Advent Quiz - Day 25

Merry Christmas to all our readers! 

Wishing you all a joyful festive season and many happy hours of reading in 2015.

The Stromness Library is now closed for the holidays but will re-open on 5th January 2015 at 2pm.

Just to clarify that we are still in the old library at Hellihole Road for the moment and will give you plenty of warning when we know the date of our move to the new library building at the Pier head. 

In our final question of our Advent Quiz we want to take you back to a time before even this library was built and let you see how the view up Hellihole Road looked then.

Question 25


In the photo the two children are standing where the library is now, and the camera is looking up Hellihole Road. The building furthest away with its gable end facing us is no longer standing, having been demolished in 1937, but can you tell us what it was?

(hint - the photo is taken from the book Stromness Late 19th Century  Photographs, or if you walk up Hellihole Road there is a plaque marking the place where the building stood.)

So ends our Advent Quiz for 2014, we hope you've enjoyed it as much as we have. 
Don't forget to go back and work on any of the questions you might have missed, there is a fabulous prize for the person with the most correct answers. 
You have until 31st December to submit your answers as comments below each day's post. 
The answers will be published, and the winner announced on 5th January 2015.

Good Luck!

Answer: The Subscription School

Advent Quiz - Day 12

Question 12

Although now stored in the Orkney Archive, the Stromness Library for many years had an original 1725 copy of -  An account of the conduct and proceedings of the late John Gow alias Smith, Captain of the late pirates, executed for murther & piracy committed on board the George gally, afterwards call'd the Revenge; with a relation of all the horrid murthers they committed in cold blood; as also of their being taken at the Islands of Orkney, and sent up prisoners to London. 

Can you name the author?

Post your answer as a comment below. 
Closing date for entries is 31st December, so don't forget to go back and answer any days you may have missed. If you are stuck then a look back throught the blog and/or a trip to the library will help!

Answers will be published and the winner announced on 5th January 2015.

Good Luck!

Answer: Daniel Defoe

A Birthday Celebration

George Mackay Brown by Fred Schley  - portrait  on display in Stromness Library

We have been reminded by our friends at Orkney Archive that on this day in 1921 George Mackay Brown was born.

Looking for a suitable quote to celebrate the life of a writer, whose life and work was so defined by the place of his birth, we have turned to An Orkney Tapestry - which seems to us to capture both George Mackay Brown's sense of the importance of Orkney's literary heritage:

It is the word, blossoming as legend, poem, story, secret, that holds a community together and gives a meaning to its life.

and his own role within that tradition:

With the help of the old stories, the old scrolls, the gathered legends, and the individual earth-rooted imagination, I will try to discover a line or two of the ancient life-giving heraldry.

That so often we find ourselves turning to his poems or prose to illuminate some aspect of life in Stromness seems proof enough of a writer whose work is firmly woven into the fabric of his community, and will continue to be celebrated as part of its rich, and ongoing, life and legend.

George Mackay Brown - Memorial Lecture

For those of you who would like to know more about George Mackay Brown and his work there is an opportunity to learn more from Dr Linden Bicket, who will give the GMB Memorial Lecture on Friday 13th April at 7.30pm in the Pier Arts Centre, Stromness.

Linden, a postgraduate research student from the University of Glasgow (who wrote her PhD on GMB) recently spent six weeks in Orkney catalogueing a collection of GMB's papers, which have been placed on permanent loan with the Orkney Library and Archive by Archie and Elizabeth Bevan. Funding for the ‘George Mackay Brown: A Literary Executor’s Archive’ project came from the award of a  British Academy Small Grant.

The GMB Memorial Lecture is organised by the GMB Fellowship, and admission is £5 (£3 concessions) at the door.