I chose to fly to Saxa Vord. At the time, that felt like the easy option.

Train from King’s Lynn to Edinburgh first, dragging bags that seemed to get heavier by the mile. Then onto a small aircraft up to Tingwall in Shetland.

That’s where things started to shift.

As we descended, the landscape opened up beneath us. Jagged coastline, scattered islands, nothing like mainland Britain. Remote didn’t quite cover it. You could feel it before you even landed.

The second leg made it clearer. A tiny Islander across to Unst. Low enough to see everything. No hiding from where you were going.

Phil Taylor was waiting at the airstrip. No ceremony, just grabbed my bags and got me into the car. Within minutes I was introduced to island economics. He’d bought a Rover 3.5 the week before in a bar. Cost him a bottle of whisky. Apparently that was a fair deal.

We stopped at the Hagdale Lodge on the way back. That went exactly as you’d expect. By the time we left, judgement had taken a back seat.

Eventually we piled back into the car and set off along a single-track road at speeds that would have been questionable anywhere else.

Then, without warning, the bonnet flew open.

Instead of stopping, Phil simply ducked down and looked through the gap underneath it, still pressing on as if this was entirely normal.

There we were, newly arrived, half-cut, in a Rover bought for a bottle of whisky, being driven across Unst by a man navigating through a letterbox.

That was the moment it really landed.

This wasn’t just another RAF posting. The rules were different up here. Life ran on its own logic, and you either adapted or you didn’t last long.

Looking back, that journey north told me everything I needed to know. I just didn’t realise it at the time.