Margaret Tait, Poems, Stories and Writings

A few days ago, we received an advance copy of this book on Margaret Tait:

The author, Dr Sarah Neely has visited us several times to consult the Margaret Tait collection and we are delighted to finally see the fruits of her labours in print.

Margaret Tait is known (when she is known) primarily for her films but her poetry is just as wonderful. Frank and funny, weird and wonderful, magical and matter of fact, her three collections of poetry, origins and elements, Subjects and Sequences and  The Hen and the Bees, as well as some unpublished poems shall finally be available to be read by the audience they deserve

The sky has finally broken blue after a day of cutting winds and so here is an appropriate excerpt from Subjects and Sequences:

But in the land of the North there are no trees:
In the land of Pomona the apples don't grow.
In the Spring there is no blossom sweet as song
Nor song like honey in the perfumed night.
Instead, we have the flashing white
Seagull cutting the iridescent blue,
The crying blue of sea and sky, the white
Of flying clouds and birds. Oh, who
Would sip the honey in the dark and lose the light?

from Pomona

Nessie Goes North?

We are currently researching the 'Deepdale monster', an eerily prehistoric looking carcass washed up at Holm in 1942. The discovery prompted a flurry of expert analysis and more frivolous newspaper articles.

Put down what you are eating/drinking now as I am about to show you a picture of the remains, groooooo!

There was a lot of scepticism in Orkney as there have been several claimed sightings of sea serpents and monsters of the deep in Orcadian waters which have not been verified. Many thought that this beast may just be two dead seals in an advanced state of decomposition.

The above image was published in The Orkney Blast of 13th February 1942 and was drawn by the Provost of Stromness, Mr J. G.Marwick who went to examine the remains and described what he saw:

"The outstanding features of this monster were it's small head, long neck, massive hump, long sinuous back parts and the queer, rudder-like appendage, which one could describe, perhaps, as a fin and which projected from its lower side some distance from the tail."

Remind you of anything?

One of the theories at the time was that the Loch Ness Monster had popped up to Orkney for a holiday. As the Orkney Blast of 30th January 1942 stated, "it is plausible for the creature to have escaped from Loch Ness and to have found its way to the waters off the Orkney mainland."
The Scotsman of the same date also pointed out that "the famous inhabitant of Loch Ness has not been seen for many months..."

Sadly, more sensible people stepped in at this point and Dr A. C. Stephen, Keeper of the Natural History Department of the Royal Scottish Museum said " I have examined the sketches and it seems to me, there is no doubt that the remains are those of a shark." (Orkney Blast, 6th February 1942) He suggested that the creature was a basking shark due to it's large size (25 to 28 feet).

Boo, how dull.

Look, look, look, look, look!!!!!!

We are on a list! Of libraries! Good libraries, who may earn a prize! Read all about it on our sister blog from Stromness library here, and then come back and join us as we dance about in celebration in the manner of Carlton from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air!

Join us, do!

If ye will persist in Emigration...

With so much talk on the tv and in the newspapers about the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, I wondered what the reaction was like in Orkney. The first report of the disaster appeared in the Orcadian on the 20th April 1912 on the front page. Quite small and unassuming in the bottom right hand corner.

By the following week the news had spread and the ministers from the churches aired their views from the pulpits.

The Rev. John Pitcairn from St Magnus Cathedral said:

The Rev. George Millar from the Paterson U P Church said:

And the Rev. J Christie from the North U.F Church compared the death toll with the population of Stromness:

Ironically in the papers at the same time many adverts still appeared enticing people away from Orkney with offers of work in a new land, such as this one which looks to us now like a scene from a John Wayne or Clint Eastwood film:

And even on the same pages as news of the disaster were adverts like this one:

Many local shops capitalised on the trend of emigration with adverts like these:

I'd really like to know what "Dudds and Spracks" and "Catchy Boots" were.

By the following week more information was reported about the sinking and the heroism of some of the passengers:

And the suffering of the survivors:

And this final review in the Orcadian on 27th April 1912:

What's your Motto of the Month?

Ours is "If you know a good thing - pass it on"

So we will...

