Stromness Dragon

Should you ever come to Orkney, and want to immerse yourself in a genuine, utterly authentic Orcadian experience, go to Quoyloo and pay a visit to Isbister Brothers.

All over Orkney I know there are similar shops, and they are valuable in so many ways, particularly in the outer islands, but this is the one with which I am most familiar, and love dearly.

The name Isbister is very old. The ‘…bister’ ending appears in place-names and family names throughout Orkney and originates from Old Norse bolstathr, meaning ‘farm’ or ‘dwelling’. You will find them all over the place – Kirbister, Rennibister, Swanbister, and so on. In the case of the shop, and the folk who run it, the pronunciation is ‘Eyes-bister’. If you pass the magnificent Ring of Brodgar on your way to Quoyloo, one of the biggest standing stones near the entrance has a selection of fine 19^th century carved names (the result of widespread literacy after the 1872 Education Act, fact fans), the biggest and best of which is…..you’ve guessed it, Isbister. It is cut deep and even and the letters are beautifully formed. Early advertising, I have no doubt.

The shop itself stands on a crossroads. In mythological and psychological terms, a crossroads is a significant place to be, but that assumes that the roads leading away from the crossroads are actually going anywhere meaningful. The crossroads on which Isbisters’ shop stands is a triumph of non-directness: in fact the whole of Quoyloo is like that – it was described by my friend and blogger Northern Blethers as ‘the lost village of Sandwick’. There are no direct roads here, and the four roads which run off our crossroads go to 1) the Bay of Skaill (not the main road) 2) Birsay (not the main road) 3) Dounby (not the main road) and 4) another bit of Quoyloo. On Google maps we are a collection of ill-defined squiggles with no thoroughfares, and it is here that I have realised a lifelong ambition of living in a house that is not on a named street and has no number. But I digress.

Isbister Brothers is a wonderful shop, and there isn’t much you can’t buy here. Groceries and foodstuffs galore from Tabasco to butternut squash (unavailable at the Co-op), a good selection of local fish (frozen) and regular deliveries of meat from Flett’s the butchers for the carnivores. Home picklers will find large gallon bottles of white or malt vinegar and bakers will benefit from catering size packs of sugar and raisins, plus huge tubs of bicarbonate of soda. Large trays arrive daily with bread and cakes from several Orkney bakeries, and occasionally you will find jars of homemade jam or duck eggs at 25p a piece. There is also a fabulous selection of old fashioned ‘penny sweeties’ in cardboard boxes at handy small-child-finger height, complete with little paper bags on a hook. And there is an array of fags, beers and wines that would put several city off-licences to shame.

Still swithering? Let me show you the non-food section. Rubber gloves. Hammers. Toasters. Workboots. Rat poison, Buckets. Doilies. Roasting tins. Clothes pegs. Wrapping paper. Ruby Wedding clocks. Stationery. Garden tools. Vegetable seeds. Flower vases. Wine racks.

After we had been living nearby for a few weeks, I went in for the papers (as well as stocking The Orcadian and Orkney Today, they will also order and keep for you any paper or magazine you like) and the lassie asked me how I was liking living in Quoyloo. She then said that if there was anything we particularly wanted them to sell, we should just let them know and they would get it. There was, and they did. How’s that for service?

Can it get any better? Yes, it can. For the shop also houses the Post Office. There are three separate signs up telling you the opening hours of the PO, and they are all different, and frankly it kind of depends who’s on that day….but it is there and we use it regularly. As long as what you want to post is small and for the UK, you’ll be just fine. And there’s more! Isbisters is a petrol station too, widely quoted as having the cheapest petrol in Orkney (although this seems to vary). They are the coal merchants too! Outside the shop stands a collection of enormous old railway trucks filled with black diamonds: and when you go to order coal, they ask you if you want Chinese, Polish or Scottish. Is there a difference? I have no idea.

By this time you are probably booking your ticket to Orkney, in order to make your way to this provider of essential vittals. And good for you. But I should give you the following advice – practice your banter, because otherwise you will fail to hold your own against the brothers themselves, Freddy and Tommy Isbister. They are gentlemen of indeterminate age, but we suspect that actually they are ancient beings who have discovered the secret of eternal life. Be prepared for Freddy to regale you with the story of the 1957 blizzards, when Quoyloo was cut off for weeks and the Stromness lifeboat was sent with supplies to the Bay of Skaill, from where the local men rowed them ashore (the photo at the top shows this event, and one of these men is Freddy). Listen as Tommy reminiscences about the Abdication. Gasp as they both recall the sailors of the shipwrecked Spanish Armada crawling up the shore and seducing their daughters. I am fully confident that when Mesolithic man pulled his wood and leather coracle onto the beach, having crossed the Pentland Firth 9,000 years ago and proceeded to hunt and gather on these fertile lands, Tommy and Freddy were there to greet them - purveyors of cider and hi-visibility vests.

