Monday 30 May 2011
No 94. St Ola.
A long time ago, but yesterday too. Rain On My Window (Tears in My Eyes) will be an ongoing tale of my early memories of life shared by my younger brother David on Whitehall Farm in Stronsay, Orkney, of our childhood on a working farm in the 1930s before we lost our innocence.
No 94. St Ola No 1. 1892 to 1951
No series of mine would be complete without reference to the first St Ola. A steam ship of 230 tons GRT, dimensions 135 ft x 22ft x 11 ft draft. I think she was built by Hall Russell in Aberdeen, based on a now old-fashioned trawler design. The Ola was small indeed compared to the present Hamnavoe, little bigger than one of her lifeboats!!
She crossed the Firth for 59 years from 1892 – 1951, making six daily return sailings per week with only a few cancellations in the interests of passenger comfort and safety.
The original layout of the St Ola had a bridge but no wheelhouse which was added later. Canvas dodgers were all the shelter the crew had on the bridge against the elemental fury of many of the Pentland Firth crossings. Behind the funnel was a small deck-house that gave access to the stuffy cabin below. For’ard was a doored scuttle giving access down to the forecastle, the domain of the crew when not on duty.
I was eight years old when I got my first sight of the St Ola, probably in September 1937. The Ola came from Stromness in the early morning to tiny Scapa Pier one mile from Kirkwall to collect passengers en route to Caithness. Charlie Tait of J. & W. Tait, our father’s first cousin, took us by car to Scapa Pier from his house at Buttquoy where we had stayed the night before while in Kirkwall. Our mother was taking us to Caithness for our first visit to our Granny in Inkstack.
Father stayed in Stronsay, probably still engaged with the herring fishing or perhaps more likely the harvest, so our mother had myself, David, Norna and Isobel in tow. We did one more crossing through Scapa Flow in 1939 with our father with us, then the Flow was off limits with the War and the Ola went west of Hoy for the remainder of my many experiences of her.
From Scapa Pier we scanned the coast to the West to catch our first glimpse of the Ola. A plume of far- distant black smoke, then a small dot which grew with each passing minute. Our excitement was intense, we were going abroad to Caithness in Scotland!! To an Orkneyman Scotland was, and still is to many, going abroad, called “The Sooth” or often just “Scotland”.
During these pre-war years the St Ola called on occasion at St Margaret’s Hope in South Ronaldsay or at Lyness in Hoy, touching briefly to pick up passengers and mail.
We did both. Lyness was in 1939 as father took us down the gangway to set foot on the Island of Hoy, and then back on board again!!
On the 1939 crossing he pointed out the tiny rock called The Barrel of Butter, one of the features of Scapa where he had been in the Army for a time in 1914 to 1918. In the far distance we saw it, a knob of an Island where the Territorials had hauled guns up the sheer cliffs. I think they might still be there, too arduous to recover.
Our first part of the crossing was within Scapa Flow, sheltered water. From Lyness a short sail took us round Cantick Head and out into the Pentland Firth. It would have been summer time when we did that trip but the sea was still restless. Scapa Pier to Scrabster was at least two hours, probably more. We spent all the time up on deck savouring new surroundings, the cliffs of Hoy, Dunnet Head far off to the South but getting closer, Stroma, our Grannie’s Island, well off on our port side.
We landed at Scrabster Pier to be met by our Uncle Hamish from Inkstack. I still remember the new leathery smell of his car, different from our own smaller Morris Ten.
Then to Inkstack and my first sight of real trees as we went down the Planting in Castletown.
I had not met our grandmother as yet and her Caithness dialect was almost incomprehensible to us. A foreign tongue. Plus her rapid delivery of words so we were lost. She being a native of Stroma did not help either!!!
Another St Ola voyage was in September 1941 going to school in Inverness when I was 12, the first of many such trips. By now it was War. This time it was Kirkwall to Stromness in a wooden seated bus, through a barbed wire gate and Identity Card inspection by rifle-armed soldiers at the head of the pier and on board.
It was my first introduction to Hoy Sound. Even in September the Ola met the incoming swell from the West, pitching heavily. Then round the corner of St John’s Head to head South towards Caithness and past the towering cliffs and The Old Man of Hoy.
In Sept 1942 my brother David joined me in Inverness. David Macrae from the Hotel in Stronsay had gone to Inverness the year before myself, and his brother Don was with David. Over the next few years when not flying with Fresson I went to Scrabster by the St Ola, then on by 6 hour train journey Thurso to Inverness. Even during the War it had a good dining car, attached to the train at the Mound. Officers travelled by the train on occasion in First Class, and any rank and file of course in Third.
