Ghostwalk – a novel of ideas

Lydia Brooke, a writer and the book’s central character, is returning to Cambridge from her home in Brighton to attend the funeral of an old friend. Elizabeth Vogelsang had been found dead, floating Ophelia-like in

Along the tide-mark

The word ‘foraging’ brings images of journeys among hedgerows and fields for wild foods – herbs, berries, nuts, wild garlic and mushrooms – but it happens on the shore as well. For Martin Gray, one

Rhythms of art and island life

A highlight of this Year of Coasts and Waters is a retrospective exhibition of the work of the North Ronaldsay artist Ian Scott – online. With technical support from a family team, he has gathered

A Roman Frontier in north-east Scotland?

Over nearly fifty years Ian Keillar worked to build a picture of the Roman relationship with Scotland, bringing to the task the discipline of his profession of engineering and the experience of his wartime service

Prof. Tom Stevenson to open 30th Festival

TThis year’s Orkney International Science Festival will be opened by Prof. Tom Stevenson. He has the unique distinction of having spoken in every Science Festival since the first one in 1991, developing lecture/demonstrations on topics

Going to Graemsay

Many years ago, for a child in Stromness the lighthouses of Graemsay were ‘Granny’s candles’. The island seemed a world away. Then one fine morning Uncle James collected us from the pier and soon we

Where the rain and the light fall in

The Cod Hunters

The Cod Hunters tells the story of the Shetlanders who fished for cod around the north Atlantic in their cod sailing smacks. Fishing at Greenland, Iceland, Faroe and Rockall, the cod smacks returned with cargoes

Painting the waves

I’m fascinated by the movement of water and how it reacts in different circumstances, how it breaks and how the energy of the wave expels itself. It is constantly changing. As a small boy I