Orkney Image Library

Back-row L-R Fred Hutchison; Harley Spence; Thomas Mainland; Herbert Hurry; John Mair; Samuel Bews; Middle Row L-R: D/C Charles F. Craigie; ? Wylie; Robert Craigie; ? Archibald; George Molyneux; Norman Paterson; Peter Baikie. Front Row L-R: Sgt James Groundwater; C/C Gathorn H. Cheyne; Insp. James Cormack; Sgt Wm. Yorston.

Is that not Chief Inspector Cormack sitting on Chief Constable Cheyne's left? Could that also be Mr Charlie Craigie in plain clothes and hat?

This photograph was taken in 1950. Back row from left to right - PC Freddy Hutchison, PC Harley Spence, PC Tom Mainland (holder of the King's Police Medal for Gallantry), PC Herbert Hurry, PC John Mair, PC Sammy Bews. Middle row - Det. Cons. Charlie Craigie, PC Bob Wylie, PC Bob Craigie, PC James Archibald, PC George Molyneux, PC Norman Paterson, Cadet P. Baikie. Front row - Sgt. James Groundwater, Chief Constable G. H. Cheyne, Inspector and Deputy Chief Constable James Cormack and Sgt. Bill Yorston.

front left Sergeant S.Bews? 3rd Inspector Cormack?

I've had my backside kicked by the best of them Tom Mainland for getting up to devilment in Main street with my pals and told to get off home to Main Street before something worse happened to us. Thoroughly deserved.

It was my left ear rather than my backside that came in for Tom Mainland's unwelcome attention - for sitting cross-legged on someone's garden wall, minding my own business. He gave me a stinging 'luggit' where a request to get down would have worked equally well. (Amazing how these things rankle over the years. Another recipient of Mainland's ready blows was the late Ian MacInnes; he got his revenge - at age 16 - by drawing a wickedly distorted, but immediately recognisable, caricature of the policeman for publication in The Orkney Herald. I believe it gratifyingly infuriated its subject.) But Tom Mainland obviously had what it took when a rather more dangerous situation needed handling.
A year or two later, riding a borrowed bike I was in head-on collision with a car, went over the handlebars, nearly knocked myself out and needed stitches in my forehead. It was the District Nurse's car and the collision took place outside Constable Bob Wylie's house. It wasn't so much a case of the emergency services arriving at the scene of an accident as an accident arriving at the scene of the emergency services. Seventy years later, the scar can still just be discerned among the many blemishes on a battered phizog.

George Molyneux was my great uncle, I remember him well with my great Aunt Dorrie (my grandad Johnny Kemp of Blackbraes sister)lovely folk lived in Kirkwall.

This is fantastic to have all the names, thank you so much! I also love hearing stories from back then. I never got to meet Granddad Cheyne and sadly my Mum has passed away but Dad remembers many of the officers who worked with him so this will help him put names to the faces and we will enjoy reminiscing. Thanks

I'll try to post a copy of Ian MacInnes's caricature referred-to above.