Don't Flaunt Orkney

On Saturday 5th August the three liners shown above, the Ruby Princess, MSC Magnifica and Nautica spent the day in Kirkwall. The seven thousand passengers and crew temporarily increased our population by over 30% but it all went smoothly, the sun shone and everyone seemed to have a good time. 

 We've come a very long way in fifty-six years; in December 1958 a headline in the local paper said, "Don't Flaunt Orkney".

Dr Margaret Tait had been asked to help arrange an Orkney stall at the Scottish Tourist Board's Holiday Market in Edinburgh and she was very dubious about the whole affair.

 "I really think that an organised tourist industry would be contrary to the welfare of Orkney... It is after all,  a very cynical and very hopeless avowal of defeat to say, in effect, "There's nothing left for us to do now but charge for admission for people to come and gape at us." She went on,"I have nothing much against tourists going to Orkney if they want to. It's the accosting and soliciting that I object to."

In the end, she agreed to help, on the understanding that the stand was intended to provide information to those already thinking of visiting us.

Tourists have actually been coming in reasonable numbers for about two hundred years, since Sir Walter Scott's novel, The Pirate, set partly in Orkney, was published in 1822 and we've been catering for them, in our quiet and efficient way, ever since. Tourism is now second only to agriculture in the money it brings into the islands.

I must go down to the sea again

Relatives in Orkney were being visited by cousins from London. When the Orcadian children heard that their cousins lived miles from the sea, they asked where they went on Sunday afternoons. We go to 'the shore' and one of the advantages of island life is the choice available.
 You can have lots of sand at Waulkmill Bay, Orphir

or at the Sands of Wright in South Ronaldsay, where they hold the Boys' Ploughing Match in August. 

I've been told that Orkney sand has a higher lime content than the rest of the country, because of the high proportion of shell in it. This is very useful because it can be spread on the soil to make it more workable.

You can go to a stony shore, to look for patterned stones

or a rocky shore, to scramble on, like this one at Marwick on the west side of the Mainland. The famous rock stack, the Old Man of Hoy, is just about visible in the distance.

Alternatively, you can take a walk along the cliffs and admire the spectacular scenery.

The Wonder and Glory of the North

Visitors to the Orkney Museum in Kirkwall sometimes ask where the Cathedral is - staff point across the street. We can only guess that they are looking for a ruin, as they've read that it was founded in 1137. St Magnus and Glasgow are the two oldest cathedrals in Scotland, the only two to survive the Reformation in the sixteenth century.

  The cathedral was founded by Earl Rognvald (pronounced Ronald) and dedicated to his uncle St Magnus, who had been killed by his cousin and joint earl, Hakon. It was described as, "the wonder and glory of the north"

Rognvald was later canonised as well but on even shakier grounds than his uncle. As Orcadian writer J Storer Clouston wrote, "Though no more charming addition to the number of the beatified could well be imagined, it is a little difficult to see what this gallant gentleman and accomplished poet is doing in that particular galley."

  We know so much about the people and events in 11th and 12th century Orkney because of the Orkneyinga Saga, written in Iceland between 1192 and 1206 and Rognvald is a vividly drawn, attractive figure but not a candidate for canonisation.

  The cathedral is built from the local red and yellow sandstone and we love our pink Cathedral but the soft stone does make it harder to look after. We were very fortunate that Sheriff Thoms left a large bequest which funded a major restoration a hundred years ago. A new, taller spire was built and the tower was heightened, to make space for the clock-face above the windows. Unnoticed now by almost everyone below, these wonderfully varied and detailed heads look down from all four sides of the tower.

Tours of the upper levels of the Cathedral are given twice a week and you can get a closer view of the gargoyles,

and fascinating views of Kirkwall. This one is looking north across the bay, towards some of the North Isles: Rousay, Gairsay and Shapinsay

The German fleet appear to be sinking

Ninety-five years ago today, the German Fleet was scuttled in Scapa Flow. After WWI the fleet had been interned in the same sheltered body of water that had been the home base of the British fleet throughout the war.
 They were allowed very little communication and Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter had only four day old copies of The Times with which to follow the progress of the negotations leading up to the Treaty of Versailles. He therefore didn't know that the signing of the treaty had been postponed four days so, when nothing happened on 21 June, he took action to prevent the seventy-four German ships falling into enemy hands. A pre-arranged signal was sent and the crews opened all the sea-cocks and abandoned ship.

The British fleet were out on exercise and a signal was sent, "The German fleet appear to be sinking", closely followed by, "The German fleet are sinking." One eye-witness, Hester Scarth, said the most impressive sight of the day wasn't the bows of the German battleships rearing up and disappearing beneath the waves, it was the bow-waves on the British destroyers coming back into the Flow.

 A funeral was going on in the Orphir churchyard, overlooking the Flow. According to WS Hewison in This Great Harbour Scapa Flow,"When the minister opened his eyes he was shocked to see not a single mourner left at the graveside - they were lining the kirkyard dyke above the shore gazing out at this unique spectacle."   

 Bill Hewison, a reporter on The Orcadian, saw the spectacle himself, as a car-load from the paper had dashed to Orphir, the Mainland parish that overlooked the Flow.

"The battleships. as a rule, gradually submerged until their decks were awash, turned turtle and quietly slipped out of sight... The light cruisers settled by the stern. As the afterparts of the ship disappeared, the bows and a hundred feet or more of the hull projected sheer from the sea looking like some huge whale leaping through space, for more than an hour before the final plunge."

