Scotland’s Reader Photos Echo a Century of Fair Fortnight Holidays

BBC Scotland’s latest reader photo gallery landed this week carrying 23 submissions, everything from a golden sunset swim at Barassie Beach in Troon to a red squirrel outwitting a pigeon near Aberfoyle. The pictures arrived between 10 and 17 July from readers scattered the length of the country, coastlines, glens, islands and back gardens all included.

Look past the individual frames and a pattern turns up. Troon, Broughty Ferry, the Ayrshire coast: these are not random dots on a map. They are the same seaside towns that filled with Glaswegians and Dundonians on their annual works holiday long before anyone carried a camera in their pocket.

Twenty-Three Photographs, One Midsummer Week

The spread this time runs from the Outer Hebrides to the Firth of Forth. Piotr Slusaczyk sailed out to the Isle of May. Maria MacPhee caught the light on Traig Eais on Barra. Caelan Bell hiked up Ben Alder, and Rachel Butchert and Ryan Seath both sent in shots from the Tiree Music Festival, one of the sunset and one of the beach nearby.

Malcolm Gillies drove out to a wildlife hide near Aberfoyle to watch the resident red squirrels and came back with a story as much as a photograph. One squirrel, he said, was having a fantastic time, before it got itself briefly trapped in a bird feeder when a pigeon landed on the lid.

Elsewhere in the batch, Colin Dey photographed the fountain in Princes Street Gardens with Edinburgh Castle behind it, Ross Henderson caught a greylag goose over Loch Leven, and Andy Donne spotted a wild goat above the bay at Port Ellen on Islay. Melanie Paproth met a lamb at the Museum of Island Life on Skye, and Sylvia Beaumont photographed two Exmoor ponies grazing near North Berwick with Bass Rock sitting in the water behind them.

The Same Beaches Drew Crowds a Century Ago

Troon is not scenic by accident of this week’s gallery alone. By the 1800s, the Glasgow Fair had grown into a fortnight-long shutdown, with factories and shipyards closing completely so workers could escape to the coast. On the first Saturday of the Fair in 1855, 41 steamers left the Broomielaw carrying an estimated 14,350 people down the Clyde alone.

Families scattered to a familiar list of towns. The phrase Scots still use for it, doon the watter, was coined in the 1950s and 60s as trainloads and steamer queues headed for:

• Ayr, the long sandy beach still packed on warm weekends
• Largs, the Ayrshire ferry town facing the Isle of Cumbrae
• Troon, this week’s opening photograph among them
• Rothesay, reached by paddle steamer down the Clyde
• Saltcoats and Dunoon, both classic Fair Fortnight resorts
• Bo’ness and Portobello, the capital’s own seaside answer

Dundee ran its own version, the Dundee Fortnight, and workers there headed for Fife, Angus and Broughty Ferry, the same stretch of sand Andrew Henderson photographed this week and compared to a scene from Baywatch. A separate gallery this outlet published earlier drew on Fair Fortnight’s nostalgic old holiday photographs, packed beaches and steamer queues from decades before anyone had a phone in their pocket.

A Modern Postcard With Fine Print Attached

What has changed is not the destination. It is who sees the postcard. Anyone can email a photo to scotlandpictures@bbc.co.uk, and the rules are simple: it has to be your own work, and photographing children requires written permission from a parent or guardian, a grandparent or family friend does not count.

Contributors keep the copyright. But sending a picture in means granting the BBC a royalty free licence to publish and reuse it in any media, worldwide, indefinitely. There is no fee. The trade is exposure for a shot that, a hundred years ago, would have gone into a family album and nowhere else.

That trade only works because phone cameras got good enough to make it worthwhile. VisitScotland’s own trend research has flagged what it calls instant inspo, social platforms functioning as a constant stream of free holiday advertising shot by the public rather than by tourism boards. This week’s gallery, and the breathtaking Scottish landscapes and wildlife readers sent in earlier this year, are that trend playing out one email at a time.

