Orkney Image Library

Top row 4th left I think is my Uncle John Yorston or could be my Uncle James Yorston, definitely a Yorston, the look says it all!

3rd row, 3rd from left (in white) is my Mum Anna Yorston and next to her is her twin brother Hugh Yorston. if this is 1932 then they are 7 years old.....

Stan

Correction to above.

Excuse my Maths, if this is 1932 then they are 10 years old.............

Back row L to R John Gibson, Jim Gorn, Sarah Smith, Jim Yorston, and Lilla Yorston.
Second row John Yorston, Molly Gorn, Lily Sinclair, and (partly hidden) Fred Craigie.
Third row David Gibson, Evelyn Pirie, Anna Yorston, Hugh Yorston, and Maisie Mainland.
Frint row (sitting) Sally Linklater and Isobel Pirie.

Idenrified with the generous help of Edith Gibson.

Did the young Hugh Yorston go on to become a RAF spitfire pilot and eventually emigrate to Australia to fly with Trans Australia Airlines?

Further to my inquiry re Hugh Yorston..if he did become the RAF WW2 Spitfire Pilot snd then emigrate to Australia and a pilot for Trans Australian Airlines and Australian Airlines then I came to know Hugh very well....I continue to live in Brisbane, Australia

Yes Hugh was in the RAF. In later life I believe he purchased an area of desert in the belief that there was a squadron of spitfires buried there. I knew him for some years and he told me stories which were difficult to believe, as the years have passed I have learned that many of them were true. An eccentric but interesting man.

I think that Hugh was actually a Hurricane pilot. He spent his latter years in Stromness.

Think, Jackie Taits in Stromness and Flett and Son's old shop in Finstown.

Ian,
Are you the Passenger Supervisor, (now retired I presume) ex Australian Airlines Brisbane Airport..I agree Hugh was a little eccentric but a great fellow..I knew him both at work and at one of his properties at Carseldine where his Harley or E-type would be parked under a lean to shed...
Ian,where are you now...

Aye he owned Jackie Tait's in Stromness and Flett and Son's old shop in Finstown and let them run doon. he used to plester the shop windows wae is correspondance from OIC.
He owned a old motor bike as well, an arial I think

Re Hughie Yorston,
Can anyone tell me what role Hughie played in the RAF...I don't see his name on the Battle of Britain memorials...Hughie must have been no more than 18-21 years old...I knew him as a pilot with airlines in Queensland Australia.

Dont know if Hughie was in the Battle of Britain, but there used to be a painting of a Hurricane in the Royal British Legion, Stromness, with the caption below stating, Hurricane No.?, Flown and owned by Hugh Yorston.

Sorry Allan, I am not the prson you refer to. Tom Gibson in Rousay might be able to help you. 01856821261

Folks, Hugh Yorston was my Uncle and twin of my Mother Anna. He did indeed fly Spitfires in WW2, his brother my Uncle Johnnie flew Hurricanes. Hughie went on to fly for TAA in Australia and although settled in Australia he spent time in Stromness and the UK. He owned a number of properties in Orkney which he sadly neglected. A hell of an intersting man albeit (as was mentioned earlier) a tad eccentric. He never married. He died just over 10 years ago.

My Great Uncle Hughie stated in his diary dated 22nd Jan 1945 that he had by then flown 399hours and 45minutes in Tiger-Moth ,Master, Harvard, Hurricane and Spitfire, then in the following July he had his first solo in a Thunderbolt p47. His brother Johnnie was a rear gunner in Lancasters and Wellingtons and was awarded the Africa Star and clasp.

Was Hugh Yorston's nickname "Bunny"? If so, I think I knew his brother Jimmy.

Thank you for clearing up an old mystery. Jim Yorston was one of the best teachers we ever had in Sir E Scott, Tarbert, Harris. I remember his brother, Bunny Yorston used to fly over Tarbert "visiting" his brother.

I am sending a later pic of Jimmy Yorston, when he was a teacher in Tarbert, Harris. perhaps some of his relatives might be interested.

Wrong Yorston Clan i'm afraid

Wow, so many spelling mistakes by the Yorston Clan. Hughie Yorston was my Great Uncle, I am Brian Halcro's brother and Stan 'Yortson' Yorstons' 2nd cousin. Another Yorston died recently, my Uncle Willie (born John William Yorston) and nephew of Hugh. He is sadly missed by his friends and relations. He was a far nicer person than his Uncle - as is most everybody, and I hope he is enjoying more happier times now.
I am going to the VE Day Celebrations at RAF Duxford to see yet another Supermarine Spitfire fly-by next weekend. Respect all who made the ultimate sacrifice.
Graham Halcro

I knew Hughie Yorston in early 1970's while he and I were a members of Jaguar Driver's Club Queensland. He parked his V12 Type in a derelict house on a dirt road at Carseldine which is now an up-market suburb. The ramp into the house was one external wall knocked down!! The lounge with TAA posters was the garage!! He lived alone in a caravan. In 1973(?) he drove the E-Type to Longreach to greet old friends he knew from his TAA flying days (DC3s earlier then Fokker Friendships) and on arrival arranged to have a steel plate attached to the underside of the engine area for protection from damage owing to the rough roads he encountered on his journey. The JDC of today would be horrified but Hughie was his own person and cared not what others thought of him. He liked a beer and said to me in the pub at Nundah one day - "How can the sell this stuff so cheaply?"

