Cathedral nativity scene goes on display

The story of Christmas is lighting up a secluded corner of St Magnus Cathedral.

Commissioned by the congregation, the nativity scene has been created by folk from St Colms, part of Orkney Islands Council’s ‘Lifestyles’ day service for adults with learning disabilities – through an employability and social enterprise skills training course developed by the day service with Orkney College.

The students worked closely with Mark Scadding, art tutor at Orkney College, to come up with a design and to develop the display as a whole including lighting and signage.

Rev Fraser Macnaughton says it is a welcome addition to the cathedral, after it was highlighted to him last Christmas by a visitor to Orkney that the cathedral did not have a nativity scene.

He said: “So I put my thinking cap on, and got in touch with the folk at St Colms, to see what was possible. They were very much enthused by the idea of taking this on through their Social Enterprise Skills training with the college.

“Together, we decided upon the Paplay tomb, in the south aisle, as a location for the scene – the tomb is essentially a small cave-like recess in the cathedral wall, and a space we thought would work well as a lovely, quiet, reflective setting for a nativity scene.

“The team from St Colms then went away to develop the scene and I think they have done a fantastic job – they have made good use of the beauty and simplicity of the space, and given this age old story a contemporary twist through the materials.”

Alison Bews, senior lifestyles co-ordinator with the council, said: “We were just delighted to be approached by the congregation for this project.

“The students have got such a buzz seeing their work displayed in our much loved cathedral, and in the process have picked up some great skills and ideas about display and window dressing to bring back to our own social enterprise businesses run at St Colms.”

The Council’s Lifestyles service runs from two bases; one at a purpose-built area in the Pickaquoy centre, which focuses on enabling leisure, recreation, health and wellbeing, communication and community inclusion. The other base at St Colms works with service users on employability skills and social enterprise, operating four very busy social enterprise projects – St Colms Cards, Wood B Good, a nursery and bedding plant poly tunnel, and more recently a café on a Friday morning between 10 and 11am.

The nativity scene can be viewed in the south aisle of St Magnus Cathedral, until January 6.