Billy Jolly…….‘Waterlog’ - Part Three…… Rousay & Papay Industrial Heritage…
by Bernie Bell - 10:10 on 16 February 2024
Billy Jolly
Who am I, to write about Billy Jolly? I’ve not been here two minutes, and he was part of Orkney. Still, I feel I’d like to add my tuppenceworth to the memories.
Billy Jolly wasn’t a ‘showy’ performer – he’d sit and play moothie and hold his audience with songs and tales and musings. Who, now could get away with singing ‘The Darkie at the Door’? Billy got away with it because there was no harm in it or in his presentation of it. It’s a song about when Indian and Pakistani salesmen used to come to Orkney, selling door to door – unlikely as that may seem.
Who remembers that now, except for folk like Billy Jolly?
There are some younger ones with tales and stories, singing and telling – ‘The Driftwood Cowboys’ self-penned ‘Shopping Week Queen‘ comes to mind.
Life continues - new memories are made and passed on as stories and songs, but the individuals presenting them are individuals – each with their own way – and Billy Jolly had his own, individual way – which is what will stay in our memories.
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‘Waterlog’ - Part Three….
Chapter 13 – ‘Crossing the Fowey’ – Roger Deakin walks to Madron to visit a holy well, with its accompanying offerings - some less explicable than others.
He mentions that …
“…three spring converge, then apparently disappear into a small boggy pool…
….The odd thing about the place was that the streams were running into the well instead of out of it, like most springs.”
And I thought of converging streams which made their presence known to our neighbours when we lived in Suffolk…
http://www.spanglefish.com/berniesblog/blog.asp?blogid=16338
I’ve previously written of the Wells & Springs of Orkney and their mystical, magical associations…
https://theorkneynews.scot/2018/11/05/wells-springs-of-orkney/
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Rousay & Papay Industrial Heritage…
https://archaeologyorkney.com/2024/02/15/industrial-papay-rousay/
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