The Sullom Voe crude oil terminal has already been almost seven years in the making. I would like to take you all back through those seven years to the halcyon days before Shetland found herself face to face with the unveiling of a geological event which occurred millions of years ago.

Imagine yourself a Shetlander. You are a member of a community of about 17,000 independent, resourceful folk, who had only just stabilised their traditional fishing/agricultural/knitting economy and their population after a century of decline. During that century, or as much of it as you have lived through, you have seen friends and relatives leaving on the 'Clair' with monotonous regularity bound for any place between Aberdeen and Australia. You may have lost some of those friends and relatives on whalers in the wastes of the South Atlantic. You have seen crofts left to go derelict and to waste, and most of your able bodied menfolk having to leave the islands in order to find gainful employment. Latterly, you have just been successful in combating the proposals of the Wheatley Commission to absorb the islands into a Highland Region.