THE Orcadian hamlet of Brig o' Waithe is the out-of-the-way setting
this week for one of the most moving yet least known anniversaries of
the Second World War -- the death of the first British civilian through
enemy action.
While the majority of Scots in this coming week will recall the
horrors of the Clydebank Blitz which on the nights of March 14 and 15,
1941, claimed hundreds of lives and devastated the shipbuilding town,
the folk of Orkney will be quietly remembering James Isbister, a
27-year-old road labourer who died almost exactly a year earlier.
He was killed when a string of high explosive and incendiary devices
tore through the cluster of cottages in the parish of Stenness during a
raid by Heinkel bombers on warships anchored in Scapa Flow. This
little-remembered tragedy occurred on March 16, 1940.
When the bombs started to fall James Isbister was at home with his
wife Lily and baby son Neil, who now lives in Kirkwall. Across the road
a bomb blew apart the house occupied by Mrs Isabella McLeod. James ran
to her aid but collapsed a few feet from his own front door, struck down
by a shower of shrapnel. The attack was over in minutes and although
others were injured, including Mrs McLeod who crawled from the shattered
remains of her home, James Isbister was the only fatality.
Air raid warnings in Kirkwall and Stromness had been largely ignored
that Saturday night as people crowded into the streets to watch the
attack and the response from the ships in the Flow and the shore
batteries.
The local paper, the Orcadian, was critical of the people who had
scorned the shelters and admitted that the Brig o' Waithe tragedy had
shocked everyone. ''War! Any people here in the Orkney islands who were
unimaginative enough to believe it would never happen here are now
disillusioned.''
Warfare, of course, is no respecter of civilian status, gender, or
age. The oldest recorded victim of a full-scale battle in Scottish
history that I've come across was William Maitland of Lethington, father
of Richard Maitland, the poet, lawyer, and statesman. The old man was
slain on the bloody field of Flodden and according to one source was in
his ninetieth year.
A glance through the pages of history this week shows the birth of the
man who changed the way we look at the universe, Albert Einstein (March
14, 1879); Otto Kotzebue, a German traveller who roamed the Pacific died
(March 15, 1846); and the first diamond called the Star of South Africa
was found (March 13, 1867). In Scotland:
March 11
1503 -- Scots Parliament ordered a civil court to sit daily in
Edinburgh and decided that the judicial system in outlying areas should
be improved.
1855 -- Two joiners arrested by Glasgow police for thoughtlessly
dropping orange peel on passers-by from their scaffold.
March 12
1286 -- Alexander III killed in a fall from his horse near Kinghorn in
Fife.
1808 -- French fleet carrying a Jacobite invasion force anchored near
May Isle in the Forth but soon fled when confronted with English
men-o-war.
1833 -- Glasgow Necropolis -- based on the design of the Pere La
Chaise cemetery in Paris -- opened for business.
March 13
1873 -- Scottish Football Association formed; constituent clubs
included Queen's Park, Clydesdale, Vale of Leven, and Third Lanark.
1921 -- Lady Frances Balfour, speaking at a Glasgow sale of work, said
she would like to see women elders in the church.
1979 -- National Library of Scotland purchased the journal of the Nile
explorer James Augustus Grant for #100,000.
March 14
1689 -- Parliament meeting in Edinburgh decided in favour of giving
the Crown to William of Orange and his consort Mary, saying James VII
had forfeited his right by illegal acts.
1930 -- Rally attended by 6000 people in Perth called on the
Government to save the farming industry from economic disaster.
March 15
1814 -- Highland Clearances began in Sutherland.
1820 -- Rowaleyn Cumming, a Scots soldier who became Africa's most
famous lion hunter with a remarkable collection of trophies, born.
1921 -- Women jurors sat at Glasgow Sheriff Court for the first time.
March 16
1602 -- Queensferry Passage across the Forth halted because of the
danger of bringing plague from Edinburgh to Fife where the Royal Family
were in residence at Dunfermline.
1931 -- Current depression in heavy industry on the Clyde was the main
topic of discussion at dinners and political meetings in the West of
Scotland.
March 17
389 -- St Patrick, patron saint of Ireland, born, supposedly near
Dumbarton.
1969 -- Eight-man crew of Orkney's Longhope lifeboat lost during a
rescue mission in the Pentland Firth.
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