All language subtitles for The Isle of Rum

I love it here.
My bones want to rest here.

I'll just pick up the guitar,
play something, see what comes out.

No television, no radio, I don't
have that much of an interest in it.

But the guitar, it seems to work.
It was a therapy for myself,

and I just eventually squeezed
songs out and found lyrics,

it was years in the making.

My satin pyjamas...
I quite liked that.

It's maybe a sign of getting old,
is this is my midlife crisis?

But I got them because I...

wanted them, I suppose?

I tried them on and then went,
"These are quite nice".

I live in a caravan,

a caravan with a grandfather clock
and satin pyjamas. I know,

I can see
that would seem eccentric,

but I like what I like.

It makes me feel comfortable.

Comfortable
and a certain level of civilised.

David Beaton has lived on Rum
for 17 years.

He is the island's harbour master.

His shift starts very early today.

His ten-year-old son Andrew
is a night owl

and even manages to sleep through
the drive to the harbour.

Who knows what life will bring?
It's all whatever my son needs,

that's what
I would devote my life to

and as comfortable as I can
make him here. That's what I'll do.

David is divorced

and shares custody of son Andrew
with his ex-wife,

who also lives on the island.

David and Andrew are two of the 35
residents of the island of Rum.

It is part of the Inner Hebrides off
the north-west coast of Scotland.

Rum was privately owned

by aristocratic Scottish
family clans for centuries.

In the 1950s, the Scottish Natural
Heritage Fund acquired the island

and has supported its resettlement
ever since.

The few people here share the green
island with countless animals.

I think the islands have inherent
dwellers that are eccentric.

I wouldn't say
we're wired up differently.

It's just our values
are different, maybe.

We can enjoy ourselves on less.
We don't have to have.

"Oh, I need to go to the cinema.
Oh, I need to do that!"

You need that tied!

Oh, there's a leak!
It's sprung a leak!

We'll try another one?

These balloons...

The island is difficult to reach
because of the harsh climate.

The ferry takes two hours
from Mallaigh.

In bad weather, sometimes
it doesn't go at all for weeks.

Everything, from sofas to petrol,
has to be delivered.

In the summer months,
backpackers come to camp and hike.

Hi there.

Yes, Angus, I'll just get them down!

All right, anyone wishing to travel!

Rum has had no history. This is
the first real community where

children are now coming back,

or they have grown up
and grown into adulthood.

So, there's memories there they can
teach and pass on to other people,

rather than nobody knowing
anything about what happened.

We don't stray far from the plug,
with Rum being the smallest

inhabited space
with the largest amount of room.

But that was where
the infrastructure was put,

and we're all quite comfortable
in our houses,

with our strong Internet connection

and just getting on with it.

On his Friday tour,
David rumbles past Kinloch Castle.

The legendary castle
of the Bullough clan.

When we get to the post office,
there's...

everybody there.
Kim that does the tea shop,

she will be there.

There's Jed, Jinty and whatever
other volunteers are there

to take the stuff and put them
to the relevant points

quickly.
It works well, but at that point,

it's in between boats as well.
So, if we've got any day visitors,

the longer we take the stock away
so that the shop can reopen,

so that people can get a cup of tea,
can get an ice cream,

there's that 10, 15 minutes
where you do have this bustle

of everything happening at once.

We think it's the heart
of the village,

the shop and the post office
and obviously Kim's Kitchen.

That's where everybody meets.
That's where we all socialise.

That's where we have our barbecues.
It's where we have our game nights.

That's we have our roller skating
disco nights as well.

Kim?

Wouldn't be any chance
of a nice cup of coffee?

- Yeah, absolutely.
- Cheers. Thank you.

- Do you want some milk?
- Yes, thanks.

A wee splash of sugar.

A wee splash of sugar
and a wee drop of milk.

- So, I'm going to go off.
- Are you?

Yes. To a music festival.
So you're in charge.

- What could possibly go wrong?
- Well, exactly.

- Finished with this, Jim?
- Yeah.

I quite enjoy working for myself

but I also know
that if I don't put the work in,

I'm not going to get
anything out of it.

So, I like making my own money.

