Voices in the Wind, the Northern Isles of Shetland Part 3

I awoke one morning in someone else’s flat and I couldn’t remember how I got there. My friend, fellow art student, Ceri Herington Pritchard  https://ceripritchard.com/  decided we should go on an adventure.

“Let’s go north” I said, and we did. We decided on Shetland, as it was as far north as we could think of going in the UK. It was October and cold, wintery, and Ceri let all the camping gas escape in Aberdeen before we had even got on the ferry. We didn’t have outdoor clothes like we have today. Ceri had a greatcoat and I had a tank driver’s jacket, probably from the Korean war, that I’d stolen from the Combined Cadet Force at school.  

When we arrived in Lerwick we headed north striding out as fast as we could. They were building the Sullom Voe oil terminal and the flat barren wind-swept landscape was dotted with ex red London double decker buses ferrying workers to the construction site, the destination windows read, Moorgate, Archway, Liverpool Street Station and so forth. We walked in a huge cavernous world of clouds coming from Greenland rising in the west and falling in the east with the sun shining through, highlighting the ceiling of our world and at sunset looked like God had appeared. I fell in a bog then it rained and there was freezing fog then I fell in a bog again.

On the 5th of November we were probably two of Europe’s most northerly campers, at the most northerly point of Shetland, a place where giants fought over the love of a mermaid, near the remote island of Muckle Flugga. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muckle_Flugga

Miserable, with teeth chattering and wet feet, I wore all the clothes I possessed and had to get up at 3am to crack the ice off my tent. On another night because of a storm we slept in a cement store hut and upon waking covered in dust looked like ghosts. One night, camped on a windy beach we were kept awake by boulders rolling in the surf. It was always spine chillingly cold and was only relieved by whisky in friendly pubs that felt like someones front room and there was usually a fidler. These experiences only gave me a love for this beautiful and remote place in the middle of the North Sea.

Nowhere is more than a mile from the sea on Norther Shetland and it is almost tree-less. Small crofts are dotted here and there with flapping, coloured, washing drying on lines, fishing boats far out at sea and the smell of burning peat on the wind. In those days the place was littered with abandoned rusting vehicles and the sides of the roads were covered in empty beer cans, people built walls from un-returnable beer barrels and crofts lay derelict. Later, I believe, a vicar ordered a ship to take all the scrap away. No matter what the weather there was always some hardy soul out in the landscape, a small moving dot in the distance digging the peat, driving the sheep, rowing a boat. If you listened carefully there were voices on the wind.

I loved with this wonderful strange place and began to plan a photo documentary. I first returned and shot it in 35mm colour transparency with the hope of printing it up in Ciba Chrome of which I was a big fan. Unfortunately the processing lab put a scratch through every roll of film and in those days it was impossible to retouch.

Each year I would return, shooting medium format black and white first with Hasselblad and then later Rollie 6006/8 and I gradually built up a collection of images searching for the essence of the place. I became friends with people there, the local doctor from Mid Yell and some people who looked after otters. They recognised me in the pubs.

Some years I walked the islands, some years I took my blue Landrover with its home made stereo and two cassettes that I bought in Aberdeen, The Smiths, Meat is Murder and Elvis Costello, Almost Blue. I drove around in the simmer dim the grey evening light, eventually knowing both albums by heart. The RAF invited me to their mid-summer beach party, it never got dark and in the morning I was dive bombed by bonxsies, mad sea birds, as I staggered around the landscape looking for fresh water. I fell in a bog again.

I was befriended by people who fed me boiled ham and potatoes, plied me with drink and had me shoot shotguns at empty cans thrown in the air. “Just mind the sheep, lad”. Coming out of the most northerly pub at half past eleven at night with the sun still shining in my eyes I stepped onto a Norwegian Trawler and got caught up in a fight. We sat in the mess as they fought round and round on the tables and each time they came past we clutched our drinks to our chests.

The photography project ran out of steam, my life had changed, I was busy at work, until Lizzie encouraged me to finish it and we travelled back there together to see Up Helly Aa, the ceremonial burning of the Viking longship https://www.uphellyaa.org/ and to show my work in progress to Shetland Arts with a view to exhibiting it. We stayed in Mid Yell in the snow with 125mph winds full of ice. Huge squalls blew in from the ocean flying low, dropping ice into the waves. When we were in Lerwick we were guests of the head of the Jarl squad, the viking leader of Up Helly Aa, a tremendous honour.

In the early morning, whilst he slept, we secretly tried on his Viking gear. I always felt welcome there and people were kind. An exhibition was arranged in Lerwick, British Airways helped me fly it up and then it travelled all over Scotland. I was interviewed by a lovely lady with small round John Lennon Spectacles from Radio Shetland, only problem was I could hardly understand a word she said. The exhibition opening was very well attended from islands far and wide, made more impressive by the fact no one could get back home to their islands until the ferries restarted in the morning. I felt proud when they said I had shown their home to them in a different way.

Text edit: John Coombes Encouragement: Liz Rakusen