For many years George Mackay Brown wrote a weekly column for the Orcadian, and a selection of these were later published in a series of volumes. On 26th October 1972 he wrote about 'The Public Library':
Stromnessians, it seems, are not making full use of their Library. The number of borrowers is only about half of Kirkwall's. It is not that the folk in the west are more uncultured than their fellow-Orcadians; but perhaps over the decades they have fallen out of the habit of reading.
Can you prove GMB wrong by naming the book in which this was published in 1975?
Post your answer as a comment below.
Entries close on 31st December.
Answers will be published and the winner announced on 5th January 2015.
Don't forget there is a fabulous prize for the most correct answers.
If you're stuck on any of the questions then a trip to the library, a look back through this blog and a visit to the Orkney Library and Archive website may help!
Answer: Letters from Hamnavoe
Letters from Hamnavoe
ReplyDeleteI can prove him wrong by pointing out that Stromness has about one quarter as many people as Kirkwall, so if it has half as many library users, one might imagine that Stromnessians are *twice* as cultured as their fellow-Orcadians :-)
ReplyDelete(adjust as you like for population figures a few decades ago, and for the fact that people outside of the two towns would have used the libraries, especially the Kirkwall one)