April 15th, 2008
April 9th, 2008
On a recent trip to Longhope I passed the sign to the Brimms lifeboat museum and it reminded me of how potent the subject of shipwreck, rescue and drowning is in the North Isles.
Scavenging in Lyness I came upon a sea training manual for Orkney Sea Farms. Crude illustrations itemised the working apparatus of a life raft, and in another drawing instructed the trainee on how to jump from a sinking ship. The drawing in which the figure wrapped its arms round the life jacket, legs tightly together, reminded me of images from another, more global tragedy - the war in Iraq - where dead civilians were wrapped and bundled in white linen.
Multiple deaths of young people whether in war, or shipwreck, inevitably leave a fractured and disabled community. Hoy or Iraq, the loss is felt equally, though I suspect the families in Longhope, knowing that their men gave their lives in a spirit of altruism, may find closure more readily than the relatives of those who died innocently in a needless war.