And yet, despite these wonders, I have saved the best to last. Round the back of the cavernous, never ending depths of the Isbisters’ store, there is Trevor. Trevor is a mechanic who fixes cars, and does MOT testing. He is a thoroughly lovely man who lives nearby with his young family and has mended our knackered old car on several occasions. Trevor has come to our house and jump-started us more than once, has changed tyres at very short notice, and even came to our rescue during the freezing snow and ice, to fix our dodgy alternator, when he was actually on his holidays. He and his mechanic buddy Erland are experts on Ford cars, and when I was round there last week in the sunshine and saw the two of them tinkering under the bonnet of a sparkling purple Ford Capri (Trevor’s favourite car) I don’t think there could have been two more contented men in Orkney. I had to break their afternoon of fun though, to enable Trevor to hammer off my stuck petrol cap. I chatted to Erland and he ate a packet of Monster Munch as I tried to ignore the banging noise.

So there you have it. Shop, Post Office, petrol station, car mechanic, coal merchant and the best banter this side of Sauchiehall Street. What are you waiting for?!

If you’re out of milk, and the car needs fixed….who you gonna call?

ISBISTERS!

Tags: Isbister, Orkney, Quoyloo, shop

Remember my blogs about the Ness Battery? Well, there have been lots of developments since I last wrote about it, so I thought that I would give you an update! I’ll start off with a bit about the site in wartime, what’s there now, and what life might have been like for the men stationed there.

The site, once owned by the Ministry of Defence and now the property of Orkney Islands Council, comprises two large WWII gun emplacements, the remains of several camp huts, an enormous control tower, various engine rooms, water tanks, and remnants of the WWI battery and camp. The site is surrounded by a large perimeter fence, and access is strictly controlled by the council.

Last year, the Scapa Flow Landscape Partnership Scheme came in to being. It has 3 years’ worth of funding, and some of that money is going towards Ness Battery, for the development of public access via guided tours, and conservation of the structures, both interior and exterior.

Ness Battery was extremely important during both World Wars, as it protected the western approach to Scapa Flow, home port of the British war fleet and vital to national security. In WWI, Ness Battery offered the only serious defence against attack – there were a few blockships between Graemsay and Hoy, and an induction loop, but Ness provided the fire power. In WWII it was a Port War Signal Station for the Examination Service, and Fire Command for several coast batteries on Orkney Mainland, Graemsay and Hoy.

Several important structures remain, including the two gun emplacements (each at one time containing a ‘Twin Six’ – a pair of 6-inch guns with a fire rate of 72 rounds per minute). These were originally open to the skies – it was not until 1941 that the concrete roofs were put on, after attack from the air was recognised as a serious threat.

The WWII Ness Battery was planned and mostly constructed before the start of the war. Time was taken in its construction, resulting in underground ammunition magazines, and drystone wall reinforcements. It was one of only two batteries in Orkney that was operational at the start of the conflict.

Shipping was strictly controlled in and out of Hoy Sound, and any ship that had failed to communicate was warned off by a shot across the bows. On one famous occasion, this was the St Ola ferry. The official war diary (which recorded events at the batteries) noted the appearance of an enemy plane overhead. The plane was then seen to drop three parachute mines into Hoy Sound, thus making it impassable for any shipping until the mines could be cleared. One of the ships that tried to enter the Sound was the St Ola, under the command of the redoubtable Captain Swanson. For one reason or another, there was no way of contacting the ship, so shots were fired. Swanson, apparently furious, held his course, and it took another shot to convince him to turn the ship around and find an alternative route into Stromness!

Thanks to funding from Scapa Flow Landscape Partnership Scheme, archaeologist Gavin Lindsay was able to travel to the National Archives in London to study the record books pertaining to Ness Battery. As well as providing detail about the way that the guns and searchlights were controlled, the records also gave an insight into life in the camp itself.

Orkney counted as an overseas posting for the British forces, with all the attendant perks and privileges. It is likely that the average length of service might have been about 6 months, but there were no doubt variations. At Ness it seems that there could have been 100-150 officers, NCOs and other ranks, although there was constant movement of troops, and units spending only a short time there before going on to other locations.

Whilst the Battery Observation Post and gun emplacements were made of concrete and cast in situ, the camp consisted of Jane or Jain huts which, like Nissen huts, were prefabricated buildings that could be transported in bits then constructed on site. The huts at Ness had wooden walls and ‘wrinkly tin’ roofs (corrugated iron). The officers’ quarters had an ablutions block, a kitchen, and a nice little fireplace in the mess. The other ranks were quartered in four huts, some containing stoves (none are there now, alas), and in the mess hall, a stunning mural was painted on three sides of the interior walls. Local legend says a fourth wall boasted a painted crest bearing the words ‘Come the four corners of the earth, and we will sink them!’ The Italian Chapel it wasn’t!

The Ness Battery had its own entertainment troop called The Nesters. Stromness and Lyness in Hoy saw many of the great Forces entertainers too – Gracie Fields, Flanagan and Allen, Vera Lynn and George Formby. There were several Forces newspapers, including the famous Orkney Blast, edited by Eric Linklater and Gerry Meyer, whose masthead featured a very saucy WREN-mermaid!

