When Hugh Piggott arrived on Scoraig in 1974, an area reached only by boat or a five-mile trudge from the nearest road, it was with a deep desire to get back to hands-on basics. He would not be disappointed. Scoraig, a long thin peninsula that separates Loch Broom from Little Loch Broom in Wester Ross was once home to a Gaelic-speaking community that eked out a living from crofting and fishing.
Two world wars had depleted it of its youth. Those left behind had beautiful scenery but yearned for better infrastructure, electricity, proper lights. By the early 1960s, they too were gone.
The simple life that locals had become tired of was precisely what had attracted the young Hugh in his search for an off-grid kind of life. Wind power pioneer Hugh Piggott repairs one of his early windmills (Image: Hugh Piggott) A small community of similarly minded folks had also settled in Scoraig, and he would bring a particular skill: Cambridge University educated with a background in maths and physics, he was about to become Scotland’s wind power pioneer. Today, largely thanks to Hugh, Scoraig’s 70 or so residents are in the enviable position of never having to fear the electricity bill: they rely on wind and solar power for their energy needs, topped up when there’s really no alternative using wood, bottled gas and oil.
But that’s few and far between, says Hugh, pointing out that his 20-year-old bungalow has been so efficiently insulated and heated using hot water powered by his rene.