Ian Sime was honorary president of the Edinburgh Geological Society from 1959 to 1961 and a Fellow from 1951 until his death in December 1976. His lifelong interest in natural history and geology was not affected by the Second World War. While attached to RAF 60 Group, Ian Sime was responsible for the installation of radar aerials in the North of Scotland and particularly in Orkney and Shetland. During these wartime years Ian Sime recorded his experiences and observations in a series of notebooks or diaries which he gave to me shortly before his death. It is appropriate that these essays are made available to the Society through the pages of the Edinburgh Geologist since the Ian Sime Bequest contributes to its production. The first extract is of a culinary nature.

Essays from the North

Things to eat December 1940

First things first. Most people remember the places they have visited by the buildings, the palaces, and the sights’ they have seen: though few could give an accurate description of their own town-hall: and few of the inhabitants of the hill-foots have visited Wallace’s Monument. Let us therefore leave the Cathedral of St Magnus, and the Bishops Palace, and the Earls Palace to the guide books of Kirkwall. We have seen them all: and would only remark that if they are to achieve any dignity, they must have removed from their roots the perfectly hideous rickle of houses which has grown round them, and in particular. the absolutely foul reproduction of the monument to the Deerness covenanters must be cast (like the covenanters) into the sea.

Let us turn to more pleasant topics, leaving entirely alone all mention of the curious gateway opening unexpectedly onto a small courtyard, with a cannon in it. Food in the North! apt theme for the approved poet. Porridge and eggs. Scotch Broth and scones: these we expect. and we are not disappointed: but the thick oatcakes of former years are gone: and the thinner ones now obtainable have a bitter taste which their nobler forerunners had not. We are told that in the old days the oats were cut greener, with some of the ‘milk’ in the grain, but this is not the modern method, and the sweet meal is found only in remote crofts. The cheese of Orkney is often soft and unmatured: but in the Royal Hotel at KirkwaIl we met with a noble cheese: fair women sat opposite and smiled: but we regard them not: the cheese was the main objective, and many biscuitloads of it fell etc the battlefield was cleared.

In Orkney, too, we first met thick sandwiches of brown bread and stewed apple: a curious combination hut a good one In the same house we got another sandwich combination—cheese and onion, highly seasoned. Wick provided many surprises. Fresh lemon sole—orange fritters— and a curious pudding like a fried scone, with treacle and coarse oats in it, with custard sauce—served piping hot.

We leave Wick by ‘plane on a stormy day. We pass over the chequered board that is Sinclair’s Bay, every detail showing, all the Nissen Huts and the litter of war showing like bananas in a coal-scuttle. We pass over Duncansby Head at a thousand feet, and fly into storms of rain. We dip to 500 m and are flying above the whirling spray torn off the tops of the waxes by the raging wind the white caps below are not in parallel lines as we expect but are vast white patches on a grey background. Two drifters appear below tossing like toy boats in a stream: the wireless operator gets in touch with the ’drome: the mail ’plane has had enough and has turned back into Wick. It is not very bumpy, though the wind howls like a fiend and the windows and the dome overhead rattle like machine guns. Suddenly the rear gunner points ahead, and we see Sumhurgh head appear through the flying cloud. Round the ’drome we circle once, twice, and again: down we come, but the ’plane does not lose much speed we hit the tarmac with a sickening thud and bounce off towards the medical hut: just miss it. hit the sand and bounce in a new direction: the ’plane is still going like mad: we hit the sand again and bounce over the edge of the cliff, are caught in the downdraught and down goes the plane: we are left in mid air two feet above our seats. The pilot frantically opens her out and at the last moment she begins to rise again. We are in our seats again with a sickening bump, and our instruments return to the floor of the plane, one by one. The plane rises slowly—ten— twenty—a hundred feet above the sea: soon we are at a thousand feet circling the ’drome again. This time we land safely, and step out of the ’plane looking quite unconcerned. The aerodrome, however, is much shaken. At last we are in Shetland.

Here we are in a different land—and the food, too, is not the same. What a large part the sheep plays in the menu: we follow the example of the author of ‘News from Tartary’ and disguise the too frequent mutton with small doses of sauce. But here we meet with the thick oatcake—which we thought we had lost—how pleasant to meet them. Thence to Unst—and Buness—but the food there is not the food of Shetland but the food of the most intelligent civilisation, where food is an art, and not a dull necessity.