Orkney Image Library

Alfie Linklater, Ron Marwick, Phil Turten, Tommy Linklater, Jim Robertson Jack Marwick Stromness Hotel Shopping week 19 55

Random surfing again - delighted to come across this. Not sure I was at the dance (the year I graduated in medicine) but the band, with its varying personnel, was a key factor in my growing-up. Under its titles of The Stromness Dance-band, The Debonaires, or just Jim Robertson and his band, it was a group of a calibre we probably didn't know how lucky we were to have in our midst. (It never aspired to the title of 'orchestra' unlike the KDO.) Phil's surname by the way was Turton. Other sidemen from time to time included Bill Langskaill, 'Haw Wull' Marwick, Robert Hutcheon and more whose names don't spring to mind at the moment. The band would sometimes slip into samba rhythm in the middle of an Eva threestep and back again without missing a beat, and around Christmas you could bank on quickstepping to a slightly hotted-up version of a carol or two. If I can find it, I'll submit a pic of Jim half a century later still blowing his horn to excellent effect.