Northerly winds of change
FEW AIRPORTS IN THE BRITISH ISLES are more exciting to approach than Sumburgh Head. Bouncing in a propellered aircraft towards a single airstrip that runs the width of the rocky tip of the Shetland Islands (road traffic crossing the runway is sensibly held at bay during final descent) allows the passenger to imagine the thrill of aviation in the 1930s. It certainly beats falling towards Hounslow.
The Sumburgh lighthouse — built in 1821 — flashes past your window, and seconds later you touch down, squeeze out your bag from the tiny locker above your seat, and stride into a modest terminal building from where no taxis are waiting to take you anywhere.
This is the first in a series of dots that don’t quite join up. You have reached the sixtieth parallel and the most northerly archipelago of the United Kingdom. The Arctic Circle is closer to the Shetland Islands than London — a geography all too obvious in wintertime. It could scarcely be more remote. Yet here you are, searching for a bus timetable, yards away from the site where in 1977 airport contractors uncovered beads, pottery and the remains of 18 souls whose bones were carbon dated to 3,235 to 3,135 BC. Some of the oldest habitations in Europe have been unearthed on Shetland and the Orkney Islands, a 30-minute flight to the south. Of all the unpromising weather-lashed spots to choose, why did Neolithic Man settle here?
More immediately, where is the Hilton, Four Seasons or Best Western Premier Collection? For the last 40 years, billions of dollars of black gold has flowed into these islands, thanks to the Brent and Ninian pipelines feeding directly into the oil and gas terminal at Sullom Voe. So where are the R&R facilities for the international oil executives when they sweep
