The Fragile Islands

Bettina Selby, traveller and explorer decided to spend a long summer idyll re-visiting the far flung islands of the Outer Hebrides. With an 'all-terrain' bicycle and a small tent she sets out on a leisurely tour following forgotten tracks and byways into deserted corners. She finds that neither wild weather, nor midges, nor even a sprained ankle can dampen her enthusiasm for this fascinating threatened habitat. Her interest in the people of the islands, their history and traditions is equally strong and the pages are filled with a range of characters from those whose families have crofted and fished for generations, to 'white setlers' from the south who have come to seek an alternative life-style to 21st century materialism, With a shrewd insight and a certain laconic humour, Bettina Selby gives an informed and unsentimental outsider's view. And through it all there shines a love and concern for these marvellous but Fragile Islands, and compassion for a people's unenvialbe history