The hardships felt by those stationed at Ness were largely of the cold/wet/boredom variety. The Orkney landscape and climate can seem inhospitable to those unaccustomed to it, and we can only pity the poor so-and-sos on the night when the war diary recorded in April 1941: ‘Very severe gale….& snow storm…. Roof blew off several occupied huts.’

Research continues into the site and the resources will grow with time. Meanwhile, a training course is taking place for tour guides, with a view to guided tours of Ness Battery being available later on this year. It is hoped by many that this will just be the start of the process – once interest is excited, awareness raised and money generated, who knows where it could lead? I can’t help thinking that Ness Battery has the potential to become one of the most visited places in Orkney – so watch this space!

Tags: Ness Battery, Orkney, Stromness, WWI, WWII

Olivia shivered and watched her breath plume from her mouth. The candles glinting off the damp stone gave a yellow glow but did nothing to raise the temperature, which she estimated to be just above freezing – there had been a thin skim of ice on the well this morning. The nuns were white-faced and motionless except for the slight movement of their lips as the words of the service were spoken sotto voce. Lauds was not the first religious office of the day – the nuns and novices had celebrated Matins at 2.00am – but it was the first one that Olivia could usually manage, starting as it did at daybreak.

She pulled her woollen cloak more tightly around her and tried to think holy thoughts. Images of hot buttered toast rose unbidden in her mind and her stomach grumbled. The dark-habited figure next to her shifted from one knee to another. Minutes stretched to hours. She knew that as a non-religious she was under no compulsion to attend services, but Olivia was brought up to be at least polite to her hosts, even if those hosts had no choice in the matter. She went to Lauds, usually, missed Prime as that was the best time to clean the latrines, and tried to get to either Vespers or Compline in the evenings, although her domestic duties took precedence. This morning she would have to sift and divide up a sack of flour which had been delivered yesterday – even a cursory glance had shown the tell-tale black specks which indicated weevils. If she slipped away now, she could have most of it done by the time the novices came in to break their fast. Slowly she rose to her feet and slid from the pew, head down.

There was the dimmest glimmer of cold dawn in the cloister. The rooks started to shift in their nests and small twigs fell to earth as they shook their sooty wings. Olivia had learned quickly the art of moving without noise – as a child she had been fascinated by the ‘floating’ nuns she saw on the street, now here she was doing the same thing – and walked swiftly and silently to the kitchen. As she rounded the doorframe, a black figure flew into her stomach, winding her.

‘Oh!’ Olivia caught the doorframe for support, blocking the path of the flying figure, whom she now recognised as one of the novices, Sara. The girl looked up at her and brought both hands up to her mouth. Her eyes darted from Olivia’s face to the corridor and back, flashing fear. Olivia steadied herself and Sara straightened herself, turning her head away.

‘Sara – are you alright?’ Olivia said.

‘I’m fine,’ Sara said but it sounded muffled. She tried to push past Olivia, who placed her hands on Sara’s shoulders and turned her round to face her. She could see at once that the novice’s mouth was full of something dark, although she was trying desperately to swallow.

‘What are you eating, Sara?’ she asked, peering.

‘Nothing, just some bread…I …oh, Miss, I am so hungry!’  The small figure trembled.  ’I didn’t mean to steal, I just thought if I could…I was going to replace them…’ and she leant her forehead against the doorframe and wept, her shoulders shaking underneath the brown habit. From her fingers fell a handful of black, sticky currants.

The most visited place in Orkney is not the Ring of Brodgar or Skara Brae or the magnificent St Magnus Cathedral. It is a tiny chapel dating from the Second World War, built out of tin and cardboard. It is estimated that around 85,000 people a year cross the concrete threshold of the little church and peer into the unlit interior. It is a very special place indeed.

Barely a few weeks into the war, German U-Boat 47, captained by Gunther Prien, entered Scapa Flow, the home base of the British fleet. Prien fired on the Royal Oak, flagship of the fleet, and she sank in fewer than 15 minutes – from a complement of 1200 men and boys, 833 lost their lives.

As well as being a terrible tragedy, the sinking of the Royal Oak on 14 October 1939 demonstrated that Scapa Flow was far from impregnable. The blockships, booms and nets were insufficient defence against enemy attack. First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, devised a plan whereby the eastern approaches to Scapa Flow would be blocked permanently by concrete barriers. This phenomenal engineering project took 4 years to complete, and the result was four great causeways; now known as the Churchill Barriers, they link Orkney Mainland and the South Isles of Lamb Holm, Glimps Holm, Burray and South Ronaldsay.

Building the barriers was a massive undertaking and the work was done by construction company Balfour Beatty. To begin with the work force was British, but it became clear very quickly that many more men were needed, so Churchill proposed using Prisoner of War labour. Whilst the Geneva Convention prevents prisoners from being put to war work, there is no law against them undertaking civilian labour – and the construction of four ‘causeways’ was deemed to be a civilian project and nothing to do with military strategy.

