In 1995 I was on holiday island hopping around the Western Isles off the west coast of Scotland.

We started our holiday with a weekend on the Isle of Skye. In those days I played golf and we had taken our Clubs with us in the car. We were able to play on the beautiful links course on Skye.

On the Monday we sailed to Lewis and Harris and again managed to fit in a game at the club in Stornaway on Lewis

After a couple of days we moved on the islands of North and South Uist which are separated by Benbecula, though all joined together with a causeway. These islands are much smaller and don’t have a golf club, but there is a seldom visited golf course. We set off to find it. When we got there it was recognisable as a golf course – the fairways were cut, but ‘the rough’ was very rough. The Greens were nicely mown and there were flagpoles. There was no clubhouse, just a rusty corrugated iron hut, like a WW2 Nissan Hut. Inside the hut was a dead sheep, and a couple of rusty lawnmowers. And we found more abandoned machinery as we went round the course. There was an honesty box so you could pay for the golf. It was £4 each. The honesty box was one of these small Royal Mail Postboxes perched on top of a wooden stake. We ‘posted’ a £5 note and 3x£1 coins and off we went. We saw nobody at all as we played our round of golf. We returned to the car to eat our lunch which we had the foresight to bring with us. As we sat eating we watched a small bird with some food in its mouth fly into the Postbox. It did this several times. There was obviously a nest and some chicks. But had we harmed them dropping our £1 coins in? The bird then started to bring waste material out of the nest. We sat there fascinated. Then we saw the bird bring a pound coin out and drop it on the floor by the car. It did the same thing with other 2 coins. We sat and waited for the £5 note, but funnily enough that did not appear. The bird had kept it, possibly it made good nesting material. After the bird had flown off we retrieved our £3 and drove back to the hotel.

Our final destination was the Isle of Barra, where again we played on a deserted golf course, built on the side of a hill. One of my more unusual golfing holidays.