Diary of a Shopkeeper, 3rd September

During a normal summer, we get asked the same three questions dozens of times a day:

‘Why are there no seafood restaurants in Kirkwall?’

‘Where can I hear some live Orkney music?’

‘What’s the nearest place we can get a cup of coffee?’

The first one is complicated to answer, but until this year the other two were both easy.  ‘Cross Broad Street, go into The Reel, and you’ll find as much music and coffee as you could ever want.’

I dare say The Reel had little chance of opening this summer.  With tourist numbers down, the café would hardly have been viable.  Anyway, it’s pretty small, and the required social distancing would have been hard to maintain.  The same would have applied to any kind of live music. 

The Orcadian Summer Concerts have been wonderful showcases for an eclectic mix of local music, from fiddle and accordion bands to singer-songwriters to country swing.  But such is their success that they’re the antithesis of social distancing.  Only the ba crams more bodies more tightly together!

Now we hear that The Reel faces not just temporary but possibly permanent closure.  This would be a tragedy for Kirkwall, and for Orkney. 

As a centre for music tuition and performance, The Reel is unique.  Literally hundreds of learners – both children and adults – have increased in skill and confidence within those white walls.  In jam sessions and rehearsals, groups have formed, tunes have been composed and rehearsed, albums and tours planned.

Thousands have sat in audiences and heard Orkney music for the first time, or the millionth time.  Whether tourists experiencing strathspeys and reels on a Thursday evening, or residents enjoying top-notch local and visiting musicians – and often both, cross-pollinating – we’ve all benefited enormously from The Reel’s presence as an intimate, informal, multi-faceted music centre right in the centre of town.

I’ve been lucky enough to take the stage there once or twice, and I’ve sat in the audience many more times.  I’ve bought guitar strings, plectrums and tuners in Orkney’s only music shop.  The loss of The Reel would not just be an inconvenience to amateur strummers like me.  Rather, it would be a hole in the heart of Kirkwall – and in the heart of Orkney’s culture.

In these columns I often talk about Covid’s threat to our economy.  Without a buzzing business sector, jobs will be at risk, incomes threatened, and prospects limited for many, especially the young.  All that is true, but creating money isn’t enough in itself.  Above all a healthy economy is there to fund a rewarding lifestyle.  And a crucial part of a healthy, well-balanced community is culture. 

Without artists like Sylvia Wishart and Gunnie Moberg, we’d hardly know what Orkney looked like.  Without books like A Time to Keep and The Orkenyinga Saga, we’d hardly know where we came from.  And without musicians like Jennifer and Hazel Wrigley we’d hardly know what we sounded like. 

The Wrigleys reach back into the past for inspiration and melodies, and help shape the future through new compositions and newly trained proteges.  That link through time is what traditional music is all about.  You could say it’s what Orkney is all about: there are few places in the country as aware of the past as we are in these islands.  But there are also few places as forward-looking and entrepreneurial.

That’s Orkney culture.  It comes from habits of mind, and from language, stories, books, art and music.  Without it we’d be just the same as anywhere else.  With it we’re just a little bit extraordinary.  Jennifer and Hazel Wrigley deserve our thanks for the amazing achievements of The Reel over the past 16 years.  And they deserve our support to ensure their good work continues. 

. . .

Check out their website: wrigleyandthereel.com for full details of the Wrigleys’ activities and their campaign to save The Reel.

This diary appeared in The Orcadian on 10th September Other diaries will appear weekly. I am posting them in this blog a few days after each newspaper appearance, with added illustrations., and occasional small corrections or additions.