Thus it was that over 1000 Italian POWs, captured in North Africa, were brought to the tiny islands of Orkney, installed in purpose-built prison camps, and put to work casting huge concrete blocks. The Italians, far from home, living in concrete huts on an uninhabited island and working long arduous days, set about making the best of their situation. They organised plays and concert parties, and planted the ground around the huts with flowers and vegetables; but their spiritual needs were not being met, and a request for a place to worship was addressed by the provision of two corrugated iron Nissen huts. They were cold and bare and joyless.

One of the prisoners, Domenico Chiocchetti, painted the Madonna and Child above the altar, based on a Renaissance altarpiece. Palumbi forged a beautiful rood screen out of scrap iron, and Buttapasta fashioned an altar from concrete. The other prisoners were soon caught up in the creative endeavour, and their imagination knew no bounds! They painted astonishing trompe l’oeil designs on the walls, to make them look like tiles and carved stone, when in fact they are nothing more than plasterboard and scrounged paint. The lamps are made from bully beef tins and the shaft of the font is a truck spring encased in concrete. The whole place is created from scrap – even the bell in the belfry was made of cardboard for the first official photograph.

There is much more to say about this remarkable place, and stories abound about the people, the ingenuity, the return of Chiochetti in the 1960s, the subsequent friendship between Orkney and a small town in northern Italy called Moena. But there is one particular story that I want to share.

Two years ago, in my capacity as occasional tour guide, I took a coachful of English visitors to the Italian Chapel. We had spent the day together and visited many places, including the Ring of Brodgar, Skara Brae and the Cathedral. The chapel was the last stop on the itinerary before we headed for the ferry. I had told them the story of the Royal Oak, the building of the barriers and the Italian POWs. We then pulled up at the chapel. They looked, we spoke, and folk took photos and left donations. As the group began to trickle back to the coach, one lady stayed behind to tell me a story.

The lady came from Lincolnshire, and had married young. Her husband had died in his 60s and her children were grown up and had moved away, so she had thrown herself into village activities, joining clubs and societies and making many friends. Amongst them was an old Italian gentleman who had a farm only a few miles from where she lived. They became very close and he told her that he had come to Britain as a prisoner during the war, and had worked on the mighty Churchill Barriers in Orkney. He also told her about a little chapel that he had helped to decorate. The gentleman spoke often about Orkney, and as their relationship deepened and they fell in love, the old couple decided to take a holiday there to visit the chapel.

The pair looked at brochures and made plans, and even managed to get hold of a TV film about the chapel, so the lady could get an idea of what it looked like. Six months before the trip, the old Italian gentleman died, so he never got to see the chapel again. But the lady, heartbroken as she was, decided that she would go to Orkney herself. She booked a place on a group coach holiday visiting the islands, and now here she was, standing in the chapel in front of me, telling this story. She looked around her and said ‘He’s here. He’s all around me, I can feel him,’ and the tears started to pour down her cheeks. Everybody else had left the chapel and we stood with our arms around each other and cried. After a few minutes we pulled ourselves together, and headed back to the coach with very red eyes! She told me too that she had not intended to tell me the story, but that she was moved by what I had said about the Italians and wanted to share her little part in the tale. I am very glad she did.

Last year a book was published called The Italian Chapel – it is a fictionalised version of the Italians’ story written by Philip Paris, who became interested in the chapel after visiting Orkney on his honeymoon. Philip did a huge amount of research for the book, contacting many of the surviving POWs, and he has plans to publish a non-fiction book later this year. We have corresponded regularly, and I told him the tale of the lady on the coach. At the time, it did not seem appropriate to ask her name, or demand more details – I just felt so privileged to be there with her. Philip has asked my permission to use the story, and he has started the process of trying to find her, placing adverts and articles in Lincolnshire newspapers. He has said, and I am sure he is right, that there must be hundreds of stories such as mine out there, and we will never know them all.

But this story will live on, because I tell it to every group that I take to the Italian Chapel; and I’ve now told it to you.

Tags: Churchill Barriers, Italian Chapel, Orkney

Edinburgh’s Royal Mile is amazing – a medieval street built on a crag-and-tail ridge of volcanic rock, with the castle and the head and the Palace of Holyroodhouse at the tail. Running off the spine are dozens of closes – narrow, steep, cobbled alleyways where many a secret lurks.

In the Old Town today (comprising the Royal Mile, Cowgate and Grassmarket), there are approximately 6,000 residents. In 1850 there were 60,000. The medieval buildings were tall and narrow, sometimes reaching twenty storeys high. At the top of the close, the bit that faced onto the Royal Mile, there might be six or seven storeys; but the roofs of the buildings were level, which meant by the time you got down to the bottom of the close, the tenements were towering above you. Raw sewage was thrown from the windows (with the cry of ‘Gardyloo!’) and would run down the close to the pool of stinking filth below, the Nor’ Loch, now Princes Street Gardens.

