Diary of a Shopkeeper, 3rd May

Someone has dressed the John Rae statue at Stromness pierhead in a blue beanie and a surgical mask.  It makes him look even more heroic than he was before.  His eyes gaze out boldly above the flimsy face-covering.  He’s unflinching as he marches forward, as if about to enter battle with some invisible foe just out of sight on the far side of the Holms.

We’re all battling invisible foes just now.  The deadliest of them is the virus, and defeating it is more important than anything else.  For businesses there’s also the invisible foe – just out of sight, a few weeks or months ahead – of economic disaster.  Every business is different, but with no tourist and reduced local income, one thing we have in common is a very uncertain future.

One man who gazed out at several uncertain futures was William Copland.  Born in Kirkwall in 1799, he trained as a cooper, making barrels for fish-curers.  But as a young man – like so many other Orcadians before and since – he decided, ‘There must be more to life than this.’  So off he sailed into the unknown of the nor’wast.   

John Rae senior, the explorer’s father, signed him up to the Hudson’s Bay Company.  William’s letters home reveal that at first he enjoyed the freedom and adventure of being away from home, but gradually became scunnered with the fur trader’s life – and especially the mosquitos that plagued the warmer months, with their irksome bites and threat of disease.  After five years he’d had enough.

William returned to Orkney, and in 1833 married Margaret Scott of St Ola.  He may have come home, but he didn’t fancy a return to coopering.  His time in Canada had paid well, and he was ready to gamble his savings on yet another kind of future.  Together he and Margaret took a bold step and opened a shop selling wine, beer and groceries at 15 Broad Street, where The Longship clothes shop is now. 

Broad Street, c 1860. We believe James Kirkness is standing in the door of his shop (with the white blinds lowered. Photo reproduced with thanks from David Tinch’s excellent book, Shoal and Sheaf.

For 20 years William and Margaret’s business grew steadily, as the agricultural boom of the mid-19th century made Kirkwall a prosperous market town.  When William died in 1855, there was no son to take over, as would have been the norm in those days.  So a new era began, when the Coplands’ daughter, also Margaret, took over, in partnership with her young husband, James Kirkness.

The Kirkness name is still above our door – along with Gorie, of course.  (How that partnership came to be is a tale for another day.) 

John Rae set off many times into the unknown of sub-arctic Canada, and is now revered for his bravery and achievements.  But in their own less dramatic way, William and Margaret Copland, and James and Margaret Kirkness, also launched themselves into unknown and risky futures, and achieved much of what they had dreamt of.  They may not have a statue at the pierhead, but the business they founded and developed continues to this day.

In the months ahead, we’ll all have to step out into the strange landscape of the post-virus world, and make a new future for ourselves, and for Orkney.  I have no doubt we’ll do so with bravery and ingenuity the equal of our illustrious forbears.

This diary appeared in The Orcadian on 7th May Other diaries will appear weekly as long as the Covid-19 crisis goes on. I intend to post them in this blog a few days after each newspaper appearance, with added illustrations.