After enjoying a holiday on the island of Seileach in Argyll in 1990 American businessman and developer Milton T Humbert decides he would like to build his next large holiday complex on the neighbouring island of Eisdalsa. With a golf course, a marina in an old slate quarry, indoor swimming pool, hotel, indoor recreation areas and either a bridge or sky rail across to Eisdalsa, it would completely change the characters of the islands, while bringing little economic benefit to the local residents.
Milton sends one of his employees, an Australian called Jack McDougal, to visit Seileach incognito and to produce a feasibility report. At the same time Dr Alan Beaton arrives in the area to assist the local GP. However the GP has a heart attack just before he arrives and Alan ends up running the practice almost single handed. Both Jack and Alan are attracted to Flora, the local pharmacist and GP's receptionist. When the locals on Eisdalsa and the neighbouring village of Seileachan find out what is planned for their villages understandably most of them are determined to oppose it.
The author lives/lived on Easdale and the islands are described very clearly. The novel contains a plethora of colourful and memorable characters suffering from a variety of health problems.
Seileachan and Easdalsa are in real life the neighbouring islands of Seil and Easdale. Slate was quarried from the mid 18th Century. The heyday was in the late 19th Century when over 450 people lived on Easdale Island but large scale quarrying came to an abrupt end on 22nd November 1881 when the sea flooded the workings during a violent storm. The quarry closed in 1911, although a small amount of quarrying for local purposes continued until the 1960s.
Islands covered - Seil and Easdale
View from the summit of Easdale looking over one of the flooded quarries
Seil from Easdale - one of the flooded quarries is in the foreground
Former slate workers' cottages on Easdale
Ellenabeich, Seil
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