Community / Fifty years and counting for Northmavine Up Helly Aa as festivities get underway
IT IS a golden anniversary this year for Northmavine Up Helly Aa as guizer jarl John Stephen leads his band of 33 merry Viking warriors, eight princesses and 15 bairns on a fiery dance across the northern peninsula.
Celebrating 50 years since Up Helly Aa’s resurrection in Northmavine in 1975, after there had been no festivities since World War Two, the fire festival has gone from strength to strength since those early days.
John has lived and breathed Up Helly Aa since he was ten years old joining his dad, Bruce, in Willie Brown’s jarl squad in 1986.
He then stood alongside his dad when he became jarl in 1992, as well as participating in squads almost every year up to the present day.
Born and bred in Ollaberry the fire festival has been an integral part of his life for as long as he can remember.
“I’m excited aboot it aa,” he exclaimed ahead of the big day. “This for me, is aboot friends, family, haeing a laugh and a good time.”
Certainly, it will be a golden spree for Northmavine as for the first time all four halls in the parish, Ollaberry, Hillswick, North Roe and Sullom will be open instead of the usual three.
With tickets sold out in all venues, it promises to be a busy night for the 15 squads and 273 guizers joining the party.
Assuming the fictional Viking name of ‘Brusason The Bold’, John explained his Viking character was a great warrior of the sea known for his brave voyages defending Orkney and Shetland from those pesky Norwegian invaders and encounters with fiery sea dragons.
Fortunately John’s daily life is not so perilous, with his day job at Sullom Voe Oil Terminal as a control room operator which he has done for 30 years.
As well as a few work colleagues joining him in the squad, it is very much about friends and family walking alongside him.
“I like to get the bairns involved,” he said. “The youngest Viking is three years old and my two daughters, Holly, 19, and Anna, 10, and my son, Joe, 15, are also in the squad.”
Orkney Vikings will be linking arms with Northmavine as John’s wife Lindsey hails from Orkney, and he has invited family members to join the squad.
Paying homage to Lindsey’s Orkney ancestry, John has named the galley, Reka Vik – a Norse word which means ‘bay of wreckage’ and is also the origins of Rackwick in Hoy, which is a holiday home that John and his family visit every year.
Reka Vik is also carved in runic writing on the jarl squad’s axe handles, all painstakingly made by hand by the men over the winter under the expert eyes and supervision of local retired blacksmith guru Bruce Wilcock who showed the men how to cast 40 axe heads from metal.
It is a massive undertaking and testament to the creative talent in Northmavine with almost every part of the jarl squad attire, galley and weaponry created on home soil.
Textile designer Mandie Moore from Ollaberry has made the men’s denim, blue tunics, as well as the princesses’ long, denim blue dresses and woollen shawls.
As John says: “It’s a group effort really. We’ve got a great bunch of boys doing all of this and that makes it a lot easier. There’s been a lot more work than you think.
“There’s a lot of talented folk and at the end of the day Up Helly Aa brings the community together, shortens the long winter nights and gies us all a chance to hae fun.”
After breakfast at the galley shed the jarl squad will visit Urafirth Primary school at 9.30am, Ollaberry Primary School at 10.45am, and North Roe Primary School at noon. Photographs will be taken at the waterfront in Hillswick at 3pm.
The torchlit procession is scheduled to begin at 7.30pm although an update is expected late afternoon due to the strong winds forecast.
By Alex Purbrick
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