The first ones are in at...

six o'clock.

- Six?
- Yeah. One curry,

one fish pie
and four sloe gin...

cheesecakes.

And I like being able
to support myself and my child.

I think that's really important.

And I enjoy my work,

I enjoy going
to Kim's Kitchen every day.

Even though it can be
really long hours.

Sometimes it can be 13,

maybe 15 hours a day,
and sometimes that's going to be

like that for four, five weeks,
and you don't get a day off.

But I enjoy doing it.

And I know

it will soon be winter and then
you have all the time in the world.

The inhabitants of the island of Rum
do not have their own dialect.

There are no traditions,

no rituals
like other areas of Scotland.

In 1826, around 400 people
still lived on the island.

Until they were all forced to leave
their homes within two years.

The clearances were
when a lot of the highlanders

and islanders were cleared off
the property to make room

for the sheep farming.

And that happened here.
So... at first,

they were given money to go off,
and they were forced off their land

and the roofs were taken off
their houses

and trees were planted,
so they could never come back.

We don't have any island natives,
the only natives are our kids now

and even then they're not born
on the island,

they're born on the mainland.

So, out of the whole small Isles,
we are the only one with no natives,

which is really quite horrible
when you think about that.

But today's island life also poses
challenges for the inhabitants.

The romance, the simple life
and living off grid sounds romantic,

it's hard work.

It takes
a lot of preparation mentally

and with the physical things
that you've got to do.

Just making sure

you've got gas - enough to last.
If you run out of gas,

you can't cook
or you can't heat your water,

you can't do this
and you have to live

with that mismanagement.

If you've allowed yourself
to run out of that,

then that can be the last straw
for a lot of people

that aren't used
to this way of life.

Fergus McGowan

sailed around the island
with three friends in 2019.

And had a wild idea along the way.

We've only been here
for the best part of a year

working on this business

and building this dream
of a distillery on the isle of Rum.

But we definitely see ourselves
getting closer to the community

and building deeper relations,
which we think is vital

to us succeeding because...

if you don't have the support
of people that are your neighbours

and the people that can help you out
at the drop of a hat,

you're not really going
to succeed yourself.

Fergus McGowan lives in Glasgow.

A day's journey away.

The Askival Rum
that the guys make here...

A fantastic bunch of lads that have
come up and just been wonderful.

The enthusiasm, the drive

and the quality
of what they have made here,

the rum from Rum
tastes like no other rum,

which is just typical of this place,

and it is more
like a single malt whisky.

I've only just met Fergus
and I really like their ideas,

and I like the fact
they're good with social media.

I like the fact that they've brought
a different business in.

And I think it's going to work.

I hope it's going to work.
But so far,

from the figures and from what
I've been talking to him about,

it really is working. And it's got
the potential to get even bigger.

The life of the islanders
largely takes place

along the three-kilometre-long road

between the post office
and the harbour.

In the middle lies Kinloch Castle,

the legendary castle
of the Bullough clan.

Visitors can only view it from the
outside, as it is so dilapidated.

I remember the first time
I got the ferry across

and we were standing in the bow,

and you think "this is mental",

like you just get greeted
by this whole host of trees

and the centre line
down the middle of the loch

is just this red castle.

This was the sort of
Highland retreat

because the head of the family
basically wanted to be Scottish.

If you go in the castle,

in the main hall
is a print of him in a kilt,

which is great.
He is wearing a tweed kilt,

with his stick
and looking very royalesque.

But he used to have mad parties here
and someone like

King George would come out
or something like that.

And it was... they were
supposedly quite scandalous,

ferries of women being escorted
from the mainland across.

The Bulloughs owned the island.

They didn't really let anyone on.
It was really for private parties,

you know, stuff like that.

Then Monica, the daughter,
she left

the whole island as a nature
reserve, so it would be protected.

Kim's son Ashton prepares
for the coming school week.

The older children on the island
go to school on the mainland

and stay there until Friday.

We don't have
a permanent school boat

that can take them
back and forth every day.

And you couldn't do that anyway
due to the weather.

So, that's quite a big factor.

Therefore, they made a purpose-built
hostel for the island kids.

