A letter came from North Ronaldsay, and I cried.

PLEASE SIGN the on line petition for Orkney abattoir. 

UPDATE 15 September.  The Orkney News has managed to get a statement from the Council about the meeting on Tuesday.  You can read more information about this here.

“A meeting of Orkney Islands Council’s Development and Infrastructure Committee on Tuesday September 11 considered a report on abattoir provision in Orkney.

“This was discussed in private as commercially sensitive information was included in the report.

“This item now goes before a meeting of the Full Council on Tuesday October 9, after which we plan to issue a further update.”

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A letter came in the post today.  From North Ronaldsay.

 I've had a day 'off' today, enjoying some of the lectures in the Orkney International Science Festival.  So I quickly opened the letter, saw it was some completed petitions, and then had to dash out to do the afternoon poultry rounds and check the sheep again.

So I've only just now had a chance to really take in the contents of the letter, and I'm not ashamed to say that I cried.  It appears that every person on North Ronaldsay who has not already signed the petition at one of the agricultural shows has signed the 3 sheets someone must have taken from a show to pass round the island.  They ran out of space, so have gone onto the back of the sheets.

Something I've come to learn about Orcadians is that they don't go around blowing their own trumpet.  They don't make mountains out of molehills.  When adversity strikes they quietly deal with it, with the help of family, friends and neighbours.

So to have an entire island passing round a petition and all signing it and the comments from some of them...... well, an island 'population' has become individuals to me, and I wish I had the writing skill to properly share that with everyone reading this.  And to somehow get across to those with the resources and power that this is so much more than 'just' an abattoir.
To somehow reach those who could work together to enable Orkney to have the essential small, sustainable, local abattoir it urgently needs. This is an absolutely fundamental service, without which precious, unique parts of Orkney and such important parts of Scotland's history & culture, cannot survive.

I mean, what are we talking about here?  North Ronaldsay has been described in various Government and Council documents as a 'fragile economy'.  The population is smaller than when I first visited it back in 2011.  Yet they have repeatedly fought to keep their island going, to rebuild & maintain their sheep dyke, to keep alive a unique communal farming system, to preserve a flock of sheep that is incalculably precious.

Here is just one succinct comment from an islander:  "An abattoir in Orkney is ESSENTIAL for the future of commercially keeping North Ronaldsay sheep."
And several comments mentioned, not just their own concerns for the present, but concerns for young farmers.  In all this, the North Ronaldsay islanders are looking to the future, to the next generation of farmers.


Just look at their various initiatives over the years.
North Ronaldsay Bird Observatory
North Ronaldsay Mill
The North Ronaldsay Trust
The Orkney Sheep Foundation
The North Ronaldsay Sheep Festival

Read about the sheep from one of the islanders, Jane Donnelly, as she writes about the history of the Wool Mill.  What a coincidence that Orkney is currently enjoying the 2018 Orkney International Science Festival, and it was during the 1999 Science Festival that the idea of a wool mill was first raised at a Festival event on North Ronaldsay.

The islanders have ambition and, together with the Orkney Islands Council Empty Homes Officer, have come up with a 30 year plan to bring back into use 30 abandoned properties on North Ronaldsay.  These aren't people just sitting their on their island, watching their population dwindle & buildings fall down.  They are striving and fighting to make North Ronaldsay a vibrant growing population, bringing their unique culture and heritage into a positive future.

The very first North Atlantic Native Sheep and Wool Conference, an international project held annually in venues in the North Atlantic region, was held on North Ronaldsay in 2011.

The yarn spun from the fleece of these North Ronaldsay sheep is enjoyed by knitters around the world.

BUT, BUT, BUT - ORKNEY NOW HAS NO ABATTOIR!

Orkney Islands Council, earlier this year, managed to secure funding for an exciting North Isles Landscape Scheme. The scheme will support and encourage heritage based development and promotion of built, natural and cultural heritage in Orkney's North Isles but the funding can't cover provision of an abattoir service for North Ronaldsay.

As the Clerk of the Sheep Court said earlier in the year, "Logistics for North Ronaldsay mutton production may now be 'impossible'".

Without getting around 200 suitable sheep for mutton off the shore each winter the population of sheep will be greater than the shores can sustain.
What options will the islanders have in this situation with growing clowgangs of near-feral sheep that can only survive by living on the shore eating seaweed?
Without the income from the mutton a 'fragile economy' can only become more fragile.

Will this lack of a local abattoir, infrastructure that is beyond the capacity of the small island population of North Ronaldsay to fund, build and run, lead to the demise of this island?  Even it's depopulation?  A dark word indeed for anyone familiar with Scotland's history.
Will this be the end of a thriving & healthy population of productive sheep that make the Sheep Dyke a part of living history rather than a dead monument?  "The sheep dyke around North Ronaldsay is a unique and important structure, probably the largest drystone construction conceived of as a single entity in the world."

I'll be writing more in future about the exciting possibilities for Orkney farmers, food producers, tourists and more if Orkney were to get an abattoir service back, but for me it's all secondary to this urgent, overriding imperative to save North Ronaldsay as a living, sustainable community.

So please, if you have any thoughts or concerns for North Ronaldsay, its islanders and its sheep, will you please do more than just sign the petition and make comments - valuable though that is.
Will you please contact people in the Scottish Government, your MSPs, Orkney Councillors, anyone else you can think of, and share your thoughts and concerns with them.  There is a significant meeting of the Orkney Development and Infrastructure Committee on Tuesday 11 September