Vignettes
Stories from schoolmates who attended Morgan Academy, Dundee, Scotland (Secondary) 1948-55 – tales from school,
and from life-after-school.
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One of life's pleasures is getting together with old school friends over a meal to reminisce about the old days, and to catch up on our lives-after-school. Since we're spread all over the world now, it's not so easy to get together – this is an attempt to create a poor substitute by publishing some of the stories we might tell.

Notes for New Readers:
1. New contributions are always at the top – you may want to start at the bottom, since a few of the more recent tales refer to earlier ones.
2. A reminder to rest your cursor over photographs – it may show a title. If the cursor changes to a hand it's inviting you to click for further information.

We now have 493 anecdotes from 34 contributors.
Live Ammo for All
Gordon Findlay
That bandolier of live ammunition...! I have to be honest. As soon as we got back to our billet, each of us opened up ours and took out a few clips of that .303 ammunition, just to look at and admire it. The sleek,
shining brass and the copper-jacketed bullet snug in the top. These weren’t the crimped-off training cartridges we’d been issued on training exercise. No – these were the real thing, and each of us had a bandolier stuffed with them. Real bullets. That could kill people.

And just as soon, we each filled our rifle magazine with five .303s, seeing how snugly they clipped down against the spring, how deadly they looked in there. There was something weird, something basic and cruel about all of us, sitting there fondling these rounds of shiny ammunition, wondering how it would sound if we had to fire it, trying to
remember the sound of the bullets overhead at the firing range, the whipping crack of them as they flew over our heads. Were we going to be hearing that?

Again, I have to be honest. Secretly we all lusted to be given a chance to fire our weapons in warfare. Of course, we had no real idea of the agony and misery of war – we thought we were pretty special, well-trained, fit and ready to go. I can remember there were the usual bloodthirsty yells around our billet. “We’re going to hammer those wogs!” Silly stuff like that.

Next morning, new Daily Orders. The battalion was to assemble in the parade square at 0900 in battle dress and No. 1 pack only (that’s the lightest field pack you can go out into the field with). It comprises one spare shirt, one change of underclothes, spare socks, shaving gear, knife/fork/spoon and the like, plus our personal weapon, plus one filled water bottle together with a field dressing.

Wheels 2
Hugh McGrory
I seem to have gotten my wheels stuck in a rut after my last story, in that, having exhausted my pedal-powered-vehicle memories, my thoughts turned to the various cars I’ve had. I should say that I’ve never been a real car enthusiast, seeing them as more of a box on wheels that gets me from A to B – so don’t expect this tale to be very technical…

Actually, my transition to cars after my faithful Hercules bicycle was by way of the two motorbikes I had while at university – my Excelsior Roadmaster, followed by my Triumph Terrier. I had them through my


university days and loved them both. I sold the Terrier when I moved to London to work and was ‘wheel-less’ for a couple of years.

When I left the world of engineering consulting (in an office, designing structures), I joined the engineering contracting universe in Dundee (out in the field, building structures). My employer provided a vehicle, a Land Rover, which I could use as a personal vehicle when not at work.


This worked very well for a couple of years – saved me from having to buy a car. It had four-wheel drive which made it hard to bog down, but I remember one weekend when I drove to the Glens north of Dundee, with my girl friend, for a day trip. On a rather narrow road I pulled over to the side to let a vehicle pass, got too close to the ditch and slid in so that the Rover was at about a 45 degree angle. Fortunately, there was a picnic spot nearby with lots of people enjoying the highland air. I appealed to some of the younger guys and, with half a dozen of them lifting and pushing, the four-wheel drive pulled us out.

On another weekend I took my mother and her older sister, my Aunt Ev, for a day trip to Methil, Fife. We packed a picnic lunch and stopped on a quiet country lane in the shade of a tree. As we enjoyed our tailgate meal one of us knocked over a bottle of milk which spilled across the floor. We managed to wipe up the mess with some newspaper. It was a few weeks later when I began to notice a faint smell in the vehicle – sour milk! Since I left the firm soon after it wasn’t a problem for me, but I pitied future drivers…

My next position was in the office of the City Engineer, Dundee, and I began to look for a car. Serendipitously, my boss was looking to sell his 1937 Morris 8 – I made the deal and became the proud owner of a car the same age as me. I enjoyed driving it and it served me well for a couple of years.