They can spend all week there
and come home at the weekend,

and it gives them the chance to do
social activities they can't here.

There's youth club, swimming,
they can go cycling.

There's lots of different activities
they can do there

that they can't do here.

He went on the boat just before
his 12th birthday

and the first time,
usually the school boat comes in,

but it was too windy,

so he had to go on the Cal Mac.

That was a bit daunting for him,
but he'd been before to the hostel.

He had been there for a couple
of years beforehand in the summer,

so he knew where it was,
knew the staff, the set-up,

which was really good.

But the first time
that he went on the ferry

by himself

was quite a big thing.
I think it was a bit emotional.

If I'm right,
you owe me 20 quid, no 30 quid.

- Tenner.
- Twenty.

- Tenner.
- Fifteen!

- 12.50.
- Fifteen?

- 12.50.
- 14.99?

12.50 - and that is my final offer.

Like all islanders,
David has several jobs.

He is a harbour master, a craftsman,
a cook and... a fisherman.

Fishing since I was young,
and I was very good at it.

It feels nice when you can go out
and have the abundance of fish here.

That's quite a big eel!

There's a gentleman here
who loves eel,

but he's not here at the moment.

The eel catch I got for him,
it went back.

Quite a sizeable catch for
just a little bit of dead mackerel.

You never know what
you're going to pull out the sea.

We don't have a pallet lifter
on the island,

so we had to get all of our bottles
into our building,

and we ended up doing it
like Stonehenge.

We had rollers of wood and we pushed
the pallets of like almost a tonne

on the rollers, rolled them straight
into the building, which was...

- And it was the half brick...
- Yes.

I remember you going,
"Why does he need a half brick?"

I just need a half brick,

just to put
in the middle of the pallet

and then, once it's sitting there,
we can turn it in any direction.

Aye.

There's a Rum way of doing things,
definitely.

It's the sort of place where,
if you get onto the island

and you forget one tool,

you've got to sort of...
there's no way of getting it,

so you've got to be
really imaginative

about how you do things.

Which is a steep learning curve.

Very steep, but thankfully you have
a lot of tools lying about.

- 17 years of collecting things.
- Yes.

- 100%.
- Helps.

I know that the locals
on a Sunday morning

are more than likely
feeling fragile,

and the thought of making
their own breakfast

is certainly not going
to happen in the morning,

so it generally works in quite well
for me after the boat.

I try to get all the timings right
and knowing what some people like

and what they don't like.

I quite like people being fussy.

Cooking is a way
to make people happy.

I enjoy that
and I get the community around.

We don't seem to know
what time is here,

but we all kind of know
when the shop's open,

it's ingrained in our body clock.

Or we know what time to get up.

And we don't usually have to look
at the time.

Rum time is maybe a couple of hours
late or a couple of hours early.

There's never that in between,
none of us are ever on time.

The idea came when we were sailing
past the island in 2019,

all of us are sailors
in the business.

We thought it'd be a good idea
to make rum from Rum.

As everyone has, who has ever sailed
past the island.

But we thought
we'd actually try and do it.

It was bit of a crazy idea
after a bottle of whisky,

but it was definitely
a good idea.

It's been hundreds and hundreds
of hours of work,

but it's been a fun journey so far,
with Dave helping at every point.

Very good.
There we are!

Some use sugar kelp and other things
like that, but we use bull kelp

because when you roast bull kelp,

it gives it a sort of
dark chocolatey umaminess.

It gives it a depth of flavour
that you sort of get from whiskies.

- You keep it to yourself, dog.
- You helping, Poz?

Imagine you've just taken
a roast beef out of the oven,

and you'll get that hit of flavour.

That's something you get
with the kelp as well.

Kim doesn't like to ask for help.

But David knows she has to butcher
a deer today

and rows over to give a hand.

If someone told me ten years ago
I'd be doing something like this,

I'd have laughed in their face
because I thought there's no way.

I used to sometimes look after some
of the kids on island.

Instead of me getting paid in cash,
I was getting paid in venison.

So, I would help butcher
that venison and

that's how it all kind of started.
I was getting venison for the cafeI?,

and then I decided, look,
I want to take this a step further

because this could be utilised

and it's not,
and it's a natural resource.