Why Do Isle of May and Bass Rock Keep Stealing the Show?

Because both are having a moment that has nothing to do with this gallery. The Isle of May turns 70 this year as a National Nature Reserve, and the volcanic plug of Bass Rock down the coast still holds the title of the world’s largest Northern gannet colony, with a recent survey putting the number of breeding birds above 100,000.

Piotr Slusaczyk’s trip to the Isle of May puts him among a growing crowd. Visitor numbers have climbed to around 17,000 a year, up from roughly 11,000 a decade ago, according to NatureScot, which manages the reserve. Reserve manager David Steel said simply, We get many more visitors to the Isle of May these days.

Down the coast at North Berwick, the world’s largest colony of Northern gannets is the same colony Sylvia Beaumont’s ponies photograph happened to catch in the background. A 2025 drone survey led by the Scottish Seabird Centre and Edinburgh Napier University counted roughly 52,459 nesting sites on the rock. Both islands sit inside a stretch of coast where offshore wind developers are watching closely, since two of Scotland’s gigawatt wind farms still awaiting seabird sign-off lie in the same seabird flight paths NatureScot is trying to protect.

Scotland’s Tourism Numbers Catch Up With the Pictures

This is not happening against a quiet backdrop. Domestic tourism to Scotland had its strongest run in years through the first three quarters of 2025, and the same pull that sends readers out with their phones is showing up in the official figures.

• 7.7 million overnight domestic trips were taken in Scotland from January to September 2025, a rise of more than a fifth on the year before
• £2.8 billion in visitor spend came with those trips over the same nine months
• 245,000 jobs nationwide, about one in eleven of all Scottish jobs, sit inside the tourism sector
• Tourism is estimated to generate a fifth or more of the local economy in parts of Skye and along the NC500

VisitScotland’s own release on the figures called it a rare bright spot, the only nation in Great Britain to post growth in overnight trips over that period. Glen Etive, photographed this week by Victor Tregubov, is part of the reason people keep coming back to the same glens: the road through it featured in the 2012 Bond film Skyfall, and VisitScotland now runs its own guide to the Glen Etive filming locations for fans who want to find the exact viewpoint.

The View From Behind the Lens

Strip away the statistics and what is left is mostly modest. Aileen Gillies photographed a Crinan sunset she said never fail to be impressive. Andrew Henderson said Broughty Ferry gives him a strong sense of serenity. Lorne MacLeod explained that Connel’s Gaelic name roughly translates to the white dogs, a nod to the frothing rapids under his kayaker’s paddle at the Falls of Lora.

None of them were paid. None of them seemed to expect to be. Martin King sent in a sunset from somewhere on the west coast and refused to say exactly where. Whichever slipway or headland it was, the light was free, and this week, so was the picture.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I submit my own photos to BBC Scotland’s gallery?

Email your photograph to scotlandpictures@bbc.co.uk. It must be your own work, taken safely and legally, and photos of children need written permission from a parent or guardian, not a grandparent, aunt or family friend.

Where is Barassie Beach?

Barassie Beach sits just north of Troon on the South Ayrshire coast, facing the Firth of Clyde toward the Isle of Arran, a short walk from Troon’s town centre and railway station.

Can you still visit the Skyfall filming spot in Glen Etive?

Yes. The single track road through Glen Etive, off the A82 near Glencoe, is open to the public and remains one of the Highlands’ most photographed drives, though the exact pull off point carries no signage.

When is the Isle of May open to visitors this year?

NatureScot’s reserve is open from 1 April until 31 September 2026, reachable only by ferry from Anstruther, Crail or North Berwick, and biosecurity footbaths are in place this season to guard against avian flu.

Is Scotland’s tourism boom good news for every community?

Mostly, though VisitScotland’s own corporate plan flags real strain around seasonality, housing and infrastructure in the Highlands and islands, even as booking levels for spring 2025 ran ahead of the previous year.