Peace On Earth 1918 - An Archive Advent Calender #21

The sketch above was drawn in December 1918 by Lieutenant Jowsey, a colleague of Rev. Dr. T. Crouther Gordon, author of Early Flying In Orkney - Seaplanes in World War 1.


Dr T. Crouther Gordon, who served as a pilot in the Royal Naval Air Service and the Royal Air Force in the First World War from 1917-1919, recalled vividly his experiences as pilot of aeroplanes, seaplanes and flying-boats, hunting the German U-boats that harried Britain's sea-routes. He escorted from the air the surrendered German High Seas Fleet into Scapa Flow in November 1918.

Dr Crouther Gordon received the Distinguished Flying Cross from King George V in July 1919.


The book is based on Crouther Gordon's diary and pilot log. His entries for December 1918 read:


9th December: At 10.40a.m. in F.3 4237, took four ratings to view the German Fleet from the air.


10th December: In Short 2652 with Flight-Sergeant Ford flew round the German Fleet.


On 15th December half of the personnel were sent on leave on S.S. Vienna.


Time now passed with hockey matches against teams from H.M.S. Revenge and H.M.S. Orion, football between officers and men. After Christmas dinner Major Mills presented me with a special cup as a memento of the occasion.

Orkney Archive Advent Calendar - Christmas Treat

A group of children who were given a short flight around Orkney as part of a Gardens Ltd. Christmas party, paid for by a Christmas Club savings scheme in Garden's shop.

Archive Reference: L3455-1

76 Years of Air-mail

76 years ago today was the inauguration of the air mail service to Orkney. On the 29th of May 1934, an opening ceremony was held at Wideford airport to celebrate the first postal flight from Inverness. The plane left Inverness at 10.15am and arrived in Kirkwall at 11.35am.

The police were obviously expecting a lot of people to turn up as we have an enormous poster in the archive warning about parking vehicles in the wrong place and not crowding the exits.

These flights and later, the internet have made Orkney seem a lot less isolated than it was but I have still yet to see a Saturday supplement in the shops before 2.00pm...

Flybe to the moon...

Today is the anniversary of both Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earharts' solo flights across the atlantic. He was the first man to fly non-stop across the ocean in 1927 and she was the first woman in 1932.

Orkney has quite a fascinating flying history. It was here in 1917 that the landing of a plane on the deck of a moving ship was first achieved.

This may not sound that important until you think about how planes had previously been transported on and off of ships. Seaplanes were hoisted in and out of the water, planes that had taken off from ships could not return and had to find somewhere to land and some planes just ended up plopping into the sea and being towed back.

In August 1917, Squadron Commander Ernest Dunning landed on the deck of HMS Furious.

The plane basically hovered over the ship and a waiting crowd  pulled it down onto the deck. Clumsy, yet effective. Unfortunately, Dunning was drowned during further trials five days later, but his efforts changed sea warfare forever.

Another interesting Orkney flying  fact is that the flight between Papa Westray and Westray is the World's Shortest Scheduled Flight. It usually takes between two and three minutes but has been known to take only 58 seconds!

A lot of the northern isles teachers take small planes like this from  mainland Orkney out to their schools several mornings a week. There is space for about 6 people and the atmosphere is lovely. Sadly, there is no drinks and snacks cart. A video of the previous night's episode of 'New Tricks' was being offered 'round the Stronsay plane the last time I went, however.

What a lovely routine that must be. What could be better, an early morning flight, with a view of beautiful Orkney as you and your work chums sing "It's all right, it's okay, doesn't really matter if you're old and grey..." ?

I would insist on this Waterman Warble on the Friday afternoons however:

(The pilot could be Dennis Waterman and we could all harmonise in the back!)

Information taken from Howard Hazell's Orcadian book of the 20th Century.

Photograph of Dunning landing taken from our Photographic archive.

Photograph of islands plane taken from wikipedia.

The Archive Time-Machine

Let us pretend that it is 1997 again, when the Iraq war had not happened, Tony still had all his hair and Labour politicians were all boogying about to D:REAM like Dads at a wedding. Down South, the papers were all full of the big Labour victory, but the Orcadian front page was all Jim Wallace's as he had been elected for the fourth time running.

Look how happy these counting people are!

It had been hoped that the constituency count would be a little faster in 1997 but foggy weather meant that the ballot boxes from the outer Shetland isles could not be collected by helicopter and had to arrive by boat instead. Eventually the Shetland boxes arrived in Kirkwall with Shetland councillor Jan Riise. When asked how his journey had been Mr Riise answered "so so."

The Iceland ash cloud caused a bit of concern this year and apparently "a really fast boat" is standing by to bring the northern votes this year.

Cheers! Let's rejoice! Friends is still on telly and Neighbours isn't rubbish yet!

The Orkney Library and Archive are of course completely objective and apolitical. We are the David Dimbleby of the North. We shall be equally overjoyed whatever happens tomorrow morning. If Gordon wins, we'll open some bubbly, if it's Nick, then we shall dip our faces in melted chocolate and then proceed to do the same to a bowl of hundreds and thousands. If David moves into number 10 then we shall run screaming through the centre of Kirkwall, clawing our eyes out in a frenzy of unalloyed joy. We shall miss our eyes.

All photos: Orkney Photographic

Information taken from The Orcadian dated 8th May 1997

Lord of The Flies - Orkney Style

Today Orcadians awoke to the news that their passenger ferry, the Hamnavoe, had been commandeered as part of a rescue mission to Norway.

This might be okay if the other service, connecting Aberdeen and Lerwick, had not decided to miss out the Orkney stop! And the planes are not going properly yet! Thank goodness for the Pentalina....but it will be packed!

It's hard not to feel a little panicky and stranded. Who knows, by the end of the day there could be looting and pillaging in the streets of Kirkwall! Orkney will have split into two tribes and we'll all forget how to use cutlery and start wearing face paint and necklaces made out of each others' teeth!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, maybe not.

In order to put things into a little perspective, I have looked out an Edinburgh Advertiser from 1769. It contains an article about a party of sailors who were trapped on a small uninhabited island, just West of Orkney, when they disembarked and a storm blew their ship back out to sea 'where they continued feven days without fire or lodging, or any fubfistence except fcurvy grafs, fea weed, and brackifh water.'

Eventually, nine of them set out for Stromness on the one small boat they had left to raise the alarm. A sloop was dispatched to rescue the remaining sailors but kept being beaten back by wind and wave. At the time of publication, their fate was unknown.

So things could be worse.
Archive refrerence: D1/660/18 [H1]