Northern Light

Kirkwall, Orkney Islands, 13th June 2008

Northern light. Scottish light. Incredibly radiant, entrancing, it changes from minute to minute with the weather, as the latter changes from sun to rain, to heavier rain and back briefly to sun again. Up here it lingers long after London is in darkness. And it is light again before 400am.

It is also far colder, despite the longer hours of daylight. It drops as low as 47 degrees when London is in the sixties. And the wind is grim, especially on the Northern coast, which is where the Pentland Firth divides the British mainland from the Orkney Isles. For many miles you do not see a tree anywhere in the open countryside. The only places you see them is in the shelter of buildings, such as in Kirkwall, the capital of the islands. In the open countryside, there is no vegetation as high as a hedge which can survive against the force and coldness of the wind. Where trees survive it is up close to the isolated farm buildings - and they are no higher than the buildings.

On the most northerly point of the British mainland, I stood near the lighthouse which helps to protect shipping in the Pentland Firth. The wind beggared belief. And this was in the middle of June. What on earth is it like in December and January? Well, the lighthouse windows are well over 300 feet above the waves. And at times they have been shattered by stones thrown up by the sea. Near the lighthouse there are a few very solid and square concrete buildings, long abandoned. They are apparently intact, but are adorned with colourful signs: CAUTION DANGEROUS BUILDING DO NOT ENTER. They are a reminder of the wartime garrison which protected this bleak but essential section of the coastline; the British Fleet sheltered in the huge natural harbour of Scapa Flow inside the ring of the Orkney Islands. Fifty yards from the lighthouse there was a large house with a car in the drive. Who on earth chooses to live there? The lighthouse itself has been automated since 1989, so there is no need for the traditional lighthouse keeper.

But even isolated corners of Scotland are saturated with old and new history. There are ancient stone structures dating back thousands of years before Christ. In the centre of Kirkwall you have the huge red sandstone Cathedral of St Magnus, out of all proportion to the town around it. It dates from 1137 and would be an adornment to any great city in the world. Inside St Magnus there is a reminder of the night in October 1939 when a German U-boat slipped into the supposedly impregnable Scapa Flow in one of the most courageous actions of the war. It torpeodoed and sunk the old battleship "Royal Oak" with the loss of over 800 sailors. It then slipped out again and returned to a heroes' welcome in Germany. On one side of St Magnus there is a ship's bell and a memorial book with the long list of the dead.

After that debacle, strenuous efforts were made to seal every possible gap in the defenses. Huge causeways were built to link the islands and close straits which had been open for millenia. Among the workers brought in to built these massive structures were over a thousand Italian prisoners of war. These young men were far from home and in a utterly alien climate. But as a reminder of home they built a chapel inside two prefabricated Nissen huts. This little piece of Italy survives to this day. I drove acroos the causeways they had built and stopped to view this extraordinary and beautiful little building with the Italian tricolour flapping noisy outside in the Orkney wind. All that remains of the prisoner of war camp around the chapel is some abandoned concrete foundations for the other Nissen huts which have long since disappeared. A flock of sheep wandered among these fragments of a large Italian settlement.