Orkney Image Library

Pony and gig

My maternal grandparents James Flett (1886-1952) and Georgetta Flett (1895-1976), possibly taken at Finstown where they lived at Edenmore, Maitland Place from their marriage in 1916 or sometime not long after until about 1931. I'm sure I saw a photo of another couple in a gig taken in the same place and with the same tint of print in the "new exhibits" display at Tankerness House over twenty years ago, but what the occasion was I don't know. An elderly relative said it was my grandmother who usually drove the gig, and pretty fast too. Her sister Annabella Ritchie refused ever to get in it with her again after a particularly hair-raising trip to Kirkwall to collect a cockerel from the North Boat. At the corner at Davie's Brig they nearly ran head-first into the County steamroller. Then on reaching Kirkwall they set off down the pier at such a clip that Annabella thought they'd never stop at the end. Sometime after this my grandmother apparently progressed to a motorbike and side car. Date estimated: 1920.
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