Papay

Hookin Farm, courtesy Orkney Museum & Library Service

the shaft
at Hookin
driven

by wind

for wheat
& corn

now

ground

to chaff

Hookin Farm, Alistair Peebles, 2011


Papay is the local name for Papa Westray, one of the smaller Orkney islands. I took the hopper plane for a visit in 2011, along with my Orcadian pal Alistair Peebles; we went to look for some of the farms pictured in photographs that he had tracked down in the library archive, showing the old style of 'windygear' windmills that were essential before the grid reached the islands. The ones we could find, with help from locals, we compared to the plethora of new small-scale devices, such as the 'peedie dragonfly' pictured below.

There are also the remains of a 19th century turret post windmill, on Holland Farm – and in one of the farm buildings, the remains of a horse-powered threshing mill.

Alistair Peebles, 2011

   the island grid

   is regulation

   Orcadian green

   fields connected

   by dykes within

   an irregular coastline

Holland Farm, Alistair Peebles, 2011

Beneath the waves a cable connects the island to another island, the same cable that continues on to another island, that one called the Mainland. 

Neil Rendall explained how the New Year storm sheared the cable, but the Power boys came over and fixed it – they stayed at the Youth Hostel – and it lasted fine, for two months, but now it’s broken again, so the island is on the generator which makes the electricity's a bit flaky.

'peedie dragonfly', Alistair Peebles, 2011

   in that golden age

   a peedie dragonfly

   seemed to hover

   over every field