Last Tuesday, 27th October, was UNESCO’s World Day for Audio-visual Heritage. We were all encouraged to consider the value of both sound and visual archives to our community. Many in Orkney would agree that these records of past times are very valuable indeed.

As UNESCO say, old recordings and films ‘represent a priceless heritage which is an affirmation of our collective memory and a valuable source of knowledge. They reflect the cultural, social, and linguistic diversity of our communities. Conserving this heritage and ensuring it remains accessible to the public and future generations is a vital goal for all memory institutions as well as the public at large.’

‘Memory institution’ is a slightly preposterous phrase I’d never come across before, and I must say it made me smile. I suppose it means museums, archives, and libraries. But also local organisations like the Orkney Archaeology Society and the Orkney Family History Society. Any group of people, in fact, who believe there’s value in preserving and studying not just documents from the past but tapes and cassettes, records on shellac and vinyl, glass plates, slides and printed photos, moving images on film and video. Not to mention any sounds or images recorded or transferred to digital form.

In Orkney we have a fierce appreciation of the past. The layers of change that history have settled on the islands are much thinner than in many parts of the world, meaning we can see back through time with unusual clarity. At least we think we can.

But imperfect memory and wishful thinking can distort our view of the past. There’s no substitute for going back to the original evidence and studying it first-hand. That’s why the Photographic Archive and the Sound Archive at the library in Kirkwall are particularly important.

There’s been quite a lot of digitisation in the Photographic Archive. Nealy 11,000 glass plate negatives from the early days of the art have been scanned and preserved. This includes the incomparable work of Tom Kent, undoubtedly Orkney’s most important photographer from that era. I admit I feel a special affection for Kent, as for many years his studio and shop were at 7 Broad Street, where The Longship jewellery shop is now to be found.

Another personal connection is with Gunnie Moberg, the most notable photographer of the past 50 years, and a good friend. After she died in 2007, thousands of photos, slides and documents were acquired by the county, and the Gunnie Moberg Archive now represents a substantial modern monument to balance the collections of the pioneers from a hundred and more years ago. It has mostly been digitised and so preserved for future generations to study and enjoy.

The picture is not so rosy when it comes to the Sound Archive. At this wonderful collection’s heart is a collection of more than 200 recordings made by renowned historian, folklorist, and broadcaster Ernest Marwick, from the 1950s onwards. It’s grown over the years, with notable additions coming from BBC Radio Orkney and the School of Scottish Studies (which I was luck enough to attend for a year in the 1980s, under the great poet and recorder of folk tale and song, Hamish Henderson.)

Further valuable material came from field recordings by Anne Marwick, films by Dougie Shearer, and numerous other donations, including many home videos. Very little of the audio-visual deposits have been digitised, and so the fragile tape and film, some of it now well over half a century old, is in danger or decaying and becoming unplayable.

Dave Gray of Radio Orkney recently issued a heartfelt plea:

‘The Orkney Sound Archive contains some extremely important recordings. But there are currently thousands of hours of tapes sitting in boxes in various buildings because there are not enough resources available to have them digitized and catalogued. It would be a huge project to get this done and would doubtless require external funding and some input from a number of local bodies, but it's a vital piece of our local heritage and history.’

At a time like this, when our community is threatened by a double-whammy of health scare and economic depression, appreciation for the people and culture of our islands is greater than ever. It would be a wonderful contribution to the preservation of our past and the creation of a better future, if funds could be provided to fully digitise and catalogue both the Sound and Photographic archives.

If we do, we’ll have a resource that will enrich Orkney for centuries. If we don’t, and the old tapes and films turn to dust, those voices from our recent past will be gone forever. They’ll be as lost as the voices of Walter Traill Dennison, Alesoun Balfour, and Magnus Erlendsson.

We can – and should – make sure that doesn’t happen.

Vintage camera and clapperboard courtesy of film-maker and editor Mark Jenkins of Stromness: https://splicefilm.wordpress.com/ for film and https://kolektopartnership.wordpress.com/ for broader cultural heritage projects.

Diary of a Shopkeeper, 1st November