Italian Chapel

Excuse me, do you have a small Highland cow and a cat flying with you by any chance? I knew it.

The Italian Chapel, built by Italian prisoners of war in the Second World War out of whatever came to hand.

No, I'm not going in because that would spoil the surprise.

You'll just have to come and visit yourself.

Take Scupper Flow, where German crews scuttled their fleet to prevent the Allies from capturing it, a dramatic act of self-destruction that echoed for decades.

Then we have the Orkney Italian Chapel, prisoners turning Nissen huts into a cathedral in secrecy, illustrating ingenuity born under restraint.

The evacuation of St Kilda is a stark reminder that war pressures extended even to remote communities.

Residents voluntarily surrendered their ancestral island because survival became impossible.

And also what I found really interesting about showing you my island, as I like to think of it, was your reaction to some of the things that we saw and unexpected reactions.

So I think you know what I'm thinking of is that you were looking for stones, but you actually found a very moving experience, didn't you, in the Italian Chapel? Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

In fact, there was something on TV a couple of months ago about it was a couple who do wild swimming all over the country.

and they visited Orkney and as part of the programme they went into the Italian Chapel.

And they ended up going back and renewing their wedding vows in the Italian chapel.

And I sat and sobbed through their vows again, not because they were renewing the vows, but just because they were having that moment in the chapel.

That's one of the most beautiful, beautiful places I've ever been to, not just in an aesthetic way, dare I use the word spiritual way as well.