AT JUST 70p, the guided tour services of Bob Leaper are a bargain. Just stick
your hand out and he will pick you up in his red Peugeot estate. He will
give you a longer tour if you want: £3 for about two hours. You can hear all
about the island he has lived on for nearly 30 years, meet some of the local
characters and spot some of Britain’s rarest birds.
But there’s just one thing. You don’t mind stopping every few hundred yards,
do you? Because Bob is a postman.
In the UK there are more than 230 Royal Mail “postbus” routes on which the
postman or postwoman delivers letters and parcels, but accepts fare-paying
passengers as well.
They have been operating since 1967, providing a regular mail service as well
as public transport for locals and tourists, in vehicles ranging from
four-passenger Land Rovers to 14-seater minibuses. If you don’t have a car,
or just want a weekend away from the wheel, they are a great way to see the
countryside while someone else drives, or for a lift to a remote spot then
hiking back.
And Fetlar in the Shetland Islands, where Bob lives, is just about as remote
as it gets in the UK.
Getting there is half the fun. The first part of the journey involves either
the 12-hour ferry from Aberdeen to Lerwick, on the “mainland”, as Shetland,
the biggest island in the group is referred to, or a flight to Sumburgh, at
its southern tip, from Aberdeen or Inverness.
Picking up a hire car or using the efficient bus system, you pass settlements
with names that sound like the inspiration for the Harry Potter novels.
Heading north via Fladdabister and Quarff, around Lerwick and away from
Twall you arrive at Toft for the 20-minute ferry crossing to the island of
Yell.
Continuing across the moors of Yell, stopping short of the northernmost point
at Gloup, you will probably have to spend the night in Mrs Tulloch’s B&B
at Gutcher, which is no bad thing, judging by the friendly welcome and
filling meal I received. Gail Thomas, a teacher from North London, was also
there with her husband Stephen.
“You have a feeling here of getting off the edge of the world,” said Gail. “We
were sitting on a beach today, eating sandwiches, watching a seal watch us.
It was lovely.”
You’re almost at Fetlar but not quite. One more ferry to go. There’s one at
7.25am which takes half an hour to reach Oddsta on the island’s northwest
corner. I took it on a muggy summer day. Once on the other side, there to
greet me and hand over the outgoing mail to the ferry captain, was postman
Bob and his pillar-box-red Peugeot.
Fetlar, roughly seven miles by three, used to have a population of 1,000. That
was before the clearances of the early 19th century, when crofters were
forced off the land to make way for more profitable sheep farming, Bob told
me. Thousands from the Highlands and islands left for the cities, such as
Glasgow and Dundee; many more headed for the New World.
Now there are only about 70 people on Fetlar. It’s known as the Garden of
Shetland, being more fertile than much of the rest of the archipelago, but
it still has a raw air, accentuated the day I visited by low, swirling mists
sweeping in off the sea. It was a shame the weather made it difficult to
make out the prettily named wild flowers — such as the frog orchid, creeping
willow, water aven, knotted pearlwort and lesser twayblade — that carpet the
land in summer.
Bob had a few chores to do before we delivered the mail (he also oversees the
local water supply and is a member of the coast guard) so I wandered down to
the beach at Tresta, alone except for a few gulls and a couple of cows that
meandered on to the football pitch behind. A bleak church up a pathway
looked unwelcoming, the gravestones battered by years of gales.
On the north side of the island is the Statutory Bird Sanctuary, which
contains Finnigert Dyke, Fetlar’s oldest surviving Bronze Age structure, and
nearby an ancient ring of stones known as the Haltadans, said to be a
fiddler and his wife who were petrified by the sun.
Then I made my way to the post office and store at Houbie to meet Bob. It
opened at 11am and on this particular Friday most of the village seemed to
be there, because fresh goods arrive each Thursday.
Once Bob had sorted his sack of mail we were off. I was the only one hitching
a ride that day. “Some weeks we get no one at all, then we will have a run
of full loads, normally visitors with big backpacks,” he said. “I meet lots
of interesting people, quite a few Norwegians, Dutch and Germans, not so
many English.”
As we pulled up at Winnie Thomason’s house, he dug out Winnie’s mail and
insisted that I come to meet her. “He’s a good man,” she said beaming. “He
picks me up and takes me to the shop.”
Continued on page 2
()I imagined everyone knew everyone on the island, but, in his position, does
Bob get to know more than most, I wondered? “If you were a nosey fellow, you
would know everything that was going on, but I’m not that way. I hardly ever
look at my own postcards, let alone other folks’.”
We drove east past Aith, past the school with its register of five pupils. One
of our last calls was at the Episcopalian community of nuns who make up the
Sisters of Our Lady of the Isles. Sister Mary Cuthbert, out walking her
spaniel, took the mail and waved us on our way, after a chat.
As we drove back to Houbie, Bob stopped at the Fetlar Interpretive Centre, a
small but impressive museum chronicling the history of the island.
Then he dropped me at the ferry, and half an hour later I was back on Yell.
The sea mist was getting thicker as I stood on the jetty at Gutcher, looking
out towards Fetlar, planning where to spend that night.
Returned to sender, address, as yet, unknown.
Need to know
Getting there: Will Hide travelled with bmi (0870 6070555,
www.flybmi.com) from Heathrow to Aberdeen; return fares from £65-£60.
He flew on from Aberdeen to Sumburgh with Loganair (0870 8509850,
www.loganair.co.uk). Return fares from £97.10.
Ferry: Northlink Ferries (0845 6000449,
www.northlinkferries.co.uk) has a daily ferry from Aberdeen to Lerwick with
one-way fares from £25.20.
Staying: Gourd B&B (01957 733227) £37pp dinner, B&B.
The Post Office, Gutcher (744201); £20pp B&B.
FIRST CLASS TRAVEL
UK
THERE are more than 230 post bus routes in the UK, at least 120 of them in
Scotland and some in the Midlands and the South East of England. Fares range
from 40p to £5; most services are Mon-Fri.
Details: 0845 7740740, www.royalmail.com/postbus.
Switzerland
HORSE-DRAWN post coaches accepted passengers as early as 1849, and by 1913 1.8
million Swiss a year were using them. It’s now so developed that there’s
even a tour operator service for package holidays by post bus.
Buses are a distinctive yellow and have an iconic three-note horn. High Alpine
and Jura passes such as Simplon, Julier, Maloja, Ofenpass, Les Mosses,
Pillon and Passwang are served year-round, while Grimsel, Furka, Susten,
Gotthard, Splügen and San Bernardino are summer only.
Details: 00 41 33 828 8838, www.postbus.ch.
Austria
THE first Austrian post bus was introduced in 1907 between Neumarkt and
Predazzo. Now they are owned by Austrian Railways and offer 1,600 efficient
services a day, including a ski service in winter and a hiking service in
summer.
Details: Austrian National Tourist Office (0845 1011818, www.austria.info/uk).
Post.Bus (00 43 1 794440, www.postbus.at).
Australia
IN the Outback several companies offer the chance to hitch a ride with the
mail plane. You can join the world’s longest mail run in South Australia,
delivering post to stations in the Northern Flinders range and farther into
the desert. Airlines of South Australia operates a four-day package from
Port Augusta from £369 including flights, accommodation and most meals.
Details: 00 61 8 8642 3100, www.airlinesofsa.com.au.
