FOUND AT SEA
For Marsali Baxter, James Burgon, Andrew Glaister, Mark Shiner and Chris Carver, who generously took me to sea.All panel artworks by Mike McDonnell of Yell, canoeist, islander, shantyman.
This eBook edition published in 2013 by
by Polygon, an imprint of Birlinn Ltd
West Newington House
10 Newington Road
Edinburgh
EH9 1QSwww.birlinn.co.uk
Copyright © Andrew Greig, 2013
Illustrations copyright © Michael McDonnell, 2012, 2013
The moral right of Andrew Greig to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
Design by James Hutcheson
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.
eBook ISBN: 978-0-85790-587-1
Print ISBN: 978 1 84967 269 0
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am indebted to Mark Shiner – fine musician, luthier, skipper, pal – for many outings on the ‘Arctic Whaler’ including the one mythed here. Also to John Glenday and Lesley Glaister for their helpful, perceptive readings of early drafts.
Details of the journey of Miss Woodham and Miss Peckham to Orkney, and of their remarkable lives on Fara then Cava, can be read in an interview with them for a Kirkwall Grammar School project, available in the Orkney Archive, Kirkwall. A photo of the house and another of the garden, taken by Willie Buchan in the 1970s, can be found on the Orkney Image Library website.
A one-off, script-in-hand performance of a theatrical version of ‘Found At Sea’ was first performed at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh in August 2012, as part of ‘Dream Plays’ series. Lewis Howden played Skip, Tam Dean Burn played Crew, directed by David Greig. (Banjo fills by AG).
To Lesley
VOYAGE
OUT
‘And then went down to the ship,
Set keel to breaker, forth on the godly sea’
The ‘Arctic Whaler’
(i) The name
Tales of Orkney men under aurora
chasing the whale, themselves harpooned
by memories of warmth, booze, home
- those barbs of love that don’t pull loose -
made a fictive pub for Mackay Brown’s
fine-crafted ‘Hamnavoe’;
the derelict store on Gareth’s pier
was the set when the poem was filmed -
thereafter folk, as joke then custom
still cried it that; I knew it best
on those Hogmanays we thrashed
banjo, fiddles and guitar, huddled round the brazier
(‘Into the fire of images / Gladly I put my hand’)
by windowless window and doorless door;
then Mark’s boat needed a name:
this the declension by which she became
the ‘Arctic Whaler’
(ii)The specs
‘a sea-hawk, perched on its trailer by wind-swept Ness’
‘Fine entry, shallow draft.
Raked transom,
generous turn of the bilge.
Hull shape: a squat wineglass.
Thus buoyant amidships, plenty freeboard
to comfort anxious crew, and wife.’
Plainly: a sixteen foot five
design by Bill Bailiff,
individual talent flourishing
