The Orkney Image Library
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These may be the same four people as appear in picture #27165. Imagine letting folk of all ages cross a burn by a narrow bridge with only one handrail! Elf'n'safety would throw a fit.
I used to land eels from that burn by tying a chicken head (left over from dressing a fowl for the pot) to a length of binder-twine, and dangling it in the water until an eel seized it. A quick tug and the eel was on the bank. Having no actual use for eels, I let them wriggle back into the burn.
This method was taught me by one of the Misses Couper who ran the tea-room nearby and also supplied the chicken-heads.
Picture added on 11 June 2013 at 21:27
Yes Tommy, my first guess was quite far out. I realised my mistake shortly after submitting the picture. I'm pretty sure the second woman crossing the bridge is my Aunt Anna, who would have been just a teenager in 1913.
Added by Ian Hourston on 18 June 2013
Super photo. I’ve markeD it down as one of my visits when I come over this summer. Spent many a happy time here. We even had a couple of weeks holiday on the links in a caravan. It was the happiest holiday we’d ever had as everyone came out to see us from Kirkwall! I was never away from the sweetie shop. I think it was around 1965. Is there still a shop there?
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Added by Barbara (Jolly) Watt on 18 June 2013
Birsay
was built in 1931.