On one occasion, when I was on the way to play a game of field hockey it began to spew out black smoke. I was under time pressure, so I kept going, and the hardy little engine, about the size of a sewing machine gamely kept going. I remember climbing up east Kingsway and seeing people waiting at a bus stop, pointing, and laughing, as I approached. They weren’t laughing after I passed, and they got enveloped in the cloud of smoke…

The garage that repaired the car said that when they took the engine out , one of the pistons fell out in two parts – it had split vertically through the middle. After repair, the car soldiered on, and my brother had it after me for a year or two.

Meanwhile, I had moved on to a buff-coloured Morris Mini Van having discovered that, as a commercial vehicle it escaped the tax on personal vehicles. It was great fun to drive and the space in the back was very handy. I can remember how small it felt when stopped at lights alongside a bus or truck with your head about level with the top of their tire…


The Mini was succeeded by a Ford Consul Classic the one with the ‘reverse-rake rear window’ which served us well until we emigrated to Canada in 1966.

On arrival in Canada buying a car was a necessity. I had to sit a driving test but was allowed to drive while waiting for it. The first month we were there we decided to take a trip to let the kids see Niagara Falls. I went to hire a car and found that I couldn’t resist a Ford Mustang – it was a fun trip…

Two years later Steve McQueen gave the Mustang a boost in popularity when he drove a modified 1968 Mustang GT 2+2 Fastback in the film Bullitt. This famous movie featured an iconic chase pursuing a Dodge Charger through the streets of San Francisco.

Having had my fun in the Mustang, I then bought a Plymouth Valiant, a low end unremarkable family car which served its purpose just fine.


Next came a 1969 Buick Skylark Coupe. I had to attend a conference (on computers and engineering) in Miami and decided to turn it onto a family road-trip vacation. We crossed the Canadian border and joined US interstate 95 (I-95) on a return trip of about 3,300 miles, to Key West and back. To make it more interesting we were pulling a tent trailer, which caused me some white-knuckle moments facing huge oncoming semi-trailers on the Overseas Highway, the 113 miles of roadway from Key Largo to Key West that incorporates an astonishing 42 bridges leapfrogging from key to key over the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean, Florida Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.

A few years later I was made an Associate in the consulting engineering company I worked for, and this entitled me to a company car. I assumed that this was a standard process – they would tell me go to a specific dealer and he would tell me which cars I could choose from. Not exactly! They gave me a dollar number and said, “Don’t spend more than this…”

Perhaps I was going through a mid-life crisis, since I ended up in a two door coupe, a Pontiac Firebird… I remember sensing some negative reaction from the head of administration when I reported my purchase to him - I remember asking him if this was inappropriate and he said it was up to me…

Perhaps I was being brash, or naïve, but that was the car that I had fun driving for the next few years – until


it started to misfire. I took it in for service and they told me that a gasket had failed, and the cooling system had leaked. Unfortunately, the coolant wasn’t leaking onto the ground, but into the engine – which meant that a new engine would be needed – and that was the end of my Firebird…

The replacement was a Honda Prelude, followed by a Nissan Maxima. Both were decent cars which served me well. The Nissan wasn’t particularly attractive to look at, but it had a great engine – I drove it for about 13 years, then my granddaughter had it for another couple.

Finally , my current car a ‘Baby Benz’ C230. It’s a 2008 model – it had been a trade-in to a local Mercedes

Benz dealer as a two-year-old car with only 3,500 Kms on the odometer! I’ve had it for 13 years – as a ‘retirement car’ the gauge reads 110,000 kms, about half the expected average distance. It’s still in decent condition so it may well be my last car…

Uncle Andy
Bill Kidd
I was the first-born grandchild to both sets of grandparents and was spoiled rotten by my five bachelor uncles. I was very fond of all of them, but I developed a particular affection for one of my father’s three brothers, my Uncle Andy. My first clear memory of him was shortly after the outbreak of WW2 being taken by mother into the shoe shop where he worked and being fitted by him for a new pair of shoes. Within a few months of this he joined the Royal Air Force and was trained as an instrument mechanic, enhancing his new skills by mending the clocks and watches of colleagues and friends.

