IT was in September 1955 that the Admiralty announced that, on the authority of the Queen, a party had been landed on Rockall by a helicopter from a survey ship, HMV Vidal, to take possession of the island. “A flagstaff was erected on the island”, read the official statement, “the Union Jack was broken, and a commemorative plaque was cemented to the rock. The annexation of this island was necessary since it is within the sector of the sea which is likely to come within the orbit of the projected guided weapons range in the Hebrides [South Uist]”.

This newspaper reported that there had been four previous known landings “on this tiny oceanic pyramid which is 70ft high and 83ft high”. The first was in 1810, by a party from HMS Endymion; the ship’s captain at first took the island to be another ship. In 1904, however, some 700 people drowned when a New York-bound Danish steamer, Norge, was wrecked off Rockall.

During the Second World War, and twice in the decade to 1955, the RAF made flights over the island to photograph its teeming bird-life. News of the annexation prompted The Herald’s editorial diary to note: “In these days of self-determination and contracting frontiers it is thrilling to record any movement in the opposite direction. It is therefore with a modified imperialist satisfaction that we read of an annexation and a flag-planting on Rockall, and that it was a proper naval operation …”

It had, however, been a secret operation, the Admiralty having presented it as a fait accompli. The Herald diary added that it came at a time “when the Argentine, a country which above all others takes an acquisitive interest in the rocky outcroppings in the Atlantic, is too preoccupied with internal affairs [President Peron had just been deposed] to extend the protection of its flag over a nest of gannets and a line in the weather forecast for shipping”.

Sixteen years later, in 1971, the Island of Rockall Act was debated in Parliament. In the Lords, Lord Kennet, who had seen war-time service in the Royal Navy, made a remark that has often resurfaced in articles about Rockall. “My Lords”, he declared, “I think that everybody who has ever been in the Royal Navy will have seen Rockall, but not many other people. It is a dreadful place. There could be no place more desolate, more despairing and more awful to see in the whole world”.

Another peer, Lord Tanlaw, said he feared that Rockall’s “very remoteness and apparent uselessness could one day tempt certain interests to see it as a safe and stable platform for experiments involving nuclear devices”. He sought assurances “that this newly acquired part of Scotland, this small speck, if you like, on our planet’s surface, which is about to become, through this Bill, the responsibility of civilised Government for the first time, will be entirely left alone by homo sapiens, in perpetuity”.

Baroness Tweedsmuir declined, saying: “It is really beyond my responsibilities or those of any other Minister in this House”.

Now, more than half a century after that debate, Cam Cameron, at 52, is readying himself for the expedition. The Rockall dream is something that has been with him for a long time. As he told the Northern Scot recently: “About 15 to 20 years ago I remember looking at Rockall and thinking, ‘That’s something I’d like to do’. Nick then did his record-breaking stay on Rockall, which is an amazing story. I wanted to do something different

“I put it aside, though, and never really thought about it again until a while ago when we had a guy who came to speak to our naval training unit in Bristol about the Royal Navy team who rowed across the Atlantic. It got me thinking and I reckoned we could do something like that.

“I wanted to do something different that would catch the eye so I thought, ‘We could go to Rockall, nobody goes there, and stay there for a week’.”

Cameron, who is from Buckie, has the qualities and the experience it takes to get to Rockall and endure the unforgiving elements. He spent six years with the Gordon Highlanders before training as a marine biologist and oceanographer, and is also a skipper and Yacht-Master Offshore. There are probably easier ways to raise a million pounds for charity than by journeying to that lonely, far-flung islet, but he and his colleagues deserve credit for their tenacity and ingenuity.

Read the full story: https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/19900688.rockall-scottish-adventurer-launches-expedition-edge-existence/

* www.rockall2022.org/

* www.gofundme.com/f/rockall2022

* aaron-wheeler.co.uk/