Diary of a Shopkeeper, 7th May

Found in a ditch.

The bitter weather continues, with daffodils, lambs, and kings all trembling in the face of the cold blast. While far from unprecedented, the length of this chilly period is enough to prompt memories of extreme weather events from Orkney’s past.

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Great Storm of 31st January 1953. Severe flooding and fierce winds – including sustained gales of 125mph – caused considerable damage to buildings, roads, and seawalls. It was a miracle no human life was lost. The county’s hen population was not so lucky.

1953 was notable for other climatic reasons, now overshadowed entirely by the preceding storm. A unique combination of wind-scoured verges, plus an unusually warm and wet spring, led to lupins growing in astonishing profusion along roadsides as well as in their usual garden and meadow habitats. It may be that the January gales spread lupin seed much further than usual. Whatever the reason, the flowers grew so successfully that West Mainland folk started referring to the lupin forests of Harray. Some minor roads around Russland and Corrigall were rendered impassable, such was the density of lupin growth. The council had to bring in teams of specialist lumberjacks from the Highlands to clear passages through the banks of vividly coloured flowers, which were growing up to ten feet high.

The Big Freeze of January and February 1963 brought another problem for motorists. The roads of country areas were covered in snow which, following a brief thaw, turned into ice. Weeks of freezing temperatures hardened the ice to such a degree that large parts of the county were like a skating rink. Careful drivers could have made their journeys, but the conditions proved an irresistible attraction for Scotland’s curling enthusiasts, and hundreds of them flocked north to hold practices and even tournaments on flat roads.

It’s said that the intensive period of play this afforded contributed significantly to Scotland winning its first gold medal at the World Curling Championships in Canada in 1967. That was no comfort at the time to Orkney’s motorists, who often had to wait 20 minutes or more till the ‘end’ in play was finished. For months afterwards, cars and bikes had to beware as they travelled through country parishes, for fear of collision with curling rocks that had slid out of sight and been lost. Just last month, a polished granite stone was discovered in a ditch in Stenness. Archaeologists plan a project to map the site of those long-gone bonspiels.

Heat can cause problems too. One heatwave that altered Orkney’s history was in July 1861. Antiquarian James Farrer was conducting a painstaking excavation of Maeshowe, and had made meticulous progress as far as the end of the entrance tunnel. With temperatures soaring to over 15 Celsius, Farrer decide that the heat in the tomb was insufferable, and decided a new approach was required, to allow the circulation of cool air. As recorded in his excavation notes, he ordered his men to, ‘rip the roof off the blighter.’ The rest is history, though less history than if careful excavation had been continued.

Perhaps most remarkable of all is a record of a May in the eighteenth century. The Laird of Breckness recorded in his diary that for several weeks in a row the temperature was, ‘balmy, inclined to warmth of a most plaisant degree.’ As for wind, ‘scarce the braithe we had, just enough to keep midgicks at bay.’ No rain was recorded, except, says the Laird, ‘sum nights a gentil shoure was observed to fall, sufficient to keep crops and gairdens weel-watered.’ 

Such a report stretches credulity to breaking point! It can safely be said that the Laird was exaggerating wildly, for never in Orkney’s history has such a spell of bizarre weather been attested to.

This diary appeared in The Orcadian on 10th May 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