A slide of the area of Shetland Jenny Gilbertson filmed in, in the 1930s. This was from the presentation that Joanne Jamieson from Shetland Moving Image Archive and myself gave to the Relate North Conference on reconnecting the community of Hillswick with its cultural heritage, namely the films of Jenny Gilbertson.
Drawn with Sharpie on a piece of greaseproof paper it did the job beautifully.
Also presenting was my PhD supervisor, Sarah Neely, who spoke about some of the ideas, memories, notes and poem of the Orcadian film poet Margaret Tait. (If you know nothing of Margaret Tait, you can watch some her films through that link or read a few of her poems, such as this one Now, on the Scottish Poetry Library website.)
On the Sunday, Joanne and I took Sarah to the places on the greaseproof paper map – Heylor, Hillswick and to Jenny and Johnny Gilbertson’s grave at Eshaness Cemetery.
This is what they look out over, West Heogaland. Interestingly, two rows down to the west lies Tommy Anderson, the Shetland fiddler whilst to the east lies Donald Robertson. I wrote about this a few years ago here.
