Orkney Image Library

Kitty came a visit to us whenever she came to Longhope. Good laugh right enough.

Kitty was my granny and I think this photo is later than 1960, more like early 1970's. There was never carpet on the floor going there as a child, but flagstones. She acquired that basket chair much later as well. Although she continued spinning well into her 80s, she had long since stopped making her own dyes. Instead she used to send her spun wool off to the mill in Brora to be dyed. The old Orkney chair in te corner was my grand-dad's seat and I learned to read sitting there with him.

I think she was my dad's grand auntie. She used to visit the Glebe, Watering House and then along us at North Row. I never remember being at her house in Birsay though. Her man would maybe have been related to my mother on the Grieve side.

I think Kitty was married to my granny's half brother John Grieve. My great granny, Margaret Leonard had a child to John Yorston Grieve when she was 16 and he was 25. Their son John Grieve was born on 11th March 1884 and he married Kitty Russell in 1911. John died in Birsay on 11th april 1960 aged 76.
My great granny Margaret(Grieve) Leonard married William Craigie when she was 24 and had 5 children to him, the oldest being Isabella Craigie who married John Maule Ferguson. They were my grandparents on my father's side. John Grieve, Kitty's husband was my granny's half brother.