Polaroid taken yesterday at the cottage in Happy Valley. School concert last night so hoping to get caught up on here at last !
camera SX70
film TZ artistic SX70
@peterdegraaff That's the name the creator gave it, a man called Edwin Harrold who started growing trees and cultivating a fairly treeless part of Orkney and created a beautidul woodland - not huge but it was his love for over 50 years. The owner gifted it to the council to be maintained as a public area and a various groups come and do work. Not a lot of trees here so they're precious!
@peterdegraaff It's not tropical here but the gulf stream stops us from freezing - most of Britain has been covered in snow and we've had gorgeous weather. Was your mother quite young when she left ? A lot of Orcadians left late 19th and 20thC - I think I have roughly one million third cousins in Aus, NZ and Canada.
@ingrid2101 my mother went to Holland after she was de-mobbed after WWII and then to Australia in 1951. Mum was the first white woman born in Borneo in 1916, but her father died when she was 14 days old from yellow fever. She and her mother lived through the East Indies (Indonesia) until she was about 5. Grandma met a Scottish mariner from the Orkneys at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore and they were married and moved to Stromness. He was a Clouston descended from the historical Clawes, and their property was listed in Domesday book. Was sold, "family scandal", after nearly a thousand years so his mother could live a bit closer to the water. My Uncle Eric was the last of the Cloustons in that line, although one of his cousins, has tried to claim the name. Mum went to school in Stromness and her first job was at the Hotel in Kirkwall. She wanted to go to art school but grandma wanted her to become a teacher, so she went and worked at hotel instead. As a young woman she said she swam across Scapa Flow with someone rowing alongside her.
@peterdegraaff Thank you so much - that is a fascinating history to have, your story conjures up images of such a different life, especially when you think of Raffles Hotel and all the other parts of the east that really were another world away then. It's not that long ago but it illustrates how much has changed in such a small time, even things like opportunities for further education, very limited then and your mum sounds like she was a very adventurous and interesting lady, especially swimming across Scapa Flow. Thank you Peter!