Apart from brief spells of leave, I saw little of him over the next couple of years. He was based near Bristol and was courting the young lady who was to become my Aunt Vera. When he was given embarkation leave before being posted to Algeria, she came to Dundee with him and returned to Bristol with an engagement ring on her finger. My eight-year-old self was enthralled by the glamour of it all. I should say that by this time some of my other uncles had arranged for me to have aunts and even a couple of cousins but only my Uncle Andy had introduced a potential aunt from far away Bristol!

For the next eighteen months the only news that I had of Uncle Andy was through an infrequent exchange of letters. Mine were about my various activities and hobbies and his about Algeria and the people that he met. My eyes popped on learning of a party given by French Air Force colleagues for his “Anniversaire” with a cake with André written on it. Towards the end of WW2 Uncle Andy returned to the UK and was again posted to a base in Southwest England. Understandably he spent whatever time that he could with his fiancée but when he did visit his parents, he brought a hundred or so Algerian stamps for me and showed that he remembered that I had an interest in astronomy by giving me a book on the subject. How lucky was I to have an uncle like that?

In 1946 Andy left the RAF and decided to settle in the Bristol area. Vera became my aunt Vera and Andy put his RAF experience to use and started work as a watch repairer in Central Bristol. Within eighteen months he decided to set up a workshop at home and to specialise in the repair and servicing of specific types of quality watches. Three girl cousins arrived over the next five years which made the logistics of visits to Dundee rather difficult. Despite this Andy and Vera made the occasional trip north and I could see how happy they were with the life that they enjoyed together. Vera soon resumed her career with the Post Office and they both started to play golf.

In the Autumn of 1953, I accepted the long-standing invitation to visit them. As I couldn’t afford the luxury of travelling by rail, I undertook the journey by a complex series of connecting coach trips that took twenty-six hours. I was met by Andy, Vera and the girls at Bristol Coach Station and whisked to their home in Wick, a village just outside Bristol. I had a great time and for the first time had the opportunity to talk as an adult to Andy and to see how he organised his life. Working from home gave him a lot of flexibility. There was a demand for his special skills with a small range of quality watches and he had both trade and private customers. He had bought an engraving machine advertised in Exchange and Mart so that he could produce name plates as a sideline. Within a short time, he had established a niche market in producing coffin plates for the local Funeral Directors. When it rained he worked long hours, but when the sun came out he could go to the golf course. My Uncle Andy had attained the perfect work/life balance!

Towards the end of my National Service Muriel and I spent a week of my annual leave with Andy and Vera. Shortly after our arrival Uncle Andy took me out for a drive in his new Vauxhall Wyvern. After travelling a few miles, we stopped in a lay-by, and I was invited to take the wheel. Although I had held my driving licence for a couple of years I had very little experience of actually driving. Despite this I drove around for a few miles and when we returned home I was presented with the car keys, a road map of the area and told that there was an almost full tank of petrol for use during our stay. How did I deserve an uncle like him? Apart from getting blocked in a car park at the Cheddar Gorge we spent a very happy time exploring the area.

The following year Muriel and I married and moved to Caithness. Among the wedding guests were Uncle Andy and family, this was the last that we saw of them until we moved to Berkshire only an hour away from Bristol. Over the next three years we exchanged visits. The girls became young ladies and they each chose their career path while Andy and Vera furthered their own careers. With the girls leaving home to complete their education their parents were able to spend more time on the golf course. By this time Andy was in his mid-fifties. By becoming even more specialised in the watches that he repaired and serviced he cut the time spent in his workshop. This gave him the opportunity to play more golf and participate in the running of their club. Over the next thirty years my Uncle Andy became well known throughout the Southwest England golfing community both as a player and as an administrator.

