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Episode 17: May12, 2025 - full "flower" moon: friends and colleagues, Tom Muir and Ellen (Baikie) Pesci, have a fascinating blether about Ellen's father, Orcadian artist and professional musician Jim Baikie.

The Jim Baikie exhibition is showing at the Orkney Museum in Kirkwall from May-September, 2025.

Help preserve Orkney's stories by joining our Tales in the Landscape Crowdfunder: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/tales-in-the-landscape

Tonight we have a visitor! Ellen Pesci, Orkney lass and Social History Curator at the Orkney Museum, talks with Tom Muir about the life of her father, the celebrated comic book artist and all-around good guy, Jim Baikie.

Among other things, you'll hear about:

• Jim's early years: the war years in Orkney
• The post-war landscape, and how it garnered inspiration and adventure for the bairns
• Jim Baikie's The Dome painting (on display at Lyness' Scapa Flow Museum) and what it represented to Jim
• "The phony war" as experienced from London, contrasted with what was happening in Orkney at that time
• What washed up on the shores of Hoy that changed the course of Jim Baikie's life?
• Where do science and art meet?
• How poor families in Orkney used to be discouraged from attending art college, and how Jim Baikie overcame that early evil
• The "jaw harp" and getting started in the music scene
• Jim meets Wendy: "sex on legs!"
• Bonus: Ellen shares a genuine 1970s recipe for Potato Jane!
• The modern disturbing fashion for changing history
• Jim and Wendy's early married life; the Cyprus and London years
• "Ready, Steady, Win!" and running from screaming teenagers
• Jim's musical life, the opportunities he had and the folk he met: Eric Clapton, Screaming Lord Sutch, Brian Jones, John Ford, Jimmy Hendrix, The Eagles, The Kinks, Deep Purple, Spike Milligan, Santana, Jack Bruce ...
• The Baikies return to Orkney
• Jim's father, and his strong link with Hoy and the Scapa Flow Museum
• Jim's avant garde idea (at the time) of remote working
• Comic book art at last: doing what he loved and being able to feed his family
• The wisdom to know the life that will make you happy
• The full family circle at the Scapa Flow Museum, Hoy

Links:

An article that Tom wrote for an earlier Jim Baikie exhibition, with photos can be found here: https://www.orkneymuseums.co.uk/orkney-artist-jim-baikie/

The Jim Baikie Facebook page, tended by his family: https://www.facebook.com/taucetiorkney

Show notes: https://www.orkneyology.com/orkneyology-podcast-show-notes.html#episode17

Orkneyology Press books: https://shop.orkneyology.com/collections/orkneyology-press-books/books

Orkneyology on Youtube: (Tom's Orkney stories collections) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b54G57-vLc&list=PLzYF_h_h5O1GsxP7DuhKGKQ8oEfSp-Axz

Tales in the Landscape Crowdfunder: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/tales-in-the-landscape

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