Adventures during the War with the St Ola were seeing grey Navy ships passing, the Earl of Zetland or the St Ninian meeting us laden with Forces personnel going to “Bloody Orkney”. They came North to Thurso on the Jellicoe Express, a train for Forces only.
There were usually some Forces people on the St Ola. It gave us quite uncalled-for malicious pleasure to see a sailor being violently sick more than once. It was anyway a good Navy tradition, Admiral Nelson was said to be always sick when he went to sea.
I remember an Army officer rushed to the rail, unfortunately just as the Ola rolled. He got soaked to the waist by an incoming wave, and I do not think he felt it. Sea sickness is not funny.
We did our utmost to stay on deck in the fresh air, warmed at times by standing with our backs to the funnel. Down below the sea-sick atmosphere in the cabin was not conducive to anything.
In command of the Ola was Captain Swanson, a well-known tough old red-faced product of many long years at sea. In the forecastle we sometimes found Davy Logie, a good friend of our fathers. He featured in many a scrape but the two I remember were when he took a bag of rabbits infected with Myxymatosis to Orkney, a gift from our father off Greenland Mains to his fellow Orcadian farmers !!! .
The other incident was inflicted on Davy by his fellow crew-men. Knowing his friendship with our father, and having had a similar gift before, one of the crew gave Davy a bag and said it was some hens from Tom Pottinger who could not wait to give them personally as there was a sale on at Hamiltons Mart he had to rush off to it.
Leaving Scrabster Pier and off duty for a spell, Davy sat down on a box in the forecastle to pluck the hens. I did not hear the language when he opened the bag to find an offering of dead cormorants, but believe it was spectacular.
No 94. St Ola No 1. 1892 to 1951
No series of mine would be complete without reference to the first St Ola. A steam ship of 230 tons GRT, dimensions 135 ft x 22ft x 11 ft draft. I think she was built by Hall Russell in Aberdeen, based on a now old-fashioned trawler design. The Ola was small indeed compared to the present Hamnavoe, little bigger than one of her lifeboats!!
She crossed the Firth for 59 years from 1892 – 1951, making six daily return sailings per week with only a few cancellations in the interests of passenger comfort and safety.
The original layout of the St Ola had a bridge but no wheelhouse which was added later. Canvas dodgers were all the shelter the crew had on the bridge against the elemental fury of many of the Pentland Firth crossings. Behind the funnel was a small deck-house that gave access to the stuffy cabin below. For’ard was a doored scuttle giving access down to the forecastle, the domain of the crew when not on duty.
I was eight years old when I got my first sight of the St Ola, probably in September 1937. The Ola came from Stromness in the early morning to tiny Scapa Pier one mile from Kirkwall to collect passengers en route to Caithness. Charlie Tait of J. & W. Tait, our father’s first cousin, took us by car to Scapa Pier from his house at Buttquoy where we had stayed the night before while in Kirkwall. Our mother was taking us to Caithness for our first visit to our Granny in Inkstack.
Father stayed in Stronsay, probably still engaged with the herring fishing or perhaps more likely the harvest, so our mother had myself, David, Norna and Isobel in tow. We did one more crossing through Scapa Flow in 1939 with our father with us, then the Flow was off limits with the War and the Ola went west of Hoy for the remainder of my many experiences of her.
From Scapa Pier we scanned the coast to the West to catch our first glimpse of the Ola. A plume of far- distant black smoke, then a small dot which grew with each passing minute. Our excitement was intense, we were going abroad to Caithness in Scotland!! To an Orkneyman Scotland was, and still is to many, going abroad, called “The Sooth” or often just “Scotland”.
During these pre-war years the St Ola called on occasion at St Margaret’s Hope in South Ronaldsay or at Lyness in Hoy, touching briefly to pick up passengers and mail.
We did both. Lyness was in 1939 as father took us down the gangway to set foot on the Island of Hoy, and then back on board again!!
On the 1939 crossing he pointed out the tiny rock called The Barrel of Butter, one of the features of Scapa where he had been in the Army for a time in 1914 to 1918. In the far distance we saw it, a knob of an Island where the Territorials had hauled guns up the sheer cliffs. I think they might still be there, too arduous to recover.
Our first part of the crossing was within Scapa Flow, sheltered water. From Lyness a short sail took us round Cantick Head and out into the Pentland Firth. It would have been summer time when we did that trip but the sea was still restless. Scapa Pier to Scrabster was at least two hours, probably more. We spent all the time up on deck savouring new surroundings, the cliffs of Hoy, Dunnet Head far off to the South but getting closer, Stroma, our Grannie’s Island, well off on our port side.
