The Ancestry of Grandad Lyall Compton Inkster
(1915-1995)
Lyall began taking Isabelle ballroom dancing at the Blue Lagoon on the pier, driving her there in his flash new car. The fine romancing between Lyall and Isabelle was interrupted by the outbreak of the second world war.
Lyall as a young boy in Grangemouth, Scotland
Shetland Island relatives would knit clothes for Lyall and his brothers and sisters, this being a skilled tradition for the Inkster and other islander women. Lyall particularly liked his six foot long scarf which they had sent him.
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Family memories tell of how the minister had to come to the wedding by boat, to perform the ceremony, after which the couple sat in bed, Helen with cake and George with wine, and as each family member walked by they were fed a piece of the cake and a taste of the wine.
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The people had Old Scandinavian peculiarities of character, feature and complexion, a powerful race with an active swinging walk, and though hardy and capable of physical endurance, were gentle of manner and in style of speech.
My Shetland Islanders are crofters of the old style of life, of ways very ancient. They lived practically, for self sufficiency required this in every area of life. The men died fishing at sea, in dangerous storms, and still their sons kept braving the waves. The women multi-tasked on the land and in the home, growing crops, carrying peat down from the hills, knitting clothes and raising many children. They sang and even spoke beautifully, having the loveliest accent in the whole of Scotland. These Shetlanders go back a long long way, of Inkster's marrying Inkster's, an old Viking ancestral name, and this island clan had for some time in their care a mysterious large engraved rock boulder, the origins of which had been forgotten, and which was called the Papil Pictish Stone. At some point far back, the family were intermarrying not only with their own clan but with the descendants of the Scottish Kings, of Stuarts and Sinclairs. King James V had many lovers and many children by them. It is from two of his illegitimate sons that my Shetlanders descend. They were tyrannical brothers, treating the islands of Orkney and Shetland as their kingdoms, their playground, where they took for lovers whatsoever girl they fancied.
Burra island beach landscape, at Banna Minn, over which looked the Inkster family croft
The Noble Lineage
I can imagine James playing on his lute songs for his beloved Euphemia, singing with his husky voice. He had an interest in collecting exotic animals, and interestingly an inclination to throw off his royal persona and entourage to go freely here and there disguised as an ordinary fellow called the Gudeman of Ballengeich.
Royal Mistresses and their bastard children
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The Papil stone was with my Inkster ancestors and all they could say of it was that it had originally come from the east
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SUSIE HARRISON----------JOANNA INKSTER----------LYALL INKSTER----------GEORGE INKSTER & HELEN INKSTER
I have never been to Shetland and really should one day. My grandfather talked in such detail of the life there, his fond memories bringing old crofting ways back to life. My name is Susie Harrison and through my grandfather Lyall I am a quarter Shetlander, and as my DNA has revealed, I am quite a lot Viking, more than most British are, and even more than most Scots are.