Shetlanders plan to meet again in N.Z.

Press, 16 May 1985, Page 18

Shetlanders plan to meet again in N.Z.

NZPA staff correspondent London Bleary-eyed Shetland Islanders plan to repeat their recent big reunion ... in New Zealand in two years.

More than 500 people kicked up their heels at the hamefarin’ on the isles north of Scotland. About 100 of them were New Zealanders — the largest group there — and they created much interest in their own country, a Shetlands Tourist Board spokesman told NZPA. “So the next reunion will be in New Zealand (at various venues) in 1987.”

Many Shetland Islanders have settled in Wellington,

in New Plymouth, or in the south of the South Island, apparently attracted to New Zealand by similarities to their homeland. During the revelry, concerts, displays and church services at the second hamefarin’ in 25 years, a group of New Zealanders presented a model of a Maori canoe to the islanders. New Zealand-born Stewart Irvine, who lives in Seattle, United States, and his mother, Thelma, of Auckland, were the only people to attend both this year’s and the 1960 reunion. Orrel and John Mclntyre, of New Plymouth, also were there. Orrel Mclntyre’s

great-grandfather emigrated from the Shetlands to New Plymouth, and the family had farmed in Taranaki for five generations. Seventeen of the Shetland Islands are inhabited. The population is about 23,000. Fishing has declined as a main inoustry, but the discovery of North Sea oil made Sullom Boe the biggest oil terminal in Europe, says the tourist board. The oil has meant new roads and communications, and the islands are now serviced by several flights a day instead of only a 12hour boat voyage from Aberdeen.