Stornoway - The Bigger Picture (Official Video)

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Footage courtesy and with thanks from The National Library of Scotland
Extracted from "The Evacutation of St kilda"

Our new video features old footage from the tiny island archipelago of St Kilda, which is the remotest part of the British Isles, being located 40 miles west of the Outer Hebrides. The sea cliffs are the highest in the UK and the islands were inhabited for over 2000 years until 1930 by up to 180 people, whose main form of sustenance came from eating seabirds and their eggs. The video shows a reenactment of the Lover's Stone ritual, where young St Kilda men would have to balance precariously on the 55m-high rock to prove their head for heights, before they would be allowed to work as bird catchers on the cliffs.
I have held a fascination with offshore islands and seabirds since visiting and working on Skomer Island about 12 years ago, and the coast is a big inspiration for our music - in fact the idea for 'The Bigger Picture' came to me whilst on a choppy sea crossing in Malaysia. I almost applied for a job on St Kilda 5 years ago when I was still working in wildlife conservation, but by that time I was already focused on the band. Happily a close friend got the job and lived on the island for almost a year, travelling out by helicopter - she even sent some post by the traditional method known as the 'St Kilda mailboat' (shown in the video) of throwing a letter out to sea sealed within a tiny vessel, in the hopes that the wind would carry it to the mainland. She received letters from me which were simply addressed to 'Bexs, St Kilda'!
I found this footage at the Scottish Screen Archive and thought it perfectly matched the song's freshness and lyrical message. I hope you agree!