Discovery and Resolution

and Erebus and Terror

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Stromness: just across the road from our house was Login’s Well, where Cook and Franklin took on water for their ships, and part of our house was the custom house where crews signed on, and the house itself was part of the former Login’s Inn. So we were encircled by powerful historical vibes.

T E R R O R

Our youngest, Em, was the first to move in, before any furniture, eager to be near her friends. But at 2 a.m. we had an urgent phone call to come and rescue her from the monster sea-lice. Though less than chuffed at the time, I’ve since read that “one to three sea lice are enough to kill a juvenile pink salmon newly arrived in saltwater” so probably a juvenile Em newly arrived in Stromness was right to be wary of the brutes.

A trapdoor in the kitchen floor revealed the space beneath our pier, a perfect hidey-hole for miscreants at low tide, half-full of black water at high tide – though a miscreant standing on tiptoe, and patient enough to wait for the tide to recede, would survive – if the monster sea-lice didn’t pick him off first.

When we first moved in, there was a splendid privy at the end of the pier, wherein one could sit enthroned watching the Ola heading straight for one’s comfort zone, and hoping that the captain would apply the brakes in time. Afterwards one could lean over the pier wall and watch the jobbies heading out into the harbour, recalling a joke I’d first heard in the olden days sailing at Cramond: the wind dropped, I forgot to close the self-bailer and was greeted by (a) intruding jobbies and (b) the obligatory Joke “you’re just going through the motions, ho-ho-ho”.

The privileged viewpoint on the pier was eliminated, first by the spouse who (for some obscure reason) dismantled the privy, and later by the construction of a sewer (as had also happened at Cramond, putting the Joke out of business). Thereafter one had to use the throne at the top of the house, with an identical view of the Ola, but from a greater altitude and no ho-ho.

Once furnished and lived in, the house lost its appeal for the monster sea-lice, but the occasional harbour rat would come by, hoping for a treat. Harbour rats were big chaps, and there were lots of them living along the sea-front. At lunch-time third-year boys would go down to the harbour with fishing-rods and catch them; probably best not to inquire what they did with them once caught.

Later on, we had a cat, Thomas, who was a brilliant ratter, and tidy with it: he would lay his rat out neatly on a plastic bag at the front door, eat the middle bit and leave the fore and aft pieces for the first person out of the door in the morning, usually myself, still swilling the last bit of toast and gulp of coffee, in too much of a hurry to clear away Thomas’s left-overs.

Kay, Cee and Em on Rackwick beach

From Stromness it was a fine day out to take the ferry over to Hoy and walk the track across to Rackwick’s beach, colourful boulders, stupendous cliffs, little stream with plank bridge for weans to bounce on, scattering of wee stone houses. 

One day I went up Mel Fea, the hill south of the bay, and came across the remains of a crashed aircraft; many aircraft remains lie among the Scottish peaks, and there are at least three on Hoy; I imagine the cause had usually been cloud down over the summits, but since all you have to do to clear any summit in the U.K. is stay above 4,406 feet it seems likely that a false reading from the altimeter might have contributed: when I was on a gliding course (thus noticing this sort of detail) I saw an altimeter zeroed at the start of the day, a thunderstorm came and went, and in the afternoon the instrument read 1000 feet, a difference that could easily plough the pilot into a hill.

Up there above the Pentland Firth among the bare stones and heather, with the wind whining through the propeller and rattling the bits and pieces of aluminium the thought of what it must have been like for the pilot gave me the shudders, and I was glad to get down to the beach and bairns bouncing on the plank bridge.

E R E B U S

If there was plenty of time to catch the last ferry, you could go back via the western cliffs, past the Old Man of Hoy; the cliffs are awesome, and so are the bonxies (great skuas), which don’t want you anywhere near their nests and would really like it if they could drive you over the edge to your doom. The bonxie is a cousin of Erebus, classically the embodiment of primordial darkness, the son of Chaos. He is the Dalek of the bird scene; “ucksterminate!” is his cry, usually abbreviated to “uck”.

As you cross an invisible line that marks bonxie territory you hear a statement of intent, “uck”, and here comes Mr Bonxie, bug-eyed with paranoid hatred and determination, straight for your belly-button; if you have prudently brought a stick you can raise it above your head so that he attacks it instead of your precious scalp; whoosh, off he goes, but from the rear here comes Mrs Bonxie belly-button-bound: “uck”, stick, whoosh, off she goes, “uck”, here comes Mr B again, whoosh, “uck”, Mrs B … and then you pass the other invisible  line, and Mr and Mrs Bonxie toddle off back to their nest, happy bunnies, they’ve beaten off the enemy. Ah, phew, now you can enjoy the scenic wonders again, “uck” no you can’t, you’ve crossed into the next bonxie’s territory … and so it goes, lightning glimpses of majestic cliff between bouts of bonxie-battling. Since the bonxie gets his food by making other birds vomit up their catch, it’s tempting to think you might down a tin or two of sardines before trying to cross his territory and divert him with a nicely timed puke, but I’ve never had the necessary supply of sardines to hand at the moment of need.

Famously, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you, and perhaps the bonxie can’t be blamed for his behaviour: he may have heard about our human tendency to assassinate wildlife and feel that proactive is the safe way to go.

After the harassment of the bonxie (and the wariness in case you fall over the edge, whirling to repel his advances), it is very peaceful down at the pier waiting for the ferry back to Stromness. But sometimes when the tidal current is at its fastest it is like crossing a fast river boiling over the underwater rocks, and it might be best not to finish off the sardines until you are back in Stromness.

One of the wonders of Stromness after life in the sticks was the shops: now we could instantly access a wide array of goodies without needing our wheels, for in that one long street running along the line of the harbour were two butchers, two bakers, supermarket, clothes shop, shoe shop, book shop, newspaper shop, cafè, pubs, hairdresser, doctor, lawyer, blacksmith, plumber, art gallery, post office, probably much more that I’ve forgotten. Recently I’ve heard that some of these no longer exist and that now you need the wheels again, to go to Kirkwall, 14 miles away. Sad.

Up till now I had always happened to teach in girls’ schools, and selective ones at that. But in Stromness Academy the pupils came from the whole population of West Mainland and numbered around 500. Some were very bright indeed, and were headed for university; some saw no point at all in school and were only filling in compulsory time until they could get on with their real life, which they were already living out of school hours, driving the John Deere or serving in the cafè. Some who left Orkney to go to university were utterly charmed by the anonymity and the larger world that opened up for them, others found themselves unable to live in a place where no-one knew them, and lasted only a term before coming back permanently.

the Holms; Hoy in background

D I S C O V E R Y

“Activities” happened on a Friday afternoon (apparently learning doesn’t rank as an activity in the wonderful world of education). For me, this came to be a “ramble” which meant that I took people for a walk; often the people were third-year boys. One day at low tide we were able to get out on the Holms, the two low islands at the mouth of the harbour; the boys found long sticks to have pretend-fights with; I was beginning to find out what a different animal the boy is from the girl. A Friday came when I took them in the car to the cliffs at Yesnaby; it was raining hard and blowing what other cultures would call a hurricane, so the boys didn’t want to get out of the car and walk anywhere; but I wanted to go and see if any more pieces of cliff had fallen off recently, so away I went for half-an-hour or so; when I came back, soaked, and got in the driving seat and looked at the dashboard, I found that all the control knobs had been pulled out and were hanging down on wires. Girls would have just been chatting, maybe destroying some classmate’s reputation but leaving the control knobs alone.

R E S O L U T I O N

This post has gone on long enough: a detailed study of the microcosm that was Stromness Academy needs a post all to itself . . .