We have recently been re-organising our collections of SWRI papers and have found that we are doing well with six groups represented. St Andrews & Tankerness; Costa; Deerness; Harray; Rousay and St. Ola, as well as some Orkney Federation minutes too.  Below is the first minute of the Harray Branch from Aug 1936.

Together this makes up thirteen boxes. The new collection number is D127. We would like to thank all the staff who recently helped collate this collection together.

The collection includes minute books, membership lists, handicraft schedules; federation booklets; 15 minute sketch books, correspondence, tea rota books, anniversary and birthday celebrations, and many more interesting items.

Shown here is the first minute of the St. Ola Branch from Aug 1924.

I know there are more groups out there, so if you're looking for somewhere to store all your old minute books and documents, look no further, we'll be happy to take them!

For more information on the present groups of the Scottish Womens Rural Institute try their website at http://www.swri.org.uk/

Little Arrows

With the sad news that Darts legend Jocky Wilson died on Saturday I thought we'd look back at his first visit to Orkney (he visited, professionally anyway, twice).

World Champion Darts player Jocky Wilson in the Queens Hotel, Kirkwall,

June 1982

Jocky, aged 32 at the time, is seen in this photograph enjoying a pint in the Queens Hotel, Kirkwall. He was booked to play 20 local darts players for which he was to receive the handsome sum of £400. After the event Jocky told a local reporter that he had been a bit disappointed with his form on the night as he lost the first two games, but he did manage to beat the other eighteen!

For you statisticians out there during the whole event Jocky scored six 180s, sixteen 140s, eight 100 plus and sixty 100s.

Jocky is proudly showing his teeth in this photograph, every one of them false. Famously he had lost all his teeth by the age of 28 due to a combination of a love of sweets and a lack of brushing (take heed kids!) so when he won the World Championship he spent £1200 of his winnings getting some new ones made. He told a local reporter, however, that he removed them when he was playing darts because "the vodkas and coke don't taste right with them in".

Light My Fire

In the present age of soaring fuel costs it's easy to think that things were better back in the "good old days". Well, unfortunately not!!

I'm currently cataloguing the records of an Orkney Estate, D15: The Halcro Johnston papers. The records reveal the history of the Coubister Estate in the Parish of Orphir and, once cataloguing is complete, will be an extremely valuable source for researchers interested in family history, farming techniques and practices, and a host of other topics too.

I came across the following two documents yesterday which reveal a startling rise in the cost of the tenant's main source of fuel, peat.

Both documents are lists of subscribers who have paid for the right to cut peats in the property of Greenigoe. The first, dated 23 June 1865, states that the subscribers agree to pay three shillings for each tusker of peats they cut.

D15/6/2/6: List of subscribers 23 June 1865

However, less than a year later on 24 April 1866 the subscribers agree to pay four shillings for each tusker. A price rise of 33%!

D15/6/2/6: List of subscribers 24 April 1866

Not only that but, to rub salt in the wound, the Laird has also restricted the amount of cutting time allowed to ten hours a day and raised the price again to five shillings for peat cut in the month of August.

A tusker is an implement used to cut peats and traditionally a tusker of peats was measured as the amount of peat a man could cut from sunrise to sunset. This obviously varied depending on the fitness and stamina of the cutter as well as the differing length of day throughout the year, and on one reported occasion three men took turns throughout the day and managed to cut double the normal quantity!

It's that sieve again!

Here's an update on the use of sieves in punishments. While reading some very entertaining pages of the Presbytery of Orkney Minute book for 1639-1646, I found a curious entry about a woman called Janet Sutherland from South Ronaldsay:

"Ordaines the Brethren to make search in their congregations for Janet Sutherland fugitive from South Ronaldsay for turning the sieve and shiers, and to use diligence to put her home to her owne congregation to undergo orderly tryall" From the minutes for 3rd November 1643.

