One possibility, it seems, according to ‘The Happiness Formula,’ a major 6-part series broadcast on BBC 2 last summer, is to be found in a small spiritual community on a tiny, windswept Hebridean island, barely one mile square, lying just off the south-west corner of Mull. The community- and the island’s name? Erraid. And despite it’s remote location Erraid has become significant for a number of reasons – not least as a potential destination for finding inner contentment- but also through its long-term connection with members of the famous Stevenson dynasty - both the great Scottish Victorian lighthouse builders and particularly Robert Louis - one of the world’s finest writers of children’s fiction.

Paul Johnson has lived on Erraid for the last eight years - a member of the small island community who have been custodians of the island for the last 28 years. Mark Easton and his crew from the BBC’s Current Affairs Department travelled as far as Bhutan and the USA in search of clues to that elusive formula for happiness. Interviewing Paul, over a cup of tea in the community dining room, he probed for the reasons why Paul had so enthusiastically turned his back on a successful marketing career to engage with his current, simpler lifestyle, one which has brought him greater personal happiness, the gregarious Geordie replied, ‘Life is so much richer here, so much more complete. ’ ‘A philosophy of less being more from a man who once tried to convince consumers that more is more’, added Mark Easton in his voice-over.

For nearly a century until the early 1950’s the island was home to a shore station- a lighthouse- keeper’s community for the men and their families who manned the Dubh Artach and Skerryvore lighthouses. When these were automated the Northern Lighthouse Board sold the eight granite houses, outbuildings and gardens - as well as the entire rugged island on which they had been built. Passing through several owners hands it was eventually bought by a Dutch family in 1977.
A year later after realising it was going to be too much to maintain themselves, they offered it to the Findhorn Foundation, the Moray-based internationally famous, spiritual community, to find out if they would be interested in becoming the island’s custodians. The Foundation agreed and shortly afterwards a pioneering band of volunteers arrived on the island, eager to take up the challenge of turning the neglected houses, gardens and outbuildings into a community, opting to live a simple, largely self-sufficient lifestyle all underpinned by the simple spiritual ethos they had brought from Findhorn –one which respects and honours the divinity to be found in all humanity and indeed all life on the planet.

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