When I first came across this image I got very excited, thinking that it might be a picture of my great-great-grandmother Janet Linklater née Irvine seated at centre but it pretty soon became clear that it could not be. There were, and remain a lot of unanswered questions about my great-great-grandmother, Janet Irvine. The date in the caption is probably correct so the woman cannot reasonably be supposed to have been my great-great-grandmother who would have been 74 in 1900. The photographer, Robertson, only moved to West Mainland in the 1890s [New Orkney Antiquarian Journal v, 19, 2011] so it is unlikely the photograph was taken much earlier unless he had made previous trips to the area, which of course he might well have. Were it Janet, the young man standing at left in the image could have been her grandson David Wishart, who was her post runner and lived in the same house for a number of years, but that was more wishful thinking! But if the woman shown is not Janet Linklater, who could it have been?

The answer is to be found in a booklet by Arthur Hourie called ‘A Labour of Love; working on the land’ which I think he published himself in about 2008. The image above appears on page 1 of his booklet with these remarks.
I was born at Mount Pleasant in the parish of Sandwick on 12th September, 1925. The house was better known as the Post Office, and my mother was the postmistress there for thirty years. She was Margaret Allan, born in 1886 at Aith, Sandwick, and who died at Heathfield in 1954, aged 68. The ‘telegraph boy’ standing at left was known as ‘Boozie’; the author never knew ‘Boozie's’ proper name, but the rest of the information tallies with census and other data cited below. [Note to myself: Margaret Wishart 1857-1920 married David Allan 1841-1925 who died at Mount Pleasant (St Peters 1F68). JI]

Let’s start with the bricks and mortar. The exact location and identity of the building in the image are not clear. It is possible that the sign read “(some other place), Sandwick. Post. Office.” [The punctuation was the sign-writer’s, not mine.] Sandwick is quite a large parish – see map elsewhere. At various times it has had more than one post office. From census data the only real contender for the above building seems to be in the township of Aith (or Aithstown); ‘Aith P.O.’ and ‘Sandwick P.O.’ probably referring to one and the same property. These are the properties recorded as actual post offices in Sandwick census data from 1891-1911 and those whose occupants were post office workers;

	SANDWICK 1891
1/50	Stove P.O.,	Jemima Kirkness, head, S, 52, Post Mistress
2/47	Smithfield Inn,	John Spence, head, M, 36, Postmaster
3/16	Sandwick P.O.,	Jannet Linklater, head, W, 65, Postmistress
	SANDWICK 1901
1/25	Iverach,	Jane Harvey, daughter, S, 30, Post runner
1/78	Quoyloo P.O.,	Jemima Kirkness, head, S, 62, Post Mistress
2/52	Smithfield Inn,	Williamina McKay, sister-in-law, S, 32, Post Mistress
3/16	Aith P.O.,	Janet Linklater, head, W, 75, Post Mistress and
		David Wishart, grandson, S, 17, Post Runner
3/42	Doehouse,	John Merriman, visitor, S, 32, Sorting clerk, postal service
4/39	Croval,	David Brown, head, M, 44, Farmer & post runner
	SANDWICK 1911
1/34	Quoyloo P.O.,	Jemima Moar, head, M, 38, Sub PostMistress, Post Office
1/49	Esco,	William S. Moar, head, M, 36, Auxiallry Postman, Post Office
2/48	Post Office House,	Wilhemina McKay, head, S, 39, Postmistress
3/23	Mount Pleasant,	Margaret Allan, daughter, S, 25, P. O. Assistant, At Home and
		John Allan, son, S, 23, Postman and
		Robert Allan, son, S, 20 Postman

Map references for properties identified above as Post Offices or having Post Masters or Post Mistresses resident are as follows;

• Aith / Sandwick: 249 178
• Croval: 246 170
• Esco: 249 210 [?]
• Iverach: 245 211 [?]
• Mount Pleasant: 25? 15? [south-east of Aith]
• Stove: 247 207
• Smithfield: 294 208
• Quoyloo: 247 207

Janet Irvine was born the 19th August 1825 and her birth recorded as above. Her's was the fourth of six births recorded on that particular page of the parish baptismal register. The entries follow a set pattern; name of child, date of birth, “lawful son or daughter to” name of father, name of mother, residents of, and all bar one baptized on such and such a date, by the Revd. Mr Charles Clouston.

However, as will be seen from the image, Janet’s introduction was not smooth. Hailed initially as “Lawful” that word is crossed out [could one add “furiously”?] and the word “natural” written above. It could have been worse; the term ‘bastardus’ was precisely defined for Scottish lawyers by John Skene at the end of the sixteenth century as; “Ane bairne vnlauchfully gotten outwith the bande of mariage”. (‘De Verborum Significatione’) So flustered by this was the Revd. Mr Charles Clouston, or whoever was recording the happy event, that the mother’s name, Catherine Johnston, was initially inscribed before that of the father, James Irvine. But that would never do; so Catherine was scratched out and put in her proper place behind James Irvine, having already spent too much time, presumably, in front of him. Thus was Janet introduced to Christian charity, with the promise, on the one hand, of eternal salvation for herself with everlasting torment for her parents for the sin of fornication, but on the other hand, by recording the sins of the father and mother Janet was branded for life and carried the stain even to her grave, her illegitimacy being noted on her death certificate.

Further flustery may also be in evidence. The first year recorded at the head of the page is September 20th 1826 succeeded by births on September 22nd 1826 and September 25th 1826 then under Janet’s birth is recorded as ocurring on August 19th 1825 after which two more births are recorded on September 20th 1826 and October 12th 1826 the exact date of which appears to have been corrected from the 15th. Was 1825 an error caused by the recorder being distracted at having to enter a birth from the preceeding month? or was it, even worse, an event that had ocurred more than a year previously? If Janet was really born in 1825, her birth may have been ‘concealed’ for some reason. There is some confirmation 1825 was the actual year of her birth from her death certificate, which states that when she died on September 17th 1902 she was 77.