CASE STUDY

The news that life expectancy has increased by five years in Shetland was welcomed by Gordon Smith, the presenter of BBC Radio Shetland's nostalgia show The 50-plus Club.

"If we were on the Scottish figure of 74.6, I wouldn't be making any plans because I am already 75. But in Shetland apparently men can expect to get 76.6 years so I will get another birthday bash out of it yet," he said.

"I do have friends up here who are well up in their 80s and 90s and still looking after themselves and out and about and keeping busy. I don't think it can be the diet because when we grew up, everything we ate was salted and now we are told that salt kills."

Mr Smith thinks there may be other explanations. "The thing about Shetland is you either love it or hate it and those who hate it tend to leave. From the war on there have been people coming up here and many have married, stayed and made their lives here. But others left pretty quickly. It was the same with the oilmen."

As a result, he believes there is probably a higher level of contentment within the Shetland community.

"Then you have got the importance that people attach to music up here. That matters," explained the erstwhile dance band musician.

It mattered to him. He had left Shetland when he was five.

His father was a seamen but went to Leith for work. "I came back in 1955 when I was 23 and never thought of leaving again. Indeed all the the time we were in Edinburgh, I never really thought of it as home.

"And of course I got so involved in the music up here, dances and concerts. I only knocked that off this year when I realised I had better go before I was pushed."