as a wife, mother, crofter, carer, B and B, tutor,  community clerk, luckily not all at once!  The B and B meant the house was busy, lighthouse artificers, students, ecologists, and many nationalities, our children still remember camping in sleeping-bags on haybales in the Bedford, when a TV crew was staying.

Days were full and often nights as there were emergency call outs, husband Tommy was assistant to the mainland vet, and stocked and administered livestock medicines. Or when there was a problem with the island water supply, he had to wade into the loch to locate the spring, or wrestle with a recalcitrant generator. After several night calls I was making him a cup of cocoa, turned out I’d used Bisto,  no electricity at that time!

My journey to Catholicism began very early, as my grandmother’s friend took me in my pram to St Mary, Star of the Sea, to Mass. I loved the beauty and the sense of peace which filled the church. It was a dangerous time, bombs were falling, barrage balloons floated like great silver fish over the docks, planes droned overhead, and sirens wailed , a terrifying sound at night, and I remember being carried down into the cellar.

I was confirmed at 15 in St James, in Leith,  and was drawn to the mysticism of Catholicism, the writings of Mother Julian of Norwich, Van Ruysbroeck, and Thomas à Kempis, and especially to Compline, with its comforting words.

The sea was my companion on the island; on the daily walk along the shore to my father-in-law, my inherited rosary beads were worn smooth and one day they slipped from my pocket and were lost among the sand dunes where the seals slept, and the native sheep browsed seaweed in the ebb. Often it was stormy, the waves breaking on the sand, or thundering too close to my feet.   

The  Memorare, the Salve Regina and Mother of Christ the Redeemer, were part of that journey.  ‘Hail Queen of Heaven, the Ocean’s Star’ was an anchor for me, when the sea was rough, or thick fog rolled in, obliterating everything in a cold white silence.   At night there was the starry sky, the vastness of God’s creation, and the sense of the transience of our lives within it, the joy and sorrow, the laughter and tears.

Fr Ronald Walls welcomed me into the Catholic Church in Kirkwall many years ago. Every time we were in Portobello visiting the family I went to St John’s, which felt like returning home, the Mass, the church family, and the joy of sharing the Peace. Covid, although terrible, let us join in online, and the support of Fr Jock and Deacon Eddie kept us going through the hardest of times.

Life has come full circle.  I feel that I was guided gently and steadily through calm and stormy waters ‘ to the harbour where we desire to be. ‘

Christine Muir