Back To Basics

The Welsh island of Bardsey has no cars, electricity grid or indoor toilets, and virtually no phone signal. Helen Iles spent five days there, and discovered that remoteness and community spirit sometimes go hand in hand.

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ON THE FIRST TWO NIGHTS I was gifted clear skies and no moon. The Milky Way arced from the north of the island, disappearing into the lighthouse on the southern end. Looking towards the core of the galaxy along its long coiling arm, millions of stars shimmered in the crystal skies. Satellites rotated their lonely journeys and planes commuted across the northern hemisphere. Clouds drifted in and out. Shooting stars left burning trails as I silently made wishes.

It was clear to see our relationship with space as a rock in the galaxy, rather than the centre of everything. The island had reminded me we are here by chance not by right.

I’d arrived on the Tuesday for a five-day stay on the remote Bardsey Island or Ynys Enlli: a remote rock two miles off north-west Wales’ Lleyn Peninsula with no cars, paved roads, electricity grid or indoor toilets. Here the elements scrape against the bare land, but the roaring winds and passing squalls allow a small pocket of people to exist on the rock like beautiful but inconspicuous lichens.

The island is tiny: one and a half miles long and half a mile wide. There’s a rich timeline of life from Iron Age settlements through to the modern-day: artefacts and evidence have been found that show it has been populated for over four thousand years. In recent centuries it became an important centre for Christian pilgrimages, hence legends of 20,000 saints buried on Bardsey.