Happy Valley News…...‘Bag Up Your Head’…..
by Bernie Bell - 08:06 on 09 May 2025
Happy Valley News….
Happy Valley is a special place, which I’ve visited and written about quite a few times….
https://theorkneynews.scot/?s=Happy+Valley+Bernie+Bell
The ’Friends of Happy Valley’ intend to put together a twice-yearly Newsletter for their members in Spring and Autumn, and have kindly agreed to let me post extracts from this Newsletter in m’blog.
Here’s the first instalment….
“FHV has commissioned a Heritage Film on the history of Bigswell, Happy Valley's legacies from Professor Isbister and Edwin Harrald and the more recent period.
Fionn MacArthur is working on this and we are interested in hearing people's memories and stories to include if you would like to get in touch….
friendsofhappyvalley@gmail.com
This film is likely to be designed in a seasonal manner and we are excited to finance this project which will be placed on our website and also available in the Orkney Library.
FHV committed £3000 to this and are funding raising the other half. Thanks to Firth & Stenness Community Association for their kind donation towards this project.
******
Species on the Edge supported FHV to conduct a brief bat survey last year. This involved a walk around as dusk but also a recording device.
Initially it was not indicating the presence of bats although I have definitely seen bats some years ago. However, Helen Cromarty RSPB, sent away the recording to a specialist bat team who confirmed there were bats recorded.
Fantastic news although we need more investigations to know whether they are roosting at HV or visiting. These will be Pipistrelle bats, Orkney's only bat species.
******
Kay Macnair, trustee, has made a link word puzzle as a fundraiser for Happy Valley. It is available at Glue’s Garden Centre, Mill’s Petrol
Station, Shearer’s, Baikie’s Stores, Stenness Garage, Argo’s (Stromness), Wishart’s and Isbister’s.”
The best way to get the whole News, would be to join the ‘Friends of Happy Valley’!
*************************************************************
“Third World War? Happy VE Day!
Bag up your head
Like the puzzled punters struggling to follow the sense of me singing ‘Hernando’s Hideway’ with an Ikea paper bag on my head, readers may be wondering how to make sense of our current situation.
At bruncheon yesterday morning (in Eldas Colombian Coffee House, High Street, Presteigne) a fellow habitue asked me if I felt we were heading towards a Third World War - or, indeed, were already in one. I was able to reassure them that we are not.
Whilst researching my book ‘One Fine Day’, I learned a little about the Nine Years War, aka The War of the League of Augsburg (1688 - 1697). You can read about it here. It was a pan-European war, fought on land and sea, but there were also fronts in the Americas, in Africa, and in Asia. AI says it wasn’t the first world war, because AI is shite, but some historians argue it was, so fuck AI hard and proper. So, let’s count this as WWI.
So was what we now call the First World War really the Second World War? None of it. The second world war was The Seven Years War, (1756–1763). You can read about it here. It was fought in Europe, North and South America, India, Africa, and the Philippines. AI retains its rigid view that only what we call the World Wars were the only real world wars because they are called World Wars, but, once again, arse to it. Many historians are happy to denote the Seven Years War as a world war, so that makes it WWII.
This means, of course, that from the perspective of historians, the First World War was actually WWIII, and that the terrible conflict that ended in Europe on this day eighty years ago wasn’t actually WWII, but WWIV.
So no, we’re not heading towards WWIII. What we are entering, or are already in, is WWV. Hope this helps to clarify the matter.
The people who perpetuate war, and their stooges who glorify it (Deform, AfD, Putin, Modi, Netan-Yahoo etc etc), are the sworn enemies of all that is good and precious. They are the enemy, the hypocrites who long only for power. They are cancerous - they push the World out of shape in a way that can only end in death.
On VE Day, let’s remember who starts wars. It isn’t, my friends, you or I.
Thanks for reading Writing the Breaking Wave! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Writing the Breaking Wave is free today. But if you enjoyed this post, you can tell Writing the Breaking Wave that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won't be charged unless they enable payments.
IAN MARCHANT
8 MAY
Add your comment
