17th to 20th June
No, we're not back on 'the mainland', or the Sooth Island as they seem to call it here. Mainland is the name of the largest island of the Orkneys. While Goldfinch takes a well-earned rest in Stromness, we have been exploring the island by foot, bus and car.
The bus services are very good here, and there is a handy app you can download which will tell you when the next bus is expected. For seven pounds and a few pence you can buy a ticket that is valid all day. On Friday we took full advantage of this.
From Stromness it is only a short bus-ride to the Stones of Stenness, a small collection of standing stones dating back to neolithic times.
From there it is not very far to walk to the even more impressive Ring of Brodgar, an awe-inspiring circle of stones that is older than Stonehenge. There is some evidence that Orkney was the powerhouse of the culture that produced these stone circles, and that all the other similar constructions in Britain and northern France were in some way derived from the monuments here. Needless to say there is much discussion about what purpose they served.
We waved down the next convenient bus - they don't have bus stops outside the towns, you just stand in a convenient place and wait for the bus to come along. This one took us into Kirkwall, the largest town in Orkney. (Despite having a cathedral, Kirkwall is not technically a city, as it does not have the right piece of paper from the Queen.)
In Kirkwall we had some lunch and had a look round the town. St Magnus' Cathedral was closed, but its exterior is impressive, a reddish-brown stone, built to withstand the Orkney winds. Nearby are the ruins of the Bishop's Palace and the Earl's Palace.
In the afternoon we hopped back on the bus towards the small island of Lamb Holm. This island lies to the south and east of Mainland, to which it is attached by a causeway built on top of one of the Churchill Barriers - barricades made of huge blocks of concrete which were put down during the Second World War to help protect the fleet anchored in Scapa Flow.
On Lamb Holm is the Italian Chapel, built by prisoners of war who were kept on the island during the construction of the barriers. The chapel is housed in a pair of Nissen huts; but the men who built it were not content just to have a building in which to hold their church services. They decorated the chapel with exquisite artistry, painting the inside to look like coloured tiles, carved stone and stained glass, creating a place of beauty in their exile. It is now a listed building, and well worth the visit.
We are here during the 2021 St Magnus International Festival. This festival is usually on a grand scale, with performers and audiences coming from far and wide for a variety of concerts, theatre and other artistic presentations. Unfortunately, because of Covid, this year's festival is on a much reduced scale: much of it is online, and many of the 'live' events are outdoors. On Friday evening we went to see the second ever screening of The Storm Watchers, a film version of a play by George Mackay Brown, a poet, novelist and playwright from Orkney who was one of the founders of the festival (along with Peter Maxwell Davies) and whose centenary falls this year. The film had been shot mainly on the actors' mobile phones, at home, with the director giving them guidance via Zoom. All but one of the actors were amateurs, and all were local. It helped that the play consists of a series of monologues, so apart from a few exterior shots with no dialogue there are no scenes where the cast have to interact with each other. The film tells the stories of a group of women from Orkney sitting at home waiting for their menfolk to come back from fishing. Each of them has a slightly different story to tell and a slightly different relationship with her man; but (spoiler alert) they all face bereavement when the fishermen do not come back alive, victims of the 'widowmaker', the all-powerful sea. Not a cheery film, but superbly made in difficult circumstances.
The next day, Saturday, we visited Skara Brae. The bus services were not so helpful for this place, but fortunately we were offered a lift by Bryan's extremely generous friends, Sarah and Roy. Bryan knows Sarah from when she lived in Cambridge; she moved to Orkney in 2008 and now writes about her life here. Here blog can be found here: https://norqfromork.com/
Skara Brae is a neolithic village that was discovered in the 1850s when a huge storm swept away much of the sand that had covered it for centuries. Like the Ring of Brodgar, it is older than the Pyramid of Giza and Stonehenge. Its great attraction is that the houses still perserve much of their stone furniture, and it is easy to see how they were laid out: a central fireplace, a stone 'dresser' which seems to have been used for storing or displaying possessions, and stone beds. As with the other neolithic monuments of Orkney, there are many unanswered questions: how did these people get here, how did they live, why did they leave? Archaeologists have been able to deduce some of the answers: for example, they know something about what these people ate; but there are many tantalising gaps in our knowledge. No weapons were found at the site: does this mean they were a peaceful society, or did they take them all with them when they left? And there are some objects whose function remains entirely elusive: too big to be jewellery, but with no obvious tool-like features. There are even two little things reminiscent of a pair of dice. The overwhelming impression of the place is that these people, who lived so many thousands of years ago, were in many ways close to us: they worked for their living, played and decorated their houses and bodies.
On the same site as Skara Brae is Skaill House, the ancestral home of William Watt, who was the local laird in 1850 when the neolithic village was uncovered. Your ticket for Skara Brae also gives you access to the house, which has a good collection of historical artefacts, including Captain Cook's dinner service. There is also a ghost; though he did not appear when we were visiting, possibly due to Covid.
Having been on the Mainland for a few days, we are now heading north, to Westray.
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