Diary of a Shopkeeper, 5th January 2025

‘It’s not really about the sheep,’ I said.

First day back at work, and conversations with customers went along well-established lines.

‘Happy New Year Willie! How was Hogmanay?’

‘Quiet, beuy, just quiet.’ He sighed. ‘Yourself?’

‘Quiet,’ I said. ‘We were snowed in for two days – the hill road to our place smoors over at the sight of a snowflake. And by the time we won out it was all over.’ I turned to his companion. ‘How about you, Mrs Stentorian?’ I said. ‘How was your new year?’

‘I was quiet too,’ she said, ‘But then, I always am.’

Kiwi Kate snorted from the far end of the shop. She was lurking over by the sales shelves, doubtless disappointed there was no New Zealand wine on offer. (New Zealand wine always sells: we never need to put it in the sale.)

‘How was your Hogmanay, Kate?’ I called.

‘Och, you know,’ she said. ‘Quiet, very quiet. Folk don’t go about the way they used to.’

‘I’ve never been one for going about, ‘said Mrs Stentorian. ‘I’ve always preferred sitting quietly and minding my own business.’

Kate snorted again. I saw Mrs Stentorian’s eyebrows rise, but Kate was spared her ire by the front door opening and Bruce Brass buldering in.

‘Happy new year one and all,’ cried Bruce. ‘How was everyone’s new year?’

‘Quiet,’ we shouted back in chorus.

‘How was yours, Bruce?’ I said.

‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,’ said Bruce. ‘Some stayed sober, some went clean gyte. You couldn’t believe anything you heard, but some believed any old bruck. It was the season of northern lights, it was the season of dark days. It was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. We had the whole year afore us, we had nothing to look forward to. We were all going straight to heaven, we were all going directly the other way.’

‘In other words…?’ I said.

‘Quiet,’ said Bruce, ‘Ferfil quiet.’

‘I did have one interesting conversation,’ I said, ‘at a shindig up in Sandwick. Someone was asking me how long I’d bade in Orkney, and I said that, seeing as this was 2025, I’ve now been here 33 years. Nearly twice as long as I’ve lived anywhere else, which was Aberdeenshire, and three times as long as I lived in Edinburgh.’

‘Don’t go getting any ideas,’ said Bruce.

‘Aye,’ said Willie. ‘It’s a long time but you’ll never be, you ken…’

‘I know,’ I said, ‘I’ll never be an Orcadian. I was saying that at the party. And this woman I’d just met said…’

‘You can’t be an Orcadian,’ said Kate. ‘You weren’t born here, and neither were your folk. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve lived here. I was born here but my folks took me to Auckland when I was three. Fifty years I stayed there. But as soon as I came back that was me, accepted into the fold. But not you.’

‘I know!’ I cried. ‘I said that, and that’s when the woman started quoting poetry. ‘We're maistly aal a mixture, man, like pasture on the hill. Whaur tufts o girse an scrogs o breem raise stoot tups still.’’

‘In the summer, maybe,’ said Willie, ‘But you have to get them on good grass in the winter.’

‘It’s not really about the sheep,’ I said.

‘And likely some hay or haylage,’ said Bruce.

‘It’s not really about the sheep feed,’ I said. ‘It’s about us: we’re mostly all a mixture. Good or bad, wherever we’re from, you need a mix.’

‘That’s what this wife reckoned, was it?’ said Willie. ‘And where was she from?’

‘Given that she had an Aberdeenshire accent,’ I said, ‘and given that she was quoting poems by the Aberdeenshire poet Charles Murray, I’d guess she was from Aberdeenshire.’

‘Sandwick, you say?’ Bruce butted in, ‘Spouting poetry like a rone pipe? That’ll’ve been Doric Doris. She’s no right witty. Always on about lum hats wanting croons.’

‘Her point was,’ I said, ‘That wherever we’re from, we’re all Jock Tamson’s bairns.’

Mrs Stentorian harrumphed. ‘That Jock Thomson has a lot to answer for,’ she said. ‘Absent fathers are a curse of modern times. My own father was no angel; he was too busy hanging out with bishops for that. I grew up in Canterbury, and…’

‘Thomson you say?’ interrupted Willie. ‘No doubt he’ll be from South Ronaldsay. There’s a lot of Thomsons down that way. Fine folk. Some of them…’

‘You’re missing the point!’ shouted Kate.

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Aye, you’re all missing the point…’

‘The point is, ‘said Kate, ‘that our shopkeeper is going behind our backs to meet up with other Aberdonians. It’s the Doric mafia! Soon he’ll be making us eat our cheese with butteries with instead of flaky biscuits. It’s a slippery slope…’

‘That’s not it either!’ I cried. ‘Honestly! The point is, as Charls Murray said, ‘When ye uphaud or I miscaa, there's aye the tither side. An whiles the very best o us would some things hide. We're maistly aal a mixture, man, like pasture on the hill.’ So haud yer wheesht the lot of you, ‘Still, man, still!’’

They all stood and stared at me. Eventually Willie Pickle broke the silence: ‘Well, we ken what kind of new year the shopkeeper’s after.’

‘Quiet,’ said the chorus.

This diary appeared in The Orcadian on 9th January 2025. A new diary appears weekly. I post them in this blog a few days after each newspaper appearance, with added illustrations, and occasional small corrections or additions.