Of Moons and Mould.

On this day in 1966, the Soviet Union sent space probe Luna 9 to the moon which sent back photographs confirming that the surface of the moon was firm, not dusty and that in fact the rocky terrain resembled chocolate-hued volcanic rock. How thrilling...


We have previously despaired over the Orcadian newspaper's determined disinterest in man's first forays into outer space and a brief check of the papers which followed this momentous day for science confirmed this stance.


There was a moon-themed article (see below). 'Ah-ha', I thought, 'this must be it.' But no. It was instead an amateur photography article about taking photos in the moonlight. The author exhorts his readers to photograph their family while they sleep. 'There's no need for the sleeper to know you've even been...'

Orcadian 7th February 1966

We are extremely thorough in the Orkney Archive and so I checked the next week's paper just in case their staff had been so completely overwhelmed by Luna 9's voyage they found themselves unable to write about it for over a week. Nothing. They did find time to include this piece about some slime on a fence post though.

Orcadian 17th February 1966

A Pinch and a Punch, 'Tis a Rubbish Month

When trying to sum up how we felt about being back at work today after all of our festivities, all we could muster was a collective 'bleeergh'. Oh January, you are tough.

We'll leave it to George Mackay Brown to describe this month in this excerpt from a 1972 column for the Orcadian:

 

January

 

 

 

January is the month when for a morning or two you expect to wake up with a dry mouth at least.

 

 

January is the month when you observe, sadly, six of your seven good resolutions blow away on the cold wind.

 

 

January is the month you dismantle-on a precise date, the sixth - the Christmas tree and give all those expensive Christmas cards to the children to scrawl on with their crayons.

 

 

January is the month when bills seem to seep through your letter box with pitiless monotony. The man who was as rich as Rockefeller on Christmas Eve is poor now as a church mouse.

 

 

January is the month when you wait for the worst of the winter to fall, sleet and hail and snow out of the north-east. You kind of exist between an iron earth and a leaden sky.

 

 

...

 

 

January is the month when the full moon is most glorious of all (although I think the stars have it, for December).

 

 

There is no month of the year quite like January. What is better than a walk along the west shore in that cold, silver air?

 

 

George Mackay Brown

 

 

 

 

 

The rest of the entry can be found in Letters From Hamnavoe, columns written for The Orcadian  between 1971 and 1975.

 

 

 

 



The Wonderful World of 1940s Adverts (Part 2.)

a) Terribly polite b) Emotionally manipulative

c) Totally creepy