Paul Sharman

St Kilda Resettlement Paul Sharman

Set in the very near future, the North Atlantic outpost is once again evacuated. For the military occupiers there were just too many problems at St Kilda. The Western Islands Trust, owners and managers of the iconic North Atlantic World Heritage Site employ a custodian family to resettle the village abandoned by its previous inhabitants back in 1930. The villagers left for a good reason - cultural change undermined their sustainable way of life as the natural world around them was trampled by the march of modernity. Older meanings were replaced by written scriptures, homes built to embrace the environment were demolished in favour of an architect designed development. Open fields divided and allocated within high stone walls broke the age-old tradition of sharing the common burden. Male elders arrived to dominate the community, compounded in the twentieth century when scientists and the military managed the island. With a heavy imbalance against women on the island, the community was never going to be viable. When they arrived, the Williams and their daughters were determined to make a fresh start both for themselves and for St Kilda. They could never have been prepared for the unseen resentment awaiting them. It could have been something in the water but for the Williams, their road to hell was paved with good intention but it led to a landscape of murder and madness.