Orkney is about community, friendship, cooperation and tradition. Sometimes, in the tradition of the Scottish diaspora, these ties stretch across the ocean.
Shaun Robertson is a Stromness RNLI volunteer crew member. Shaun’s maternal grandparents, Jim and Barbara Tait (neé Goar), from Dounby, emigrated to Canada in the 1950s. Jim and Barbara settled in the small town of Kincardine, on the shore of Lake Huron, Ontario, taking their two sons, Carl and Alton, with them.
Shaun’s mother, Heather, was born in Kincardine in 1959. Grandma Barbara’s abiding memory of Kincardine was of listening to the Kincardine Pipe Band, in the town street, every Saturday night in the summer. The music wasn’t enough to keep them in Canada, however, and the pull of home brought them all back to Orkney when Heather was only about a year old in 1960. Heather married Leo Robertson from Shapinsay and settled in Orkney, raising two sons – Shaun and Paul.
The boys grew up listening to their grandmother speaking fondly of the pipe band and they caught the bug. As a result they have both played with Stromness British Legion Pipe Band most of their lives.
In 2018 the whole family went to Kincardine for the town’s traditional 10-yearly reunion. After the brothers had joined in with Kincardine band events during the holiday, plans were hatched for an invitation to the Stromness band to go over in 2022. Inevitably, a return invitation to Stromness followed, with the result the Kincardine band arrived in Stromness in early May of 2024.
There can be few sounds or sights more stirring than those of a marching pipe band. Make that five pipe bands and you have a real spectacle. The narrow, twisting street through Stromness was the venue for just such a parade on Sunday 5 May.
Pipe bands travelled across the Pentland Firth, from Wick and Thurso, to join local bands from Stromness and Kirkwall and the band from Ontario.
The excuse, if excuse were needed, for the event was the 200th anniversary of The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI). RNLI has been celebrating this great milestone up and down the UK and Ireland all year – with still more to come.
The Orkney event was the brain child of Stromness RNLI Ladies’ Guild President: Aimee Robertson. The guild is the fundraising arm of Stromness Lifeboat Station. The guild members do not go out on the boat but they are all lifesavers. The charity requires around £200 million every year to keep the boats afloat at 238 stations around our coast. There are all-weather boats, some that still shoot down slipways when needed, and in-shore rigid inflatable boats (RIBs). The charity receives no government funding. This makes it independent, self-governing, but it does place a huge burden on thousands of volunteers every year – a burden that is very willingly shouldered.
Every volunteer that carries a collection tin (or drops money into one), bakes cakes for sale, helps in an RNLI shop, leaves money in a will, empties a money box or buys a raffle ticket, Christmas card (or a Stromness Lifeboat Station Calendar, on sale soon) is a lifesaver – just like the crews.
On the morning of the parade the crew and guild turned out early to put up bunting, erect the stage, clear the street and do the thousands of other jobs needed to make the day a success – and it was.
And would you believe it? Just as everything was winding down, some of the lifesavers answered the call to go to some folk in peril on the sea. They didn’t know who they were, where they had come from or how they had got into difficulty. They only knew they needed help. They were not asked to show a passport or make a payment. Such questions are never asked by the RNLI. They found two climbers stuck at the bottom of the cliff near Old Man of Hoy and brought them to safety. Injuries were mercifully very slight and all was well.
Shaun and Paul’s mum Heather would have been thrilled beyond words to have seen the parade, having heard so much about it from her mother, and visiting in 2018. Sadly, however, she had passed away in 2023.
A huge THANK YOU to all the visiting bands and crews for supporting the once-in-a-lifetime event and helping to raise such a good amount for the lifeboats. Thanks also to Orkney Rocks and sponsors Cooke Aquaculture, NorthLink Ferries, Scottish Sea Farms and BDS. Also thanks to Aimee Robertson, Kaja Wilson-Price and the Stromness RNLI Ladies Guild for all the vision and hard work in making it all happen. There were so many stall holders, dancers and musicians I simply don’t have space to list them all, but please know everything you did was much enjoyed and appreciated.
RNLI is the charity that saves life at sea; we are volunteers; we are one crew – to save everyone we can.
Richard writes regularly for Scottish Islands Explorer. His first book: 'Scotland’s Islands – A Special Kind of Freedom' was published in 2014. 'Orkney – A Special Place' appeared in 2017, with 'Orkney - A Special Way of Life' published in 2021. The books are published by Luath Press, Edinburgh. 'The Sea All Around - Travels in Scottish Islands' is a work in progress.