[Note: With apologies to all, especially Lucy Gibbon, for not uploading this in August, here is the August AOTM.  ]

"While recently clearing out a cupboard where we have been storing uncatalogued maps and plans, I found a plan of Hatston which you may not have seen before and could prove useful to any future projects regarding the area.

It is a plan of Hatston R.N. Air Station or HMS Sparrowhawk, was printed in August of 1943 and is labeled as Admiralty Drg No. 3671/43. It clearly shows the layout of the camp, station and runways. All the areas and buildings are marked with a number and the corresponding functions are listed in a key down the left hand side. I enclose a few scans of sections of the plan and the key to illustrate this. However to fully appreciate it, I think it would be better to come in and see the whole thing. The Orkney Archive reference number is D1/1085[H7].

Other items we have for Hatston include interviews in the Orkney Sound Archive with people who were stationed there, e.g. Hank Rotherham, Ralph Faulkner, Alan Rosie and Richard Stark; written recollections by Captain Burnett; copies of maps, plans and photographs in the Gregor Lamb Collection and programmes for the many theatrical productions put together by Donald Hewlett at the Hatston Empire.

Lucy Gibbon
Assistant Archivist
30/07/2010"