Romesh Gunesekera's Jura Diary

JURA MAGIC

Jura, for George Orwell, was ungetatable. Solitude, sea and sky.
I expected nothing more except, with luck, the final shape of my new novel and a story for the radio. Scotland had worked for me before: Reef was clarified in the clear light of Lismore, for The Sandglass Speyside distilleries proved crucial, Heaven’s Edge needed Skye (and subliminally Jura through Orwell’s 1984), and my last novel, The Match, had the benefit of a respite in cricket-free Stromness. A quiet month in Jura was exactly what I needed.
As it turned out, I don’t think I have had such a hectic time in years.

On the first day, I wake up at six. The view is wonderful: huge blue-white sky, a glistening sea with the Small Isles dotted about. I am in the coral reef bedroom with conches, scallop shells, cowries and even Triton shells.
The village hall is across the road. Next to it, the only shop on the island. There I discover I need a diary: Monday is milk and bread, Tuesday is fresh vegetables, Wednesday meat, Thursday vegetables again, and Friday—can’t remember. I spot a notice for a 10K marathon next Saturday followed by a ceilidh for those still frisky at the end of it. I decide it might be a day to hide in my wonderfully appointed distillery garret.

Craighouse

View of Craighouse

I dive into the novel. I have been waiting for this moment for three months. When I emerge late in the afternoon, I go for a walk along the beach and then up to the Kilearnadail cemetery with its medieval gravestones. On my way, I pass a man playing cricket with his young son. Cricket? In Jura?

The rest of the week is full of small pleasures: discovering the seal permanently brooding on a rock 100 yards from the shore, watching a ménage à trois of swans—with five signets—on their daily commute across the bay, counting in the barley coming in and the husks going out in huge containers while 52 million litres of whisky slosh around the building next door. Meriam’s red post office van goes by at the same time each day. The butcher, Neil, arrives on Wednesday at noon and parks across the road from Jean’s fish van. Market day. The bank, on wheels, careers past. For a while, I feel I am in a Katie Morag story. But it is a fraught week: my 84-year old mother in London throws a wobbly and my mobile phone rings every hour. The googlies come from every direction for days: mother, sister, their neighbours, emergency services, ambulance nurses, hospital staff … but disaster is averted.By Saturday, things are briefly calmer. The novel beckons.

From my window, I see the crowds gathering for the 10K island marathon. I have to book a flight from Islay for a brief visit back to London. I get on the Internet but there is a power cut. I go down to the shop to find out what has happened. Before I know it, I am talked into the 10K race. I am told I can join the walkers. Two hours later, I have done the 10K. Possibly the most beautiful 10K one could do. For most of it, we each run or walk alone—there is not a soul to be seen. And, of course, in the evening, inevitably, I find myself at the ceilidh. Everyone is so friendly. I am told I won a prize on the 10K. My only athletic trophy ever.

Preparing for the 10K run

In my second week, I discover how quickly I have become accustomed to Jura. I can’t wait to get back from my two days in London, having dealt with the carer crisis—doctor, nurse, sister—and had tea, most surreally, at a Buckingham Palace Garden Party, with Christopher Robin, Alice and hundreds and thousands ...

On Thursday at six in the evening I go to Corran Sands, where I have been told that Jura’s cricket team meet to practice on the beach.

Cricket Playing on the beach

Hugh and Jane are there with a dog, lots of plastic bats and balls, and a million squadrons of terminator midges. Hugh says half a dozen players, sometimes more, come to learn about Jura’s fastest-growing sport every week. The aim is to get a team for the August match: Jura vs. the Rest of the World—provided the sheep graze the pitch down to size in time. Meanwhile we have the beach, which is lovely, even if the water is freezing and the midges infuriating. I discover that I have morphed into a slow-moving spinner from the fast-bowler of my childhood dreams. When I bat the Dutch master gardener of Jura, opposite me, discovers a knack for bodyline bowling with the first ball he has ever bowled in his life. A golfer on holiday becomes a star with the bat, and the two young kids who join us develop that look of being completely hooked.

At the weekend, I have a visitor: Willie the Brand Ambassador for Jura Whisky who used to be Distillery Manager, until another Willie took over (but now on holiday in Laos, while his deputy—Billy—looks after the place). He used to live in the Lodge until the fabulous makeover when Bambi, from Paris, came to transform it into the deer palace. He is showing a TV producer around and tells the story behind the Lodge and its occupants including the ghost who sleeps in one of the bedrooms. Afterwards I drive as far as I can away from the ghost to Ardlussy, 20 miles north—the end of the road—where the island Sports Day is being held. I resist the temptation to join in any more sports and sip tea by the marquee. The evening ceilidh this time is a huge affair with a thumping bass line that goes into the early hours and results in at least one broken arm.

Ceilidh dancing on Jura

Jura is now a hive of social activity. The Open Gardens week is on. I visit a number of amazing gardens where everything from Nepalese brambles to New Zealand tea-trees are grown. There is a short story for me somewhere here … The following weekend sees the official opening of the mainland passenger ferry. A historic moment that finally puts paid to the notion of ‘ungetatable’. The pontoons are lined up, the pier is overhauled, blue lights twinkle, balloons and bunting fly. Finally a Civic Reception and a weekend Regatta with a ceilidh at the end of it that draws hundreds of youngsters who appear out of nowhere. The cars rev-up outside the village hall. The band plays all night until the last of the lads and lasses in black jeans and pink fairy wings fall in the sea. Jura is on the Today programme.

Jura Garden

In my final week, my wife and two daughters join me. Perfect timing for a very special island gathering: the Seafood Extravaganza. A Biennale of the sea. Once every two years the village hall becomes a banqueting hall: a dozen trestle tables are heaped with fabulous langoustines, smoked squat lobsters, oysters, wild salmon, mussels, clams, crabs. A fund-raising dinner and an auction of boat rides and whisky for a cancer charity. The fruits of the sea are presented like nowhere else in the world.

After that, all that is left for me is the pilgrimage to Barnhill where Orwell stayed un-got-at, except by one or two of the islanders I was lucky to meet. They tell stories from their childhood of a hungry tired writer who would stare out at the shimmering sea and rush back into his room to scribble his thoughts about Big Brother. Despite his imagination, I don’t think Orwell would have believed the story of the Jura I’d seen this summer: Jura with Internet access, mobile phone coverage and a new mainland passenger ferry. A Jura of extravagant seafood, an Asian-owned distillery switched on 24/7, the spirit of 1984 bottled for Japan and makeshift beach cricket à la Sri Lanka every Thursday evening with midges for crowds. As I write this list I realize that Jura itself, not only Scotland, has surprisingly close links to each of my novels—including the one I have not yet quite let go.
Does that mean every novel I write will have a little bit of Jura somewhere between the lines?

This article was first published in The Herald Newspaper on November 1st, 2008