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VALLEY TRAVEL and s bou r by Liam Creedon


rockclimbing or even amateur photography, despite such celebrated birders as Eric Morecambe, Bill Oddie and (believe it or not) Mick dagger. To "bird" properly means spending


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inordinate hours creeping through bushes armed with binoculars. Birdwatchers gather for hours in the middle of nowhere with telescopes, tripods and lenses, speaking in a strange language of "dipping", "bonxies", "bins" and "tysties". For birders, any abuse is worth it, and some


sacred sites have near-mythical status. Any birder worth their salt has to make a pilgrimage to them, at least once in a lifetime. Shetland, off the north-east tip of Scotland,


raises hairs on the neck of any seasoned watcher. These barren spits of land are hemmed in by the raging North Sea and left almost treeless by harsh Arctic winds. Their remote location and geographical


positioning mean that during spring and autumn, birds rarely seen in mainland Britain can turn up on Shetland - from Eastern and Southern Europe, sometimes even Asia and America. With childlike glee, I embarked on a weekend


visit laden down with bird books and several pairs of binoculars in various pockets of my anorak. Made up from some 100 islands, the


Shetland archipelago stretches 70 miles towards the Arctic. It is quicker to fly from London to Milan than to Sumburgh, the island's tiny Lego-style airport.


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irdwatching can be a singular and troubling hobby. While less nerdy than trainspotting, it has far less kudos than


r . Shetlanders look just as much to


Scandinavia for guidance, heritage and outlook as they do to "south mouthers" in Britain. The Scandinavian influence is profound,


from the locals' singsong accents to the names of islands and towns. Yell, Unst, Gutcher, Skaw and Noss sound more like the mating noises of amorous Vikings than actual place names. To a "south mouther", the landscape can


look sombre and forbidding, as brooding grey tufts of cloud pregnant with rain skim the low peaks. Skeletal ruins of once-grand houses loom from barren hilltops, many dotted with peat workings, while black turf ingots lay piled up by the side of the road like the remnants of an oversized game of dominoes. Lerwick, the Shetland capital, is a tiny town


cast in hard, grey stone. Fish factories and boat yards teeter on the skyline, with little concession to tourism. A working town first and foremost, it is


designed to serve the vital fish and oil industries that dominate Shetland life. The lack of accommodation means tourists


often use unusual premises. Lighthouses double as guestrooms, and a former Cold War radar station - Saxa Vord - also makes top- quality lodging. But in Lerwick's harbour we spied one


reason why Shetland is renowned as a wildlife paradise. Bobbing alongside fishing boats were a pair of black guillemots, known to locals as "tysties".


PARADISE Tysties are rare in the UK, but on Shetland


they are ten-a-penny. Buoyed by our discovery, we set off to look for the islands' star attractions -killer whales and otters. The impact and importance of the sea is


startling. Shetland's landscape is dominated by sea lochs, known as voes and many are criss­ crossed with fish farms. Vast oyster nets and mussel beds lie across many voes like grubby seaweed-strewn necklaces. The land is magically free of the everyday


noise of traffic that dominates the mainland. The bubbling, fluting calis of moorland birds such as redshank and golden plover mix with the mournful wailing of curlew to create a constant, tuneful backdrop. The air is sweet with the scent of freshly-cut


grass and the salty tang of the sea.Far from a bland, treeless expanse, the moorland constantly changes colour as it is lit up and dimmed down by the weak northern sun.


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A Bronxie bird in flight at Hermaness nature reserve. Travel facts


■ Liam Creedon flew with Atlantic Airways, which operates a twice-weekly summer service (Friday and Monday) to Sumburgh from Stansted. Return fares this year started at £167. ■ He stayed at Busta House Hotel in Brae, a 22-room waterside hotel dating back to 1588, with double rooms from £105 B&B, the former RAF Radar station Saxa Vord and Bressay Lighthouse. Reservations: Busta House Hotel (0180 652 2506 and www.bustahouse,com); Saxa Vord Resort (0195 7711711 and www. saxavord.com). ■ Destination information: Visit Shetland on 0870199 9440 and www.visitshetland.com


After sampling delicious, locally-caught fish


at haunted Busta House Hotel on the edge of a vast voe, we headed for Unst at Shetland's northern tip, and a boat trip to Muckle Flugga - the UK's most northerly lighthouse. The approach to Muckle Flugga is like a


scene from Hitchcock's film "The Birds". The isolated rocky coast is a magnet for seabirds, with thousands of gulls and auks drawn to the fish-rich area to nest on jagged cliffs tumbling vertically into the turquoise waters. Puffins whizzed past our tiny boat like


oversized bumble bees, while guillemots, tysties and razorbills clattered into the sea as if impersonating crash-test dummies. A vast white rock juts out into the sea in


front of Muckle Flugga, but as our boat edged nearer, it slowly changed colour. As it broke up to reveal black stone, we realised the white was a huge expanse of nesting gannets. The gannet, known in Shetland as the solan,


boasts a two-metre wingspan and is our most impressive seabird. Wave upon wave of the screaming birds left the rock, disturbed by the noise of the boat, to circle overhead in vast numbers - literally blocking out the light. Despite the smell and noise, it was a truly


breathtaking spectacle. Back on dry land, we walked to the edge of the sea cliffs on the Hermaness nature reserve


for a different perspective on nesting seabirds and the incontinent solan. The reserve is infamous for another seabird with equally bad habits.The great skua is known


to birders across the UK by its Shetland name - bonxie.