It turns out (pardon the pun) that sieve is another name for riddle, and in the Scottish National Dictionary there is the following definition and example of an explanation from 1825:

"As in English, a coarse-meshed sieve. Phrs: the riddle and the shears a method of divination (1) Fif., e Lth. 1825 Jam.:The riddle is set on its side, the points of a pair of large scissors being so fixed in it (separate from each other), that the riddle may be suspended by the hold taken of it by the scissors. One handle of the scissors is placed on the finger of one person, and the other on that of another. Some words, to the same purpose with the following are repeated : By St Paul and St Peter, did A.B. steal my yarn? or whatever is lost. If the person be innocent, the riddle remains motionless, if guilty it immediately turns round...This, among the other superstitious customs common on Halloween is also used as a mode of divination in regard to marriage."

This could be the reason why, as mentioned in a previous blog, the man was punished by being made to wear a sieve on his head. 

Reference OCR/4/1 Presbytery of Orkney Minutes 1639-1646

Our first encounter with sieves here.

Weird punishments of the week, part 2

Following our recent post about a weird punishment we've found another in the book Curious incidents from the ancient records of Kirkwall by W.R. Mackintosh.

Walter Beaumond, boatman, was charged on 6 May 1732 with having stolen a sheep from Quanterness Farm. His explanation was that he had come across a dead sheep so had skinned it and took the skin home "in his cassie". Having been found guilty the sentence passed was that Walter should go from the prison to the Rampart with the sheepskin fastened to his shoulders, where he was to stand for a quarter of an hour.

This didn't seem a terribly harsh punishment but, reading on, we discover that seven days later the Beaumond family were ordered to remove themselves and all their goods and gear from the Burgh "never to be seen there again". The hangman was given the sheepskin.

Happy pancake tuesday!

It's that time of year again when we all put back on any weight that we've managed to lose since Christmas by consuming large amounts of syrupy pancakes. "No!", I hear you cry, "I cannot because I don't know how to make pancakes". Well worry no more because you can find a lovely recipe for Orkney pancakes on the Scottish Council on Archives notice board at http://www.scottisharchives.org.uk/ediblearchive/cards/orkney-pancakes-recipe-card.pdf

The recipe is taken from an early 18th century cookery book in D14/7/1: Traill-Dennison papers. A note on the cover states that it belonged to Margaret Traill, daughter of John Traill of Elsness, who married James Traill of Woodwick in 1712. The recipe shown is a modernised version of the original, so if you would like to follow the original:

Take a mutchine of Sweet Cream 10 Eggs keep out some of the whites thicken it wt flower melt half a pound of sweet butter mix it among the batter wt a gill of Seck or half a Gill of brandy 3 ounces of Sugar half a grated Nuttmug let your pann be hot when you pull in the batter to make them and serve them up Nicely.

There's some other "lovely" recipes in this book which we might feature in the future. Anyone for Cods Head the Scots way? No, then maybe A Hash of Calves Head? Ok, maybe not.

Try and try again

L8804/4 - Colonel Henry Halcro Johnston

Now that the Rugby Union Six Nations Tournament is underway, we're remembering that Orkney had its own Rugby international. Colonel Henry Halcro Johnston played full back for Scotland against England and Ireland in 1877. On those occasions Scotland thrashed England 3-0 and annihilated Ireland 20-0 with a magnificent six tries and four conversions. Those were the days!

This is not Henry's only claim to fame. He was born at Orphir House in the parish of Orphir in 1856, the fifth son of James Johnston, 11th Laird of the Coubister Estate. He later qualified as a doctor in 1880 from Edinburgh University and entered the army as a surgeon. There followed a distinguished army career which resulted in a number of decorations before his retirement in 1913.

As if his life was not full enough Colonel Johnston was also an enthusiastic botanist, writing in numerous publications about the plants that he had collected in Afghanistan, Mauritius, the Canary Islands, Madeira, Egypt, Gambia, Natal, India and Sierra Leone. He also put together a collection of around 4,000 botanical specimens to be found in Orkney and Shetland, which became the property of Stromness Museum. After his death this herbarium was transferred to the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh. His notes and observations have remained in Orkney and are in the Archive awaiting cataloguing.

A safe haven

Stromness pier, c.1900, photographed by R.H. Robertson

With the news of the proposed development of the site of Coplands Dock, adjacent to Stromness, we've been looking at the history of pier development in the town .