My dad knew Hugh Yorston for many years. They met at RAF Acklington near Newcastle around 1948 when Hugh was flying Martinet tug planes that pulled drones for American and RAF pilots to practice attacking. My dad, Archie Lindsay, was one of the ground crew responsible for his aircraft and the target drones. They formed a friendship and my dad has stories of hitching a lift with Hugie who would fly them up to RAF Leuchars where he would either stay at my dads parents home near Cupar in Fife or fly on to Orkney. Over the years he would appear for a few days and then not be seen for a couple of years. I remember Hugh giving me a lift on the back of his BMW motorbike when I was about 14/15. He would leave his BMW in our garden in Ely, Cambridgeshire while he was in Australia. My dad and I also got roped into helping Hugh when he bought four or five new MG midgets and MGB's at the end of their production. We looked after them in a shed near Ely for around five years before he moved them north to Orkney. In the 80's my parents visited Hugh in Australia and he gave them an E Type Jaguar to drive around in. He turned up at my dads home in Fife one night around 11pm and said he had been visiting his sister in Perth and popped in to say hello. He had a cup of tea and left not saying where he was going. That was the last time my dad saw or heard from him, He is now 88 and is unsure exactly how long ago this was.

Hugh Sinclair Yorston was born in Rousay in 1922 and died in Stromness in 2001 aged 79

Hugh Yorston was a drinking mate of my father, Eric Goddard. We lived next door to the Bonny View hotel at Bald Hills 30 klm. north of Brisbane Australia.

As kids we just knew of him as " The Scotsman ". He always turned up driving some kind of E type Jag or a big loud and shiny BMW motorbike. Boy did we as kids get into trouble with dad if we had the audacity to touch the E type parked in our own back yard. Later on when I was about 19, well after dad had died Hugh let me have a drive of his current V12 Etype along a road in Strathpine called Spitire Avenue, not sure if it was a strip during WW2 but what a machine. I have a bit of standard 8 home movie he took of him beside a DC3 and lots of Australian native kids around but don't know where it was taken.

He had the habit of just turning up at any time for a visit. One time Mum, Sybil, hit the roof when he turned up with a gigantic whole fish and wanted it cooked for tea....

He got all his drinkng mates kids to sell Xmas trees from his lot at Carseldine one year, 1971 maybe. We camped in his caravan during the day and lots of big business people would turn up to select their company's Xmas tree. We would show them the pine tree plantation Yorston had established years earlier, they would point one out and we would shinny up to the top of the tree, up to 30 feet, and cut it off at the length specified by his customer. If he was home during this pre Xmas period we would have a huge feast of tomato, rice bacon and what ever else he probably conned from another mate somewhere, all cooked in a big plough disk and an open fire.
Certainly fond memories of the Scotsman thats for sure.

It's great that my Great Uncle Hugh is still being discussed after all these years, some of the more recent stories are excellent and would have been an interesting addition to the small book I put together about Hugh back in 2013, mainly about his exploits in 1944 and 1945 . He did 89 operational flights with NO60 SQN RAF in Burma! Keep the stories coming, Hugh would love the fact he's still being talked about.

Brian - is your book about Hugh Yorston published? I knew him, though not really well - he was my mother's first cousin.
Cheers

Hugh was one of the founding members of BMW Motorcycle Club of Queensland back in 1958. That club is now celebrating it's 60th year and is the oldest motorcycle club in Australia. I never met Hugh but my godfather used to be a pilot with him at TAA.

Hughie Yorston flew with my uncle Jackie Nunn in the war. He described to me how he saw Jackie being brought down by Japanese guns in Burma whilst attacking Japanese forces. Hughie, a sergeant pilot was following Jackie in his spitfire in the attack. Uncle Jackie died in the crash and is in Taukkyan War Cemetery grave 3C8.
Hughie and Jackie trained together in South Africa and were stationed in Egypt. They were in 273 Squadron.
If any of the Yorston family have any pictures of Hughie and Jackie I would love to have copies as I do not have any of them in uniform or with their spitfires.
My email is [email protected].
I too have looked after Hughie's E type Jag when I lived in Twickenham in the early
80s.
Bill Craig, nephew of Jackie Nunn/friend of Hughie Yorston.

I met Hughie as a result of a dinner I was invited to around 1988. At the time I was President of the BMW Motorcycle Club of Queensland (Australia), the dinner was named "Meet the Founders", and the organiser was Chris R-H (who had been a member in the early days, and, I think, admired Hugh greatly). Later, I took Hugh as a pillion (on my 1981 BMW R100CS) to our Christmas gathering that year, held at the Hotel in Killarney Qld. Someone told me that Hugh told them that he never knew motorcycles could lean over that far! Strange comment for a fighter pilot; he was a funny man. He never mentioned that to me, and was a great pillion passenger. I proposed him as Patron of our Club, and had to battle his modesty to convince him that it was the right thing to do. My last conversation with him was when he telephoned in the very early hours of our Queensland time to tell me of his terminal illness, and that he would soon be gone (typical of his calls out of the blue reading what is written above!) He was tearful, and I could do little more than thank him for the privilege of his call.

Hugh’s background as an aviator showed in his view on safety. In the early days of the Club wearing helmets was not compulsory. I am told, however, that Hugh made it a rule that if you rode with the Club, you wore a helmet. Hugh also told me that he flew Hurricanes in Burma in the latter parts of the second World War, and on discharge came to Australia and went to find work in the Ford motor car factory. He said that he was told that there were no positions available, and on telling that he was a pilot it was suggested that he go to the airport across the road and apply. It was from that he became a pilot for TAA. He went on to meet many people, as is obvious in conversations when his name is mentioned and someone has an uncle or aunt that knew Hughie.

I was honoured to have met Hugh. His legacy continues in our Club to this day. Vale Hughie.