Celtic Roots and Viking Blood

Born a fair-skinned redhead in South Africa and raised in the African sun of Zimbabwe, I always felt out of place amongst my peers. My having red hair and freckles seemed to give a licence to all and sundry to tease and call me 'carrot top', 'rooi kop', 'ginger', 'freckle-face'. My closest childhood friend, Helen, had skin that loved the sun, and we always had to find a spot at the pool where she could lie on her towel in the sun while I lay covered by my towel in the shade, with a hat over my face.

Now that I am older, and live in Cornwall in the UK, I no longer need to hide from the sun, and I have come to look back fondly on that red-haired child, knowing that it was my Celtic roots and my Viking blood that made me stand out so. My father's family was from the Shetland Isles, and I doubt that there are few from that part of the world who do not have a good handful of Viking genes. My red-headed mother's family from the Pictish and Celtic Scottish Highlands almost certainly had a fair dollop of Viking genes too.

My grandparents on both sides had emigrated in the 1920's in one of the great Scottish diasporas, heading off in ships like my Viking forebears with pockets full of hope and little else other than a desire to find a better life. I was raised in the sun on oatmeal porridge, pancakes, girdle scones and Scots broth and a familiarity with the accents of my grandparents. I was their 'bonnie wee bairn' when I was good, told to 'dinna fash yersel' if I was upset or to 'wheesht' if I was crying. I was unaware that many of the funny words of my grandparents hailed from the Old Norse of their Viking forebears.

Many years ago I moved back from Africa to live in the UK, retracing by air the journey that they had taken by boat sixty years earlier. How far it must have seemed to them, sailing all the way to Cape Town from Aberdeen, into the unknown. They remained in South Africa for the rest of their lives, and I believe I was the first of that branch of the family to return to live in the UK. Now, as I myself grow old, I find myself deeply interested in my genetic past, and especially in my Shetland roots and Viking background.