We landed at Scrabster Pier to be met by our Uncle Hamish from Inkstack. I still remember the new leathery smell of his car, different from our own smaller Morris Ten.
Then to Inkstack and my first sight of real trees as we went down the Planting in Castletown.
I had not met our grandmother as yet and her Caithness dialect was almost incomprehensible to us. A foreign tongue. Plus her rapid delivery of words so we were lost. She being a native of Stroma did not help either!!!
Another St Ola voyage was in September 1941 going to school in Inverness when I was 12, the first of many such trips. By now it was War. This time it was Kirkwall to Stromness in a wooden seated bus, through a barbed wire gate and Identity Card inspection by rifle-armed soldiers at the head of the pier and on board.
It was my first introduction to Hoy Sound. Even in September the Ola met the incoming swell from the West, pitching heavily. Then round the corner of St John’s Head to head South towards Caithness and past the towering cliffs and The Old Man of Hoy.
In Sept 1942 my brother David joined me in Inverness. David Macrae from the Hotel in Stronsay had gone to Inverness the year before myself, and his brother Don was with David. Over the next few years when not flying with Fresson I went to Scrabster by the St Ola, then on by 6 hour train journey Thurso to Inverness. Even during the War it had a good dining car, attached to the train at the Mound. Officers travelled by the train on occasion in First Class, and any rank and file of course in Third.
Adventures during the War with the St Ola were seeing grey Navy ships passing, the Earl of Zetland or the St Ninian meeting us laden with Forces personnel going to “Bloody Orkney”. They came North to Thurso on the Jellicoe Express, a train for Forces only.
There were usually some Forces people on the St Ola. It gave us quite uncalled-for malicious pleasure to see a sailor being violently sick more than once. It was anyway a good Navy tradition, Admiral Nelson was said to be always sick when he went to sea.
I remember an Army officer rushed to the rail, unfortunately just as the Ola rolled. He got soaked to the waist by an incoming wave, and I do not think he felt it. Sea sickness is not funny.
We did our utmost to stay on deck in the fresh air, warmed at times by standing with our backs to the funnel. Down below the sea-sick atmosphere in the cabin was not conducive to anything.
In command of the Ola was Captain Swanson, a well-known tough old red-faced product of many long years at sea. In the forecastle we sometimes found Davy Logie, a good friend of our fathers. He featured in many a scrape but the two I remember were when he took a bag of rabbits infected with Myxymatosis to Orkney, a gift from our father off Greenland Mains to his fellow Orcadian farmers !!! .
The other incident was inflicted on Davy by his fellow crew-men. Knowing his friendship with our father, and having had a similar gift before, one of the crew gave Davy a bag and said it was some hens from Tom Pottinger who could not wait to give them personally as there was a sale on at Hamiltons Mart he had to rush off to it.
Leaving Scrabster Pier and off duty for a spell, Davy sat down on a box in the forecastle to pluck the hens. I did not hear the language when he opened the bag to find an offering of dead cormorants, but believe it was spectacular.
Friday 27 May 2011
No 93. Brough Crossing.
A long time ago, but yesterday too. Rain On My Window (Tears in My Eyes) will be an ongoing tale of my early memories of life shared by my younger brother David on Whitehall Farm in Stronsay, Orkney, of our childhood on a working farm in the 1930s before we lost our innocence.
No 93. The Pentland Firth. Edited from first copy //
With the Pentland Firth so much in the news at present as the answer to all our future power problems, I thought it time to take a look at the waters over which my g.g.grand father JamesTait, who died in Inkstack in 1854, had taken his cattle. So I got a copy of the 13 hourly tide charts either side of High Water Dover [HWD]. The Pentland Firth was much more complex than I thought, no way can I do justice to the many tides and swirls and eddies and counter flows in a wee article. But from family connection I took a look.
. The story Wm Tait told of his grand father James Tait above taking 18 boats with 216 cattle across the Pentland stays with me. Scapa Flow was easy, reasonably sheltered water, but setting off round Cantick Head into the Pentland Firth the weather broke so they turned back and went into the old Viking Anchorage of Long Hope. There they off loaded the cattle and waited a week. Off again, but once more the weather broke. Nine boats kept going, nine turned back to Long Hope for a further week before final crossing.
With the tide charts before me I noted that with the last three hours of the east going flood tide there is a west going eddy close in to the cliffs of Hoy from Cantick Head to Tor Ness. This strengthened westwards on the turn of the tide at the beginning of the ebb. Ride that eddy and with a good sailing wind the boats would have been well off Tor Ness long before the tide turned. They would have headed out anyway into the last of the flood tide and the first of the ebb and be across the narrow seven miles between Tor Ness and Dunnet Head very quickly. These boats could sail well with the right wind. The “birlin” trading vessel of the Hebrides or the “knarr” of the Vikings could do up to nine knots if the wind was right, approximately ten miles an hour Good boats.
