Jessie Sclater, my grandma, and her sisters, “the aunties o Kebro”, were all very competent women: working on the farm, managing the house, baking, cooking, brewing and, in grandma’s case, making elderflower wine. Nothing evokes the long, light, summer days of my Orkney childhood like the fragrant, sparkling taste of grandma’s elderflower wine. Food and | more…
Blog category: Orkney, page 29
A wedding anniversary and a tragic family
Today, 14 May 2015, is the 153rd wedding anniversary of my paternal great great grandparents, George Flett and Mary Leask. In fact their marriage lasted less than ten years for Mary died of tuberculosis, aged 32, on 27 February 1872, in Orphir, Orkney. I have yet to research this line in depth but the little | more…
My father’s favourite cousin
Sandy Barnett died on 5 April 1941 as a result of an air attack on the SS Rattray Head, eight miles ENE of Aberdeen. The Rattray Head was a 496 ton steam cargo ship on a voyage from Leith, her home port, to Stromness, Orkney. “Young Sandy”, so called to distinguish him from his father, | more…
