Howmore Gatliff Hostel, North Uist, and Betty

In South Uist I have always stayed happily in Howmore hostel, and was delighted this time that the warden took time to tell me a little about herself. She was looking in on the newly-arrived guests and checking that they had paid for the night- you don't pre-book, but just turn up. I asked for five minutes of her time. I told her that I'd visited this hostel before, in the late 1990s, when my sleeping quarters were in a shed with a dirt floor. This building is now the cycle shed. The hostel is one of three in the Western Isles owned by the Gatliff Hebridean Hostels Trust, which is part of the SYHA family, the other two being at Rheinigadale in Harris, and Berneray island to the north of North Uist.

Betty, who has been the Howmore warden for 20 years, told me that she took over the job from her mother, and that her parents had owned the hostel building. Herbert Gatliff, who founded the Trust fifty years ago, asked them if the Trust could have it, as it was empty.

Betty told me that she and her mother really enjoyed being wardens. They both loved meeting people, and I had the impression that Betty was very tolerant. I witnessed this first-hand with her kindness towards an emotionally-challenged guest. And there's a real frontier aspect to the hostel- they never turn anyone away. Needless to say, the hostel buildings have been renovated since those early days, the roof thatch expertly done. As we spoke, a couple of cows were wandering around a few feet away from us. She told me they belonged to a local farmer. Over eighty and with two sticks, he sends the cows to the hills in the morning, and in the evening he comes along and puts them back in a field behind the church.

It's a lovely short stroll to walk west from the hostel to the vast sandy shore which is flanked by acres of machair like a huge wild garden full of flowers.