By his sixtieth birthday nearly forty years of peering at and handling small parts had taken its toll on his eyesight hastening his decision to retire early. Andy and Vera both retired at the same time and settled down to a contented life of golf and grandchildren. They downsized to a modern house in the same area. The only reminder of the watch repair workshop was the engraving machine in the garage that still provided a small but steady source of extra income. They both continued to live happily surrounded by family and friends until Vera had to have residential care following a stroke. Andy, my last surviving uncle, lived on for another five years in the family home until his death aged ninety-five. During this period we exchanged telephone calls most weeks, and I still receive regular text messages and occasional visits from his two surviving daughters when we reminisce on a life well lived.

I owe a lot to my Uncle Andy. In many respects I have tried to model my on life on his. He was the first member of our family to move more than a few miles from the area in which they were born. He worked hard to achieve his goals in life but left time for his family and his other interests. He retired from work before it became absolutely necessary but filled in the newly available time constructively. Most importantly, he built a family that loved and respected him.

Despite achieving almost every goal that he had in life, one ambition continued to elude him, a hole in one. It was not until shortly after his eighty-fifth birthday that I got an excited phone call from him to tell me that he had made his hole in one. I still miss my Uncle Andy.

Wheels
Hugh McGrory
Funny how your mind works…

The other day, I had lunch with a couple of former colleagues and when walking back to our cars one of them said “Your front tires look soft”. They did, and I hadn’t noticed. When I got home and checked them, they were low, and I had to get out the compressor and add air to all four wheels.

The only point of that little story is that, while blowing up the tires I got to thinking of wheels, and I thought to myself, "I’d like to meet the person who invented the wheel and axle (apparently about 6,000 years ago) that had such an impact on our civilisation”. When you think of how many ways we use wheels every day – from baby carriages and toys, to planes, trains, and automobiles...

Obviously, I have no memory of being in the pram my mother got when I was born. I do though have memories of when my wee brother (seven years younger) was a baby in his pram (perhaps the same one?) and being jealous of him lying in comfort while I had to try to keep up with mother as she pushed the pram


on shopping expeditions. I think he graduated to a Tansad when he was a little older – the kind with smaller wheels and a drop-down foot space).

My first vague memory of ‘my’ wheels is of the tricycle that I had when I was two or three years old. The


photo shows me riding it in my grandparents’ house in Wilkie’s Lane, Dundee, some 84 years ago. Made by Triang, it was a cheap little, rather 'tippy', vehicle, with no brakes other than the pedals or the soles of my shoes on the ground. If you leaned the wrong way, it would tip over sideways, with one rear wheel and the front wheel (and your nose) on the ground. I imagine though, that it gave me and my pals a lot of fun, and my mother a few grey hairs as I came crying with the latest scratch or bruise.

My next set of wheels was a four-wheeler pedal car. I don’t have a good memory of it – I couldn’t find a
photo to match the vague mind picture I have, but conceptually it was like the photo, red and metallic.

My buddies and I used to ride two at a time, one driving, and the other either on the hood or behind the driver. More than once we rounded the corner of Fairbairn Street onto the slope of Arklay Street and headed at ever-increasing speed down the hill which ended at a tee-junction with Dens Road, a major road and tramcar route. This made us use our feet as brakes, in a panic… One time we almost ran into the side of a stationary tramcar – dumb kids. I have a feeling that the
car didn’t last long – I suspect due to my mother’s disapproval…

Some time later I got a surprise when my dad came home one day with several bits and pieces (like two axles and wheels from an old pram) and announced that he and I were going to build a soapbox – I have no memory of asking him for this, I think he decided on his own – pretty sure he didn’t discuss it with my mum because I guarantee the answer would have been “No way!”

I have no memory of the making of the machine, but it looked very like the one on the left in the photo. No


pedals, of course, though it had a rudimentary brake (just a piece of wood mounted on the side – grabbing it and pushing made it rub against a tire – didn’t work very well and tended to make the cart slew to one side. The other photo shows a professionally-built car – included because it shows a brake).

