The Written Word
for September 9, 2001

I have written elsewhere about Wendy’s and my adventures in Orkney but I’d like to expand a bit on them. There are not many places left in the world where, an hour and a half away by boat from what we know of as "civilization", you can go back in time to quite another era.

For those who don’t have an atlas handy, Orkney is an archipelago a few miles north of the Scottish mainland and between it and Shetland, considerably further to the north. In both cases, incidentally, you must be careful how you name the place – never "the Orkneys" or "the Shetlands" but Orkney or Shetland. Though the Shetland Islands or the Orkney Islands are acceptable, And in each case the main island is known as "Mainland".

Now, understand, when I say that Orkney is removed from what we know of as civilization I‘m not suggesting that Orcadians don’t have the conveniences of life for they do. I book my bed and breakfast by email, my guide John Grieve keeps in touch with home via cell phone and so on. It’s just that the way of life is as it has been for centuries. They say of Shetlanders that they are fishermen who croft a little while Orcadians are crofters that fish a little. So it remains. Orkney is all farmland and smallish fishing villages. Its two main towns, Kirkwall and Stromness look as they did in the pictures taken of them in Victorian times.

Tourists are few. There aren’t the necessary facilities for one thing. And it’s a long way from where tourists normally roam.

What is it about these treeless islands – treeless because of the winds, not the latitude? Wendy and I have been the past two years – I was in Shetland 10 years ago – and are already planning to return.

I suppose part of it is the stark beauty. The green is the green of Ireland and the heather, especially in August and September, gives a contrast in colours you just don’t see anywhere else. The islands are never-ending seascapes, set as they are against the fury of the North Atlantic. The bird-life is extraordinary and the oceans abound in seals and whales.

I suppose, however, that there are two things that really mark Orkney as something special.

First there is the antiquity. There are prehistoric digs and, indeed a prehistoric village now excavated. There are stone rings and iron age forts – Viking "brochs" and ancient places of worship. And there is the ever present influence of the Norsemen. In fact in one prehistoric building, Maeshowe, there are what are called "runic" carvings – fancy words for Viking graffiti scratched on the walls of a civilization that preceded it by 3000 years.

Second, there are the people. These are not really Scots. As John Grieve put it, "first we’re Islanders, second we’re Scots and thirdly we’re British.

Orkney was under the throne of Norway until 1468 when it came to Scotland as part of the dowry of the ill fated Maid of Norway. Though subsequently populated by some prominent Scots families, notably the Stuarts and the Balfours, the Norse influence remains. These islands are not Gaelic and never have been – the native language, though only sparsely spoken is Norn, or a Norse dialect. Nor is this the place or tartans, kilts or bagpipes. When you’re on the islands you feel as if you are with Scots -–sort of.

Wendy and I have traveled all over the British Isles and Ireland. There are enormous differences between one place and the other. But Orkney is different yet again. Their nearest commonality is Shetland and theirs is Norway.

Beautiful, stark, remote, charming, spectacular – but mostly, Orkney is different. Very different.