I watched with great interest the coverage of the pre Christmas storms which reeked havoc to transport services and caused a great deal of damage to property and infrastructure across Orkney. It got me thinking about my childhood experiences of severe weather on Auskerry.
As you know, what the weather is doing is very important to life on an island throughout the year, but during the October to March period on a particularly remote island such as Auskerry it often becomes critical. I remember being woken in the small hours to help haul our 16-foot fibreglass dingy away from the beach as the jaws of a raging South Easterly storm threatened to snatch her from it.
I also remember spending many hours watching in awe as local fishermen struggled to maintain a footing on their heaving decks as they tried to rescue their creels. On those occasions the expression ‘seeing red’, referred to our view of a boats red anti fouling paint, which would often become visible along with parts of the propeller and rudder.
All this was a normal part of winter life there as up until about the age of 13 my family of 5 lived on the island for the vast majority of the year, only leaving in December to spend the Christmas period on Stronsay. I would attend the school for a few weeks either side of Christmas and we would also go on a family holiday down south or sometimes abroad.
Getting off Auskerry at that time of year was always fraught with difficulty. We had to pack up everything we would need in Stronsay for the time we’d be away, as well as leave the house in sort of hibernated state while we were absent. We would then liaise with a local fisherman who would come and fetch us when there was a break in the weather. The island is usually very wet and muddy in December, and it was not unusual for the tractor and trailer laden with all our stuff to get stuck on route to the pier at the South end of the island.
However, I remember one departure with particular clarity, as it was probably one of the most exciting experiences of my childhood. We had been enduring a particularly windy December and with Christmas only days away we were getting increasingly concerned we might have to spend it on the island. In the 35 years my parents have lived on Auskerry, they have never spent a Christmas there. I don’t think the idea of trying to celebrate with three young children without receiving any fresh supplies or mail from the mainland was a popular one.
Luckily for us, the relentless wet weather had rendered the grass airstrip on North Ronaldsay unusable by the Islander aircraft, so the council had hired a helicopter to keep the inter island air service running. On the 16th of December, Mum spoke to councillor Hugh Halcrow Johnson who agreed that if we contributed to the cost, they would help us out by sending the chopper to pick us up.
I’ve already written about my obsession with helicopters so you can imagine my excitement when two days later we heard the blue and white Sikorsky approaching the island. It landed right beside the house, on top of the beach in fact, so that it didn’t sink into the wet peaty ground. Given the unusual circumstances, local journalist David Heartly and photographer Ken Amer had come out with the chopper to interview us for the Grampian TV news. In a article David wrote for a Scottish newspaper at the time, the chopper pilot John Baker was quoted as saying; “It’s not everyday that you’re called to evacuate a family for Christmas, but they ask very little of the outside world.”
This all happened in 1998, when I was only 10 but I can still remember it very clearly. You can imagine that for me, a youngster with a very keen interest in helicopters, it felt like Christmas had landed a week early! I suspect nothing as exciting will happen to me this year, although now that we live out in the country there’s a chance I may get snowed in yet.