Hermaness, along with the bonxies' other


Shetland stronghold, Foula, holds many of the UK's breeding population. Built like a gull on steroids, the bonxie is streaked brown with a huge, cruelly hooked bill. The ASBO-kid of the bird world, it specialises in robbery with violence. With trepidation, we tried to work out the safe distance to stand to watch a female on her nest. This bonxie was in a bad mood. In seconds,


she turned a coal-black eye upon us, screamed raucously and launched her dumpy body off the ground. Suddenly the air was a rush of sharp talons, snapping bills, flying feathers and the screams of terrified tourists. • We retreated to the cliff edge to watch the more friendly puffins bringing in sand eels for their young. But the bonxies had not finished. We watched a group of puffins fly toward their nests, barely 10 metres from where we stood. But arcing in behind them, with menace, was the unmistakable silhouette of a bonxie. Twisting at an impossible angle, the bird


snatched an unsuspecting puffin from the air to swallow it whole. Despite the gore, it was an impressive sight. "Ladies and gentlemen, killer whales!" said


our guide, dragging everyone's attention from the gorging bonxie to the vast, flat expanse of the North Sea beyond the cliff edge. GEMS


Shetlander Brydon Thomason provides many


tourists with their best chance of seeing the islands' natural gems. In-depth local knowledge means the naturalist knows where to see the otters and the rare migratory birds. A pod of orcas regularly circles Shetland, but


spotting them is notoriously difficult. Looking through Brydon's telescope, I could see a pod of about nine killer whales dipping and shying into the waves, from a tiny calf to a huge bull with massive dorsal fin searing the water in two. The sight was electrifying: to actually witness


huge predators in their element was extraordinary, typifying what a trip to Shetland is all about. We retreated to sample more local, fresh and


succulent seafood, swilled down with Shetland beer from the Valhalla Brewery on Unst. All too soon it was time to depart. After


initial misgivings, I completely fell for the place. Tourism on Shetland feels like an


afterthought, with a lack of quality restaurants and accommodation, but the incredible natural spectacle on offer makes this a world-class tourist destination in its own right.


AND FINALLY by Gerald Searle


cash - walking to Grindleton to purchase a duck and its six ducklings. Sadly, a bedtime check on his


I


acquisitions revealed nothing - they appeared to have been stolen from their new St James Street home! Police were mystified, but 24


hours later the mystery was solved, when 14 tired little webbed feet were heard on more familiar territory. Experts suggested that they


had missed their special village water and simply marched back to Grindleton to find it. Ouackers or what! In the same week a different


kind of water shortage also caused problems for Dowager, Lady Ribblesdale in Gisburn. At 9 a.m. she was forced to telegraph the fire brigade to bring the horse- drawn steam engine when the flue caught fire in her maid's bedroom, but by the time they arrived the fire was under control. Fortunately, a second telegraph


arrived just in time to cancel the manual water pump, which was being delivered on the 10.19 train! Four hundred years ago local


peasants were constantly in trouble with officialdom for burning lime in their yards. In those days the houses may not have had water mains, but they certainly had thatched roofs - an unfortunate combination which proved highly combustible! VIGILANTES


However, we tend to forget how


recently our current superb fire service was actually introduced. For example, as late as 1896, vigilantes roamed Clitheroe’s streets seeking fire raisers. Serious fires were very rare, yet in that year there were 15, at least eight of which, all in business premises, broke out on Saturday nights. Mills, workshops, stables, farms


- nothing was safe. Until in September a band of eight was selected to patrol possible targets. Even when their number was


increased to 28 and supervised by Chief Constable Walter Clayton and Mayor Tom Garnett, no


•progress was made. However, following two fires in one night at Eatough's hen cote and Myers' rope works, the police went house- -to-house in Wilkin and Taylor Fields and an arrest was finally made. After the fire at the rope works,


a young man was spotted jumping from the roof and was pursued across the brook into Taylor Street. A suspect was duly arrested - although never


N June, 1883, Clitheronian Matthew Dugdale spent his Saturday - and his hard-earned


her man s r / Fun Crossword


H THIS crossword is just for fun - no prizes are given. The solution will be in next month's issue of The Valley.