The bay at Stromness has long been recognised as a safe natural harbour for shipping. The Rev. William Clouston wrote, in 1794, that “although it is small, this is one of the safest harbours to be found along the north coast of Scotland”. The harbour had the necessary depth of water to accommodate large vessels, but lacked an adequate deep water pier, essential for the economic growth of the town.

The minutes of the Stromness Harbour Commissioners (S17/1) give a detailed account of the processes involved in the construction of the pier. In May 1877 the trustees were considering three possible sites. They examined the possibility of extending an existing structure, described as the “warehouse pier”, but after further consideration decided to purchase a parcel of land from the Commercial Bank, whose office was situated in what is now Stromness Town House. After some negotiation, which included a stipulation that the trustees opened an account with the bank, a parcel of land was duly purchased, including 101 feet (30.78 metres) of the waterfront. The pier was to be built at the southern end of the site. The specification issued by the trustees was for a stone built pier, breadth 30 feet (9 metres), stretching straight out from the shore, with a wooden “head” which would stretch to the north, but this was soon changed to make the head stretch south.

The Orkney Herald of 14 November 1877 carried a report that “there is every possibility of the construction of the new pier going ahead”. This was, stated the newspaper, despite the objections of a small number of locals, “objections the triviality of which could only match their selfishness”! In February of 1878 advertisements for a contractor appeared in a number of newspapers, with James Drever from Shapinsay eventually being chosen to build the stone section. Later on, the firm of A & K MacDonald accepted the contract to construct the wooden head section.

The construction work, from the time of the awarding of the contract, took approximately fifteen months to complete, and at a meeting of the trustees, held on 2 June 1879, they were informed that the pier was now “fit for the reception of vessels”. The trustees had already appointed a new harbour master, Mr. Terras, to oversee the new venture. He was to be paid £20 per annum, plus 5% of all rates collected at the pier over the amount of £200.

The pier was extended in 1900, and the photograph shows the steamer St. Ola leaving the pier after that time. Since then it has been further extended and improved on a number of occasions over the years, including the addition of an ice plant and a further extension in the 1990s.

Weird Punishment of the Week

As I was reading through a folder from the Ernest Marwick Collection, I stumbled on this weird form of punishment in North Faray.

It's certainly one of the strangest punishments I've read about, but I'll be on the look out now for more. If you've got any to share I'd love to hear about them.

Archive Reference: D31/2/4 no. 69
For information on the window tax try this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_tax

Rock the boat

On this day in 1909 Ernest Shackleton, leading the Nimrod Expedition to the South Pole, planted the British flag 97 nautical miles from the South Pole, the furthest South anyone had ever reached at that time.

It was on a later Shackleton expedition to Antarctica, in 1921, that Orcadian Norman Erland Mooney was appointed as cabin boy on board the Quest. Norman was one of two boy scouts chosen from over 1000 to accompany the expedition, the other boy coming from Aberdeen. Unfortunately the ship did not have an easy voyage, encountering heavy gales as they left England which continued throughout the first leg of the journey through the Bay of Biscay to Lisbon. Suffering severely from seasickness the initial word was that 16 year old Mooney would leave the ship there and return home but the plucky (some might say completely crazy!) youngster stayed on board for the next leg to Madeira. But the seas got worse and on reaching Madeira the doctor decided that enough was enough and sent Norman home. Shackleton himself sent Norman's parents a telegram declaring "regret necessary action solely in boys interest, he was always willing".

D49/1/3 - Telegram from Sir Ernest Shackleton to Mr. and Mrs. John Mooney, Kirkwall

This wasn't the end of Norman Mooney's adventurous ways. In 1929 he passed the Colonial Survey examination and received an appointment in Nigeria as a mining surveyor.

Happy New Year!

Orkney is shrouded in such heavy clouds that it could almost be night and there's another gale on the way, and I was awake far earlier this morning than seemed natural. But never mind, it's a new year so lets all gird our loins and look forward to the coming year. Happy new year to you all.

This time we're looking back a hundred years to 1912. This photograph shows a team of bankers from that year, found in collection D30 - Papers of Mary Robertson Sinclair.

I imagine this team would have been highly successful as any balls put in their net by their opponents would have taken three to five days to appear on the scoreboard.