Shetland with Laurie Podcast Laurie Goodlad

If I had a penny for every time I was asked about winter in Shetland, I’d be a millionaire – and then some – and there are many reasons to visit, but you need to ask yourself first ‘what do I want from a visit’. 

If the answer is puffins, light, activities, and long hikes with a picnic, you’ll likely want to visit in summer when the days are long, and the hills are dry enough to walk anywhere. If you’d like to feel the sting of the wind on your cheeks and the raw power of mother nature as you battle through the wind on a rugged headland before hunkering down in the evening with a good book and a dram, then you should consider the winter.

It’s no secret that winters in Shetland are long, dark and unrelenting. Many people move to Shetland believing they can handle it – they get darkness and poor weather in England too. Yet the darkness here is deeper, the wind blows stronger, the cold bites harder, and we’re not released from the grip of winter until well through spring. They say that spring arrives at a walking pace – so you can imagine how long it takes to trudge up here from London. It’s the unrelenting and often persistent onslaught of storm after storm that grinds people down – leaving us all longing for the bright emergence of spring.

But winter has a magic and beauty all of its own. I’m just home from a winter walk; I watched the sunrise over the island of Bressay and, despite having been back at my desk for half an hour, can still feel the sting of the north wind in my cheeks. I feel invigorated and energised.

In this podcast, I will go slightly against the grain, and I’m sure that doesn’t surprise you. I’ll offer you the reasons to visit Shetland in winter, along with the counter-argument against visiting at this time. Then, once you’ve been informed, and if you’re still chomping at the bit to come here in the quiet depths of winter, you’ll know that you’re well prepared for it.


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Hallowe’en is almost upon us, and it's that time of the year when the veil between this world and the next is at its thinnest, and we can expect to experience the most paranormal activity. Shetland had its own unique blend of hallowe'en tradition influenced by Christianity, with its roots firmly placed in old pagan customs.We might dismiss Halloween as a purely American import into Shetland, and the UK more generally, but Shetland did have its own version of Halloween in centuries past.To give a little context, I’ll draw you back to the 19th century, to a time where most people lived in crofts – or smallholdings – and lived a subsistence way of life, depending on the sea and the land around them to survive.

This time of year, as autumn transitions into winter, was one where people might finally be able to let out a collective sigh of relief as the hard work of summer had come to an end once more. The crops were harvested and the summer fishery ended. This was a time that people might expect to relax a little as the nights began to draw in and winter crept ever closer.Samhuinn, held on 1 November, was traditionally a Pagan festival that morphed into the festival of Hallowmas as Christianity was adopted, and our traditional Pagan celebrations were given an ‘accepted’ Christian flavour – whilst still retaining many of their conventional Pagan customs. Hallowmas, or The Feast of All Saints, gives us the roots of the Halloween that we know today.This week, I thought I would share a few ghost stories with you; so draw up a chair, dim the lights and pull a blanket around your shoulders because things might get a little spooky.

Welcome to episode 21 of the podcast - this week’s show is with Ann Marie Anderson, author of the popular dialect children's book series, Peerie Ooricks.

Ann Marie grew up on the west side of Shetland, and now lives on the island of Whalsay. She is a writer and artist who has created the lovable Ooricks – small characters who explore Shetland’s landscape, language and culture.

In today’s show, we speak about her series of children’s books, her love of the language and Shetland’s culture and the ways we can help to preserve and maintain the spoken language in Shetland.

We also speak about her work as joint convener with Shetland ForWirds, an organisation that aims to foster and promote the use of written and spoken Shetland dialect as a valued and essential element of Shetland’s distinctive heritage and culture.

You can sign up to become a member of Shetland ForWirds or access a wealth of dialect resources via their website.

Ann Marie’s work is available via her website or you can contact her on Instagram @peerie_oorick or at peerieoorickbooks@gmail.com.

This is the last episode of Season Two and I will be back in the autumn after the migratory birds depart for the summer!

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Welcome to episode 20 of the podcast. Today’s show is a bit different, and due to popular demand, we are carrying out this interview, predominantly on language, in our native tongue.

In today’s show, I speak to Chloe Irvine who grew up on the island of Whalsay and has just completed her degree in Journalism at Edinburgh Napier University. Chloe talks to us about the transition between living in Shetland and studying on the mainland (Scotland), and how she has had to deal with varying degrees of language discrimination during this time.

We speak about ways that we can protect and promote the dialect and its usage, and Chloe shares a poem in the dialect that she wrote to tackle and highlight some of the feelings that are brought to the surface when language discrimination takes place.

I’ve left a disclaimer at the beginning of the show to say that, as this is in dialect, it may be difficult to understand but, we felt that it was important for you to hear the language spoken to get a sense of how it sounds when it’s spoken amongst Shetlanders.

If you struggle to understand, play it back from the start and you’ll be surprised how quickly your ear can tune into the language.

Hello and welcome to episode 19 of the podcast. Today we have a very special guest and a fascinating topic to explore. Today I welcome Bill Moore, a local historian, to speak to us about the history of the Shetland Bus which was an undercover operation between Shetland and Nazi-occupied Norway during the Second World War. It’s a fascinating episode and I really enjoyed taking a deeper look into this period of our history with Bill.

On the show, we discuss many elements of the operation, including its roots and some of the early missions that took place. We look at the locations that were used locally and a few of the men who were key figures in the resistance movement.

The early days of the operation saw equal amounts of tragedy and success, and we speak about some of the harrowing stories from a few of these risky missions, including the story of the Blia, Axel and Bergholm.

In 1943 the operation changed with the arrival of three sub-chasers, gifted from the United States. We talk about how this changed the operation and how, today, we still remember the events of the Shetland Bus at the Scalloway Museum.

In today’s show, I talk about a few of my favourite walks in Shetland.

I begin by talking about the Eshaness Circular that sits in the northwest corner of Shetland and represents the best section through the flank of a volcano in the UK. It boasts the UK’s largest sea cave and some impressive coastal features, and 2,000-year-old archaeology.

I then consider walking some of Shetland’s National Nature Reserves, and, in this, I include the National Reserves of Hermaness, Noss and Sumburgh Head.

Finally, I share a few of my favourite walks for archaeology. I look at Mousa Broch, Culswick Broch and, lastly, the Neolithic temple at Stanydale.

All this and more in today’s show!

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