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.