Community / Cleeves returns to Fair Isle 50 years after summer job in bird observatory
AUTHOR Ann Cleeves has reflected on her return to Fair Isle 50 years after first spending a summer there to work at the bird observatory.
She returned to the isle to visit the newly built bird observatory, opened after the fire of the preceding building in 2019, in the summer.
A new film documenting the visit is available to watch on shetland.org and the Promote Shetland YouTube channel.
Promote Shetland is also giving people a chance to win a trip to the islands, with one pair of return flights provided by Loganair.
Five runners-up will receive a signed copy of Cleeves’ first Jimmy Perez/Shetland book, Raven Black.
Cleeves first visited Fair Isle in 1975 to start a summer season working as an assistant cook in the Fair Isle Bird Observatory.
Despite “knowing nothing about birds and not being able to cook,” it is said she found Fair Isle mesmerising and fell in love with the island.
This began a life-long connection with the islands, which inspired the Shetland series of crime novels, and the central character, DI Jimmy Perez.
Fifty years after Cleeves’ first arrival in Fair Isle, she returned to witness the rebuilt Fair Isle Bird Observatory, which reopened this summer.
She also reconnected with old friends and met new community members.
Cleeves said the new observatory was “palatial” compared to that which she first worked in, adding that the “sense of welcome and friendliness” remained.
The visit was organised by the Promote Shetland service, which raises awareness of the islands as an exceptional place to live, work, visit, study and invest.
This year also marked 20 years since the publication of the first Shetland novel, Raven Black.
Cleeves’ latest Perez novel, The Killing Stones, this time set in Orkney, is published this week.
Meanwhile series ten of the popular BBC drama Shetland inspired by Cleeves’ characters, is expected to be broadcast soon.
Promote Shetland’s head of content marketing Adam Civico said: “The different anniversaries, along with the publication of a new Perez book, made it an excellent time to work together with Ann, who is so passionate about the islands.
“Without that first visit to Fair Isle, the ‘Shetland’ novels, and the much-loved characters would never have been imagined.
“It speaks volumes about Shetland’s naturally dramatic appeal that Ann chose to set the books in the islands, and that she retained a lifelong love of the place.”
As part of the campaign there will also be an opportunity to take part in an online Murder Mystery Night hosted by Cleeves, giving viewers the chance to work out who was responsible for the death of a hostess at one of Shetland’s famous Sunday Teas.
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