We used the cart for a brief time until it disappeared rather suddenly... Pretty sure my mother saw us heading down Arklay Street in it and told my father to get rid of it…

Last, but certainly not the least of my non-motorised wheels belonged to my Hercules bike. I wrote of this in a previous story, so I'll simply repeat what I said there:

"In my early teens, my parents took me down to Halford's in the High St. and bought me a bicycle – a Hercules. I remember I wanted drop handlebars, but my mother insisted they were dangerous and so I had to settle for an upright. Arguably the single, best, most life-changing present I ever got in my life – from then on that bike was with me almost every time I left the house, and vastly expanded my world."
My trusty Hercules and me on the Duke's Pass, the Aberfoyle/Trossachs road.
All those memories dredged up by the simple act of blowing up the tires of my car. As I said at the beginning of this tale "Funny how your mind works” – perhaps I should have said "Funny how my mind works..."

Sir Robert Gordon Menzies
(1894–1978)
Brian Macdonald
Sir Robert Gordon Menzies KT (Knight of the Order of the Thistle(1)), AK (Knight of the Order of Australia), CH (Companion of the Order of the Companions of Honour, a British order of the Commonwealth realms), QC (Queen’s Counsel), FAA (Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science), FRS (Fellow of the Royal Society) was the founder of the Australian Liberal Party, the dominant right-wing federal political party.

The two previous Scots ‘Fathers’ of some major aspect of the development of my adopted country,
Australia, were military men of the late 18th and early 19th century. The third of the trio, Robert Gordon Menzies, although born in the 19th century, is a twentieth century man and fought his battles in the courtroom and in the Australian federal parliament.

‘Bob’ Menzies was born in the tiny town of Jeparit(2) in the western part of Victoria, since January 1st, 1901, an autonomous state of Australia but in 1894, prior to federation, when he saw the light, a separate colony of Britain. This agricultural region is known as the Wimmera, after a major river, and the town of Jeparit, where he was born, 370 km west of the Victorian state capital, Melbourne, was an agricultural settlement of under one hundred people at the time of his birth. His parents, with two sons and a daughter, had moved there from the gracious, Victorian gold-mining boom town of Ballarat, a year earlier, to run the general store, a change for
his father from working in a Ballarat foundry, building locomotives and, later, with his own tractor-painting business. Robert was born in a back room of the family’s accommodation at the rear of the store. A further son was born after Robert, making the family one of four sons and a daughter.

Menzies’ Scottishness is less close than that of Macarthur or MacQuarie, yet its flame burned as brightly in him as in either of them. His maternal grandparents were both Cornish. His paternal grandfather, Robert Menzies, came from Renfrewshire in Scotland. Those three ancestors had come to Australia separately, lured by the 19th century Victorian gold-rush. That Robert Menzies met and married, in Australia, Elizabeth Band, daughter of a cobbler from Fife in Scotland. There is no further family connection with Scotland. While his middle name, Gordon, is a recognised Scottish boy’s name, in his case it was bestowed as homage to General Gordon, ‘The Hero of Khartoum,’ an English general with no Scottish connections.

Jeparit had a one-teacher primary school, which the young Robert Menzies attended from 1899. He later attended the Methodist Grenville School in Ballarat on a scholarship. following in his older siblings’ footsteps and living with a grandmother. While his primary education records nothing significant, Menzies sailed through his final secondary education at the prestigious Wesley College in the state capital, Melbourne, collecting awards and lucrative scholarships that paid for his secondary and tertiary education. He graduated as a Bachelor of Law from the University of Melbourne(3) in 1916 and was called to the state of Victoria’s bar two years later. He quickly established a reputation for his skill as a barrister and as an authority on constitutional law.

