Old Photograph Pier Papa Westray Orkney Islands Scotland

Old photograph of a pier on the coast at Papa Westray, one of the Orkney Islands, Scotland. Orkney Islands, Scotland. According to tradition, in the 8th century AD, the Pictish King Nechtan attempted to seduce a young woman from the island named Triduana, who in response gouged her own eyes out. She later became abbess of a nunnery at Restalrig, now part of Edinburgh, and was in due course canonised as St Tredwell. A chapel was consecrated to her on Papa Westray and became a place of pilgrimage for people with eye complaints. John D. Mackay, born 1909, in Maeback, Papa Westray, died December 1970, was a Scottish schoolteacher. He taught on Stronsay and North Ronaldsay before working as headmaster of Sanday School between 1946 and 1970. He is remembered locally for writing to The Times in 1967 suggesting that Orkney and Shetland be returned to Norway after five centuries as part of Scotland. His letter brought publicity to Orkney and boosted some residents' morale, at a time when absorption into the administrative structure of the Scottish Highlands seemed destined to cause a reduction in the powers of the local authorities.



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