Page 56 Daily Mail, Saturday, October 31, 2015

this timeless classic

iF you doubt that good things come to those who wait, or that patience is a virtue, then it’s time to head over the bridge to Skye. There you will find Jennifer Gracie and her

husband Matthew Jackson, who waited patiently for 19 years before taking over the stewardship of the Skeabost House Hotel.

The couple were married there in 1996 and always hoped they would have the opportunity to return one day to the old pile in the north of the island and have a chance to ‘make their mark on it’.

They have certainly made a cracking start since taking control in April after the hotel was bought by former Scottish Hoteliers of the Year Anne Gracie and Ken Gunn, who already own two other boutique hotels, Duisdale House and Torvaig House, in the south of the island.

We arrived for a two-night stay to find the hotel had a l r e a d y b e e n c l e v e r l y, tastefully and luxuriously refurbished to complement its traditional features, of which there are many.

There has been a house of some sort at Skeabost since Viking times, when the name meant the Sheltered House.

The present hotel, developed from a hunting lodge built in the 1870s for the MacDonalds, sits proudly in 23 acres of woodland on the edge of Loch Snizort, with views over the sea and to the surrounding crofting townships of Bernisdale and Tote.

Past owners have developed and enhanced the property and

grounds over the years, but the old house still exudes the gra-ciousness of Victorian splendour, with much of the original Scots pine panelling still in place in the corridors, hall and billiard room.

One colourful tale is that Chi-cago gangster Al Capone struck a deal in the billiard room to ‘export’ whisky from Skye to beat Prohibi-tion in the United States.

The story goes that the illicit casks were ferried out to the gang-

ster’s boats on the loch from the local jetty, which was used

also to bring in coal for the locals and as the emigra-tion point for those who sought a new life in the US during the Clearances.

What is certain is that there are 14 bedrooms at Skeabost, includ-ing four with four-poster beds. Ours was the MacLeod suite at the front of the building, looking out over the neat gardens.

But hang on, a MacLeod suite in a lodge built for the MacDonalds? Well, the two clans certainly have

had their differences over the cen-turies, with one spectacular stooshie in 1528 over a piece of land called Trotternish.

According to record, there was fierce fighting that day, with the area subsequently becoming known as Achadh na Falan or the Field of Blood.

Fortunately that feud has long been laid to rest and the battle-field now lies under the hotel’s nine-hole, 18-tee golf course. The only clubs wielded today range from a sand-wedge to a four-iron.

The course is part of the grounds surrounding the hotel, with natu-

Ancient feuds, fine foods… and a chance to relax at a true luxury retreat

Grand entrance: And inside Skeabost House Hotel the rooms are spacious, left, while the cuisine, above right, is superb

by Steve Thorpe

S1

travelmailwww.travelmail.co.uk

motoring, page 76school and three miles back. Sometimes I’d get a stitch. There was one cure for that. You put your foot up on a milestone and kissed your knee. It always worked.

I have never had a chance to talk about my health before. Nobody wants to hear about your illnesses. All they’re interested in is your holiday snaps.

When I was young, I had an operation for my sinus at St Thomas’s Hospital in London. There I was, recovering from this rather nasty operation, with headache, toothache, earache. I was in agony.

Yet when friends rang to inquire how I was, they were told I was ‘comfortable’. I had never been so uncomfortable in my life. I felt rather like a man who was kicked by a horse whose condition was described as stable.

I went back to St Thomas’s Hospital once with a hangover. I was only passing by and wanted a couple of aspirins.

But they said I’d have to stay in for observa-tion, wheeled me into a room and said: ‘I’m terribly sorry but you’ve got a thrombosis of the leg.’ And I had two operations.

I have had a terror of medical authority — doctors, dentists, hospitals, medical opinions

— since childhood. I always think: Please don’t let me fall into their hands. Let me be born at home, stay at home, die at home.

I don’t write like Jeffrey Archer — on a word processor called Priscilla. I love manipulating words. It’s very rewarding when you’ve done it. But it does take so much out of you.

I’m prone to scrambling of the brains, can only survive a couple of days a week.

Then I have to draw the blinds to regain my strength.

You can talk about broken bones and car accidents. But you can’t talk about what happens to the brain and nervous system when you’re writing at that level.

My theory is that a strong healthy man isn’t likely to be creative. It is illness and pain that encourages him to live another life.

I still get this recurrent pneumonia when the lungs are full of pulsating barbed wire and the temperature goes up. When that happens, I hide away like an animal in the long grass or bushes.

The only cure is to lie still and wait for it to pass. Sometimes it takes a couple of days, sometimes two weeks.

But it does make you turn your attention to the reality of having to leave this world one day and, if I ask myself if I’m reconciled, the answer is I’m not.

Now I’ve got a split iris, can’t read as easily as I could. But I can still see landscapes and girls’ legs.

FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

Cotswolds idyll: Laurie Lee at 48, on the hillside above his childhood home

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