9 Jobs for Woman Who Sought Quiet Island Life

9 Jobs for Woman Who Sought Quiet Island Life
The view of Edinburgh city centre is pictured at sunset from Salisbury Crags in Holyrood Park, Edinburgh, Scotland in June 2016, (Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images)
Simon Veazey
11/15/2017
Updated:
11/18/2017

A woman who moved to a quiet far-flung tiny Scottish island to escape the city life has ended up working nine jobs.

Sarah Moore left the Scottish capital Edinburgh two and a half years ago, planning to live a quiet life on the Orkney Islands, which stretch beyond the northern tip of the mainland.

But she ended up swapping her “dead-end job” in a clothes shop for nine jobs on the island of North Ronaldsay—where the tiny population means that people have to turn their hand to many roles.

As her friends in the city struggled to find just one job, Moore was inundated with posts at the Orkney islands.

When she first moved there, she worked as a carer, but gradually accumulated more roles including that of firefighter and shepherdess, reported the Edinburgh Evening News.

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Moore, 26, is the youngest person on the island, that has an average age of 65.

She puts in shifts as an air traffic controller, airport baggage handler, and also delivers the island’s post.

“It’s not an easy life here and it’s not a place anyone comes to get rich in, but I love it,” she told the newspaper on Nov. 14.

“It was lonely in Edinburgh, even though there are so many people. I lived in the same house for 23 years and I only knew the people to the left and right of me and here I know everyone.”

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She said she has been taken aback by the interest in her life on the island, saying that working multiple jobs on remote islands was something she took for granted.

“It’s normal for me and I forgot how strange every part of island life is to most people,” she wrote in a Facebook post.

“I like a bit of variety and that’s certainly what I’ve got here—it can sometimes be hard to keep track of what jobs I’m doing on any particular day,” she said, according to the BBC.

But even working nine jobs isn’t extraordinary by the standards of North Ronaldsay.

The Orkney Islands are shown in red, just north and east of the Scottish mainland.(Screenshot/Google Maps)
The Orkney Islands are shown in red, just north and east of the Scottish mainland.(Screenshot/Google Maps)
Moore’s fellow resident, Billy Muir was awarded the title of ’Britain’s hardest working man‘ earlier this year for holding 20 jobs.

Muir works as the island electrician, as well as the lighthouse keeper, rubbish collector, firefighter, builder, and an airport worker.

If there is one disadvantage of living on an island of just 45 people, it appears to be the lack of romantic opportunities.

Moore says others would love her to settle down and raise a family on the island.

“In the summer, we had a summer festival and there were a few lads coming over from the other islands,” she told the Edinburgh Evening News.

“Some of the older residents were practically handing out my CV to the young guys,” she said.

Simon Veazey is a UK-based journalist who has reported for The Epoch Times since 2006 on various beats, from in-depth coverage of British and European politics to web-based writing on breaking news.
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