Remember the days of the old schoolyard

As we get older we all tend to think that everybody in positions of authority, whether its police officers, doctors or teachers, are getting younger. Well, a new acquisition we received this week takes this to a whole new level!

The acquisition includes a photograph, a letter and an autobiographical account of William Clouston's childhood and young adulthood in Orkney. William wrote about his childhood home at Houton in the parish of Orphir, where he was born in 1854, part of a large extended family of Cloustons living in the area.

William started school at five years of age. In those days schools consisted of one room where children of all ages were taught together. His first teacher was William Tait, an uncle, and he was followed by a succession of different teachers over the years until William turned fourteen.

TK3439 - Houton, Orphir

Being the youngest of three brothers William had to attend school more than most of the boys. Older boys would have had to stay at home in the summer to help with farm work but William attended school both in the winter and summer. The result of this was that, aged fourteen, he was the top pupil at the Petertown school. At that time the teacher was William's cousin but he suddenly decided to leave for Newcastle and the school was left without a teacher for the summer term. So a group of local men met to discuss the problem, and decided to make fourteen year old William the teacher!

It must have seemed very strange to be playing with your school friends one day and to be addressed as 'master' by them on the next! William wrote that he managed the teaching part of his first day without too much trouble but when he went out at break time to join in the games he felt a little self-conscious!

William later worked in Stromness in a Drapers shop for some years before moving to Glasgow in 1874. After that he travelled to Michigan, USA, to join one of his brothers working in the lumber industry.

West(ray) Life

 

 

" I like living on an island because you feel safer because you know everyone and you know that you have less chance of being 'mugged' or killed."



Accession No. 2043
 

 

 We have a new acquisition this week, courtesy of the Glasgow Orkney and Shetland Literary Association.

Our exciting new bundle includes copies of Sanday Secondary School's magazine from the early 1980s,  a copy of Edwin Muir's The Scots and their Country, An article about the wreck of The Crown as published by Chamber's Journal, Collin's Geography of Orkney and a collection of photographic views of Kirkwall & vicinity published by Thomas Kent.

Our favourite thing, however, is a collection of essays by some primary school children in Westray. They paint a wonderful picture of life on the Northern isle detailing the peace, beauty and quiet of their home.

Mainland Scotland, however, and in some cases mainland Orkney are painted as dark, dens of iniquity, full of murderers, kidnappers and 'pepple we do not know' (sic)


"If you where going out at night by your self you might get lost or can't mind on your way home in the dark."


We have asked our Westray born-and-bred colleague about this and he cannot remember this being a prevalent view when he was growing up so perhaps this particular assignment coincided with some alarming news stories.

The main agreed disadvantage of the island life was having to order your coats and shoes out of a club book.


There are many more essays in the book. If you think you may have written something like this at school in Westray in the early 1980s, please do get in touch. Telephone 01856 873166 or email archives@orkney.gov.uk or write to Orkney Library & Archive, 44 Junction Road, Kirkwall KW15 1AG



Fereday Prize 2011

We have now finished cataloguing the photocopies of this year's Fereday Prize projects. And what an interesting bunch of subjects this year! The best thing about these projects is that they often cover the history of businesses, people and places from the 20th century and they become a wonderful addition to our existing collections of archives from earlier in history.

This year, there were two first prizes, one from Kirkwall and one from Stromness. From Stromness, Thomas Penny wrote a brilliant account of the history of Motoring in Harray which includes information on the earliest cars and buses as well as interesting interviews with some of the residents of the parish over the years and much more. It's great to read about all their stories.

From Kirkwall, Douglas Corse writes with such feeling of the Longhope Lifeboat Disaster of March 1969, when the lifeboat was lost with all her crew. Douglas has included an interview with his great auntie which adds a personal view to this tragic event and finishes with the poem The Lament for the Longhope Lifeboat by Andrew B Irvine which, he tells us, was read out at the funeral.

Other subjects covered this year were the Rural Cinema Scheme; Uranium Mining; two on Scapa School; James Flett & Sons; Argo's Bakery; the Old Manse in Evie; Mousland Farm; Stromness Police Station; boatbuilder Ian B. Richardson; J & S Hay; Birsay Community Association; the Angel Family; Orkney Weddings; Skaill House; the Russian Convoys; Grain Farm, Kirkwall; Newark Farm, Sanday; The Ba; Sebay Mill; Travelling Studs; Life at Braebuster; Norwood Antiques; Refuge in Harray; James Sinclair, Botanist and The German Flower.

If you did not receive a prize from the Orkney Heritage Society for your project, but still would like to leave a copy in the archives, we would be delighted to receive it. Just drop by sometime and we'll take a copy and give you back the original.

If you would like to see any of this year's projects, the Archive Reference number for each one begins with D70/14.