Community / Special day in South Mainland kicks off with jarl Farmer leading the way
Squad will remember Fraser Smith with axe handle tribute
AFTER a “hectic” five months of intense suit-building jarl Michael Farmer and his squad are ready to lay siege to the South Mainland this weekend.
The 35-year-old self-employed joiner and his 44-strong jarl squad of men, women and bairns set off after a hearty breakfast in his initial home village of Cunningsburgh today (Friday) to kick-start a whirlwind weekend of fiery festivities and frivolity at the southernmost fire festival – South Mainland Up Helly Aa, also known as SMUHA.
Farmer, adopting the persona of Sigurd the Crusader, will lead his squad to visit excited bairns at the Sound, Cunningsburgh and Sandwick schools through the day.
He will then consign galley The Southern Raven to her fiery demise in Cunningsburgh before they tour the halls of the South Mainland into the early hours of tomorrow morning.
Farmer and his jarl squad have designed their entire suit themselves, and have also “made the whole lot” with their own hands – apart from the boots, of course.
“It’s been pretty hectic – we only started about five months ago,” Farmer told Shetland News.
“We’ve been working six to seven days a week, working days and nights.”
He said he is “delighted with it”, having seen it all together for the first time last Saturday when the squad had its photos taken.
Of the designs, Farmer said he has had his colours in his mind “right from the start years ago”.
“We have a couple of boys that are really good at drawing, so we just took it from there.
“I think it happened naturally, but we wanted to make as much of the suit as we possibly could.
“The more we can put in, the more we get out of it.”
One of the key aspects of the suit for Farmer is a tribute to Fraser Smith, who died last year following a car crash in the South Mainland aged just 25.
Smith was due to be in the jarl squad this year, and Farmer said his name was written in Viking runes on the handle of every axe.
“His name should be readable on every axe, it should never be upside down or hidden,” Farmer said.
“He’ll no be far from our thoughts on the day – same with any other day.”
An incredible 60,000 single chainmail links were ordered and had to be put together at the hands of the squad, which Farmer joked he had stayed well away from.
“Some of them did nothing but chainmail for two months,” he said.
“Folk were taking it home, folk were taking it on the ferry to do on their way to work.
“Some of them seemed to like it, or so they said anyway.”
This year’s guizer jarl said they had started out with a drawing of what the suit could look like, which they then “forgot about” and “just went for it”.
“By accident it’s almost ended up identical to that drawing,” Farmer said.
“The boy that did the drawing will have his emblem on the sail, on the jewellery, on the cloaks.
“There’s not many folk that can say that.”
He teased that there are “various different weapons in the squad” this year, with two of them “very different” but “really very striking to look at”.
Farmer will be joined on his big day by his partner Jacqueline Casey and their daughter Libby, who he jokes is “two going on 12”.
His brothers James and Stuart and sister Clare will also be by his side, along with Clare’s husband Joe Smith and their daughter Annie – who is set to be the “peeriest guizer”.
“We work all winter and then they steal the show,” he joked of Libby and Annie.
He added his daughter was “very excited to be a Viking” on his big day.
“I went out in Lerwick when I was four. It’s just the most incredible thing when you’re that size.”
Farmer – who jokes that though he is from Cunningsburgh he is now “exiled in Scatness” – has chosen to portray Sigurd the Crusader for the weekend.
That persona was chosen because he says he was “fascinated by crusades when I was younger”.
“I think I watched Kingdom of Heaven one too many times,” he added.
Sigurd also had two brothers, like Farmer does, and was the “king of the isles” like Orkney and Shetland.
Another interesting historic aspect to Farmer’s stint as guizer jarl is his choice of galley name.
It has been named The Southern Raven after a whaling factory ship that his grandfather sailed on to South Georgia.
However it also has a second name – LCP (SY) 291 – another boat which his grandfather was on, and which had a big part to play in the D-Day landings in World War Two.
“He helped to survey the D-Day beaches before the landings,” Farmer said.
“He also led the first tanks onto the beaches of Normandy.
“I was able to go to Normandy with him in 2017 to see it before he died.”
Farmer said he was eager and excited to get to the Cunningsburgh Hall for breakfast this morning and to see his whole squad suited and ready to go.
“I’m looking forward to the procession and going to the schools – the schools is awesome,” he said.
“The bairns really put the adults to shame, they’re just made up to see you and it’s just incredible.”
Anything else Farmer is looking forward to about this huge weekend that he was waited years for?
“I’m looking forward to getting a haircut,” he told Shetland News.
“The beard is fine but the hair is awful. It’s terrible, I hate it.”
After an intense five months of suit making, the SMUHA festival leader thanked his entire squad “for all the work they have put in this year”.
“We’ve had really good turnouts every night, and they’ve all really thrown themselves in to every aspect of it,” he said.
“And they never complained – well not to me, anyway…”
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