On a personal note I’ve often wondered why Jura had such a different position in the larger West of Scotland Calmac dominated ferry system. After all, Jura has a larger population than some other islands on the west coast of Scotland who do have their own, or indirect, Calmac Ferry such as Gigha, Rum, Coll and Lismore. One can argue that these islands have no alternative ferry route via another island but Jura wouldn’t need an alternative ferry link via Islay either if it would have a direct link with the mainland. In my humble opinion having a direct link to the mainland is the only way the island would be able to develop economically in the future. And that direct link could be a passenger ferry or a combined car/passenger ferry. We know already that money will be lost anyway, be it through a loss making Calmac Ferry service such as the one on Gigha or through a subsidised council ferry. Most ferry routes in the west of Scotland are already heavily subsidised by the Scottish Government anyway so why pull the the plug on Jura, doesn’t this island need a “lifeline ferryservice”? I think it’s a shame that a government, regional or national, takes away money from Jura for the passenger ferry and gives it back to the Western Isles in the form of Road Equivalent Tariff (RET). This way they benefit local businesses and accommodation providers in the western Isles over the backs of businesses in Argyll and in this case Jura in particular. I know you can’t really compare the two different schemes but in my opinion this is just not right!

So what about the future? I guess when the necessary funds can be found the service will run again but at this moment I understand it’s very uncertain if and when this will happen. All I can recommend now is to visit the Jura Passenger Ferry website for the latest information, to make a donation and to hope for the best!

The walled garden next to Jura House is usually open although at this very moment the garden is closed. This has probably got something to do with the fact that the Ardfin Estate has recently been sold. A quote from the ForArgyll website: “The 12,000 acre Ardfin Estate on the Isle of Jura – on the market following the death of its owner Tony Riley-Smith, has been sold to Greg Coffeyy, a 39 year–old Australian hedge fund manager whose city performance has got him nicknamed The Wizard of Oz.” Let’s hope the new owner will keep the garden open and to show you how beautiful the garden is, I have created a new image gallery of the walled garden.

Click here to access the new gallery.

“I went a bit wrong early on but I got back to the pack. Two guys had got away but I caught up with them and won by a few minutes.” Jebb said it is a commitment just to get to Jura but he has entered the race many times and should be back in the future, hoping for a third win.

For the full list of the 2010 results visit the official fell race website here

Here are this years winners:
Best Achievement for Argyll: Eilidh Steel, with fellow musician Joy Dunlop a close second.
Best Tourism Initiative: Jura Passenger Ferry, with Fiddle Folk / Lochgoilhead Fiddle Workshop a close second.
Best Environmental Initiative: Islay Energy Trust – way out in front from a early stage, with Seil Community Garden Project in second.
Best Community Initiative: Lochgoilhead Fiddle Workshop, with the Finlaggan Centre development on Islay a close second.
Best Homecoming Event, Joint winners: The Columba Ceilidh Trail and the Islay Festival in a thrilling last hours dead heat and with Inveraray’s Spirit of the West Festival in second.
Best Major Event: Royal National Mod, a standout winner with the Mull of Kintyre Half Marathon and 10k Run in second.
Best Community Event: Mull of Kintyre Half Marathom and 10k Run, with the Meur Chruachain pre-Mod Ceilidh a close second.
Best Arts Programme: Fiddle Folk / Lochgoilhead Workshop, a runaway winner with the Meur Chruachain Summer & Winter Ceilidhs in second.
Best Activity Website: Islay Wilderness Guide, ahead of Islay Shipping Blog in close pursuit.
Best Wildlife Website: Mull Eagle Watch, a long way ahead, with Islay Birds a good second.
Best Community Website: The Carradale Goat, with a very close dead heat for second between Arrochar and Tarbet and the Kintyre Forum.
Best Local Newspaper: The Oban Times, a flyaway winner with the Ileach a good second.

Check out the ForArgyll website for the full overview

What can you do to support the Jura Passenger Ferry? Visit the ForArgyll website and go to the page forargyll.com/forargyll-votes-2009/. Here you can submit one vote per category. The Jura Passenger Ferry is the only Jura related website. Another Jura related candidate is the Ileach, Islay and Jura Newspaper, and there are several participants from Islay. Enough for everyone I should say so please go to the ForArgyll website and vote. Thanks very much.

