‘It’s just the cameras from the press men,’ one of the sailors explained as the St Kildans stepped back, startled. ‘There’s a lot of interest in your move over the water. They’ve been reporting it as far away as Australia and America and Canada.’

Effie frowned, unable to understand why. They had all grown used to the small cameras wielded by the tourists who came over on the steamships and paid them a few farthings to stand still, so that they might somehow freeze their images and show them to people at home; but these big, bright dishes were altogether larger and more violent, and she scowled at the trilby-hatted men standing behind them, their own faces obscured.

The gangway was thrown down with a clatter and the captain came to stand at the top, ready to shake the hands of the families that were alighting. Of the thirty-six islanders, all but nine were stopping here in Lochaline. The others – her Uncle Hamish and family, and Mary and Donald McKinnon with their new baby – would go on to Oban further down the coast, arriving tomorrow morning. It hadn’t been possible to keep their tight-knit community tightly knitted after all. There weren’t enough houses, or jobs, in just one place.

On paper, it hadn’t sounded too bad. She wouldn’t especially miss her uncle’s strict, self-imposed authority over them and although Donald was kind, Mary had always been a prickly and sour woman.

But as the moment came for the villagers to leave behind their old neighbours, an outpouring of sorrow escaped them. Was it the people or the place they would miss? Effie watched numbly as arguments, feuds and old debts were forgotten, as her cheeks were kissed and the men shook hands with characteristic solemnity; they put much store by a man’s grip – for an island nation of craggers, a solid grasp was as good a test of character as any. They would meet again, they assured. Letters would be written. Promises were made.

And then that was . . . it. The true moment of leaving their old lives was happening not as they had stepped off Hirta, but now, here, as they prepared to step ashore at Lochaline. For as long as they remained on the ship they were still as one, but the deep and profound entanglement of their island community was finally unbound and they would scatter now like dandelion seeds on the wind.

Who would take the first step? Everyone had gathered in their family groups. Flora had clutched her hard one last time, her body rigid, before going to stand by her parents.