Life Line in Orkney

As teenager in the 70's I spend a lot of time alone in my tiny 2x3m bedroom studying and pretending to be studying. If I didn't and would be spotted by my parents doing something else, I would be ordered to do chores for the family bakery which I hated. This self-imposed isolation was only broken by secretly listening to my favorite radio station; Radio North Sea International.



The station was radio pirate station, housed on a ship located in international waters off the Dutch coast. There were a few of such stations between England and The Netherlands that became very popular in no time. In those days there were no mobile phones or computers. My transistor radio was the only lifeline to the outside world.



After a few years laws were passed that made pirate stations and supplying them illegal. I still remember the day that the station was shut down. For days I still tuned in, just in case... but it the airwaves remained silent, dead silent. It felt as if my Titanic had gone under...



A few days ago as I passed through the small Orkney village of St. Margaret's Hope, I spotted a ship with an unusual tall mast that looked like a radio mast. No... it couldn't be! I had to check it out, so I cycled over to the far end of the harbour.



When I got closer I the ship's flaking colour scheme on the hull became clear: red,white and blue, the colours of the Dutch flag. My mind was trying to mute my growing excitement by reminding me that those were also the colours of the Union Jack. As I rode my bike around a shed behind which the ship was moored there were more clues and all doubts were squashed when the rear of the ship read; Communicator, Rotterdam. Bingo, what a treasure and that here in sleepy St. Margaret's Hope of all places!



The ship is being dismantled here. The man in charge raised the possibility that this ship may have housed a few stations in it's life time. We are not quite sure which ones at this stage. This remarkable coincidence is an amazing opportunity for me to shoot footage about a part of my life that I was writing about only a few days earlier.