Islay’s summer Sunday bus service, a late evening bus from Campbeltown to Southend and the Thursday night Jura to Islay service could be among the first to suffer. Lack of funds meant a successful Sunday bus service around Islay could only run from May to September this year, though 1,700 people used it.
Mr Blades said: ‘Given the subsidy level, this service is vulnerable and it means it may not be possible to have it in 2010.’ A 12-seater bus runs from Jura to Islay and back each Thursday evening, allowing a late night shopping trip or a visit to the swimming pool for islanders. Though it is nearly full each time, ferry costs increased the subsidy needed and ‘serious consideration’ would be given to its future, said Mr Blades. He added the council aimed for a subsidy of £3.50 or less per passenger and routes costing much more would need to be examined. Councillor Donald Kelly urged full consultation with communities to look at boosting services, before any cuts were considered. The council is reviewing all public transport provision.

For two years now, the makers of the island’s single malt have run the Jura Malt Whisky Writer Retreat programme in collaboration with the Scottish Book Trust to furnish authors with a nip of what Orwell consumed so deeply during the composition of Nineteen Eighty-Four. Three writers a year are invited to work for a month at the retreat in Craighouse, with a remit that their writing should address, however tangentially, the experience of living on Jura. The fruits of the first two years’ harvests — including works by Will Self, Janice Galloway and John Burnside — are now published in Spirit of Jura: Fiction, Essays, Poems from the Jura Lodge.

Will Self,who spent much of the 1990s isolating himself on Orkney to work, says “The great thing about islands is that they are worlds entire. They’re very appealing to novelists because they’re rather like novels themselves: they’re discrete, they have their own narrative, they’re fully apprehensible by an individual in a way a country is too big to be. The communities are different from those of us who live in mass society. They get into the habit of viewing the outer world as if it were a bit like where they are. They assume you’re completely alien because you’re outside the community and that the outside world is as aware of them as they are of the outside world. They’re full of foibles. We mainlanders joke about islanders being in touch with the fairies and so on”, says Burnside, “but on Jura there’s a very real sense that they are in touch with that aspect of things, to things that are no longer listened to in the bustle of mainland life. They remember their dead on Jura.”

Janice Galloway is no ‘Orwell fetishist’, though, so she didn’t make it to Barnhill, the house in which Orwell lived during his two years on Jura, getting only as far as the rough five-mile track at whose end the house sits. The same track, impassible by motor vehicle, deterred Burnside also. Orwell, he says, was one of the reasons he started writing fiction. But he didn’t want to look inside the house. ‘I’ve done that before with other writers and it’s always an overwhelming disappointment. I’d rather continue to imagine the room than go there and notice that Orwell’s trees aren’t there any more.’

‘I’m as much of an Orwellian as most people,’ says Self. ‘I’ve read all the books, I know about the life and the Jura connection. I was fascinated to go to Barnhill and to be introduced to the family who own it. But most places have a literary connection if you scratch beneath the surface. Jura’s is perhaps one of the most celebrated, but Orwell wasn’t writing about Jura, he was imagining a dystopic version of London.

John Burnside went for cross-island hikes with David Faithfull, who illustrated Spirit of Jura; with his amateur interest in the art of butchery, Burnside spent some time with the man who processes much of Jura’s deer for export. ‘And Stephen, the man who runs the newsagents in Craighouse, turned out to be a very good literary critic,’ Burnside adds.

The full article published in the Times Online is available from this link

The Isle of Jura faces being effectively cut off this week after being left without a car ferry service. Residents on Jura fear for tourism and safety after its normal car link was forced to withdraw due to a mechanical fault. The island’s distillery has been forced to halt production without its ferry lifeline. It is the latest chapter in a story of mishaps to the vital service which links Jura and its 210 islanders to the neighbouring island of Islay. The ferry, which can carry eight cars, is called on if a fire engine is needed on Jura, or if an ambulance has to take a patient off the island. Tourists use it to take their cars over for holidays whether in the hotel, bed and breakfast or self-catering accommodation.

Island resident Gwen Boardman said: “If we have to rely on the fishing boat for a whole week I dread to think of how difficult life is going to be. It is certainly not suitable for the elderly, infirm or the very young, and the logistics of bringing on to the island the daily necessities of life will be extremely difficult. “Anyone coming back after medical treatment or operations won’t be able to get home. Every business on the island will be adversely affected. Unless a replacement boat can be found and quickly it is going to be a nightmare situation.” Steve Walton, manager of the Isle of Jura Hotel, said: “We are having to ring round everybody who has booked to tell them what is happening”.

The picture shows the Margaret Sinclair relief ferry who operated the Port Askaig to Feolin route in March this year. Without the vehicle ferry in operation the Isle of Jura distillery will probably shut down or has already shut down. If there is any further news I will try to update the blog!