Washington Irving and his Orkney family origins
Washington Irving (1783-1859) was the first American writer to be famous outside America. His two most successful books, Diedrich Knickerbocker’s History of New York 1809 and The Sketchbook of Geoffrey...
View ArticleLetitia Hargrave in the Nor’ Wast
In 1837 HBC Chief Trader James Hargrave went Home to Scotland to find a suitable wife. It was the fashionable thing to do. As one old trader said, ‘the novelty of getting Hudson Bay stocked with...
View ArticleJohn D. Mackay: Man of Letters
The John D. Mackay Memorial Lecture each year commemorates the life and work of a brilliant man and inspiring teacher who opened up fresh horizons in education and in the community. A toast to John D....
View ArticleSutherland Simpson: From Saraquoy to Cornell
It used to be said that Orkney’s two main exports were eggs and professors. Our annual egg production peaked in 1957 at 78 million; our per capita production of professors is almost as noteworthy....
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Scotland’s Time Lords
Today we have a comprehensive view of how the Earth works – the modern paradigm of Plate Tectonics. Yet, we forget how recent this model is and to give credit to the many Scots scientists who laid the...
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Balfour Stewart: Sun, clouds and inspiration
Balfour Stewart (1828-1887) was born in Edinburgh but his father was a younger son of the Stewarts of Brugh in Westray and his mother was a daughter of William Clouston, minister of Stromness and...
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A Man of Many Gifts
(The writings of T. Ratcliffe Barnett appear from time to time on our pages, through his atmospheric descriptions of travels through Scotland, visiting places like Cromarty, the birthplace of the...
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Remembering Gerry
The death of Gerald “Gerry” Meyer, former editor of Britain’s first wartime forces newspaper, severed one of the last remaining links between Orkney and the vast garrison stationed in the islands...
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James Petrie Chalmers – Pioneer of Vision
He was born in Tankerness and worked at The Orkney Herald, and he went to America in search of opportunity. And when he died in 1912, his funeral in New York was attended by many leading names in the...
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Courage and determination
The writer Ann Scott-Moncrieff was the subject of one of the One O’Clock Toasts in the 2015 Orkney International Science Festival. As a young reporter for The Orcadian, her account of flying across the...
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Jim Robertson: maths teacher and musician
Among the people commemorated in the One O’Clock Toast at the Peedie Kirk this year was Jim Robertson, maths teacher and musician, remembered by one of his former pupils, Howie Firth. It was around...
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A Swedish Orcadian
Gunnie was born in Gothenburg, Sweden in 1941. Later Gunnie Moberg would say she would like to be remembered as a Swedish Orcadian. And it is that embedding of Orkney into the identity of Gunnie and...
View ArticleMemories of Robert Shaw
Archie Bevan’s tribute to Robert Shaw was broadcast on BBC Radio Orkney in August 1978 following the actor’s death. It was read by Archie’s son Graham as a One O’Clock Toast in the Peedie Kirk Hall in...
View ArticleBessie Millie: Stromness’s First Renewables Entrepreneur
The lunches of Orkney fare at the Peedie Kirk are among the highlights of the Festival each year, with the One O’Clock Toast to a notable Orcadian. For this year Harvey Johnston went back two centuries...
View ArticleChristian Robertson, Stromness shipping-agent and merchant
With the second edition of The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women soon to be published, notable Orkney women were the subject of all six One O’Clock Toasts at the daily lunches of Orkney fare at...
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Eddington’s universe
Whenever the poet George Mackay Brown reorganised his library, getting rid of some of the overspill, some books from younger years would always remain. There was the first Penguin book from 1935, a...
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A Toast to Peggie Gibson
Peggie Gibson was a much appreciated teacher in North Fara and Kirkwall and one of the now almost legendary group of Stromness Academy pupils whose end-of term trip on the tug Flying Kestrel in Scapa...
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Sam and the islands
Prof. R. J. (Sam) Berry, born on 26th October 1934, died on 29th March 2018. He had a deep love of Orkney and its wildlife, environment and people, and this tribute was published in the Orkney Field...
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The Cod Hunters
Painting of a Faroese smack (Johanna) by Faroese artist Hans Skalagaard The Cod Hunters tells the story of the Shetlanders who fished for cod around the north Atlantic in their cod sailing smacks....
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Sailing with Shackleton – an Orkney link
Shackleton and his men (painting by Paola Folicaldi Suh) One of the great voyages of history was made by Commander Frank Worsley, going with Shackleton to South Georgia in a small boat to seek help for...
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