The Orkney News would be a much poorer publication without the contributors who share their writing, views and images with us.

Bernie Bell has contributed a wide variety of excellent articles which you can check out in our archives: walks with stories, poems, travels, reviews of exhibitions and random thoughts.

So we thought you might like to know a little bit more about this most prolific of writers.

Bernie Bell

The story goes , that Bernie Bell’s Dad, won her in a game of cards. He won some strange things in card games, including a grave plot in Tong Cemetery, in Yorkshire, which is presumably still sitting there, vacant, as he is buried in Ireland.

Back to Bernie’s bio……………the tale is, that she was covered in fur and had a tail, and it was only changing her diet from whisky to milk, that made her lose her fur, and tail, and become a little girl.  After becoming human, she never looked back – well, sometimes she does – fur and a tail, can be an appealing thought, sometimes.

She grew up in Yorkshire, until she left home at 19 to go to University in Wales, where she stayed until 1990, when she moved to Gloucestershire. Then, about 10 years later, to Suffolk, then, hurrah! to Orkney, where she’s been for the last 11 years, and hopes to stay, until she passes from this life.

She often feels that she still hasn’t managed to become quite human, and finds the whole business of human life, very confusing at times.

Here she is, being a Court Jester, or, as friend Pam said – a wise fool!