A family’s desire to bring a ba’ home

Efforts are under way to bring a historic ba’ back to Orkney, as it goes up for auction.

The trophy from the 1907 Christmas Day Youth’s Ba’ was won by Uppie Pat Gunn.

Now up for sale with auction house Lyon & Turnbull, relatives of the winner are hoping to win the auction and donate the ba’ to the Royal British Legion in Kirkwall, where it will be put on display.

The current bid is £1,000, ahead of auction day which is set to be Wednesday, August 19.

Descendents of Pat, who was 17 years old when he won his ba’, have revealed their burning desire to win the auction and display the ba’, in the hope that like-minded Orcadians do not get caught up in a bidding war.

Pat was the great uncle of sisters Eileen Sclater, from Stenness, and Elizabeth Copp, who lives in Keith.

They are two of the four cousins hoping to have the ba’ bought and displayed in the Kirkwall Legion in honour of the Gunn family’s wartime service.

“We four cousins think this is an excellent idea, for members of the Gunn family were active in both world wars,” explained Elizabeth.

“Although Pat was in Canada when the First World War broke out, his sister Elizabeth — grandmother to the four cousins — nursed in France with the Red Cross in the First World War from October 1915 to January 1919, when she was demobbed.”

Three of Pat’s brothers fought in France, and younger sibling Marcus, an engineer, died when his ship was torpedoed in the Pacific during the Second World War.

The Gunn family served their country well, which is why the Legion would be the chosen home for Pat’s ba’, added Elizabeth, who also spoke of her fondness for her great uncle.

Pat emigrated to Canada not long after his victory and found employment with the Canadian Pacific Railway. He never married.

She said: “When I was a small child, I remember Pat coming home to Orkney on holiday to stay with my grandmother and filling our kitchen with his presence when he came to visit my mum and dad.

“He was a warm-hearted man with a big personality.

“On one occasion he spoke to The Orkney Herald in 1957 when he was home from Canada.

“He said that he hadn’t seen a ba’ since 1908, the year after he won this ba’.”

Back in 1907, the Ba’ didn’t receive the same amount of coverage in The Orcadian as it would come to in the years since.

A paragraph sums up some of main festive events in the town. The weather on Christmas Eve was reported to be fine. “The streets till a late hour presented a very animated appearance,” the newspaper reported.

Christmas Day, however, was cold and stormy with occasional slight showers of rain, with not many people about the town until the afternoon.

The Orcadian continued: “The younger portion of the town centred their attention on the ba’ playing, and of the three balls, the down-the-gates obtained one — that for the boys; and the up-the-gates two — those for lads’ and men.

“The best fight was witnessed at the boys’ ba’, the other two being won with comparative ease.”

Pat won the lads’ ba’, with the boys’ going to John Muir and the men’s to William Garrioch.

Now, 120 years on, Pat’s ba’ is up for grabs, with the estimated value of between £300 and £500 already being exceeded.

The ba’, made by John Costie and family, comes from the collection of John D. M. Robertson.

He authored The Kirkwall Ba’: Between the Water and the Wall, and won the trophy on New Year’s Day 1966. He was chairman of the Ba’ Committee for many years.