I’ve noticed a handful of Orkney sounding user names on here and am curious if they do indeed have connections with the islands.

I stayed up there for ten or more years and my grandmother came from there.

rarer than that – born Fair Isle (only there as a baby), then Dunnet Head

Not Orcadian – but lived and worked there for 4 years…loved it.

It’s on the list for a bolthole when I retire…and I’ll definitely head for Papay if the world goes all Mad Max

Whose user names sound orcadian? I lived in Stromness about ten years ago and go up with work now and then. Cracking place but I miss the trees, and there isn’t much mounty biking to be done there.

It’s on the list for a bolthole when I retire…and I’ll definitely head for Papay if the world goes all Mad Max

I think its already Mad Max in Rousay. They have no MOT testing station on the island and until there is you can drive anything that still runs without one. I’ve seen things without bonnets and brakes on the road.

Whose user names sound orcadian?

Pomona and BurnBob initially.

Cracking place but I miss the trees

Me too

Me too

Any link to the lack of trees and your mahoosive wood piles?

Good thread! I can confirm that I am a born and bred Orcadian however do now live ‘Sooth’. I too had noticed a few usernames which may be linked to Orkney. Pomona surely has to be! Fantastic place.

Not Orcadian either, but lived in Deerness from 92-98, which were basically my high school days.

Any link to the lack of trees and your mahoosive wood piles?

Any connection between the denuding of the islands and my departure are purely coincidental. 😉

My name doesn’t sound it… but Hoy is home, and George Mackay Brown was my Great Uncle (or there abouts – Grandad’s cousin).

Not been back in years and am rapidly running out of close relatives on the islands, though pretty much everyone seems to be a cousin/second cousin once you get talking. I have an urge to spend some time in the Flattie Bar again soon though.

My name doesn’t sound it… but Hoy is home, and George Mackay Brown was my Great Uncle (or there abouts – Grandad’s cousin).

Capt – GMB was awesome, I loved his Brinkies Brae column in the Orcadian.

I went to a car boot sale in Finstown one Sunday. Amnesty International had a stand there that everyone slipped uneasily past. They had half a dozen red velum style A4 folders sat on their table and a couple of paperback books. Curiosity got the better of me so I asked what they were. I was their first customer. She said they were GMB handwritten manuscripts that he’d donated for sale. I was astounded.

I asked about the paperbacks which he’d also signed. They too were for sale.

Tentatively I asked what they were priced at?

‘Weel, this one is £5 and the rest are six or seven’

I asked if one person could buy them all?

She replied of course I could.

So that’s what I did.

George was a hugely respected author and poet, I was thrilled to have something handwritten of his.

Part of my divorce settlement was to include the manuscripts, but in a typically devious sleight of hand my ex wife stole them. They’ll turn up again sometime, Karma has a way of dealing with stuff like that.

I have an urge to spend some time in the Flattie Bar again soon though.

Yeah I went back to the flattie in january, was dead though! Apparently stromness just isn’t as lively as it used to be, which is a shame. Highlight was catching up with the barmaid (Marilyn I think? terrible with names) who remembered me from ten years before.

Best bar fight I’ve ever seen was in the flattie, two lads laying into each other, one grabs a big ashtray to smash on the other guy’s head, goes for it, it goes ‘plink, plink’… it’s plastic and weighs about 20 grams. Probably had to be there really…

No, however visited whilst touring last year. I thought it was great and would love to go back to go scuba diving. Recently read a good book about John Rae after passing by his house. He was hard as nails.

Oh that is harsh.

I never really knew he was a big deal until well after his death – and my Dad didn’t realise until the BBC 4 program the other week. We just saw him as a slightly eccentric member of the family.

Alas I don’t have *that* many memories of him.

The lesser known author Harry Berry was another one of our lot, though I can’t remember the exact connection he was (I think another of my Grandad’s cousins), but I do remember sitting in his house being entertained 😉

orcadians = bunch of soft southern shandy types.

i’m from shetland.

I would respond… but it would rapidly wind up in this thread being closed 😉

I once ran into some Shetland family whilst up in Kirkwall with a Glaswegian mate. He declared he could drink anything that we could, which led to a most entertaining night of inter-island shenanigans mostly at the expense of a Weegie who didn’t last even a couple of hours before passing out!

My father left Westray in 1950 and I haven’t been since I was a small boy. Now in Tanzania, quite a long way away…

Born and raised on Shetland, not that you’d know it form talking to me!

I have very fond memories but not sure if I would ever return to live there.

Interesting discussion; until a couple of years ago my cousin and her hubby lived in Holm and we went up for their leaving party. He worked for the coastguard service in Kirkwall. Mrs Gti used to do a lot of diving around there – she’s even dived a couple of the wrecked German ships in the flow, my Grandpa was in HMS Southampton in the Atlantic during WW1 but was demobbed a few weeks before the scuttling of the German fleet so he missed it. I have a book called Cox’s Navy about the salvage of most of the ships, it fascinates me so much I’ve read it twice. Tenuous links but the place interests me.

Globalti, if you ever get yourself up to Orkney, take a trip over to Hoy and see the museum at Lyness. There is a ton of stuff there on Cox & Danks. They have also made a museum exhibit inside one of the huge oil tanks.

My great grand father was the harbour master at Scapa when the Royal Oak was sunk. A school friend skippered a salvage barge which recovered oil still inside the hull. As its a war grave you are not allowed to dive on it, but we got to see from the naval diver’s cameras on the wreck from its control room.

http://www.scapaflow.co.uk/sfvc.htm

Worked in Orkney a lot. On a sunny day it is absolutely lovely. On a bad day it can be absolutely miserable!

Mcmoonter – I worked on that project. Who’s you mate? Not first name Neil by any chance?

Orcadian and proud! Still haven’t been anywhere else I’d rather live. Didn’t realise there were so many users on here with links to Orkney. Nice to know there’s a few Shetlanders too. Any decent routes up there? I’ve been meaning to take a peedie trip to Shetland.

Mcmoonter – I worked on that project. Who’s you mate? Not first name Neil by any chance?

Aye, Neil McGill from Briggs Marine. It was an awesome experience. I had no idea it sank in so shallow a place, at low tide you could see the arc of the hull just beneath the water.

It’s on the list for a bolthole when I retire…and I’ll definitely head for Papay if the world goes all Mad Max

Do Jim and Morag still have the B&B on Papay – last time I was there he was saying that the house needed some work and they weren’t sure they could do

I had no idea it sank in so shallow a place, at low tide you could see the arc of the hull just beneath the water.

Not that shallow, it’s a big wreck! The water depth to the seabed is about 35m, it’s just she is so big, it almost breaks the surface at low water.

Mcmoonter – so you must be a Fifer then?

Mcmoonter – so you must be a Fifer then?

Yes, I grew up here from about six or seven.