At the start of the west going ebb tide the Merry Men of Mey begin their dance just off St John’s Point, close in at first. As the ebb gathers strength the Merry Men reach further across towards Tor Ness, but ease off next St John’s Head as the ebb continues. By the two hours at the last of the ebb the sea off St John’s Point is quite quiet, though the Merry Men are still dancing off Tor Noss. To be avoided.
I thought then of all the places where James Tait might have landed on the rocky Caithness shore. Not an easy coast for sailing boats with no engines. The phrase “at the mercy of wind and tide” had real meaning for a sailor.
With 12 cattle to a boat a safe and secure landing place was essential. Dunnet Head provided a choice. If the wind got up in strength, or changed direction, they could alter course to go either side of Dunnet Head.
. If a strong easterly was blowing, a good wind for crossing from Hoy but blowing right into Brough Bay, the boats could go west of Dunnet Head and into the beach inside Dwarwick Head below Dunnet. There the sand and the rocky shore meet just along from the present caravan park. They could beach their boats there and off load the cattle. If the wind was westerly, and that is a direction from where the wind can blow up quite quckly, the boats could go into the lee of the east side of Dunnet Head and slip quietly and easily into the shelter of Brough Bay. It was the preferred landing place anyway, a shorter voyage. It was from Brough that one of my great grandfathers John Tait emigrated from Inkstack to Orkney, also three brothers and a sister. Ham was also well used for Orkney traffic, mostly grain and horses but passengers too.
There were no harbours as now we know them in Caithness at that time. At Scrabster ships lay suspended between their anchors and the four rings attached to the rock face below the Lighthouse. They were loaded from the shore by many small boats. The old map of 1841 of Thurso Bay and Scrabster, of which I got a copy from the Records Office in Edinburgh and which is now in the Harbour Masters Office, showed no pier at Scrabster until after that date, just a small neb into the water suitable enough for small boats. It also showed four ships at anchor and attached to the rings.
Thurso Rivermouth was tidal, impossible at low ebb. Castlehill Harbour, built by James Traill circa 1828, was just that, a harbour to load and export James Traill’s flagstones. It was well built, making use of a natural verticle rock face on the west side, easy to see when the tide is out. Dwarwick Pier was not bult till the 1890s.
Small slipways were sanctioned by James Traill in 1831 to be built if need be by the Comissioners of Northern Lighthouses at the harbours of Brough and Ham for the building of Dunnet Head Lighthouse by Robert Stevenson in 1832. Traill stipulated and reserved the continued use of any piers so built for tne use of his tenants. Huna and Sannick Bay were good landings, Huna particularly for Stroma cattle. Sannick was well known as a landing for South Ronaldsay cattle, the old pens still to be seen there. The state of the tide had much to do as to when and where to land at Sannick, the Bores of Duncansby being deadly when running.
.
At Staxigoe they had rings either side of the harbour to suspend ships between them. Most of the export of grain from Caithness was from Staxigoe.
As Aneas Bayne wrote in 1734, “The Trade of export of the Shire of Caithness consists mostly in Corns, wherof they export in any good year 16,000 Bolls, at the Ports of Thurso, viz:- Scrabster Road, a small way West of the Town , and at the River Mouth, and at Staxigoe Harbour near the Town of Wick, half meal, half bear.”
Even before the ebb tide changes to flood there is an easterly eddy coming close in round Dunnet Head, the first of the flood tide. This strengthens on the early flood. So wind permitting east of and inside Dunnet Head was their first choice. A North easterly wind, the Helm Wind of the Vikings, rarely gets up without notice as a westerly can though it can be a strong steady wind. In the interests of safety it gave James Tait a wonderful choice to land his precious cargo.
The essence of cattle transport was to find a beach of sand or shingle on which to run the boats, off loading by simply laying the boat over on its side and walking the cattle off. Or jump maybe, but it would be a low jump. Built piers were of no value for loading cattle, nor needed. James Tait’s main cattle landing beach was Brough, well sheltered from most airts of wind, a good shore on which to land
and a good flat space just above the beach to use as hauling ground to get the boats out of the water if the weather dictated. It was used in my early recollection by many Brough boats, and others, but these are now very few in number.
The Clett Rocks there helped the shelter too.
From Brough Bay or Dwarwick as occasion demanded the cattle were a short drive to 93 acre Grotistoft in Barrock Hill, where James Tait farmed from 1818 till 1843. There the cattle would be got ready for the long drive South to Carlisle. Then his final move to Inkstack in 1843, but by then nearing 63 years old I think, with a better and larger farm of 300 acres and 8 labourers to work it, his droving days would have come to an end.