Twenty-two of the ships were beached or settled in very shallow water, Some of them, such as the Hindenberg, were easy to spot

Others, less so, as this trawler discovered.

Most of the ships were salvaged eventually and became the world's best source of non-radioactive steel but

seven are still down there making Scapa Flow one of the most popular diving sites in the world.

The Islands were their cradle

From Orkney, the Magnetic North

"When education became compulsory and school studies were prescribed by Government regulations, the people of some other islands of Scotland objected to their boys being taught Geography, lest they should learn things about other lands which might induce them to leave their homes. In Orkney quite opposite views were taken. It meant the opening of new doors and new prospects for the young. there were no laments at their setting forth to find a place in the sun. The Islands were their cradle, but the world was their home."

Hundreds of young Orkney men went to sea, either by choice or because they were pressed into the Navy; they went in their hundreds to work for the Hudson's Bay Company in Canada or to the Nor' Wast with the whaling ships. Others built up successful businesses all over the world or explored its furthest reaches and a surprising number of them became academics; it used to be said that Orkney's main exports were eggs and professors. You can read some of their stories on the About Orkney website
 Almost all the professors were scientists, which fits very well with visitors' observations over the last two hundred years about Orcadians being curious and practical. Here are just two examples.

 Professor Thomas Stewart Traill 1781-1862 from Kirkwall spent thirty years as a doctor in Liverpool and almost as long again as Professor of Medical Jurisprudence at Edinburgh University. His life-long passion for sharing his love of knowledge was first shown in very popular Chemistry lectures he gave in Orkney when he was just twenty-one, as part of fund-raising efforts after a very bad harvest in 1802 

 While in Liverpool, he helped found the Royal Society of Liverpool, the Literary and Philosophical Society and the Mechanics Institute, institutions designed to support literature, science and the arts and to share knowledge through all levels of society.

He contributed articles on a wide variety of subjects to various publications and was an active member of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. How pleased he must have been, though by this time in his eighties and not in the best of health, to be asked to edit the eighth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

 In the unpublished memoir he wrote of his wife, Christian Robertson, that is in the Orkney Archive, and in the brief biographies here and there, what shines through as much as Traill's intelligence, is sheer likeability - a fundamental generosity and zest for life. He would never accept payment from Orkney students at his lectures in Edinburgh and when observing a balloon ascension only the refusal of the balloonist to take a passenger prevented him climbing into the basket.

Professor Sutherland Simpson 1863-1926 was born on Flotta and left school at fourteen but became professor of Physiology at Cornell University.

Simpson's ambition was to go to sea and he went to Edinburgh to look for a berth on a ship. When this didn't work out, he got a job as a laboratory assistant at the university. Realising he had found his spiritual home, he set about getting a science degree, through seven years of evening classes. With astonishing hard work and perseverance he went on to gain a medical degree and a job at the university. From there, he was head-hunted by Cornell where he conducted important research and displayed such a gift for learning that up to seven hundred students a year signed up for his course in Elementary Physiology.

 I have a list of other interesting Orcadians waiting to be added to the website. If you know of anybody you think should be included, please get in touch.

Orkney, the Magnetic North

Orcadian John Gunn called his book Orkney, The Magnetic North. The title had two meanings: Orkney lies on the magnetic north line from London and the islands possess a strong attraction for islanders and for visitors.
"Many who have gone there simply by way of seeing new places, or whose first visit was made not by choice but for business reasons, have also yielded to the northern charm, and would now consider that summer wasted in which they could not return thither for their annual holiday"
This is as true now as it was in 1932. The latest visitor survey figures showed that 37% of holiday visitors were on a repeat visit, 42% were likely to return and 98% would recommend it as a holiday destination.
But it's not just holidays - an unplanned visit to Orkney can change your life.
A family friend first came to Orkney more than ten years ago. She was living in the south of England and friends asked if she would like to come with them on a trip to Orkney, as they were coming to look at a house they were thinking of buying. She had never given Orkney a thought but liked the idea of a little holiday. When the friends told her they had decided against buying the house, she said, "Well, I don't know about you, but I'm moving here." She only went home again to sell her house and pack up.
Another English couple we know were touring Scotland and happened to be in John O'Groats when the ferry was about to take day-trippers across. On an impulse they went too - when they found themselves taking long weekend holidays in Orkney from the south coast, they said, "This is ridiculous, we're going to move" and they did.
Another couple are from the north-east of England, where they owned a restaurant. It was closed for redecoration so they took the chance for a holiday and came to Orkney. When they got home again they said to the decorators, "Thank you, you've done a lovely job, but we're selling up and moving to Orkney". They've been here more than forty years.
Here's a picture I took this morning that might give you some idea why.

It's very remote

As you can see from the map, Orkney can be seen as being at the centre of northern Europe. The outer 1200km circle centred on Orkney almost exactly passes through Paris, Berlin, Stockholm and Reykjavik.
The map is in a book called Orkney written by Ronald Miller from Stromness, who was professor of Geography at Glasgow University.
 To illustrate how perceptions differ geographically, he told the story of an Orkney farmer who visited his son in London.
"On his return to Orkney, his cronies demanded a report and were regaled with stories of the wonders of London. The old man, however, reminded his hearers that London suffered from one grave disadvantage. It was very remote."
When Ronald Miller was awarded his PhD in the 1950s, it was reported in the local paper that he had become a doctor of geography. My mother read this report to an elderly neighbour and when Mum dropped in the next day, he was still mulling it over, "Geography...geography...That's no' a disease."