The Shetland Times September 2nd 2013
Skerries community plays starring role in Dutch pop music video

The people of Skerries’ fight to retain a strong community has been placed centre stage in a new music video by a Dutch band. Utrecht-based indie rock band Kensington’s new single Ghosts, the video for which you can see below, features some stunning scenery from the small islands. It is bookended by some powerful and poignant words from island woman Alice Arthur about what Skerries means to its inhabitants.

Mellany Gorman, who lives on Skerries with her partner and two children, said it was timely “with the hard time Skerries is having just now with the fire brigade closing, secondary department under threat, ferry services being cut almost in half and the potential of air services being cut”. Mellany said a Dutch film crew had visited the island to shoot the footage in early June “As far as I know they saw Skerries in various media and wanted to make the video for the single here.”

The landscape of Skerries and its surrounding waters really steal the show in the ensuing four minutes. Alice’s husband John Gilbert Arthur, known as ‘Gibbie’, is shown going off in his boat, while a number of other islanders, young and old, also feature. As one might expect, crofting and fishing feature heavily. The boats Treasure, Fairway and Sharyn Louise, owned by John David Anderson, Colin Hughson and Ewan Anderson respectively, all appear in the video.

“Everyone, right down through the generations
has been working so hard to keep this place.
We’re going to fight to the death.
We’re not leaving here.”

At the video’s conclusion, Alice’s voice resurfaces to state

“Every rock, every hill, every piece of water,
it means so much to anybody who lives here.
It’s a legacy that they’ve handed over to us.
Once Skerries is in your blood, you’re hooked for life.”