Looking Back -- Part One

I had an interesting childhood. I was born in England, and my family and I travelled what seemed like the length and breadth of the UK before I emigrated to Canada when I was 17. My father was quite the entrepreneur, and had many different 'careers' which moved us in and out of many English counties and into Scotland, too. I attended six different schools in 11 years -- pretty tough on my social psyche. It got to the point where I didn't even try to make friends in a new location, knowing that we would surely be on the move again soon!

But I had some wonderful life experiences to make up for all of that.

England is a beautiful country with a fascinating history, and no matter where we lived, my father made sure we visited points of interest and historical value. My next few blogs will tell the tales...not necessarily in chronological order.

When I was 16, we moved to Prestwick, on the north-west coast of Scotland, where my father had taken the position of manager of a hotel located right on the sea-front. This was the view from my bedroom window on a stormy day -- and we had a lot of them!
But on a clear, sunny, summer day, it was a beautiful setting, with a view of the Isle of Arran off in the distance...not quite as close as this photo, but stunning, nevertheless. The Isle of Arran is actually situated in the Hebrides, south-western Scotland, in the Firth of Clyde near Glasgow.

It was decided, one day, that we should take a boat tour of the famous Fingal's Cave, on another island, the Isle of Staffa. So we drove to Oban to board a sight-seeing boat which took us out to the cave -- a pretty awesome sight.This is the entrance to the cave. It is too dangerous for boats to enter the cave, so we were dropped off just below where you can see the people on the ledges. I don't think they do that anymore -- considered too risky, so visitors are dropped off on a level stretch some distance away and they must walk around to the cave entrance. There are walkways inside the cave -- enter at your own risk -- but it's well worth it! This view is taken from the inside looking out -- on a calm day. When we were there the seas were rough, the tide was in, and the waves were slamming against the rocks. We got soaking wet -- a great adventure!

The cave is said to stretch 250 feet into the rock and its roof is 70 feet above sea level. Here is a description of the cave, from Wikipedia:

Fingal's Cave is formed entirely from hexagonally-jointed basalt columns, similar in structure to (and part of the same ancient lava flow as) the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland, and those of nearby Ulva. In both cases, the cooling surface of the mass of hot lava cracked in a hexagonal pattern in a similar way to drying mud cracking as it shrinks, and these cracks gradually extended down into the mass of lava as it cooled and shrank to form the columns which were subsequently exposed by erosion.

Its size and naturally arched roof, and the eerie sounds produced by the echoes of waves, give it the atmosphere of a natural cathedral. The cave's Gaelic name, Uamh-Binn, means "cave of melody."

That melody is what inspired Felix Mendelssohn to compose The Hebrides Overture, Opus 26 -- better known as Fingals Cave.

Click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne5sb1LBaJw&feature=related for a video tour of the cave, the island and surrounding area, with the overture playing in the background. You can 'hear' the waves in the music -- beautiful! (I tried to download the video, but just couldn't get it to work). It's well-worth watching it all the way through -- to hear the overture in its entirety; and the boat actually gets right to the entrance of the cave where you can get a good look at the structure of the columns.

Next post -- another Scottish site, with a facinating and inspiring story.