My parents were avid mountaineers, so family holidays were largely spent slogging up hills and eating soggy peanut butter sandwiches on rainy summits. I came to love it. One of my happiest memories is walking with my parents across the Cuillin hills on Skye from Elgol village to the Sligachan hotel, which is this fantastic climber’s pub in the middle of nowhere.
Sadly I haven’t inherited my parents’ navigational skills. One New Year’s Day out hillwalking with friends, we got swallowed up by this thick, thick mist. My brother went ahead to look for the summit cairn, and the second he’d disappeared it hit me what a terrible idea it was splitting up — especially because my brother is deaf. We met up again at the top, thank God, but for a while I seriously thought I’d killed my own brother.
We would also go skiing in Glenshee, which I absolutely loved. Skiing fast is the closest thing I know to total freedom. However, now that I’ve skied in America, I realise that skiing in Scotland is basically an extreme sport. In places like Park City in Utah it’s sunny and immaculately groomed and the runs go on for ever; in Glenshee you’re rattling across ice for 30 seconds trying not to die, then you’re straight back onto the Poma ski-lift. If you can ski in Scotland, you can ski anywhere.
Sometimes I wonder if I have romanticised my childhood, but growing up in St Andrews we were outside from eight in the morning until six at night. I was a total tomboy, so I’d be out on the bike, getting messy on the beach and mucking about in the cathedral and castle ruins. In my teenage years it’d be bonfires on the beach and a bag of Diamond White. I still can’t drink cider, thanks to that, but it definitely left me with a profound love for nature and the outdoors. Whenever I’m on tour, the band and I always take bikes.
I remember loads of moments in St Andrews being completely alone, surrounded by forests, fields and that dramatic craggy coastline. I got such a shock when I moved to London: it was just wall-to-wall people, and inevitably everyone compares themselves to everyone else. Living by the North Sea was a constant reminder of how insignificant you actually were. I find that immensely reassuring even today.
Advertisement
Cities have their upsides. I love the Outsider restaurant on George IV Bridge in Edinburgh, which has amazing organic non-Spanish tapas and views of the castle, and the Witchery hotel is brilliantly bonkers, like sleeping on a Blackadder set. In Glasgow I inevitably end up in Stereo on Renfield Lane. It’s this incredible record shop and vegan café where I always hear at least three songs I’ve never heard before and love.
The only place to make me cry was Milford Sound in New Zealand. I flew in with this ex-military pilot, vertical up the sides of glaciers and landing at top of 5,000ft waterfalls. There, rising sheer from the water, was the perfectly conical Mitre Peak — it’s the first time I’ve thought that what I was witnessing couldn’t just be random. I’d say it was a religious experience — I get a similar feeling on Skye.
I’ve lived in America since 2015 and I always get nervous coming back to Scotland. There’s this slight attitude of “Who do you think you are, living in LA?” I always feel I have to earn my way back in.
I’ve heard people say they don’t fancy America. I’m, like: “What?!” I mean, Alaska, Hawaii, the Rockies . . . What don’t you fancy about them? I love driving up the Pacific Coast highway to places like Utah and Oregon. You’ve never seen anything like Redwood. The trees are ancient and vast — it’s like you’re in a fairytale.
My favourite place in America is Topanga Canyon — it’s where I live today. You’re only about half an hour from downtown LA, but there’s this abrasiveness to the land: it feels wild. There are bobcats and coyotes, tarantulas and stags — last week I found a rattlesnake outside my front door. In some ways it feels a long way from St Andrews, but in other ways — the wildness, the sense of being surrounded by nature — it’s weirdly similar. Maybe growing up buffeted by North Sea winds and horizontal rain is actually what brought me here.
Dance With The Devil, KT Tunstall’s new single with the Lottery Winners, is out now
