(No, not in that way).
In a random moment I said to Claire, who runs our tea shop,
that I'd be happy to help out with shifts as she is currently short
staffed. The tea shop was another reason
I agreed to come here. An island without
a tea shop is not an island as far as I'm concerned - I'd be rubbish on Desert
Island Discs!
Now she's taken me up on the offer and I am quaking at the
thought of having to do some actual work after many of my days so far have been
spent wandering around in a kind of dream, absorbing island life but not having
to contribute to it. I've wanted to -
I've felt strange not having any role to play.
But part of me has needed to "do nothing" - in other words to
play, rather than be at work. I hadn't
had a holiday since New Zealand and the past three months have been the hardest
I've ever known...true, but see how I'm already feeling the need to justify
"not doing anything" rather than just enjoying it.
In reality, doing something so new is so worthwhile in
itself, that I don't want to have to justify it. Didn't I want to leave London in order to get
away from the attitude that only work that makes money is worthwhile? I want to
work to live, not the other way around - even better I want work and life not
to be separate entities - work should have a "real" outcome not just
a financial one. So logically, here I am in a tea shop!
Teashop! Shown here on a "Community Teashop Day" with cakes by Fliss. |
The tea shop is a very important thing on Rum. It is run by Claire as a business, which is
more complicated than it sounds. It has huge benefits for the island as a whole - making a visit to Rum a more
inviting prospect, giving people somewhere to go for refreshment that isn't
their own kitchen - in other words creating a public space, which we otherwise don't really have except for the equally important "standing outside the shop with a beer" that takes place every evening. But it is also
important for Claire to be able to live from it, at least during the summer. This can be difficult, as it's near-impossible
to predict takings - like so much else on the island, visitor numbers are
weather-dependent besides being subject to the myserious laws of tea shops
everywhere in the world - why is everyone eating chocolate cake today when
yesterday they all wanted scones? Why is
there always a run on the most complicated food when we are short-staffed?
Claire rents the community hall in order to have a space but
uses her own equipment and pays her own staff.
Me! I am excited as well as scared - will I forget the orders? Break the cups? Drop the cakes? Probably. But I'll also get to meet people in
an "official" capacity and "out" myself to tourists as a
resident of Rum.
I soon realise that besides being excellent training for a
future life as a tea-shop owner one day, the main effect of this job really is to turn
me into a Rum resident in super-quick time.
Like everyone else I too will now spend a good deal of time answering
questions such as: "How many people live on the island?" (44 now I'm
here!); "Why isn't the castle open all day?" (we can't afford to
staff it); "When does the shop open?" (it depends); "Wasn't the
castle on one of those TV programmes, um, with Prince Charles?" (yes it
was, Restoration - we came second!
Please, Prince Charles, come back and help save the castle); "Why isn't
the hostel in the castle any more? Such a shame, it was so much more
romantic..." (because no-one likes to share a cold shower with 60 other
people and the bedrooms were getting mouldy...actually that's only two of the
reasons...I can't go into it here...sorry).
Like the other 43 residents of the island I will become needlessly
defensive towards "yachties" (the contrast between our muddy boots/ancient jeans and their pristine Hunters and Joules
outfits is sometimes all too worrying - you can tell they often feel the same way...),
become fiercely protective of the island's unique weirdness in the face
of any (even imagined) criticism yet also fiercely want people to get involved
and be interested. There is a temptation
in this kind of small community to imagine you are totally self-sufficient -
well, we're not.
Anyway, in the midst of all these questions I am running
about trying to remember who ordered what drinks to go with what meals. (All
the Victoria sponge does go -
obviously a Vicky sponge day not a chocolate one...why?! The cakes are all
home-made by people on the island and are amazing.) We're fairly busy today although Claire assures
me this is nothing compared to last week when 84 came in off the Sheerwater. 84! I
am not the cool, calm, collected manager I liked to think I was in my last job
(as if...) but an anxious bundle of tea-shop nerves. Claire remains cool, calm and collected. I concentrate on smiling and answering the
questions. It seems to work as a
combination but I'd like to get all the drinks right next time too.
A Rum resident. Can I have two puddings please? |
At 4 pm everyone is just about gone and it's time to tidy up
and count our takings. Claire pays
me! I am in receipt of my first Rum
wage. It is very exciting and I skip
home. On the way, however, I realise
I've lost my Rum virginity...no longer hovering on the outskirts of the
community I too have now unconsciously taken on that "them and us"
feeling. I don't want to feel that way, though.
After all, I was an "outsider" myself until just a short time
ago - to everyone else on the island, I probably still am. And the island, or at least the castle, needs
outsiders and always will, to survive. George and Monica were the ultimate outsiders
- they owned the island, but didn't live on it.
But they did love it. That, at the time, kept people employed (although
without many rights), helped the land to thrive and at Monica's wish, ensured
that the island would be kept as a nature reserve after their deaths. They could have sold it to the highest
bidder, but they didn't. They kept it
safe - though not for us necessarily.
Even if we wouldn't want those days back (or at least not
for long, I'd love to revisit it just for a couple of hours!) the island still
struggles without the wealth that could create more of an infrastructure
here. No-one has any capital, for
example to start a business, open a restaurant, build new housing. We keep on pondering this lack of money and
what it means for the island. Some
people here are not ambitious for Rum, they are happy with things as they
are. Others (a mix of old and new) would
love more things to happen and to make it more of a welcoming place, not to
mention to give us islanders more "stuff" to do. A visitor today told me he and his wife have
a house on Shetland (now that's remote), and up there, they are already
preparing for their long, long winter of almost total darkness - they are
starting up evening classes, organising weekly events and preparing to
transform their lives while waiting for the planet to move slowly around the
sun. Then in summer they will transform
back into "outdoors people".
For us, it's harder - we don't have evening classes, cinemas, theatres,
pubs or restaurants. But we do have
plans - and the tea shop is the beginning of all civilisation!
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