DURNESS

In the early 1950s a young boy from Liverpool used to frequent Durness every summer, visiting his cousin Stan whose family had moved to the area. The boy loved his holidays there and used to play with the local kids. However, in sharp contrast to those idyllic times the boy was destined to meet a violent end at age 40 in New York, shot dead outside his home in front of his wife. The boy was John Lennon, and once he had found his fame and fortune he harboured a desire to buy some land in Scotland; in fact the Durness estate was up for sale at one point, but Lennon was too slow and missed out on buying it. Tragically, he died before achieving his aim of owning his own Scottish paradise.

One only has to look at the beautiful Sango Bay on which Durness is located and it is easy to see why Lennon fell in love with the place. Nearby Smoo Cave, which can be reached on foot independently, or as a tour partly by boat, is a sea cave believed to have been occupied by humans 5,000 years ago. The village itself has a scattering of tourist facilities, including a Tourist Information Centre and a wonderfully located camping and caravan site overlooking the bay. The village, being close to Cape Wrath, is the most north-westerly village in mainland Scotland.

Map of the area.

Sango Bay - geograph.org.uk - 835042. Photo by Anne Burgess, via Wikimedia Commons.