“It’s the end of winter, we can look forward” was the message from one Shetlander who has been enjoying Up Helly Aa for 60 years.
71-year-old Rhoda Watt, who was brought up in Yell – part of Shetland’s North Isles – made the comments as the famous fire festival gets ready for tonight’s celebrations.
This year’s Viking galley, which will be burned in Lerwick later on, was revealed to the public for the first time this morning.
Sounds of Vikings could be heard throughout the town’s streets as the Jarl Squad marched through the streets, which will culminate in the famous procession at 7.30pm.
The junior Jarl Squad and pipe band were also involved.
The Viking roar from the participants and “Scotland the Brave” being played on the pipes brought together Shetland’s unique Norse and Scottish cultures.
Enthusiastically watching and cheering outside their home on King Harald Street – the street where the boat will be burned – was Rhoda and her 71-year-old husband John, who is a native of Lerwick.
Other than Rhoda’s brief spell away for university, the pair have lived in Shetland all of their lives.
Being avid fans of he fire festival the couple have plenty of stories to tell about Up Helly Aa from years gone by.
Although other islands have their own version of the event, including Yell, there are none more famous that Lerwick’s, in which people travel from all across the world to witness.
As a child growing up on Yell, Rhoda never went to her home island’s one, held at Cullivoe. She first witnessed it when she started secondary school in the island capital.
She describes seeing it for the first time as “breathtaking”.
John first got actively involved in Up Helly Aa at the age of around 13 or 14, when he became a fiddlebox carrier, whose role it is to help round up Jarl Squad members and lead them to the next hall for the private parties, of which there will be 11 this year.
“That was quite an experience for a young boy for the first time,” he reminisces, adding: “It was a sense of community with the squad, everybody was very close and when you’re making things everybody joined in and helped.”
Things have gone “full circle” for the Watts, as their 14-year-old grandson Frankie – who was part of the junior Jarl Squad last year – is a fiddlebox carrier for this year’s festival.
Involved in squads until he was 50, John has many memories of the acts, which he said can be “funny” and “intriguing”, that squads do to keep hall guests entertained.
“And then there’s some that just sing,” his wife pipes in.
And it is singing that John remembers, as he and his squad had a shock to their routine when they put on hats to compliment their outfits.
‘The dancing went to pot’
“When we were practicing, we had this dance to the music, so we followed these steps and unbeknown to us on Up Helly Aa night, when you got your head on, you couldn’t hear the music, so the dancing went to pot.”
Rhoda, who was involved in hosting hall parties at NorthLink’s Lerwick Ferry Terminal for “about 10 years” – where the whole Monday night before Up Helly Aa involved making sandwiches and soup – said she is “not telling some of them”.
However, she remembers a funny story about John, saying: “I remember one year he was out and he had tights on and I remember when he came home, he said, ‘I am never again wearing a pair of tights, they’re not for men’.”
In the past, Rhoda’s brother would come down from Yell and he and her husband would not return home until about 8am or 9am the next morning, where they would eat a full breakfast to try and recover from the party.
For this year’s event, being led by Guizer Jarl Calum Grains, they will be watching it from the comfort of the upstairs of their home, where they will have one of the best views of it in Lerwick.
Oh, and they will also be answering the door to tourists asking to use their bathroom.
Conversation