A short series of photos I took in 1975 – Kye from Rousay and Wyre being
loaded onto the mv Orcadia, bound for the Auction Mart in Kirkwall.
Bryan o’ the Cop was working with Harold o’ Saviskaill at the time. They walked their kye to the pier, meeting up with Bruce and Hugh Mainland doing the same from Hurtiso, so they herded them all together. Bryan Inkster and his brothers John, Bob and Steven, were known as the “boys o’ the Cop”. The Cop is local for The Northern Cooperative Society. It was a movement which built stores throughout Scotland by self help. It started in Clumpy in the hill behind the School in Sourin and eventually the shop, stable, sheepy hoose and slaughter house was built at Craigerne. Bryan’s parents Jock and Dorothy ran it when he was young. The Cop eventually petered out and the Craigie sisters bought it and built the dwelling house Craigerne (get it?, Bryan says!). His parents bought it in the fifties.
Nigel Firth [Langskaill] and
Bill Flaws [Hammerfield]