No 93. The Pentland Firth. Edited from first copy //
With the Pentland Firth so much in the news at present as the answer to all our future power problems, I thought it time to take a look at the waters over which my g.g.grand father JamesTait, who died in Inkstack in 1854, had taken his cattle. So I got a copy of the 13 hourly tide charts either side of High Water Dover [HWD]. The Pentland Firth was much more complex than I thought, no way can I do justice to the many tides and swirls and eddies and counter flows in a wee article. But from family connection I took a look.
. The story Wm Tait told of his grand father James Tait above taking 18 boats with 216 cattle across the Pentland stays with me. Scapa Flow was easy, reasonably sheltered water, but setting off round Cantick Head into the Pentland Firth the weather broke so they turned back and went into the old Viking Anchorage of Long Hope. There they off loaded the cattle and waited a week. Off again, but once more the weather broke. Nine boats kept going, nine turned back to Long Hope for a further week before final crossing.
With the tide charts before me I noted that with the last three hours of the east going flood tide there is a west going eddy close in to the cliffs of Hoy from Cantick Head to Tor Ness. This strengthened westwards on the turn of the tide at the beginning of the ebb. Ride that eddy and with a good sailing wind the boats would have been well off Tor Ness long before the tide turned. They would have headed out anyway into the last of the flood tide and the first of the ebb and be across the narrow seven miles between Tor Ness and Dunnet Head very quickly. These boats could sail well with the right wind. The “birlin” trading vessel of the Hebrides or the “knarr” of the Vikings could do up to nine knots if the wind was right, approximately ten miles an hour Good boats.
At the start of the west going ebb tide the Merry Men of Mey begin their dance just off St John’s Point, close in at first. As the ebb gathers strength the Merry Men reach further across towards Tor Ness, but ease off next St John’s Head as the ebb continues. By the two hours at the last of the ebb the sea off St John’s Point is quite quiet, though the Merry Men are still dancing off Tor Noss. To be avoided.
I thought then of all the places where James Tait might have landed on the rocky Caithness shore. Not an easy coast for sailing boats with no engines. The phrase “at the mercy of wind and tide” had real meaning for a sailor.
With 12 cattle to a boat a safe and secure landing place was essential. Dunnet Head provided a choice. If the wind got up in strength, or changed direction, they could alter course to go either side of Dunnet Head.
. If a strong easterly was blowing, a good wind for crossing from Hoy but blowing right into Brough Bay, the boats could go west of Dunnet Head and into the beach inside Dwarwick Head below Dunnet. There the sand and the rocky shore meet just along from the present caravan park. They could beach their boats there and off load the cattle. If the wind was westerly, and that is a direction from where the wind can blow up quite quckly, the boats could go into the lee of the east side of Dunnet Head and slip quietly and easily into the shelter of Brough Bay. It was the preferred landing place anyway, a shorter voyage. It was from Brough that one of my great grandfathers John Tait emigrated from Inkstack to Orkney, also three brothers and a sister. Ham was also well used for Orkney traffic, mostly grain and horses but passengers too.
There were no harbours as now we know them in Caithness at that time. At Scrabster ships lay suspended between their anchors and the four rings attached to the rock face below the Lighthouse. They were loaded from the shore by many small boats. The old map of 1841 of Thurso Bay and Scrabster, of which I got a copy from the Records Office in Edinburgh and which is now in the Harbour Masters Office, showed no pier at Scrabster until after that date, just a small neb into the water suitable enough for small boats. It also showed four ships at anchor and attached to the rings.
Thurso Rivermouth was tidal, impossible at low ebb. Castlehill Harbour, built by James Traill circa 1828, was just that, a harbour to load and export James Traill’s flagstones. It was well built, making use of a natural verticle rock face on the west side, easy to see when the tide is out. Dwarwick Pier was not bult till the 1890s.
Small slipways were sanctioned by James Traill in 1831 to be built if need be by the Comissioners of Northern Lighthouses at the harbours of Brough and Ham for the building of Dunnet Head Lighthouse by Robert Stevenson in 1832. Traill stipulated and reserved the continued use of any piers so built for tne use of his tenants. Huna and Sannick Bay were good landings, Huna particularly for Stroma cattle. Sannick was well known as a landing for South Ronaldsay cattle, the old pens still to be seen there. The state of the tide had much to do as to when and where to land at Sannick, the Bores of Duncansby being deadly when running.
.
At Staxigoe they had rings either side of the harbour to suspend ships between them. Most of the export of grain from Caithness was from Staxigoe.
