An Orcadian Adventure (8 and last)

On our last morning we had time to nip down to wee town of Scapa which is the centre for managing the shipping and uses of Scapa Flow a large expanse of sheltered harbouring and was at one time the biggest Royal Navy base during WWII.

A quick visit to the public loo revealed the above poster which must be one of the most place specific public posters around. Unless you now what a ‘Blackening’ is then the poster would have no sense.

The Blackening is a pre-marital ritual where the groom (and nowadays the bride) is paraded round the town after a libation or two with various friends in the back of an smallish open backed lorry (say 12 -14 people) but the groom/bride is covered in molasses, feathers and flour, as are few of their followers which quite a mess to clean up hence the poster. In the olden days they after they were paraded round the town they were tied to the Mercat Cross in front of St Magnus Cathedral though I’m not sure that part is still carried out. The police are trying to curtail the parading in a truck for health & safety reasons. Yesterday we had the sight in the centre of Kirkwall of a large funeral in the morning, a ‘Blackening’ at lunchtime and a wedding in the afternoon, I’m fairly sure there would have been folk going to the funeral and also the wedding.

This is my last blip from the Orkney Islands, for now anyway.