The St Kilda mail
To round off the year and the story of St Kilda mail, we move forward from the days of the Fleetwood trawlers’ role in mail delivery mentioned in last month’s article.
As Fleetwood trawlers moved south to other fishing grounds, their place was taken in the early ‘60s by both French and Spanish trawlers, often to be found breaking their journey or sheltering in Village Bay.
On occasions, and particularly during the winter months when LCTs did not make the journey to St Kilda, the foreign trawlers provided other means of getting mail off St Kilda. A good relationship built up between the fishermen and the new St Kilda occupants, and services were exchanged amicably, including the carrying of mail in exchange for fresh bread from the Cookhouse! Here we have an example of mail addressed to Edinburgh via San Sebastian!
Over the summer months, mail was carried by landing craft (LCTs) and we see examples of such items of mail exhibiting the official registration number of the vessel carrying the mail. The item of mail illustrated was carried on LCT 4062 named Aachen. The photograph shows LCT 4041 named Abbeville, berthed at Loch Carnan pier. The landing craft fleet engaged in marine logistics at that time adopted names from Second World War battles and included, over and above the foregoing names, other names including Agheila, Audemar, Ardennes, Antwerp, Arromanches and Arakan.
Moving from maritime mail to airmail, occasional helicopter visits, often for emergency medical evacuation, would be used for the dispatch of mail.
At the same time, “experiments” were taking place with small aircraft dropping stores and newspapers by low swoop over the island – sometimes a hit or a miss!
Following a period of trial and error, an “Airdrop” contract was set up with Airwork Services of Perth, operating from Scone airfield and stopping at Benbecula to pick up their consignment for St Kilda. The first official airdrop took place on 19th August 1960, and given the number of both military personnel and civilian contractor employees present on St Kilda at that time, each airdropped delivery could contain two to three hundred items of mail.
In the first edition for the new year (February 2023) we will look at the more unconventional communication method of St Kilda mailboats.
