A most satisfactory practice

Childhood holidays in Deerness still prompt such happy memories

This family portrait of Dr William Emslie, his wife Grace, and children William James and Ruth Anthea was taken on the front steps of Persleyden in Deerness in 1947.

If I had to name the place that is the most precious to me in the whole world, it would have to be Deerness. I guess when you have a pretty idyllic childhood in a place, it captures your heart forever.

When Dad was fully qualified as a GP, he looked for an available practice by the sea. He loved the sea; hence his move to Orkney and to the purchase of the Skerryvore Practice.

Around the mid-1940s, Dad bought a cottage in Deerness. It was little more than a hut to start with, situated on a small plot of land bordered by the farms of Stonehall and Grind, but Dad helped to turn it into a wonderful retreat. And he and Mum called it Persleyden, after a part of Aberdeen that was their favourite courting haunt in the 1930s.

As a family, we loved the cottage. It was walking distance from Newark Bay, which we just referred to as the Geo, and where Dad kept his dinghy called Ruth and his small yacht called Anthea.

In the early days, the cottage was extremely primitive. We had the phone installed, but there was no hot water system. At first, a small tumbledown shed in the garden acted as our toilet, but soon a large rain storage tank was providing water for the bathroom and scullery.

Spring drinking water was collected by pail from the well Dad dug; I remember so well the day he dug it; I was there. Food was kept cool in a tiny “hut” with a wire mesh door situated just outside the front door of the cottage, a popular way of keeping food cool before the advent of the refrigerator.

There was a small, coal-fired stove in the living room, and Mum did all her cooking and baking on this. Only recently I got rid of the sturdy griddle Mum placed on the stove to make drop scones. When she made the almost round scones, she also made drop scone men and drop scone animals, much to my delight and my brother’s.

Lamps, fuelled by paraffin oil, provided our lighting. As darkness fell, Mum would pull down the main living room lamp from the ceiling, prime the wick with meths, light it and, as the paraffin vaporised, gently use the pump to increase the pressure, the incandescent glow growing brighter and brighter. She’d then push the lamp back up to the ceiling on its extendible cord, allowing it to flood the entire room with wonderful and welcome light.

William James Emslie on the farm road at the back of Persleyden where he learned to ride his bicycle.

It was in Deerness that my brother William James and I learned to ride our bicycles. I can recall William James being pushed off on his bicycle by Dad from the farm road at the back of Persleyden.

William would be fine until he arrived at the end of Stonehall’s road where he was supposed to dismount. Instead, he just fell into the ditch, got up, re-mounted and returned to Dad. Eventually he got it right, I’m happy to say!

And then, a couple of years later, Dad taught me to ride the bike he brought out from Kirkwall on the night of one of my early birthdays. I remember it so well.

During the years that we owned the cottage, Mum, William James and I spent most of the summer in Deerness. Dad would always come out to join us at evenings and weekends. Thus I, personally, became a friend of girls in several of the neighbouring farms, and I loved to visit their homes.

I experienced milking cows by hand, took part in stooking, witnessed the common practice of pouring tea into the saucer to drink, and had French toast or “eggie bread” made for me for the first time.

When William James and I contracted childhood diseases such as measles, chicken pox and whooping cough, we were dispatched to Deerness for the duration. Particularly in the case of whooping cough, Dad believed that a certain “something” given off by seaweed would cure the “whoop” . . . and it did!

In Dad’s day there were no such thing as catchment areas for GPs. Dad had patients from all over the Mainland, and also looked after several who came into the Balfour from the Isles. So it was, in our Deerness days, that Dad had the farmer and his family as patients on Copinsay. And, although not patients, the various lighthouse keepers became friends, allowing visits, whenever. The Copinsay lighthouse was the very first I climbed, as a child.

A young Ruth Emslie on one of her childhood visits to Copinsay.

When Dad made his house call on Copinsay, sometimes we would accompany him as a family. We’d slip and slither across the seaweed-strewn rocks of Newark, pile into the dinghy Ruth, and Dad would start up the outboard motor. We’d chug-chug our way across the sometimes-treacherous stretch of water between Deerness and Copinsay, landing at the small jetty on the north of the island. Ruth would be secured, and Dad would go off to make his call while the rest of us swam and played and picnicked on the tiny, white sandy beach.

The house call over, we’d chug our way back to the Deerness shore, but not before attracting the attention of numerous seals whose shiny, grey, bewhiskered heads would pop out of the waves, curious as ever. We’d sing to them at the tops of our voices, and they’d bark back. Were they trying to mimic us, I wonder?

On one occasion I can recall enjoying our time on Copinsay when an eerie, white blanket of fog rolled across the surface of the sea, coming as if from nowhere, obliterating all the familiar landmarks and creating a frightening world of complete obscurity.

The Copinsay lighthouse. On the right can be discerned the old lighthouse foghorn.

The Copinsay foghorn sent out its warning moan through the opaque enemy to passing shipping. That afternoon Dad’s navigational skills were put to a real test as we chugged our way back to the safety of the Deerness shore.

It was many years later that I learned that local fishermen had taught Dad how to navigate between Copinsay and Deerness by looking at the changes in the seabed. Eternally grateful, we acknowledge that, without this knowledge, we could have been swept out to sea.

In the early 1950s, the financial burden of supporting two children at boarding school resulted in Dad’s having to sell our beloved Persleyden, together with the dinghy and the yacht. It was a very sad day for our family.

However, Deerness remained our favourite destination whenever Dad had time off. Even if the weather was cold and wet, Mum would pack a picnic and we’d drive to one of the several Deerness beaches. There we’d read and listen to the car radio and watch the sea birds circling above and the waves breaking on the shore. Then the sandwiches would be unpacked.

A picture of Persleyden Cottage in Deerness in 1948. The cottage provided many a happy break for Dr William Emslie and his family..

To this day, I maintain that slices of tomato, brushed with mayonnaise and sandwiched between slices of fresh, white bread never tasted better than when consumed in the fresh sea air of Deerness!

As well as a brilliant sandwich-maker, Mum was also something of an archivist. She took or had taken several photographs of our family’s early years and particularly those happy times in Deerness. On the back of several of the photographs, she made notes of explanation. Without these notes, I would not have been able to give such a detailed, accurate and, hopefully, enjoyable account of our Deerness days.