Diary of a Shopkeeper, 30th April

Charles Street (under construction)

One of the difficulties in running a business in a historic town centre is that you’re likely to be crammed into a building that was built in a different century for a different purpose. Space for storage, or even everyday working, is less than you’d like. And yet there’s nowhere you can build an extension or even a shed. I was having a moan about this to Bruce Brass the other day. We’d just had two pallets of wine delivered to our back door.

‘I shouldn’t complain,’ I said, ‘We’re lucky we have a back door. Lots of shops along the street don’t, and everything has to come in the front.’

‘It would be a fair job to cart all that wine down your close from the Broad Street to here,’ he said.

‘It’s bad enough taking it in the back,’ I said. ‘Each pallet’s a ton of wine! And even after we carry it inside, we have to move it once or twice again to the different wee storage areas we have scattered about the place.’

‘You ken what you need,’ he said, ‘A nice big modern warehouse, with a shop at the front, a delivery bay at the back, and a reinforced concrete floor so the forklifts can drive right in with your pallets.’

‘I don’t want to go to Hatston,’ I said, ‘We have to be in the town centre.’

‘Ah ha! But which town centre?’

‘Eh, this one…’

‘Meanwhile, aye. But I was reading in the paper about the housing shortage.’

I nodded. ‘Houses going up, but population going up faster: Orkney a victim of its own success.

‘And the solution is, a new town in the west mainland somewhere. And that’s where you need to get your foot in the door. You need to book a prime spot on either Charles Street or Camilla Street.’

My jaw must have dropped.

‘It’s obvious,’ he said. ‘Kirkwall and Stromness both have a Victoria Street, there’s an Albert Street here and one called after Prince Alfred in Stromness. So of course the new streets have to be named after the new royals.’

I laughed. ‘You’re getting ahead of yourself, beuy. They haven’t even decided where to build a new town yet. In fact, they haven’t even decided they will build one. It’s just an idea.’

‘There’s nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come,’ he said, triumphantly.

‘And there’s nothing as heavy as two pallets of wine that’ve just come,’ I said. ‘I really need to be getting them inside afore the rain comes on.’

‘This is the future of the county we’re talking about here!’ he cried. ‘I think that’s a peedie bit more important than a few bottles of Malbec. We have to seize the opportunity and build a great new metropolis at the heart of the West Mainland. When the sea waters rise, Kirkwall will be the Venice of the north. You’ve already got the cruise liners.’

‘I was thinking we should maybe build some new houses where there’s existing amenities. Look at Dounby: it has a school, and a pub, and a dreef of good shops. Why not expand there?’

‘Nah nah. When the sea rises, Harray Loch rises too. It’s already lippan. A few more inches of water and Dounby’ll be droonded.’

Right on cue, raindrops started to spatter the shop window and the pallets of wine. ‘I really need to get going,’ I said.

‘We all need to get going,’ said Bruce. ‘Going up to the high ground. I had a recce at the weekend, and I found just the spot. There’s a right bonny piece atween Dounby and Tingwall with nothing in it but teeicks and whaups. The Bog o Surtan, that’s where we’ll build.’

I shook my head. ‘I’m sure it’s a lovely spot,’ I said. ‘But who’ll want to live in a place called the Bog of anything?’    

Bruce shook his head. ‘No problem. We’ll come up with a new name.’

‘A royal one?’

‘Exactly. Orkney royalty. We’ll call in Stockantoon.’

This diary appeared in The Orcadian on 3rd 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