Westray Connections 2017 – the Sunday Session
In the final relaxed Sunday session of Westray Connections we were treated to Wayward, Bad Apple and Stereo Lobsters with a guest …
Westray Connections 2017 – Taster Sessions around the Village #3
The Graand Owld Byre on Westray is a great venue for music in every respect apart from one. It has super acoustics, …
Westray Connections 2017 – Taster sessions around the Village #2
The second free ‘Taster Session’ of music around the village of Pierowall as part of Westray Connections 2017 is in the Westray …
Westray Connections 2017 – Taster sessions around the Village
Westray is a small island but it’s big enough to have a school and a care home, a doctors and a hotel. …
Westray Connections 2017 – Aly Bain and Phil Cunningham
It’s Friday night at the Westray Community School Hall and Phil and Aly (or is it Aly and Phil) are on stage …
Lugs, Skiffs and Yoles
I’m surrounded by lugs, skiffs and yoles. There are even bugs and centre-board allcomers. I’m at the Westray Regatta. I recognise what …
10 Things I Wish I Had Known Before Visiting Orkney for the First Time
Nothing can fully prepare you for coming to Orkney for the first time but I’m going to try. You probably already know …
Graand Owld Byre Volume One – The Michael Harcus Family – a review
When I first played the CD of Graand Owld Byre Volume One by The Michale Harcus Family I was in the car …
The bit in-between
Winter days on Westray are very much like the short flight between Westray and Papa Westray. The flight is the shortest scheduled …
The top 10 reasons you shouldn’t visit Westray
Friends and relatives often ask me whether Westray is a good place to visit and my answer is always very clear. “No,” I say. “I wouldn’t recommend it.” Here then are my top ten reasons why you should never visit Westray.
Westray phone box
Westray still has several relics of a bygone era; red telephone boxes. There are weeds growing inside some of them as they …
Baby Butler
The Hall of my house used to be a school and the entrance to it has the places for lots of small …
This heart belongs to Tullochs
There’s a stone heart outside Tullochs.
The plane arrives at Westray airfield
We’re sitting in the waiting room at Westray Airfield. I was tempted to say Airport rather than Airfield, but I’m not sure …
Letting go of your own shadow
When the plane from Westray takes off I’m just over the wheels and I see us let go of our own shadow, …
Wet bench
Wednesday night is fish and chips night at Jacks Chippy at Pierowall Fish. That’s a source of great excitement to me. I’ve …
Westray Industrial Show 2016
I love the Westray Industrial Show with a strange and rather bizarre passion. There’s something deeply appealing about the vegetable competition, the …
Getting my cap and my running shoes out
What’s the quickest way of dispersing a crowd? Take a collection! I’m getting my cap and my running shoes out to raise …
A flavour of the times
Every visit to Westray brings the same anticipation for me; which flavour of Yeo Valley yoghurt will the shop have to the exclusion of all others?
Ritual and Tradition
Food is a subject of much ritual and tradition, no more so than when I’m on Westray. There’s coffee and cake at …
Raiders of the lost Aak
Guillemots are known as Aaks in Orkney. This Aak egg has been raided from the cliffs at Noup Head and eaten.
Magnificent battlements, gunloops and ravens
Noltland Castle is a ruin that was never finished built by a paranoid man who placed defensive positions everywhere; it has walls 7 feet thick and 71 gunloops to shoot at attackers.
Seaweed, limpets, riots and arsenic
Burning seaweed on Westray used to be quite an industry. The island is still littered with low kelp-drying walls where the tangle …
Danger
You have to watch out for those vertical cliffs on Westray. They’re far more dangerous than horizontal cliffs.
Sand-between-the-toes
When the sun shines on Grobust beach, it’s time to do what AA Milne described and get sand between the toes. When …
“I know whose ducks they come from.”
Whenever I tell someone on Westray how excited I am that I’ve just bought some duck eggs the response is always the …
Banana and Custard
One thing is for certain on Westray and that is there will be one flavour of yoghurt stocked in surprising depth in …
Westray Connections 2015 – The Open Air Family Music Festival
It’s time to relax after a hectic Saturday night of dancing and partying into the small hours (and then a couple of …
Westray Connections 2015 – Concert in the Community Hall
A wonderful concert in the Community Hall with the Jo Philby Band, Maggie and James Nicholson, Gnoss, The Harcus Family and the …