While he was growing up, an uncle and his father both became members of the Victorian Legislative Assembly, and another uncle was elected to the federal House of Representatives. Menzies’ grandfather was president of a trade union. With such a background it is not surprising that Robert Gordon Menzies sought and won a seat in the Victorian Legislative Council (the upper house) in 1928, and, a year later, stood for and won a government-party seat in the lower-house Legislative Assembly, having already established himself, over a ten-year period, as a leading Melbourne barrister specialising in constitutional matters. Clearly from the right wing of politics, he supported constitutional democracy, the rule of law, the sanctity of contracts and the value of society’s existing institutions. He was always suspicious of the left-of-centre Australian Labor Party and believed in the superiority of free enterprise. He quickly became a minister and, later, the deputy premier of the state.

In 1934 he won the seat of Kooyong(4) in the federal parliament, for the United Australia Party, a coalition of right-wing factions. Appointed Attorney-General of Australia, he retained that position until 1939, when he was elected leader of his party and thus appointed Prime Minister of Australia, on the sudden death of his predecessor, during the first year of World War II. It was during the early part of this, his first prime ministership, that the long-lasting alliance between what later became the Australian Liberal Party and the then Country Party(5) was forged.

His first period as PM saw the rise of Hitler in Germany and the outbreak of World War II. Menzies took Australia into the war as a staunch ally of Great Britain. His prime-ministerial tenure lasted until 1941, when, as is often the way with politicians in parliamentary democracies, having had a difficult time, he lost the confidence of his own party and was forced to resign its leadership and the prime ministership.

The Australian Labor Party became the governing party until after the war ended in 1945 and Menzies remained an opposition back-bencher until 1946, when he assumed the leadership of the Australian Liberal Party(6) , of which he had been a prominent founder.

At the 1949 federal election, Menzies and the Liberals won back power, replacing Labor and the railway engine-driver turned politician, Ben Chifley. This was the start of the Liberal-Country Party alliance which governed Australia for the next twenty-two years. Robert Menzies remained PM until 1966. These early years of post WWII Liberal-Country Party rule set the scene for the federal political dominance that has extended until the 21st century with infrequent periods of Labor government. It was a time of post-war prosperity and affluence and mostly peaceful although, adhering steadfastly to his loyalty to Britain, Menzies took Australia into both the Korean and Vietnam wars in support of the UK. Menzies was not universally admired and an official portrait of him in Parliament House in the then not long-established federal capital of Australia, Canberra, was badly slashed in 1954, occasioning the need for a replacement to be painted.

Footnotes

(1) The purple blossom of the spiky thistle is the national flower of Scotland. It has been said that it symbolises the Scots character, attractive but spiky and needing to be handled carefully.

(2) At the 2016 Australian census, Jeparit recorded a population of 342. This was down from the 394 of the 2011 census, a sadly common trend in small rural Australian towns in the 21st C.

(3) The sandstone University of Melbourne was founded in 1853, a mere 65 years after the first fleet of convicts from England landed in 1788. The second oldest in Australia, it was Melbourne’s only university when Menzies studied there. Now, it is Melbourne’s most prestigious university and considered by many to be Australia’s finest.

(4) Kooyong, as well as being (until the federal election of 2022) a blue-ribbon conservative Australian federal electorate, is an upper-middle class, older suburb of Melbourne, part of the then city of Kew.

(5) As the name suggests, the Country Party represented mainly rural electorates, huge in territory but sparsely populated. Australia’s economy was primarily based on agriculture and mining during most of the 20th century and the needs and wishes of residents of rural properties and small country towns were quite different to those of city-dwellers. By far the largest part of Australia’s population lives in cities around the south and east coasts of the island continent. Sydney and Melbourne each have a population of five and a half million.

(6) The Australian Liberal Party began as a moderate right-wing party to replace the old United Australia Party. In a coalition with the smaller, rural-based Country Party – now the National Party – which continues to this day, it has been the dominant force in Australian federal politics since its foundation in 1944.

A TARDIS?
Hugh McGrory
When I was a schoolboy growing up in Dundee, Scotland, my mother would sometimes ask what I’d like for our evening meal (we called it tea – usually around 6:00 pm). My standard answer would be ‘chip and egg’ (two fried eggs with lots of french fries.)

