Meet the new generation of baby boomers on Scotland's islands

Picture-postcard pretty, remote, lonely, very windswept and loved by tourists, it is perhaps the last place on Earth that might seem likely to be gripped by a population explosion.

Yet the patter of very tiny feet is set to sound very loudly across the island.

At least 20 women are said to be currently pregnant – a remarkable number on an island with a population of just over 1,100.

Not only that, but two years ago the number of babies also hit double digits with 16 births.

“Maybe it’s something in the water or too many power cuts,” says one bemused local currently counting the weeks to the arrival of his second Barra baby.

But while the baby boom has sparked countless “nudge-nudge” jokes, the tiny Barra does not appear to be the only one of Scotland’s scattered Hebridean islands to be experiencing a leap in little people.

Despite recent statistics, reported in The Herald on Sunday last week, that suggest the Western Isles are tottering on the brink of a major depopulation crisis almost on a par with the historic Clearances, it seems some islands are facing a different kind of problem – trying to find enough nursery space to cope.

In North Uist, Emily Durie looks out of her kitchen window over her yard where chickens peck and her children happily play towards a glassy sea loch and spectacular sunsets.

Her idyllic view is a long way from the hustle and bustle of Manchester where she used to live, and hundreds of miles from her family in the northeast of England.

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Durie arrived on the island with her architect husband Alex, 31, in the grip of a March storm just over two years ago to a house they’d never seen before. There was no internet, no phone line and only the warm welcome of their new North Uist neighbours to chase away fears that relocating to a west coast island with a 10-months-old baby may have been a mistake.

Yet, she insists, there’s no better place to raise Elsie, now three, and her two-year-old brother, Henry.

“There are plenty of children here,” says Durie, 33. A primary school teacher who specialises in outdoor learning, she is helping nursery schools across the Uists increase capacity by introducing outdoor classroom space.

“If all the children across the Uists were to take up their free childcare entitlement, the nurseries wouldn’t have the capacity,” she points out.

Around 100 miles across the Sea of the Hebrides in Eigg, former music journalist Sarah Boden, 41, has quit city life for sheep farming and raising son Arlo, four, and 10-months-old Ness with her musician partner Johnny Lynch, 38, on the island where she grew up.

Two years ago, news of a baby’s birth on Eigg made national headlines after its arrival pushed the number of residents over 100 for the first time in the island’s recent history. Ness was one of three babies born last year and another is due in April while a new family with two children is set to arrive in April.

“Part of the attraction is the people here,” says Boden. “It’s egalitarian, everyone has a similar standard of living which contributes to the community bond.

“In summer there’s so much going on. People are attracted to Eigg for its music events while in winter it’s more community-focused.”

But there are serious issues that young families have to consider, she warns. For example, the closest secondary school’s location in Mallaig means children leave Eigg for two weeks at a time to board on the mainland.

“The doctor comes every Tuesday, so if the children have a raging temperature you just have to work around it,” she adds. “It’s part and parcel of living here.”

Eigg’s population boom is being attributed in part to the 1997 community buyout. “Things are happening now,” says Maggie Fyffe, secretary of the Isle of Eigg Heritage Trust. The island is a bit more exciting than it used to be and that has attracted young people back.

“It’s a wonderful place to raise children. People don’t have the same kind of ‘stranger danger’, parents can let their children out the door and not worry.

“The children know everyone and they are never excluded. If there’s a ceilidh, the children come too.

“But the lack of housing is a big problem.”

It all sounds buoyant, yet recent statistics have made grim reading.

The number of babies born last year at the Western Isles hospital is said to have slumped to 143 compared to 188 four years before, and in the past 50 years, a dozen of the 29 islands of the Outer Hebrides have become officially uninhabited.

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Projections suggest a 13% population decline for Lewis and Harris by 2026, while – despite evidence of the baby boom – Barra is supposedly braced for a 17% slide in its numbers.

It has been suggested that the Western Isles’ overall population will fall from 27,250 in 2014 to 23,515 by 2039 – a projected decline of 3,735 people over the 25-year period.

According to Theona Morrison, founder and Director of CoDel, a project which supports enterprise and young people, statistics and birth records suggesting a downward shift across islands’ populations may not always tell the full story.

“The authorities must recognise it’s not all one way. There are places like Barra where there has been a real boost in population numbers. It’s worth remembering that not all babies on the islands are born there. Some may be parents returning to the islands with ‘ready-made’ children that don’t appear in the birth statistics.

“Others leave the islands to have their children in hospital in Inverness or Glasgow.

“The pre-school and primary school numbers are what we should be looking at. For example, in North Uist alone there’s a pre-school mums and tots group that has around 30 children.

“There have been six sets of twins in the last two years between Benbecula and North Uist.”

The boost in population was recognised in September in a statement from the Islands Revival, a project supported by the Scottish Government-funded Sefari Responsive Opportunity Initiative and led by the James Hutton Institute and SRUC.

Its Islands Revival declaration stated: “We affirm that there is credible evidence of ‘green shoots’ of population turnaround in the Scottish islands, which as yet does not show up in official statistics.

“This is illustrated by a number of examples of population growth in islands. It is also indicated by a more positive discourse on population change in island communities.

“It is supported by the changing perceptions of younger, economically active people, especially out-migrant islanders, who increasingly consider their birthplace as a place to return to, and at an earlier stage in their lives. Connectivity (especially social media) is playing an important role in popularising this attitude.

“It is important to acknowledge that the demographic aspirations of island communities are not necessarily ‘growth’, but rather sustainability, renewal, or restored viability, without risk to social, cultural and environmental assets.”

The project has also collected its own population statistics which show a 27% jump in population in West Harris between 2012 and 2019, a doubling in Eigg’s numbers since 1997, and growth in Westray in Orkney, Iona and Ulva.

Tiny Kerera in the Inner Hebrides, close to Oban, is also said to have doubled in numbers since 2011.

Meanwhile, on South Uist, numbers have just been boosted by one – although the birth won’t show up on official birth register for the islands.

Samantha MacCormick, 32, recently returned from working in Australia after six years and delivered her 7lb 8.5oz baby son Darradh in hospital in Glasgow on Thursday.

Alongside was her sister Christina Morrison, 28, who also returned to South Uist after living in Glasgow to raise Finn, three, and one-year-old April with husband Kevin, 35.

“In Glasgow, we were spending our time working. Every chance we got we were getting out of the city,” says Morrison, a marketing executive.

“We thought why not reverse that and live surrounded by beautiful scenery and enjoying the quality of life we want?

“When I was growing up I’d head out of the house in the morning and explore. My mum had no idea where I was but she knew I was safe.

“There’s a freedom here. We are a five-minute walk from the beach.

“It’s a special place.”