As Aneas Bayne wrote in 1734, “The Trade of export of the Shire of Caithness consists mostly in Corns, wherof they export in any good year 16,000 Bolls, at the Ports of Thurso, viz:- Scrabster Road, a small way West of the Town , and at the River Mouth, and at Staxigoe Harbour near the Town of Wick, half meal, half bear.”
Even before the ebb tide changes to flood there is an easterly eddy coming close in round Dunnet Head, the first of the flood tide. This strengthens on the early flood. So wind permitting east of and inside Dunnet Head was their first choice. A North easterly wind, the Helm Wind of the Vikings, rarely gets up without notice as a westerly can though it can be a strong steady wind. In the interests of safety it gave James Tait a wonderful choice to land his precious cargo.
The essence of cattle transport was to find a beach of sand or shingle on which to run the boats, off loading by simply laying the boat over on its side and walking the cattle off. Or jump maybe, but it would be a low jump. Built piers were of no value for loading cattle, nor needed. James Tait’s main cattle landing beach was Brough, well sheltered from most airts of wind, a good shore on which to land
and a good flat space just above the beach to use as hauling ground to get the boats out of the water if the weather dictated. It was used in my early recollection by many Brough boats, and others, but these are now very few in number.
The Clett Rocks there helped the shelter too.
From Brough Bay or Dwarwick as occasion demanded the cattle were a short drive to 93 acre Grotistoft in Barrock Hill, where James Tait farmed from 1818 till 1843. There the cattle would be got ready for the long drive South to Carlisle. Then his final move to Inkstack in 1843, but by then nearing 63 years old I think, with a better and larger farm of 300 acres and 8 labourers to work it, his droving days would have come to an end.
No 94. St Ola
A long time ago, but yesterday too. Rain On My Window (Tears in My Eyes) will be an ongoing tale of my early memories of life shared by my younger brother David on Whitehall Farm in Stronsay, Orkney, of our childhood on a working farm in the 1930s before we lost our innocence.
No 93. St Ola No 1. 1892 to 1951
No series of mine would be complete without reference to the first St Ola. A steam ship of 230 tons GRT, dimensions 135 ft x 22ft x 11 ft draft. I think she was built by Hall Russell in Aberdeen, based on a now old-fashioned trawler design. The Ola was small indeed compared to the present Hamnavoe, little bigger than one of her lifeboats!!
She crossed the Firth for 59 years from 1892 – 1951, making six daily return sailings per week with only a few cancellations in the interests of passenger comfort and safety.
The original layout of the St Ola had a bridge but no wheelhouse which was added later. Canvas dodgers were all the shelter the crew had on the bridge against the elemental fury of many of the Pentland Firth crossings. Behind the funnel was a small deck-house that gave access to the stuffy cabin below. For’ard was a doored scuttle giving access down to the forecastle, the domain of the crew when not on duty.
I was eight years old when I got my first sight of the St Ola, probably in September 1937. The Ola came from Stromness in the early morning to tiny Scapa Pier one mile from Kirkwall to collect passengers en route to Caithness. Charlie Tait of J. & W. Tait, our father’s first cousin, took us by car to Scapa Pier from his house at Buttquoy where we had stayed the night before while in Kirkwall. Our mother was taking us to Caithness for our first visit to our Granny in Inkstack.
Father stayed in Stronsay, probably still engaged with the herring fishing or perhaps more likely the harvest, so our mother had myself, David, Norna and Isobel in tow. We did one more crossing through Scapa Flow in 1939 with our father with us, then the Flow was off limits with the War and the Ola went west of Hoy for the remainder of my many experiences of her.
From Scapa Pier we scanned the coast to the West to catch our first glimpse of the Ola. A plume of far- distant black smoke, then a small dot which grew with each passing minute. Our excitement was intense, we were going abroad to Caithness in Scotland!! To an Orkneyman Scotland was, and still is to many, going abroad, called “The Sooth” or often just “Scotland”.
During these pre-war years the St Ola called on occasion at St Margaret’s Hope in South Ronaldsay or at Lyness in Hoy, touching briefly to pick up passengers and mail.
We did both. Lyness was in 1939 as father took us down the gangway to set foot on the Island of Hoy, and then back on board again!!
On the 1939 crossing he pointed out the tiny rock called The Barrel of Butter, one of the features of Scapa where he had been in the Army for a time in 1914 to 1918. In the far distance we saw it, a knob of an Island where the Territorials had hauled guns up the sheer cliffs. I think they might still be there, too arduous to recover.