In 1861 the closes of the High Street were disease-ridden, overcrowded and neglected – all the wealthy inhabitants had made the move across to the swanky Georgian New Town, where they had their own front door and streets wide enough to turn a coach and four without unhitching the horses. The poor remained in the medieval Old Town and conditions were insanitary and congested.

Half way down the High Street, a local baker had his premises: a shop and bakery on the ground floor, and his house the level above. Attempting to increase the size of his ovens, he set about knocking down several walls. Unfortunately the walls were load-bearing, and were essential for the stability of the building – a stone-built tenement some 12 storeys high. It is testament to the medieval builders’ skills that the structure stayed up as long as it did, but within 48 hours the building began to submit to gravity. The residents of the surrounding streets were awoken in the small hours by a deep rumbling and an ear-splitting crack as the tenement buckled under its own weight and came crashing to the ground. Folk from all the houses round about rushed out with lamps and shovels and tried to pull away the rubble to see if there were any survivors.

Before the night was over, 35 bodies had been pulled from the wreckage. It became increasingly clear that no-one could possibly have survived such a devastating event. The rescuers wiped their faces, blew out their lamps as dawn broke, and prepared to head for home and get ready for their normal day. Just as they were turning away, someone caught a faint sound……a voice, very faint, buried deep beneath the rubble. They shouted back, and heard it again, a distant but definite human voice. With renewed vigour and hope, the High Street residents rolled up their sleeves and started to dig for all they were worth. Ton after ton of rubble was dragged away, and the voice of young Joseph McIvor could be heard loud and clear. The 14 year old boy did not actually live in the building – he had been visiting an uncle, who sadly perished in the collapse. Joseph began to encourage his rescuers, and they in turn shouted to him to raise his spirits – in response to the diggers’ shouts, he yelled back ‘Heave awa’ lads! I’m no deid yet!’

Joseph McIvor was the only survivor of the tragedy. His father was so thankful to God for sparing his son, and so grateful to his rescuers, that when the new Paisley Close was built on the site of the old houses, he had a special door lintel carved, showing his son and the words he had shouted from under the rubble. So that the words would be understood by all, they were slightly modified, so the close bears the legend ‘Heave awa chaps, I’m no dead yet!’

In the light of this terrible event, the City Council took it upon themselves for the first time to draw up some form of building controls, and it also prompted them to address the issue of overcrowding in Edinburgh’s Old Town. Now visitors from all over the world stand and admire Joseph McIvor; I hope none of them have the cheek to criticise modern Health and Safety laws!

Tags: Edinburgh, Heave awa, Old Town, tenement

Walking into the room, the first thing I saw was a torso lying on a table. Next to it was a head, sporting a tweed cap at a jaunty angle. On, next to and underneath the table were boxes, and suitcases bursting with knickers, feathers and demob suits. E, to whom these garments belong, told me that this represented a tiny part of her vast clothes collection, and that she had just grabbed things randomly off their hangers for tonight’s talk.

On a wild and windy Thursday night in November, an intrepid group of folk met in a local community centre to see and hear about E’s amazing collection of vintage clothing. She has been accumulating clothes for about 35 years and she started in a small way with her father’s petticoats, which were on their way to being torn up for cleaning rags. These lacy white garments were standard, if special, wear for both boys and girls, of course. I have a photo in the family archive of my grandfather as a baby, swathed in frills like a little doll!

E displayed for us a bewildering array of undergarments of yesteryear, from cotton bloomers (roomy affairs held together with ties and buttons) to fierce-looking corsets reinforced with whalebone. The men were amply served by woollen semmits and long drawers, but it was clear as the parade of pants continued that our scanties had become progressively more scanty with the passing years. By the time we were shown the lycra thong, E had made a convincing case for global warming! Of course, until relatively modern times, houses had no central heating so multiple layers of underclothing were essential.

Moving to the outerwear, we were shown silk skirts and dresses from the Victorian and Edwardian eras featuring fully-lined skirts, plus delicate lace blouses and velvet waistcoats. I was privileged to model a beautiful black velvet coat, sparkling with beads and sequins, probably a mourning garment with a bit of bling. Black became very fashionable as the colour of mourning after Queen Victoria wore it following the death of her beloved consort Prince Albert. E also has a fine collection of headgear for gentlemen and ladies – lace, crepe and men’s caps from long-defunct Kirkwall outfitters. The starched white shirts and stiff collars were, she said, ‘not from yesterday, but maybe the day before’.

A mixed response greeted the accessories, particularly those of the fur and feather variety - black crow’s feathers may seem a little morbid in today’s world of spangly fascinators. The height of fashion once demanded dangling furs – stoles and collars and muffs featuring feet, tails and occasionally heads. One audience member shuddered at the ‘dry, dead things’ whilst I brought forth a long-buried memory of my grandmother giving me a patchy old stoat fur, complete with face and glass eyes. I called it Pickles.

