Nordic Vikings, Shetland Islands, UK
https://www.afpbb.com/articles/-/3208822
The Story of the Shetland Bus
https://www.scallowaymuseum.org/the-shetland-bus.html
https://youtu.be/G9IGFKKDcKQ
This video introduces the Story of the Shetland Bus, the experiences of those involved with this WW2 operation, and how this operation is remembered in Shetland and Norway today.
A final-year student in Manchester has also produced a documentary on the Shetland Bus, which can be seen by selecting the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My0gKj5q98Q
Introduction
Germany's Invasion of Norway:
On 9 April 1940, German forces invaded Norway. The Norwegians were unprepared, and the country soon fell to the invaders. King Haakon VII and the Norwegian Royal Family and government went into exile in London. Thousands of Norwegians escaped to the west, mostly in fishing boats, to continue the fight for a free Norway. For the majority, Shetland was their landfall.
Birth of the 'Shetland Bus:
Large, disorganised resistance groups remained in Norway. The groups needed leaders, arms, equipment and expertise in sabotage to combat the invaders. Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister, set up a secret organisation, the Special Operations Executive (SOE), to work behind enemy lines with these groups. This required a regular transport system between the UK and Norway, and it could also provide an escape lifeline for refugees and fugitives. This is how the Shetland Bu" was conceived, using some of the many Norwegian fishing boats that had escaped. Hey were crewed by young Norwegian volunteers, primarily fishermen and seafarers, who made many hazardous trips across the North Sea in the dark and stormy winter months.
Operational Base:
Base headquarters were established at Flemington House, Kergord. The operational base, which had been at Lunna on the east coast, was moved to Scalloway in 1942, where it remained for the rest of the war. Scalloway became the 'home' for the crewmen. They were welcomed wholeheartedly into the community and formed highly valued friendships on both sides of the North Sea.
