Diary of a Shopkeeper, 8th August

Sometimes, multiple ideas jostle to be included in this diary, but this week there is only one possible subject: Costa del Kirkwall!

In a year without a County Show, and with fewer tourists than usual, Kirkwall BID felt it had the chance – and the responsibility – to bring a bit of summer excitement to the town centre.

So it was that we spent months planning, and five very busy days operating, Broad Street Sands.

With the help of Orkney Builders, who spread fifty tons of fresh golden sand on the car park next to The Reel, we created the first Broad Street beach since the cathedral was knee-high to a Norseman.

There were deckchairs and buckets and spades, and the kids threw themselves into sandcastle building while parents and grandparents reclined in the sun.  Sometimes the adults got into the sandcastle spirit too.

Everyone got into the treasure-hunting spirit, when it was revealed that Ortak had generously donated 185 recycled-copper Groatie Buckies, and that batches of them were being buried in the beach every morning.

At times it felt like Groatie Buckie fever had struck, as adults and bairns alike scraped and dug in search of the elusive tiny treasures.  You’ve heard of looking for a needle in a haystack: looking for a Groatie Buckie in 50 tons of sand is equally challenging!

One thing that wasn’t buried in the sand was cat poo.

Mrs Stentorian cornered me the day the beach was being created.  ‘This is the biggest litter tray in Christendom,’ she told me.  ‘It’ll be a magnet for cats.’

She needn’t have worried.  Visual inspections each morning, followed by thorough raking, revealed no poo, and not even any pawprints.

What we did find on Sunday morning was human footprints.  At some point overnight, one or more people cut through the security ties, moved the safety barriers aside, and stomped across the sand.  What they were doing in the town in the middle of the night with a knife sufficient to the task is something the police may ask them after studying the CCTV footage.

Those uninvited visitors contrasted with the very many welcome visitors we welcomed – around 500 per day.  That makes a total of 2,500 for the weekend, equivalent to a quarter of Kirkwall’s population.

Most folk who dropped in were local, though a few visitors enjoyed the experience too as an unexpected part of their Orkney holiday.

An additional attraction, unexpected to us in BID, was a weird and wonderful dance performance by a group called The Strawboys.  Wearing grass skirts and strange conical straw headpieces, the three dancers swirled and birled across the green for a large crowd of all ages – some still clutching crazy golf clubs.

Ah yes, the crazy golf!  I doubt that even competitors in the Kirkwall Open demonstrate such enthusiasm and determination as the youngsters on the Kirk Green did, as they battled through tunnels, over mountains and around lighthouses.

Several holes in one were claimed, though not always independently witnessed.  What was witnessed was an enormous range of unorthodox grips – some folk wielding their club like a hockey stick, some like a garden rake, and at least one like a snooker cue.

There was applause, there were cheers, and a lot of laughter.  As someone said to me on Saturday, ‘Listen to that.  It’s the happiest sound in the world: kids at play.’

In the midst of life there is death, and a funeral on Saturday morning led us to close the beach and golf for the duration of the service.  Almost everyone was understanding and patient, and went off to have an ice cream or do some shopping while they waited to resume their fun.

Glamour as well as fun were in the air a few hours later, when a wedding party emerging from the cathedral were invited to sit on BID’s giant striped deckchair, and got themselves some unique wedding photos in the process.

In advance of the weekend, a few sceptics had taken to social media to complain that there were already plenty of real beaches in Orkney, and it was daft to create a new one in Broad Street.

I feel sure that, if they had seen the hundreds of Orcadians of all ages having an absolute ball on Broad Street Sands, they would’ve seen that it wasn’t daft at all.  Here we were, the people of Kirkwall, celebrating summer and our healthy, happy community with friends and family.  We were right outside our cathedral, and right in the middle of our town: the Most Beautiful High Street in Scotland. 

We made enthusiastic use of local businesses before, during and after our time on the beach.  We instilled in the minds of the youngsters the idea that their town is a fun, safe, and friendly place to spend time. 

Town centres are not just about shops and cafes and offices: they’re places where a community meets, talks to itself, and shows the world what it’s all about.  Judged by those standards, Costa del Kirkwall has been a great success – one of the very best events BID has ever organised.

Organisation is one thing, but doing the actual work is something else, and a huge amount of time and effort was contributed by a whole range of volunteers:  BID has thanked them elsewhere, both publicly and privately.

As Chair of BID, I would like to thank our staff who worked tirelessly in planning, organising, advertising, and running the event.  Both Sally Laughton and Laura Bruce work just a few hours a week for BID, but the effort and imagination they put into this made it a special event that people will remember and talk about for many years to come.

Particular acknowledgement goes to Laura who dreamed up what initially seemed like a crazy idea.  She worked out how to turn her mad dream into reality, and swept the rest of us along with her impeccable organisation and endless energy and enthusiasm.

Thanks to Laura, and to everyone else who contributed, the sun shone a little brighter on Kirkwall this weekend.

This diary appeared in The Orcadian on 11th August. Other diaries continue to 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.