These chips were deep fried and delicious – Mum had a chip pan, actually a pot, about 8 inches high containing, I think, lard. After a batch was cooked , the melted fat would be strained to remove the little crumbs of potato, then the pot would be put in the cupboard where the fat would solidify and be ready for the next time.

My dad died in his late 60s, and my mother lived on alone for another quarter of a century. During that time, she experienced two chip pan fires – which she neglected to mention to me or my brother, no doubt on the
principle of ‘what they don’t know won’t bother them’. Neither of us has any details of the incidents, though apparently the fires were contained, and no one was hurt. On one of the occasions the fire department attended, and some cupboards were damaged and had to be re-worked.

Chip pan fire is the term used to describe fires which share certain features: residential; kitchen; deep frying using oil or fat; pan left unattended… doesn’t necessarily mean that chips were involved, though in many cases they are – come home late after a night out, have an attack of the
munchies, put the chip pan on to heat up, sit down in the living room for a few minutes, dose off…

Such fires are a serious issue in most countries, and fire departments have published many ‘Dos and Don’ts’ on the subject. Here is one from the City of Manchester. There are many stories of death and devastation arising from such fires. Some examples:

“The victim of a horrific chip pan accident in Whitburn, West Lothian, ran across a street with skin hanging off his body and leaving a trail of bloody footprints, shocked neighbours said today. John Bage suffered severe burns to around a third of his body after the handle of his chip pan broke off, covering him from head to foot in blazing oil. He even suffered injuries to the inside of his throat as a result of inhaling fumes.”

“A chip pan left on a hot plate in 2015 was the most likely cause of a devastating fire that claimed ten lives at the Glenamuck halting site in Carrickmines, south Dublin. Investigators examined an electric cooker at the scene of the fire, and they found that a chip pan had been left on a hot plate on full power.

The traveller victims were Thomas Connors (27), his wife Sylvia (30) and their children Jim (5), Christy (3) and six-month-old Mary. Willie Lynch (25) and his partner Tara Gilbert (27) who was pregnant, and their daughters Jodie (9), and Kelsey (4), also died, along with Jimmy Lynch (39) a brother of Willie.”

“A beloved dad of five died in his Swadlincote hostel following a chip pan fire. The smoke alarms were not working, an inquest has heard. Peter Greenshields had been cooking chips in a chip pan after drinking "a large amount" of alcohol and the pan caught fire. Despite the fire going out on its own, Mr. Greenshields had already inhaled too much smoke which sadly led to his death.”

"A mistake cost a family man his life when he tackled a chip pan blaze with water. Retired railman John Frisken stood no chance when the flames flared up and engulfed him, an inquest heard. His death sparked a safety alert today with fire chiefs warning people not to try to put out chip pan fires, but simply get out of the house. Well-loved grandad Mr Frisken died from 80% burns on March 18 following the fire at the home he shared with his wife June, 63, in Addison Close, Heaton, Newcastle."

The effect of putting water on an a boiling oil fire has to be seen to be believed….

My mum had one earlier chip pan fire encounter… I was about 15 or 16 years old, it was ‘tea’ time, and she, my dad, and I were sitting in the living room. She was in the process of preparing the meal and got up to walk into the kitchen. As soon as she opened the door she screamed “Fire, Hugh!” (That was my dad she was calling to, not me…) He and I dashed after her to see the chip pan engulfed in flames, just like the photo above.

Dad took control. He told me to get out of the way, and my mother to open the back door. He bent down and picked up a carpet from the kitchen floor. Fortunately, it was a thin(ish) carpet, and this allowed him to wrap it around the pot to protect his hands and body as he lifted it from the stove top, and stepped through the back door with the flames shooting a couple of feet higher than his head.(Not recommended, but effective...)

We lived in the semi-detached home on Clement Park Road shown, on the left in the photo. The back
garden was the same level as the street at the front of the house, with, as you can see, three steps down to a path, then four steps down to the street/backyard level. The second set of steps were straight ahead from the back door, not off to the side as they are at the front.

