Fair Isle: Living on the Edge
BBC4
An Island Parish: Anguilla
BBC2

Can a community be created artificially, or does it have to emerge organically? This is one of the questions asked in a documentary about Britain’s remotest island, Fair Isle, situated in turbulent seas between Orkney and Shetland. Fair Isle: Living on the Edge is a two-part documentary, the first of which (1 February) focused on what drives people to live in a place so isolated that they are completely dependent on weather, sheep and each other.

The immediate attractions of Fair Isle were clear enough. When the sun is out, it is staggeringly beautiful, a slab of emerald in a blue sea. But the sun is rarely out and much of the time the 55 islanders battle against driving rain and damp so deep it makes the kitchen cupboards fall off the wall.

Half the inhabitants are incomers, renting cottages from the National Trust, which owns the island. The trust looks for hardy souls, preferably families who will keep the community going. There is no pub, one shop (stocked by a weekly boat that takes five hours from Lerwick), a primary school and a bird observatory that attracts visitors who are then encouraged to buy the island’s famous patterned knitwear.