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THE island looks harmless enough. A sudden slash of sunshine through the clouds lights up the heather, and a visitor looking on might think it a pleasant place to live.
But Gruinard is uninhabited and likely to remain so for some time to come, on account of its frightening past.
Talk about biological warfare and the possible use of anthrax has centred round the dreaded prospect of an attack on London. But Gruinard, just half a mile off the Wester Ross coast, was once Base X, 520 acres of land used to experiment with chemical death.
Yesterday, tourists on the beach at Little Gruinard, half-way between Ullapool and Gairloch, knew nothing of the island that could be seen lurking through a gap in a promontory.
Liam Young, one of a group of environmental students from Edinburgh University, said: "I was never aware of that. If I was living here, it would bother me."
Sean White, a Gloucestershire holidaymaker, walking with his girlfriend, Charlotte, under the gaze of the moody-looking mountains, said: "I have come up here a few times but had never heard of it."
But Kenneth Mackenzie,...