We live on Britain’s most remote island with just 15 families… we don’t even have a pub but city life is ‘lonelier’
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LOCALS living on Britain's most remote island have told how they don't even have a pub - but could never be lonely. Sheila Gear, 82, originally from Oxford, has lived in Foula for 61 years - now she has children and grandchildren on the island. The tiny land mass can be found just off the Northern coast of Scotland, in the Shetland islands.
![[Sheila Gear outside the now closed Post Office]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/de13bf48-c899-4a63-a93b-f258c81e6305.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
Foula has a primary school, an airport, a wool shop, holiday rentals, and a ferry terminal - but no pub. There's around 15 to 17 houses on the island - with residents forced to either get lucky and snap one up or forced to build their own. Ham is the slightly “busier” part of the island, near the harbour, where Sheila currently resides.
![[Sheila lives in Ham, Foula's harbour]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/msemail_IMG_9927JPG-JS956562632-1.jpg?strip=all&w=932)
Sheila’s grandfather, Ian Holbourn, bought Foula in around 1900. Growing up, Sheila spent many a family holiday there and by 1964 she had married a Foula native. Her daughter Penny, 54, has lived on the island all her life. But a bizarre rule means no Foula residents are allowed to give birth on the island.
![[Foula is Britain's most remote island]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/msemail_IMG_9924JPG-JS956562625.jpg?strip=all&w=932)
And all children must board at a school on the mainland after primary. Due to a lack of hospitals, and until recently, a nurse, pregnant residents must leave for Shetland around two weeks prior to giving birth. This tradition is longstanding but before residents had access to an airport, they would have to leave by boat a whole month before giving birth.
![[Foula has a recently appointed nurse]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/92655074-JS785660866.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
