Mabel Besant, nee Willey, was born and bought up in Lyness. As a young girl she played in the post war camp and loved the days when she could go and dip the oil tanks with her dad. In this episode Mabel recalls life and living in around the naval base at Lyness.

Voices from Scapa Flow is funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, thanks to National Lottery players.

It is delivered in partnership with The Space and Museums and Heritage Highland.

Voices from Scapa Flow was produced by Adventurous Audio

Voices of Scapa Flow © 2026 by Scapa Flow Museum is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Find out more about Scapa Flow Museum and our collections

John Cload was in his late teens when the 2nd world war began and here, in this interview from the archives, John shares his memories of the impact of the war on the activities of the ships and boats that came to Scapa Flow and the pollution that happened as a result of ships being sunk there

Voices from Scapa Flow is funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, thanks to National Lottery players.

It is delivered in partnership with The Space and Museums and Heritage Highland.

Voices from Scapa Flow was produced by Adventurous Audio

Archive licenced by Historic Environment Scotland © Crown Copyright: HES

Find out more about Scapa Flow Museum and our collections

Pat Long shares a treasure trove of stories from World War II including the weekly “4 penny bash” in Stromness to treat the local troops to a wealth of home baking.

Voices from Scapa Flow is funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, thanks to National Lottery players.

It is delivered in partnership with The Space and Museums and Heritage Highland.

Voices from Scapa Flow was produced by Adventurous Audio

Voices of Scapa Flow © 2026 by Scapa Flow Museum is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Find out more about Scapa Flow Museum and our collections