Willie Pickle was looking mournful when he came into the shop on Saturday.

‘Well,’ he said, as he put a tin of sardines and a packet of fregola into the pockets of his donkey jacket, ‘that’s another good Orcadian gone to dust. Very sad.’

‘It’s a bad time of year for it,’ I said. ‘But who in particular were you thinking about?’

He looked at me, raising his bushy red eyebrows in astonishment. ‘Someone who made their mark on the world stage,’ he said. ‘Someone who changed the course of fashion history.’

I racked my brains. ‘I don’t mean to be disrespectful,’ I said, ‘But I honestly don’t know who you’re talking about.’

He shook his head. ‘Beuy beuy,’ he said. ‘You don’t even ken your own history! Call yourself an Orcadian?’

‘Aberdonian, actually,’ I said. ‘Though even that was a long time ago. Anyway, what has that got to do with fashion?’ I looked him up and down. ‘Nice donkey jacket, by the way.’

He pursed his lips at me. ‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ he said. ‘It’s a blouson d’ânesse. A certain friend took it back from Paris Fashion Week. It’s from Pierre Cardin’s Roadworks collection. All the outfits were inspired by garments worn by French council workers repairing holes in the rue. When the models went up and down the catwalk, they were controlled by a garçon in a hi-viz vest with a lollipop stick: GO on the rouge side and STOP on the vert.’

‘I’ve seen them doing a wee fashion show out the Orphir road these past few weeks.’

‘You can laugh,’ he said. ‘But the Orkney working man has as much right to look à la mode as any Parisian.’

I hadn’t laughed before, but I did now. ‘Jeez, Willie, when did you become such a dedicated follower of fashion? I’ve known you fifteen years or more and never seen you in anything but a blue boiler suit and rigger boots.’

At that moment the front door opened, and in walked the answer to my question.

‘Good morning, shopkeeper,’ cried Mrs Stentorian. Then her voice softened: ‘And bonjour to you, Guilhem le Cornichon.’

‘Hello Henrietta,’ said Willie, a smile splitting what I now noticed was his neatly trimmed ginger beard.

‘Nice hat, Mrs S,’ I said. ‘It covers up half your face.’

‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘It’s a wide-brimmed cloche by Adam Lippes, that’s what it’s meant to do. Statement hats are in this year, don’t you know.’

‘And what statement does your hat make?’ I asked.

‘It says: I have a head, and I’m not afraid who knows it. One’s hat is a thing of beauty, a crowning glory, a hymn to the beauty of one’s cranium.’

‘And it keeps the rain off,’ said Willie.

‘Practical as well as beautiful,’ I said.

‘As all great couture should be,’ said Mrs Stentorian.

Willie turned to face me. ‘Like the work of the great Orcadian designer we sadly lost this week…Mary Quant.’

‘Mary Quant?’ I cried.

‘Mary Quant!’ exclaimed Mrs Stentorian. ‘I modelled for her in the sixties, you know.’

‘I would expect nothing else,’ I said.

‘Twiglet and I did a lot of shoots together,’ she said. ‘London was swinging!’

‘I really don’t think Mary Quant was from Orkney,’ I said. ‘I’m sure she was a southerner.’

‘That was just a cover story,’ said Willie, ‘to fit in with the whole swinging London thing. I mean, who ever heard of Swinging Kirkwall?’

‘So you’re telling me Mary Quant came from here?’

‘Out Wideford way, to be exact,’ said Willie, ‘Her folk were farmers there, going back generations. Her name was really Mary Quanterness.’

‘But that was too much of a mouthful for southern journalists,’ said Mrs Stentorian, ‘So she shortened it to Quant.’

‘And the rest is history,’ said Willie.

This diary appeared in The Orcadian on 19th April 2023. A new one appears weekly. I post them in this blog a few days after each newspaper appearance, with added illustrations., and occasional small corrections or additions

Diary of a Shopkeeper, 16th April