ACROSS


7. Member of a rising movement (5) 8. Draw a picture of the harbour light (7) 9. Well-known for being unskilled! (7)


The early days of the fire brigade - picture courtesy of Clitheroe Library, (S)


convicted - on the grounds that his answers were unsatisfactory and his trousers were soaking. Grabbed unexpectedly in the dead of night by the whole of Clitheroe's finest, I think my trousers might have become quite damp! The local brigade is considered


to have originated on April 15th, 1840, when the council voted to erect an official engine house with the inscription "Fire Engine" on Castle Gate. However, the key date is April


27th, 1865, when a meeting at the Brownlow Arms first proposed a volunteer fire brigade with a maximum of 16 members. Before this, all that existed was an old manual engine carrying a tub filled from the nearest brook and needing 24 men to manage the pumps, or what Stephen Clarke described as "rude appliances"! "Up to this time the members


drilled in their own clothes, some of the swells turning up for drills in white waistcoats, but as it proved a hand-soiling business the mashers of the day resigned, finding it rather hard work and much against the waistcoats," he stated. Nevertheless, it remained an


occupation for gentlemen - anyone caught swearing on duty during a fire was promptly sacked! In this period firefighting was a


rather haphazard business. For example, the only means of alerting the firemen was a bell. In 1870 two boys who lived near the fire station were employed to run to the homes of those out of range of the fire bell, and apparently in 1883, when St Mary’s briefly introduced a Sunday school bell with an identical chime, there were grumpy firemen on the streets missing their weekend lie-in! Progress naturally brought


improvements, with electric bells installed in firemen's houses in 1896 and a steam siren located at the gas works in 1906, later replaced by an electric hooter at Castle House, operated from the fire station. Also success depended heavily


on the availability of water. For example, an early evening barn fire at High Moor Farm was not within easy reach of running water, so the manual engine, laden with water, was dispatched the three-quarters of a mile up the hill.


So rapid was its progress that it


reached the fire in only seven minutes, only to discover that a slight accident on the corner of Moor Lane and Lowergate had rendered the engine useless. BROKEN


The only solution was to return


to the fire station to mend the broken valves, and it was 10 o'clock before their attempts to douse the fire began. Although they worked through until the early hours, needless to say very little was salvaged of either building or contents, neither of which was insured! Again, progress - and


investment - brought improvements, although these were rarely without incident. Perhaps the earliest was the practice drill in Downham to celebrate the provision by public subscription of new uniforms. On the return down Moor Lane,


Alderman Parkinson leapt offm but caught the buckles of his overalls in the pump rods and his wrist was run over by both wheels of the engine, rendering him "disabled from duty" for six weeks. He was clearly not a man to hold a grudge, as when in 1876 the


steam engine Perseverance was bought from Merryweather & Sons for £650, the alderman actually bought the old manual engine, which finally found a home with William Bailey, cotton manufacturer - until ironically, it was "roasted alive" in the great fire of Twiston Mill! Similarly, the site for a more


modern fire station proved problematic over the decades, with such venues as Holden Street and King Lane being considered at length, before in 1934 the foundation stone was finally laid in Princess Avenue. A permanent, purpose-built


home for the brigade and their model T Ford, which had been bought in 1921 as Clitheroe's first motor tender, was naturally a time for great public celebration, but even the official opening did not ring true. The plan was a simple trip round


the block and back in time for official tea, but unfortunately the siren worked too well - it would not stop - and the engine was just the opposite - it would not start! However the glorious history of


the service, which became part of Lancashire County Fire Brigade in 1970, deserves recognition. In almost 170 years of sterling


service to the Ribble Valley's massive 170 square miles, apparently only one fireman has lost his life on duty, Walter Taylor, who died when the brigade was fire fighting amidst the wartime bombing of Manchester. We can only hope that our truly


local fire service survives. Meanwhile, it would seem wise to heed the old local adage, "Never poke another man's tire till you've ■ known him seven years." Ouackers or what!


10. Type that will go in the ring (5) 12. What is performed at the School Concert? It's easy! (6,4) 15. Dull - be in need of different result (4-6) 18. Do some climbing, as bees do (5) 19. Take back what was said about the pamphlet (7) 21. Noose? (4-3) 22. First to get the gun ready (5) DOWN


1. Guide-lines for heads, we hear (10) 2. Helps to change a wild beast (5) 3. Convivial meeting-place used when driving (4) 4. Court plea to evoke sympathy (6) 5. He makes a suggestion in favour of prose


translation (8) 6. It only works when trodden underfoot (7)


11. An instruction to the monastic to gamble? (3-7) 13. Wife to lend a hand with a friend (8) 14. An abrasion is no handicap (7) 16. Attempts to play an ace (6) 17. Vestment that takes some getting out of! (5) 20. Kind of measure used in recording (4)


SOLUTION TO MAY'S CROSSWORD Across: 1 Cower; 4 Learned; 8 Upright; 9


Noted; 10 Test; 11 Bearably; 13 Cord; 14 Race; 16 Assisted; 17 Brag; 20 Talon; 21 Silence; 22 Redhead; 23 Press. Down: 1 Court disaster; 2 Words: 3 Rage; 4


Letter: 5 Abnormal; 6 Notable; 7 Daddy-long- legs; 12 Presence; 13 Castled; 15 Ceased; 18 Range; 19 Clap.


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