My favourite garment of the evening was a stunning full-length, figure-hugging red velvet evening gown. It fastened at the back with tiny velvet-covered buttons and brought to mind Bette Davis. If I lost a few pounds I think I could just about squeeze into it……

The question that E gets asked the most is ‘where do you get them?’ And her answer is ‘they just come to me’. Often, she says, they turn up on the doorstep, crumpled and in black plastic bags, sometimes from the other side of the world (such as the clutch bag and gloves from America). She has become known as the lady who collects old clothes, and will love them and care for them and very generously give her time by showing them to groups such as ours. Many of her large extended family send her things; examples include a tiny beaded purse owned by her great-aunt, and a pair of 1950s black high-heeled peep-toed shoes which were owned by her second cousin’s wife!

To vary the evening’s entertainment, E produced a brain-teaser: a list of popular toys from each decade of the twentieth century. Could we work out which toy belonged to which decade? Amongst them were kewpie dolls, Pokemon, Barbie, Rubik’s cube, and the coolest of them all, the Corgi James Bond Aston Martin car, in gold. We had a small confession from an audience member – he had actually owned one of these models, lucky boy!

Alongside the gorgeous gowns that would not have disgraced Ginger Rogers, Wallis Simpson or Jackie Onassis, there were more down-to-earth and homely items like handbags and pinnies. E even had poetry to demonstrate their evocative power – here is Ruth Fainlight’s poem ‘Handbag’.

My mother’s old leather handbag,

crowded with letters she carried

all through the war. The smell

of my mother’s handbag: mints

and lipstick and Coty powder.

The look of those letters, softened

and worn at the edges, opened,

read, and refolded so often.

Letters from my father. Odour

of leather and powder, which ever

since then has meant womanliness,

and love, and anguish, and war.

Wartime images surfaced again as we exclaimed over the flying goggles and a real box of Coty powder, then E brought us a bit more up-to-date with some fabulous 1970s Laura Ashley creations which would have suited Karen Carpenter perfectly! There was even a puffball dress from the 1980s – a look which flattered nobody and which I am dismayed to see is making a comeback. No fashion parade would be complete without the piece de resistance, a bridal gown – a vision of nylon, netting and pink roses – which provoked a rush of wedding-day reminiscences.

The wind howled outside and the rain battered, but we had been taken back in time as a century or more was presented to us in sights, smells, textures, memories and emotions. I was swept away by the clothes and by E’s stories of how she got them, and her assertion once again that the clothes ‘just came’ to her. I suddenly remembered that buried deep in a box of junk, I had a pair of sheer stockings from the 1960s made by Elbeo, still in their cellophane wrapping. I can’t think of a better person to give them to.

Many thanks to E for an unforgettable evening.

Tags: bloomers, clothing, Coty, Laura Ashley, velvet, Vintage

I’ve got this idea. It’s crazy, but it might just work.

In September last year I attended a fantastic three day residential course at Newbattle Abbey College, in Contemporary Oral Storytelling. You may recall that there’s an Orkney connection with Newbattle, as George Mackay Brown spent some there, when Edwin Muir was warden. Anyway, if there’s one thing this dragon likes doing, it’s talking, and in particular, telling stories (the writing thing is an extension of that, I suppose – the benefit of the writing being you don’t have to be in the same room as me). I had a magic time and emerged hungover, frazzled, and full of ideas.

There’s another Newbattle Abbey course in May, and to get the full qualification, I also have to produce a piece of written work in the form of a project; a plan or report about how I could use storytelling in my community or working life. We have some outstanding and notable storytellers here in Orkney, but they are relatively few in number, and there is not much in the way of regular, organised events, particularly for newbies like me to cut their teeth. A bit of research on the interwebs, and I discovered that there been, once upon a time (see what I did there?) an Orkney Storytelling Festival. It ran in 2000 and 2001, and was intended to be an annual event, but failed to materialise: not from lack of support, it was just that the organisers simply didn’t have the time amongst all their other commitments, and nobody else was available to take on the task.

My idea for the course project was to write a feasibility study into the re-establishment of the Orkney Storytelling Festival. I would speak to venues, get quotes on accommodation, website design, advertising, seek grants from the council, carry out market research……..can you see where I’m going with this?

Quite simply, if I am going to all that trouble to fact-find, and if I discover that it is actually really feasible, then for goodness sake I’ll have to do it for real. As of next week, the Orkney Storytelling Festival 2010 will be a very exciting but very scary reality. Everyone I’ve spoken to has been extremely encouraging, and many have offered help, support, discounts, and their time and expertise.

My pencilled-in dates are 22-24 October. I’ve chosen that weekend for several reasons: it coincides with the Scottish International Storytelling Festival which is based in Edinburgh but links with events all over Scotland (and I could piggyback on their marketing). It is half-term. It is at a time when there are no other festival-type events in Orkney, and slightly out-of-season, which makes it more eligible for council funding. It is the same weekend that the clocks go back, thus marking a symbolic turning of the year, when we all hunker down for the winter, beside our fires, telling stories……

I’m going to start the nitty-gritty next week, and hope to have costs worked out in the next week or two. It’s hugely exciting, and will be an enormous amount of work, but I think it could be fabulous! And if you, dear IBers and readers, wish to see the Dragon in action…..well, just put that date in your diaries and watch this space!

