Fairwinds 2005

Day 13 – Papa Westray

A foul day with persistent rain broken only by spells of drizzle made us abandon our plans to sail down to Calf Sound on Eday, and we just sat about on the boat all day reading and generally chilling out. After our evening meal we climbed into the damp dinghy and went ashore to investigate pub night. The ‘pub’ is a two foot long bar and a cupboard in the dining room of the Youth Hostel come Guest House up beside the shop. Mine host was Jim, born and bred on Papay and still a little bleary-eyed from the previous night’s festivities at a ruby wedding in Kirkwall. We drank bottles of Northern Light and later a bottle of Scapa Special, a new beer made by the guy who used to own Orkney Ales but sold it and set up in competition. The other barman looked like a tattooed biker and had been showing tourists round the bird reserve while the RSPB warden was on holiday. He didn’t like the cliff part of the tour, he told us, and regaled us with the  tale of an elderly woman who almost walked over the cliff one day while looking through binoculars.

One of Jim’s daughters who lives in Aberdeen was there with her man, and it turned out we had mutual acquaintances from Aberdeen in the 1970s. The visiting minister from somewhere in the US played the banjo, accompanying Jim’s wife who played the accordion while sipping a small glass of Baileys. An unusual combination, the banjo and the squeezebox, but it worked. While they played we played Pass the Pigs with the minister’s girlfriend and chatted inconsequentially. A large Glaswegian type who had lived on Papay since leaving the forces bought us a drink, and I reciprocated. In fact, lots of people bought us drinks, but it was hard to buy them back and this represented the only success in this field.

We wandered back to the dinghy and thence to Fairwinds some time after midnight, and agreed that this must rank as one of the  classic small island pub nights along with Eigg and Inishturk.