I was helping Kim just processing
a leg of deer.

The venison here is delicious,
the things that she does with it.

Fantastic. Venison lasagne.

Everything she does
with it is fantastic.

It's just nice to be able to sustain
ourselves from the natural resource,

which is one of the biggest
resources we have,

is the red deer.

I decided that I was going to start
from scratch, that's what I've done.

That's where I butcher
and process it myself.

So... I'm in a non-traditional role
as a woman.

And I quite enjoy it.

I get asked to do something.
Then I wander round

and pick whichever section of wood

I can best see that working
for that sculpture.

Be it the movement of the grain
of the wood, how knots

would sit or lie, branches
coming off to give strength

to certain parts of the sculpture.

And after that,
it's very touchy feely,

very just feel the fear
and get in and go for it.

And then, as it goes on,
things present themselves.

It's almost like a dance, I suppose,
and not a lot of thinking.

Really, I'm just
growing the shapes and

patterns, trying to follow lines,
if I can see the animal within it.

My father was a dab hand
with any tools could get ahold of.

He was quite a handyman.

And now my son,

who's got into clay stuff,

he says, "Daddy you work in wood,
I work in clay".

OK. So... I find myself
making armatures

for his weird and wonderful
sculptures that he wants to do,

which are all related to cartoons,
movies, just all from memory.

He just sets to it.
And out it comes. Some of them

are quite brilliant,
I'm quite proud.

Fergus McGowan not only needs
seaweed for his Askival Rum

but also herbs and flowers.

When we're going foraging,
we've got basically all mapped out

where we can actually
get our botanicals from.

And then, what we try to do...
is change around where we do it,

where we get them from,
so we're not overfarming an area.

It's the same for the kelp.
So sometimes,

we'll go in front of Dave's pier
or go over to Harris or Kilmore,

try to space it out a bit.
The same with the meadowsweet,

but because of the abundance of them
all, it isn't too much of an issue.

Harris being ten miles, which is
what, thirteen odd kilometres...

it's going to take an hour
to drive down there normally.

It can be done faster, but again,
the roads just don't allow that.

And the vehicles
don't like it either.

The Harris lodge,
across the other side of the island,

a hunting lodge
built by Bullough

for his guests.
It does have so much potential.

There has been quite a few members
of the community,

myself included, have had ideas
to bring that building

back into working serviceable life.

I, for one, would love
to change it into a bunkhouse.

That is basically a manned bothy,

so that you can still...
Using that as a base,

so that they can go and walk hills,

which may not be possible
from this side of the island.

Making sure everybody here
is happy rather than just

developing too quickly.

That walking before you run,

sort of business.
Yes, we need more people coming on.

Yes, there is a potential for it.

Then we've got to look
at the infrastructure

first and take these steps slowly,

rather than
just inserting something,

letting it grow organically
has always been the best way

in almost everything, I believe.

And making sure that we're looking
after the members of the community

that we have here just now.

Do you want this in the kitchen?

No, that box on the slab will do,

that's the mackerel.

Salt and pepper
and sitting outside will do.

Very good.

Those who live here
have to endure loneliness.

Especially in winter,
which is slowly approaching.

Until then, the residents of Rum

enjoy every opportunity
to barbecue together.

We're certainly a community.
We don't all

get on all the time,
if we did that would just be weird.

There's a lot of us have got our own

different ways of thinking,
and that's everybody's right.

It would be very strange
if we all got on.

Yes, we are all going
in this direction!

I'd rather have frictions
and points brought up but...

valid points as well.

You can't have it be like a cult,
I suppose, instead of a community.

Never be without a Guinness!

They might not deal with social
isolation, particularly in winter.

You can't just pop out
to your normal supermarket.

You can't pop out to go shopping
for clothes or for electrical items.

Everything has to be planned.
You have to book your ferry tickets,

you have to book your car on,

and then you have to think about
getting all that stuff back.

For most people, it's great,
but other people,

they just wouldn't survive here.

I met Dave
probably about eight years ago.

I stayed at his house
with my son for a couple of weeks.

