We've never been this far north before.

We're in Kirkwall, the main town of the main island of Orkney, the archipelago off the northern coast of Scotland.

It's the end of May, and at this time of year the days last forever.

Last night there was a spectacular sunset at about 11pm, casting a rosy glow over the boats riding at anchor in the harbour.

These islands are steeped in deep history and folklore,

a perfect place to meet today's Foconfort guest.

The And we're in Orpne, to meet the tall, dark, bearded figure of Chris Drever, the guitarist,

singer and songwriter who was born and brought up here.

He was the 2017 Radio 2 folk singer of the year, and his band Lough have won the best group award, no less than four times.

So we've come down to the harbour to meet Chris. Chris, it's fantastic that you've agreed to do the podcast. I'm delighted and well done for making it all the way up here. Oh, it's a joy. It's a joy. And we're in the harbour and we can hear a ship behind us. What's that ship doing? That's the Varigan. That's one of the North Isles Ferries. So Arkney's an archipelago. That ship takes the people who live on the outer aisles to the north of here. There are 70 islands on there. There's a lot of islands, yeah, and there's a good lot inhabited to. My dad wrote a tune about that boat, actually. Right. And your dad, of course, is a well-known singer and musician himself. So it runs in the family. It's a family business. And you grew up here in Kurt Wall, did you? I did. Yes, I'm a Kirkwall boy. But you live in Shetland. My wife's from Shetland. And I've had two Shetlandic children. So have you just come back here for Oz? No, I've got a three and a half year old boy called Soren and a ten-week-old girl called Marnie. And Marnie has never been to Orkney before, so she's meeting all my Orkney family for the first time. Including your mum. That's right. She'll be excited. Delighted. Oh my goodness. She couldn't have got me out the door fast enough. And what about the history of a place like this? because it's absolutely steeped in history, isn't it? I mean, you go back to prehistoric times at Scarabray here. I think Europe's most well-preserved prehistoric village. Yeah, it's one of the oldest things anywhere. 4,000 or 5,000 BC, something like that. Nearly every time they pop the top off another mound, they find an ancient cathedral.

And there are standing stones,

and there's evidence of the Viking involvement.

The Vikings looted a lot of the older things.

So Mays Howe is a cairn that they have halfway between here and strongness.

It's one of these places that lines up with the sun and the moon and solstices and all that sort of things. But at one time it would have been loaded with treasure. But all there is there now is Viking graffiti. It's empty, save for Sigurd Haraldsons. Was here. The biggest axe in the Southland or something like that. I think that's nearly verbatim a bit of that graffiti. I think if we go for a walk round here, we'll encounter more of the history, won't we?

Sure. We'll encounter maybe some of your history.

Yeah, lovely. Lovely. Okay, let's go.

So, Chris, we've walked through the town now, and we're outside a building that says archive coffee

and it's an old library isn't it? Yes it's a nice coffee shop stroke record shop stroke toy shop now

but it was the Orkney library and archive when I was grown up and actually my dad found the words

to the Vikings bride here

part of this process for quite a few of the things he wrote and was put in older words to music

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