The local cause celebre this week has been the police clampdown on blackenings. A blackening is an Orkney wedding tradition (leaving aside the question of how you define a tradition!) involving the ritual humiliation of both the groom -to- be and the bride -to - be, although not at the same time.
The general outline is the same for both male & female - their friends 'kidnap' them one Saturday close to the wedding, cover them in molasses and any other handy substances, sit them in the back of a pickup or flatbed lorry, together with several cases of beer, then the whole group drives round & round Kirkwall blowing whistles, banging drums etc.
The final act of the ritual is the cling filming of the victim to the Merkat Cross in front of the Cathedral - preferably naked but often the victim is allowed to keep their underwear on. The group then drives off, eventually returning for their victim, they all go & get cleaned up somewhere then finish off with more drinking.
All good clean (!) fun & although there's been mutterings about it before - usually on the grounds of the sticky mess left behind on the Kirk Green - generally most folk accept it & certainly in my experience visitors to Orkney think it's great - there must be thousands of photographs around the world of Orkney blackenings.
All well and good - but of course if you want to be fussy about it there is the minor technicality that it's illegal to drive around with folk in the back of a pickup/flatbed on account of how it's not licensed or insured for passengers, there's no seats, no seatbelts & everyone's drunk. For years the local police have sensibly dealt with this by turning a blind eye or being somewhere else on a Saturday & that's been fine.
However last Saturday a police car came past the Kirk Green - when apparently the blackening was nearly over & the last few boys were clearing up the mess - & not only didn't turn a blind eye but did a U-turn to come back & give the driver a ticket - 3 penalty points on his licence and a £60 fine for dangerous driving!!!
It appears that the police involved may have been new to Orkney (according to the rumour mill one PC asked what the boys were covered in so didn't appear to be familiar with the situation). Anyway they could have had no idea of the storm of protest that was about to break over their heads - you mess with Orcadian tradition at your peril.
It was a big story on Radio Orkney with the discussion continuing on Radio Orkney's facebook pages, the local newspaper the Orcadian were said to be running with it, lots of letters to Radio Orkney's postbag feature etc etc - in fact it's on the front page of today's Orcadian. Various discussion forums proposed setting up fighting funds to pay future fines & also lots of comments along the lines of 'haven't the police got anything better to do?' Plus the concern that the police could also decide to clampdown on the Kirkwall Ba next - where apart from the riotous behaviour of the players themselves, there's lots of public drinking from the spectators.
Well - it's all predictably turned out to be a storm in a tea cup - the police backed down so fast you could practically hear the screeching of them reversing their decision & announced that the fine & penalty points on the driver had been rescinded & they weren't going to do it again, honest! I feel a bit sorry for the two constables who started it all off - they're never going to live this down as long as they're in Orkney they'll be 'the police who tried to ban blackenings'
I've always had a soft spot for blackenings - goes back to my childhood when my dad had a milk round and a pickup truck and in the summer would come & pick me & my friends up from our junior school in it. We'd all scramble into the back of the pickup then he'd drive us home with all of us banging on the side of the truck & singing 'She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes'' at the top of our voices. Great fun for a gang of seven- year -olds - but no molasses & beer involved!
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