Faith in humanity restored (David and Linda Wood)

Uncertainty surrounds the future of Bressay's Maryfield Hotel. Photo: Mary Berry

Following the recent well-publicised debacle that has been Maryfield House, we would like to take this opportunity to publicly offer some sincere thank yous.

We have been overwhelmed by the sheer number of messages of support and encouragement we have received. These have come not only from the residents of Bressay, but from all over Shetland and further afield. Not only have we been contacted by friends but by customers and guests we have known in the 26 years we owned and operated the business.

Having taken a severe knock to our planned gentle step into retirement, we had become disillusioned and cynical towards the human race. Not any more!

On Monday evening of this week a small number of friends had offered to help us clean the building to try and bring it to an acceptable standard. What happened next astounded us.

Word had spread of what was happening and it turned into a major event.

At one stage there were at least 27 people in the building. All washing, dusting, polishing and hoovering.

We would like to offer our sincere and heartfelt thanks to all of those who turned up to help in any way, especially those who incurred the cost of ferry travel from Lerwick. We do not wish to embarrass anybody by listing individual names, but would like to mention the young men of the Bressay football team who turned up to help. I’m quite sure that some mothers would have been astonished to see them washing down walls and scrubbing tables etc.

Our faith in human nature has been totally restored by these action and particularly by the kindness of the residents of Bressay without exception.

It goes to demonstrate that there is more good in the world than generally thought.

Finally we would like to assure everyone that we are doing all we can to have the lights on and the doors open as soon as possible.

David and Linda Wood

Springbank,

Bressay.