Fereday strikes again...

This is the time of year when our clientele gets a little younger-looking. The Fereday Prize, which this year is being entered by students from both Stromness Academy and Kirkwall Grammar, is due sometime around the end of this month. We expect to see most of the kids on the last Saturday of the month as it was ever thus.

We have more staff on at weekends in January in order to provide for Fereday students as they are unlikely to have time to visit us during the week.

Part of the Fereday mandate, however, is for the projects to bring new material into the archive. Interviews, personal photographs and chats with family members are therefore just as valuable as information from books, archives and websites.

Each year we are amazed anew at how eager some parents are to *ahem* help their children. In my day, you had to do your homework yourself...