He is super talented.
He's good at odd jobs,

and he can fix quite a lot
of things. He's the pier master

and he's also really good fun.

Once you meet him,
you don't forget him.

He's a really good friend.

Kim leaves the island
for the first time in a long time.

Together with a friend,
she sets off

for a music festival in Mallaigh.

I always get quite nervous
when I leave the island -

and I'm not the only one
that feels like that. We all do.

Don't know why, none of us
understand the reasons why.

We have to be sure, double check
we've not forgotten anything.

But it's just the whole concept
of going off-island,

leaving behind your life

even though
you want to go off-island

because it's so different
in the mainland,

it's much faster paced.
Whereas here, we've not got that.

But once we're off-island,
we're fine.

Then we can't wait to get back!

And I think that quite a lot,
I enjoy my time off.

But sometimes, two days
can feel like three weeks.

That's when you're like,
"No, I need to get back".

Make love to it but don't...

F-C-U-K it.

I won't.

- Right.
- What time's the...

- is it running late?
- Yes.

It should be in by now.

Right.

We have mainland clothes,
and we have island clothes.

We don't wear our island clothes
on the mainland.

So we might have holes in our jeans,
holes in our leggings,

and that's just the way it is,

but then you wouldn't dare dress
like that on the mainland.

You make sure you've got make-up on.

But you really don't do
very much of that here.

The Rum inhabitants are used
to strangers coming and going.

But the whole island feels it when
one of their own is missing.

When we go off-island,
this is a downside of it.

You can have your scheduled break,
your holiday as it were

or even just going off
for the dentist.

Then things go wrong
and you don't get back home.

That can be the most frustrating.

And I think all of us
miss our home on Rum -

we've all got
very different ways of living,

but we all have a love
of coming home to this island.

Seeing people coming and leaving,
it's just inherently like that.

I mean, there's been quite a few
friends, you've grown to love them

as people, friends, neighbours.

Then the ferry takes them away.

You just have
to deal with it, really.

It's almost like having children,
you only got them for a short time.

You've got them on loan
and nothing's a guarantee.

Just make the most of the people
whilst they're here.

Suppose it's like love. If they love
you enough, they'll come back,

say hello, hassle you
for a cup of tea. Whatever. Yeah.

The island changes,

finds new inhabitants
with new dreams.

Experiences are shared

and eventually
become shared memories.

Only one thing does not change.

The island of Rum
never lets go of the people

who were once here.

My experience of Dave has been
amazing, to be honest,

because he has been
an absolute life saver for us.

Through our whole building up,
refurbishment of our production

and every single step of the way,
he's been indispensable.

The future of the island of Rum
and the future of Scotland.

I wish I had a crystal ball.

No, I don't,
it would terrify me.

I have no idea. It's hard
to see what the future will bring.

I see Rum being quite exciting.

It's getting to that stage
where there's a vibe bubbling,

and yes, it is quite
an exciting place to be.

We've got a lot of natural resources
here. We can go foraging.

We have chanterelle mushrooms
and chestnut mushrooms

and lots of wild mint.
And we've even got bamboo here,

so we can easily improvise
with certain things.

But you just have to learn to adapt,

that there's certain things
you can't get.

When you go to the mainland
for the holiday, you make sure

your car's packed to the brim
with the stuff you can't get

and you bring it back.

I see the future of the island
as a very prosperous future

because of what the community
are doing on the island

and all the entrepreneurial spirits

and banding together to create more
of a brand with the island.

It's a really good standing towards
building a more exciting place.

I think a lot of us may be stuck
in our own wee ways,

but we need to also look
to the future and see how we can

redevelop the island,
to a certain extent,

with the existing infrastructure.

So that we can attract other people
to the island

and so that we can secure
some sort of future

for any of the kids
that want to come here.

For the long term residents
and for residents still to come.

I found a place that just knitted
with my soul, as it were,

I didn't want to leave,
still don't want to leave.

I've gone through my trials
and tribulations here.

I still love the place
and don't wish to leave.

I'm sure that's the same for a lot
of the other residents here.

It...

it kind of ruins you
for living anywhere else.

And why would you?