A diary of a Skye holiday, by Grace Smithies
An original diary written in a nineteenth-century voice; a period simulation, not an archival document.
In this diary, written in 1888, a young woman on holiday on the Isle of Skye in Scotland describes climbing one of the island’s mountains with her younger sister and a local guide.
August 21st. Today Tibby and I climbed a mountain, a real one, with rocks at the top and no path, and I wish to record before I sleep that we did it entirely by ourselves, apart from Mr MacKinnon, who carried the lunch and the rope and occasionally us.
We left the inn at seven in sensible boots and in skirts shortened to the ankle by Tibby with her own scissors last night, a thing Mamma must never learn. Mr MacKinnon, a shepherd of few words and long legs, looked at our skirts for a while and then at the sky and said only, ‘We will see.’ For the first two hours there was nothing worse than bog, of which Skye has more than it needs. Then the grass gave out and we came onto the bare rock, which is grey and as rough as a nutmeg grater and takes the skin from one’s fingers very obligingly.
I had thought myself rather good at climbing, having been up every tree at Ashcombe. Trees, I find, are not a preparation. Near the top the ridge narrowed to a sort of broken wall with a drop on either side into nothing, for the mist had come down and filled both valleys like milk poured into two bowls. Mr MacKinnon tied the rope round each of us and said, ‘Look at the rock, miss, not the air.’ I looked at the air. My legs became entirely somebody else’s and refused to move, and I sat astride the ridge like a child upon a rocking horse and said that I would stay there for ever. Tibby, who is two years younger and had been sick in the bog, went past me on hands and knees, singing a hymn very loudly and badly.
I do not know how long I sat there. Then, quite suddenly, the mist tore open below us like a curtain, and there was the whole sea, blue and shining, with the long islands lying out upon it to the west and the sun on every wave. I forgot my legs. I believe I stood up. Mr MacKinnon said, ‘There now,’ in the voice one uses to a nervous horse, and we went on to the top together, all three, without another word.
We came down in rain and arrived at the inn at nine, soaked, bleeding at every knuckle and quite unable to stop laughing. George asked at dinner whether we had enjoyed our little walk. Tibby told him that we had been along a mountain ridge in a cloud. He said that ladies did not do such things. I have decided that we shall do it again on Thursday.
“The writer presents herself as a confident and capable mountaineer.”
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120 exam-style questions on Eduqas GCSE English Language 2.1.1 Two unseen non-fiction texts, 19th and 21st century. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.