Bolsters Blocks Barriers

... The library archives in Kirkwall were able to acquire well over a hundred large photographs showing all the stages of the building of the Churchill Barriers. These photographs belonged to the collection of G Gordon Nicol, the Resident Superintending Civil Engineer on the project for most of the time. Accompanying the photographs were a series of lecture notes on the barrier construction. After the war Mr Nicol had obviously been asked by various groups to talk about his experiences in Orkney and had kept his notes, written in non technical language, along with the photographs.

This book is a compilation of over sixty of these photographs, showing, in order, how the barriers were constructed. The first explanatory chapter is based almost entirely on the information contained in Mr Nicol's lecture notes, while the latter two chapters contain local folk's recollections of that time and memories from some of the Italian ex POWs who made a return to Orkney in June 1992.