Group behind memorial restoration up for ‘Heritage Angel’ award

The people behind the restoration of the Kitchener Memorial, in Birsay, are in the shortlist for the second annual Scottish Heritage Angel Awards.

Now in its second year, the awards, which welcomed over 50 nominations for heritage volunteers across the country, recognise and celebrate the efforts of volunteers in helping to better understand, protect and value Scotland’s heritage and history at an awards ceremony next month.

Neil Kermode and the Orkney Heritage Society Kitchener Memorial Working Group are in the Caring and Protecting award category.

They not only oversaw the renovation of the memorial, erected to mark the loss of HMS Hampshire in June 1916, and the loss of Lord Kitchener, but added a metre-high wall, bearing the names of the 735 other men who died when the battleship struck a mine off Birsay.

The award ceremony will take place in Edinburgh on Tuesday, October 18.