Our first part of the crossing was within Scapa Flow, sheltered water. From Lyness a short sail took us round Cantick Head and out into the Pentland Firth. It would have been summer time when we did that trip but the sea was still restless. Scapa Pier to Scrabster was at least two hours, probably more. We spent all the time up on deck savouring new surroundings, the cliffs of Hoy, Dunnet Head far off to the South but getting closer, Stroma, our Grannie’s Island, well off on our port side.
We landed at Scrabster Pier to be met by our Uncle Hamish from Inkstack. I still remember the new leathery smell of his car, different from our own smaller Morris Ten.
Then to Inkstack and my first sight of real trees as we went down the Planting in Castletown.
I had not met our grandmother as yet and her Caithness dialect was almost incomprehensible to us. A foreign tongue. Plus her rapid delivery of words so we were lost. She being a native of Stroma did not help either!!!
Another St Ola voyage was in September 1941 going to school in Inverness when I was 12, the first of many such trips. By now it was War. This time it was Kirkwall to Stromness in a wooden seated bus, through a barbed wire gate and Identity Card inspection by rifle-armed soldiers at the head of the pier and on board.
It was my first introduction to Hoy Sound. Even in September the Ola met the incoming swell from the West, pitching heavily. Then round the corner of St John’s Head to head South towards Caithness and past the towering cliffs and The Old Man of Hoy.
In Sept 1942 my brother David joined me in Inverness. David Macrae from the Hotel in Stronsay had gone to Inverness the year before myself, and his brother Don was with David. Over the next few years when not flying with Fresson I went to Scrabster by the St Ola, then on by 6 hour train journey Thurso to Inverness. Even during the War it had a good dining car, attached to the train at the Mound. Officers travelled by the train on occasion in First Class, and any rank and file of course in Third.
Adventures during the War with the St Ola were seeing grey Navy ships passing, the Earl of Zetland or the St Ninian meeting us laden with Forces personnel going to “Bloody Orkney”. They came North to Thurso on the Jellicoe Express, a train for Forces only.
There were usually some Forces people on the St Ola. It gave us quite uncalled-for malicious pleasure to see a sailor being violently sick more than once. It was anyway a good Navy tradition, Admiral Nelson was said to be always sick when he went to sea.
I remember an Army officer rushed to the rail, unfortunately just as the Ola rolled. He got soaked to the waist by an incoming wave, and I do not think he felt it. Sea sickness is not funny.
We did our utmost to stay on deck in the fresh air, warmed at times by standing with our backs to the funnel. Down below the sea-sick atmosphere in the cabin was not conducive to anything.
In command of the Ola was Captain Swanson, a well-known tough old red-faced product of many long years at sea. In the forecastle we sometimes found Davy Logie, a good friend of our fathers. He featured in many a scrape but the two I remember were when he took a bag of rabbits infected with Myxymatosis to Orkney, a gift from our father off Greenland Mains to his fellow Orcadian farmers !!! .
The other incident was inflicted on Davy by his fellow crew-men. Knowing his friendship with our father, and having had a similar gift before, one of the crew gave Davy a bag and said it was some hens from Tom Pottinger who could not wait to give them personally as there was a sale on at Hamiltons Mart he had to rush off to it.
Leaving Scrabster Pier and off duty for a spell, Davy sat down on a box in the forecastle to pluck the hens. I did not hear the language when he opened the bag to find an offering of dead cormorants, but believe it was spectacular.
No 93. St Ola No 1. 1892 to 1951
No series of mine would be complete without reference to the first St Ola. A steam ship of 230 tons GRT, dimensions 135 ft x 22ft x 11 ft draft. I think she was built by Hall Russell in Aberdeen, based on a now old-fashioned trawler design. The Ola was small indeed compared to the present Hamnavoe, little bigger than one of her lifeboats!!
She crossed the Firth for 59 years from 1892 – 1951, making six daily return sailings per week with only a few cancellations in the interests of passenger comfort and safety.
The original layout of the St Ola had a bridge but no wheelhouse which was added later. Canvas dodgers were all the shelter the crew had on the bridge against the elemental fury of many of the Pentland Firth crossings. Behind the funnel was a small deck-house that gave access to the stuffy cabin below. For’ard was a doored scuttle giving access down to the forecastle, the domain of the crew when not on duty.
I was eight years old when I got my first sight of the St Ola, probably in September 1937. The Ola came from Stromness in the early morning to tiny Scapa Pier one mile from Kirkwall to collect passengers en route to Caithness. Charlie Tait of J. & W. Tait, our father’s first cousin, took us by car to Scapa Pier from his house at Buttquoy where we had stayed the night before while in Kirkwall. Our mother was taking us to Caithness for our first visit to our Granny in Inkstack.