Tags: 2010, festival, Orkney, storytelling

This is the story of Mattie Black, a Stromness wise woman, said to have had a Native American mother. Like the famous Orkney witch Bessie Millie, she plied a trade in fair winds to sailors, fishermen and anyone whose livelihood depended on the fickle sea.

One day she was consulted by two Caithness fishing lads. They had come with their father across the Pentland Firth and were hoping for fair winds home, and as fast as possible, for they both had bonny young lassies waiting for them. Their Father was a church-going, God-fearing man, who would have been horrified at any hint of the dark arts, so the lads consulted Mattie Black in secret.

She sold them three short lengths of straw, each with a different coloured piece of thread attached; one green, one white, one red. Mattie said that there would be a fair wind as they sailed away from Stromness, but if they thought it was too light, then they were to throw one piece of straw - the one with the green thread – over the side of the boat. This would give them a good breeze as far as the island of Swona. Then, she explained, the wind would drop and the second straw - with the white thread - would bring forth another stiff breeze to bring them close to the Caithness Shore.

When they asked about the third straw, with the red thread, she counselled caution. They should be very wary of using the third straw, she said. It should not be needed unless in times of great trouble. The lads went off pleased with their purchase, and the next day they cast off for home. All went according to plan. Unseen by their father, the boys cast the first straw into the water, and a good breeze took them past Swona. Then as the wind fell away they threw the second straw over the side - again their father was unaware of their actions - and a good stiff wind whisked them to the Caithness coast. As they were nearing home, the lads could see their two lassies running down to the shore to meet them, and they leapt up to wave back. The straw with the red thread fell out onto the deck of the boat.

The boys looked on aghast as their father caught sight of the straw, and recognised a spell when he saw one. He was furious with his sons, and picked up the straw. He cried, ‘I thought I had taught you the ways of the Bible! You have deceived me and dishonoured the Lord! To the Devil with the witch’s winds!’ Whereupon he gathered all his strength and flung the third straw with the red thread over the side of the boat and into the sea. Immediately, a violent gale blew up. The ropes were ripped from their hands and all three were flung with a jolt onto the floor of the boat. The sails were filled with wind and the little boat was whisked straight over the Pentland Firth, all the way back to Orkney!

Dragon note: I’m away for a couple of days, folks, so no post tomorrow! I’ll try and write something while I’m away, to enlighten and entertain you later in the week!

Those of you who used to read the old Beeb IB may remember my sojourn to the Ness Battery, an old army camp and gun emplacement just outside Stromness. After my first visit, I was inspired to research the place a bit more, and have become more deeply involved in a number of ways. There are plans afoot to operate guided tours of the site, and if you managed to get to the Scapa Flow Ranger’s event just before Christmas, you might have seen a Dragon in full glory, standing in the Mess Hall by lamplight, with the snow battering down outside, reading bits of the Orkney Blast from Christmas 1941. This little piece of imagining followed shortly after.

The men are going to like this - an official communiqué from the War Office.

‘We have been in touch with the censor and can confirm that kisses will be allowed at the bottom of letters, so long as they are not in rows, as this can be used as code’.

I can’t imagine the enemy looking at our soldiers’ love letters and thinking they’re in code, but I suppose anything’s possible. Queerer things have happened but sometimes up here it feels like the whole world is looking elsewhere, not just the enemy. What does Hitler do for his Christmas, the lads were wondering the other day. Stevens said something about a sausage and they all laughed.

It’ll be the first Christmas away from home for most of them. And by golly they are getting a proper taste of winter. The snow is drifting up to the roofs of the wooden huts and the northerly wind whistles right under the doors. I’ve just been out to the men in Number 1 gun – they look frozen solid but their spirits are good – looking forward to the dinner tomorrow. It’s traditional you see for the officers to serve the men at Christmas. Not that the dinner’s much to talk about – a few scrawny chickens from a local farmer, but there’s loads of spuds and some plum duff for pudding, sprinkled with sugar, like those two big hills out there.

I’ve had nothing from Ruth for a fortnight now. Normal for up here, but I was hoping she might send me a package for Christmas. She’ll be busy with the baby right enough, but her Mum’s there to look after her so she’ll be alright. They’ve had it rough with the bombs down there according to the papers, but I try not to think about that.

The men have been decorating the Mess and it looks very jolly. Where on earth Briggs got that holly I don’t know but it makes all the difference. He’s been working on the mural too – he and Woods have just painted a crest on the wall with the motto ‘Come the four corners of the earth, and we will sink them!’ They’re planning some sort of review at the end of the year and have persuaded the ENSA lot to lend them a piano. I saw Briggs trundling it through the snow last night. He’s been telling anyone who’ll listen that he played for Gracie Fields when she was here last month.

