We had our last dinner with Stewart and Jill Steele. Stewart has been coming to the island for 82 years, beginning as a boy with his family, and every year since then. They met when she was a student nurse and he was an Ob-gyn doctor. He invited her to meet him here on holiday, and she realized that Iona was a test of her suitability for marriage – in other words, if you don’t take to Iona, you won’t get me. As she said that, he just smiled.
They live in London, and now take two days to make the trip, staying about three weeks. Their two sons holiday here as well, one promising his wife a winter holiday also in a warmer place. We had met them on our first trip to Iona together.
Stewart told us he had served in WWII, which we thought would make him nearly 90, or more. Although we are nosy Americans, we didn’t ask his age.