Father stayed in Stronsay, probably still engaged with the herring fishing or perhaps more likely the harvest, so our mother had myself, David, Norna and Isobel in tow. We did one more crossing through Scapa Flow in 1939 with our father with us, then the Flow was off limits with the War and the Ola went west of Hoy for the remainder of my many experiences of her.
From Scapa Pier we scanned the coast to the West to catch our first glimpse of the Ola. A plume of far- distant black smoke, then a small dot which grew with each passing minute. Our excitement was intense, we were going abroad to Caithness in Scotland!! To an Orkneyman Scotland was, and still is to many, going abroad, called “The Sooth” or often just “Scotland”.
During these pre-war years the St Ola called on occasion at St Margaret’s Hope in South Ronaldsay or at Lyness in Hoy, touching briefly to pick up passengers and mail.
We did both. Lyness was in 1939 as father took us down the gangway to set foot on the Island of Hoy, and then back on board again!!
On the 1939 crossing he pointed out the tiny rock called The Barrel of Butter, one of the features of Scapa where he had been in the Army for a time in 1914 to 1918. In the far distance we saw it, a knob of an Island where the Territorials had hauled guns up the sheer cliffs. I think they might still be there, too arduous to recover.
Our first part of the crossing was within Scapa Flow, sheltered water. From Lyness a short sail took us round Cantick Head and out into the Pentland Firth. It would have been summer time when we did that trip but the sea was still restless. Scapa Pier to Scrabster was at least two hours, probably more. We spent all the time up on deck savouring new surroundings, the cliffs of Hoy, Dunnet Head far off to the South but getting closer, Stroma, our Grannie’s Island, well off on our port side.
We landed at Scrabster Pier to be met by our Uncle Hamish from Inkstack. I still remember the new leathery smell of his car, different from our own smaller Morris Ten.
Then to Inkstack and my first sight of real trees as we went down the Planting in Castletown.
I had not met our grandmother as yet and her Caithness dialect was almost incomprehensible to us. A foreign tongue. Plus her rapid delivery of words so we were lost. She being a native of Stroma did not help either!!!
Another St Ola voyage was in September 1941 going to school in Inverness when I was 12, the first of many such trips. By now it was War. This time it was Kirkwall to Stromness in a wooden seated bus, through a barbed wire gate and Identity Card inspection by rifle-armed soldiers at the head of the pier and on board.
It was my first introduction to Hoy Sound. Even in September the Ola met the incoming swell from the West, pitching heavily. Then round the corner of St John’s Head to head South towards Caithness and past the towering cliffs and The Old Man of Hoy.
In Sept 1942 my brother David joined me in Inverness. David Macrae from the Hotel in Stronsay had gone to Inverness the year before myself, and his brother Don was with David. Over the next few years when not flying with Fresson I went to Scrabster by the St Ola, then on by 6 hour train journey Thurso to Inverness. Even during the War it had a good dining car, attached to the train at the Mound. Officers travelled by the train on occasion in First Class, and any rank and file of course in Third.
Adventures during the War with the St Ola were seeing grey Navy ships passing, the Earl of Zetland or the St Ninian meeting us laden with Forces personnel going to “Bloody Orkney”. They came North to Thurso on the Jellicoe Express, a train for Forces only.
There were usually some Forces people on the St Ola. It gave us quite uncalled-for malicious pleasure to see a sailor being violently sick more than once. It was anyway a good Navy tradition, Admiral Nelson was said to be always sick when he went to sea.
I remember an Army officer rushed to the rail, unfortunately just as the Ola rolled. He got soaked to the waist by an incoming wave, and I do not think he felt it. Sea sickness is not funny.
We did our utmost to stay on deck in the fresh air, warmed at times by standing with our backs to the funnel. Down below the sea-sick atmosphere in the cabin was not conducive to anything.
In command of the Ola was Captain Swanson, a well-known tough old red-faced product of many long years at sea. In the forecastle we sometimes found Davy Logie, a good friend of our fathers. He featured in many a scrape but the two I remember were when he took a bag of rabbits infected with Myxymatosis to Orkney, a gift from our father off Greenland Mains to his fellow Orcadian farmers !!! .
The other incident was inflicted on Davy by his fellow crew-men. Knowing his friendship with our father, and having had a similar gift before, one of the crew gave Davy a bag and said it was some hens from Tom Pottinger who could not wait to give them personally as there was a sale on at Hamiltons Mart he had to rush off to it.
Leaving Scrabster Pier and off duty for a spell, Davy sat down on a box in the forecastle to pluck the hens. I did not hear the language when he opened the bag to find an offering of dead cormorants, but believe it was spectacular.
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