Birthday honours

Our arrival at a fabulously appointed youth hostel to celebrate my Auntie Jenny's 80th birthday coincides with the launch of the Swanage Festival and a display of aerial acrobatics by the Red Arrows. The planes leave heart-shaped trails in the sky as if we’d put in a special request for my aunt's special day. Later on, there are fireworks over the bay and my intrepid auntie Elsie takes a nighttime dip in the water.

Sky diving

Ringside seats for the Red Arrows

Swanage, at the eastern end of Dorset's Jurassic Coast, is new to me. Once a port and fishing town, it became hugely popular as a seaside holiday spot for Victorians and has flourished with the bucket-and-spade brigade ever since. 

Swanage by name

They're out in force on Studland beach, where we head on Saturday, but there is enough room to swim and create curvaceous mermaids in the sand out of pebbles and seaweed. A few of us stroll out to Old Harry Rocks, dramatic fingers of chalk poking up from the sea, and along the cliffs.

80th birthday dip

Clifftop crew

There’s a trip to Corfe Castle, not just a spectacular ruin on a hilltop with more than 1000 years of history, but a thriving little village with a quaint square and a smattering of historic pubs and tearooms.

The reenactment girls

Castle rocks

Before heading home we visit Durlston, a quirky National Trust place perched on the clifftop, just south of Swanage. The castle was built by Victorian entrepreneur George Burt, known as the 'King of Swanage'. The gardens hug the coastline and there are trails and sculptures, including the Great Globe, an enormous carved sphere showing the world as it was perceived in the 19th century. The south coast path continues from here along the Jurassic Coast, but we stay put, enjoying cream tea on the terrace.

An oversized Africa, as mapped in the 19th century

Everyone together

Island in the sun

It wasn't until I'd agreed to join my sister and niece on their holiday on the Scottish island of Luing, that I realised I had no idea where it was. It turns out it's one of the western Slate Islands, blessed with an abundance of the grey stuff and a once-thriving export industry. Luing slate was used in the building of Glasgow University, for example, but slate was exported as far afield as Australia and Canada, earning the islands the nickname, The Islands That Roofed The World.

Clean slate

These days, other materials are used, or slate can be imported more cheaply from elsewhere, and the islands have become rather sleepy havens for dwindling populations and occasional incomers escaping the rat race. 

The Luing ferry arrives

The quarrying past has left its mark on the landscape in the shape of vast gouges in cliffs and ridges, and huge, rectangular pits now filled with water – ideal as outdoor swimming pools.  

View across a former slate quarry to Mull

Moira, Sula and I are joining two other families on Luing. We're staying in static caravans, which originally conjured up images of that Father Ted episode where he goes on holiday with Donal and it rains constantly so he spends his time trying to explain perspective with toy farmyard cows. I needn't have worried, though, as these units are comfortable if not stylish, with views out to sea and a little jetty where our friends can moor their two ribs. And despite investing in a welly upgrade en route, it stays dry all week and I don't have to put them on once.

The caravan-site crew

Much time is spent exploring Luing on foot and bike. Even though it’s only a few miles long, there is plenty to see. The roadside is peppered with herds of the island’s distinctive red cows and all trails seem inevitably to lead back to the Post Office-come-general store in the middle.

Luing cattle cooling off

One walk takes us to the highest point on the island, with views over the mainland and out beyond Mull to the sea, as well as across the infamous whirlpool, Corryvreckann, watery grave to many a boatman. Scotland seems suddenly vast and I’m struck by how little of it I know.

Taking the high road

A bike trip to the southern extent of the island passes by the ruins of Kilchattan church, which was first recorded in 1589. There are galley ships carved onto its outer walls – probably by children some 300 years ago – and graves give an insight into the island's past with quarriers, sailors and crofters buried side by side.

17th-century graffiti

Biking to the south end of Luing

Down in the nearby port of Toberonochy, things are less bustling than in the slate era, to say the least. Lying prone on the beach is the wreckage of a ship, while faded posters recall a busier time. On the opposite side of the island lies the former quarrying hub, Cullipool, where the workers’ cottages have been stylishly spruced up and where a new slate museum will overlook one of the quarry lakes.

Former glories

Cullipool cottages

Everywhere you go there are slate walls, slate paths, slate roofs. Slate towers teeter on the beaches – building them is a popular pastime.

Tower of strength

We motor over the water to a deserted island, Belnahua, once home to a few dozen slate workers, and find ruined cottages and rusty old machinery.

Deserted Belnahua

Another trip to Shuna, a private island reveals a crumbling stately home, ceilings and floors caved in and grounds wild and overgrown. It was built in 1911 by adventurer and philanthropist George Alexander MacLean Buckley, with no wall left uncrenellated, but then abandoned in the 1980s. We meet the island’s owner, Buckley's grandson, down by the pier and he tells us he grew up on the island but now lets the cottages out to holidaymakers.

What's left of Shuna Castle

A memorable day for the three mums and me involves being ferried by boat (with our bikes!) down the mainland for a bike trip back up to Easdale, where we’ll be collected.

Boat accessed bike trip

High point of the girls' bike ride

Easdale is the queen of the Slate Islands. Here is the Scottish Slate Islands Heritage Museum with exhibits depicting quarrying and life in the 19th century. It’s where the annual World Stone Skimming Championships are held every September – a competition my father did very well in one year, if I recall. We skim a few stones in his honour.

Easdale's skimming pond

Also on Easdale is a wonderfully steep hill, with precipitous views, and a glorious swimming quarry with its own natural diving platforms –a great vantage point for dolphin watching.

Easdale's swimming pond

Tracking a school of dolphins

Easdale has undergone considerable regeneration and as well as a new arts and community centre, slate-built, natch, there’s a lovely welcoming little pub, serving real ales and delicious homemade food. Here on the car-free island rows of wheelbarrows line the quayside, to carry home luggage or the weekly Oban shop.

Wherever we go, the evening brings us back to base for an al fresco feast in the evening sunshine. Who needs the Med when you've got Sunnybrae?

Sweet treats in the evening sun

G&T treats in the evening sun