Orkney Veterans’ Breakfast Club – Saturday, 25th May 2024
By Simon Brodie
The Albert Hotel was the May venue for the Orkney Veterans’ Breakfast Club (OVBC) for a fry-up and chat, something that local veterans have been doing since January 2017. The OVBC has been going from strength to strength for the last 7.5 years, with 28 members sitting down for breakfast this month. The food at The Albert Hotel was excellent and the staff were wonderfully attentive.
This month we have been chatting to ex-Royal Navy veteran, pirate expert, and prolific local author and historian Angus Konstam. He joined the Royal Navy at 18, as a naval university cadet.
After officer training at Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth he studied history and archaeology at Aberdeen University. Whilst there, he was attached to the Aberdeen University Naval Unit, and served in HMS Thornham, a wooden-hulled inshore minesweeper. Strangely, the ageing little ship broke down most often on the days when Aberdeen FC were playing at home. This was, as Angus put it, “the glory days under Alex Ferguson”.
After university, Angus served aboard HMS Orkney, a fisheries protection vessel. “I learned more about seamanship than on any other ship I served on, and saw most of Britain’s coastal waters and ports, good and bad.” During the Falklands War in 1982, rather than being sent to the South Atlantic, Angus served as a seaman officer and navigator aboard the re-commissioned frigate HMS Falmouth, which spent six months in the Caribbean. Fortunately for him, it went to many places which would later feature in his writing about pirates.
On leaving the Royal Navy, Angus studied maritime history in St. Andrews then took up a two-week job as a maritime archologist working for the Royal Armouries at the Tower of London. He ended up working there for a decade, as a museum curator and specialist in weapons. When the Royal Armouries moved to Leeds in 1995, Angus headed off to Key West in Florida instead, and spent six years curating a maritime museum there.
Angus eventually returned to Orkney in 2001. Having written a few history books while in America, he became a freelance author and historian, specialising in maritime history. He now has over a hundred books in print, is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and one of the world’s leading authorities on piracy and British naval history. His latest book, which has just been published, is The Pirate Menace; Uncovering the Golden Age of Piracy. Dan Snow said; “Angus Konstam is one of the best out there”.
Angus is a regular of the OVBC. “I was encouraged to go along by some fellow Royal Naval Association members, and I’ve found it to be a very sociable gathering, with a really friendly group of people from a range of service backgrounds.”
The OVBC meets at various locations on the last Saturday of the month and is open to veterans and serving members of any armed forces, and their immediate families. Breakfasts run from 0930 to 1100; there’s no paperwork and no fees, you just turn up on the day and pay for your breakfast.
If you’re the owner or manager of a local establishment that might be able to host a breakfast, the group wants to hear from you as they are looking to support more businesses across the islands.
For more details please visit the group’s Facebook page, or contact Simon on 07909 640884 or email: orkneyveteransbreakfastclub@outlook.com.
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