I told Parker and Robertson the bad news that they’re manning the Links Battery tomorrow. It could be worse, I told them, you could be posted to Switha. Men have come back from there on the verge of madness – even two weeks there would drive a man to distraction. One gun emplacement, one fixed light, one hut for sleeping, eating, washing and everything else, and nothing to keep you company except sheep. At least here a man can go to Stromness or Kirkwall or Lyness for a bit of fun if you get leave. There’s no point in trying to get home – it takes two days to get off the island usually, then if you survive the horrendous crossing there’s twenty hours on the bloomin’ Jellicoe before you’re halfway there. Is it any wonder that Orkney counts as an overseas posting? Ruth laughed when I told her that. ‘It’s still Britain, isn’t it? She said. ‘Just about’, I said. I heard about this chap that applied for leave from his posting in Scapa Flow. The naval authorities made him fill out a form where he had to put down the name of the nearest railway station; he wrote ‘Bergen’.

I can see my breath now and I’m sitting right next to the fireplace. It’s nearly midnight - soon be time to head for the tower. I bet it’s perishing up there. Hope it’s Jones on with me – he’s an interesting fellow and good for a chat. Think he was a teacher in civvy street. The snow’s falling faster now. The island is in total darkness – all the people in their homes, blackout curtains nailed up, not a chink of light anywhere, all sound muffled by the snow. I have to go. It’s just after midnight. Happy Christmas.

Tags: Christmas, Ness Battery, Orkney, Stromness

Without a doubt, Orkney’s most famous literary son is George Mackay Brown. George was a prolific writer, and produced novels, poems and plays throughout his creative life, as well as a weekly column for the Orkney Herald, then latterly The Orcadian. His last ‘Under Brinkie’s Brae’ was published the week he died, in 1996.

GMB rarely left Orkney – the islands seemed to provide him with all the creative and social stimulus that he needed. When it was suggested to him that perhaps if he had travelled then he might have expanded his experiences and world view, he allegedly replied: ‘There’s nothing that’s ever happened out there that hasn’t happened here’. George’s skill (in my opinion) lay in his ability to take an everyday, mundane event or object, and write about it in such a way as to create a parable or comment on the human condition. Thus did his inability to get his toaster to work properly become a metaphor for life.

Orkney is, in the main, proud of George. Some people don’t understand him, and some disliked either the man or his work, but there is no denying his impact on the islands and on Scottish literature as a whole. In honour of his life and works, a Fellowship has been established that supports creative writing in the islands and also employs a writing ‘Fellow’ for a year. The George Mackay Brown Fellowship gets a small amount of grant funding, but also raises money through authors’ events and the like. One of the board suggested that we try and raise funds through bag packing in Tesco’s.

After a sharp intake of breath and a collective struggle to get over our irrational yet palpable reservations, we put on our badges, hoisted our buckets and prepared to pack the bags of the good shoppers of Kirkwall.

I have done many jobs in my life, several (actually pretty much all) in the service industry, but I have never worked in a supermarket. And I don’t often shop in them either. Since it opened, I think I’ve been into Tesco’s no more than a handful of times. There was an email sent round in advance, with a huge list of regulations about our clothes, our ‘comfort’ breaks, our relationship with the cashiers and so on. I won’t comment on them – that’s not the purpose of this blog – and they have their reasons! But I do want to give you an idea of what it’s like to stand there and offer to pack people’s bags.

• I can report that a lot of people bring their own bags – well over half. Bags-for-life, Hessian things, classy black hold-alls, and even the good old tartan trolley! They hand them over with a smile.
• Looking at someone’s shopping is like looking into their soul. But on NO ACCOUNT can you pass comment! Scooby-Doo spaghetti and Haribo skulls (well it was Halloween) – the temptation to say ‘That’s the kids’ tea sorted then!’ was strong.
• When the woman bought twenty packets of biscuits, I thought ‘that woman’s on a committee’.
• When the old man came through with three bashed tins, all marked down to 10p, I felt so sad for him, but then it struck me that I buy marked down food too – do people feel sorry for me?
• A very handsome young man let me pack his things: two salmon fillets, a head of broccoli, a bottle of sparkling white wine, and a bunch of flowers. It was enormously tempting to lean across and say…. ‘What time should I be there?’
• One lassie bought a jar of very expensive face cream, and the cashier had to take the security device out of the box, like a bottle of spirits or a skirt in Top Shop!
• One old lady came through on a walker contraption. She clocked me from halfway down the queue and gave me the evil eye, and when she got to the checkout I saw that she had three bottles of whisky. I asked her if she would like her bags packed. She peered at the collection bucket – ‘Who’s it for?’ she snapped. ‘George Mackay Brown Fellowship’ I replied cheerily. She scowled at me and said ‘No. I don’t think so’, whereupon I stepped back, smiled graciously and wished her a good day.

I was packing bags for two hours, and the first hour was quite slow, so I spent a lot of time scanning the Returns Policy on the wall and checking for rogue apostrophes. Glancing down the row of tills I could see a line of GMB fundraisers – I bet the supermarket had never had a row of poets standing and looking awkward before. After a while I took out my notebook and started jotting things down – all grist to the writer’s mill, I thought! I hope George would have approved.

Tags: George Mackay Brown, GMB, Orkney