Suddenly, disaster struck! Dad couldn’t see where he was placing his feet, for obvious reasons, and he tripped. As he pitched through the air, he threw the pot to one side and fell, head first, into a flower bed on the other side – it was quite spectacular…

Fortunately, his presence of mind (and Lady luck) saved the day. The fat burned itself out harmlessly, neither Mum nor I were harmed and there was very little damage to the kitchen. As to my dad, I’m sure he must have been bruised, and maybe singed a little, but he didn’t need medical attention.

I was very impressed at how Dad handled himself – I hate to think what might have happened if he hadn’t been there. I’m proud of him – he was small on the outside (only 5’3” in height) but big on the inside where it counts.

Sort of like the TARDIS…

Suez 3
Gordon Findlay
It began when a company runner came over to us at breakfast and told us, breathlessly, that we were all to report to our Intel room “at once!” Sgt. Krywald, Dagg, Howson, myself, and Bannerman all quickly gathered together to find Lieut. Thompson already there. He quickly and quietly told us that we were to prepare the 22 or so maps and overlays for our group of officers “immediately!”

We all set to, putting all the information we were aware of onto the acetate overlays above maps of the Canal Zone at the locations which had been assigned to 3rd Infantry Division – and to 1st Battalion, Highland Light Infantry.

When we emerged later in the morning, our whole camp had taken on a sudden air of urgency. There was an air of excitement rippling through everything. You could sense the difference, the feeling of purposefulness, as if we were all being caught up in something important and perhaps even dangerous. All at once the steady and predictable life of our camp had been tossed aside. The pace picked up and took on an urgency of its own.

A torrent of new equipment and supplies began to pour into our camp. A dozen new 3-ton trucks rolled in and were parked, ready to receive our H.L.I. decals. More trucks arrived and disgorged crates of new Bren light machine guns plus cases of new Bren magazines.

Then came extra Vickers’ heavy machine guns, new 3-inch mortars, a half-dozen tracked Bren gun carriers, a flock of new Jeeps, and case upon case of ammunition in its distinctive rope-handled wooden boxes.

Huge rolls of gleaming barbed wire piled up, with long piles of steel stakes which would support it. A stack of new truck tires grew, and so did spare tank tracks, jerry cans, groundsheets, camouflage nets, radio sets and batteries. The stuff just kept rolling into our camp area, truck after truck, and there was so much of it our small armoury had to start dumping the crates and boxes around the building, with guards posted beside it.

We were kept hard at work, preparing the overlays for all officers. Problem was, new information kept funneling in with updates about the Egyptian positions along the canal, the weaponry they had, the number of troops, changes to landing zones, and so forth. Our previous information had to be scrubbed off the transparent overlays and the new Intel inserted in its place.

It was very labour intensive and of course, we had the temperamental Sgt. Krywald breathing down our necks. And a day later it got more interesting still. Daily Orders came out, and the first order of business was contained in one dramatic line:

“All ranks will draw live ammunition.”

All the line companies (A, B, C, etc.) were first. They were followed by HQ Company, of which we were a part. We marched up to the armoury, and one by one filed past the orderly corporal who checked our name then handed each of us a cloth bandolier containing 200 rounds of .303 ammunition plus one coloured smoke grenade (mine was yellow).

Each of us was also handed a field duty first aid kit: a khaki-coloured package about the size of a pocketbook, containing compression bandage, gauze squares, burn ointment, sterilizing solution in a tube, and adhesive tape…

Dundee Worthies 2
Hugh McGrory
A worthy is someone who, for some reason, attracts attention. They fall into two categories, those who are eccentric/notorious, and those who have done something worthy of admiration. Brian MacDonald contributed an anecdote some time ago dealing with the first category. This story is about someone in the second group that I admired – George Kidd.

George was born in Hill Street, Dundee in 1925, and was educated at Clepington Primary and Stobswell Secondary School. He served in the navy during World War 2 and on retuning home, decided that he wanted a career in professional wrestling. This surprised many since he was only 5’6” tall and weighed just 9 ½ stones (133 lbs). Nevertheless, he was a determined man and records show that he appeared in the professional wrestling ring in Aberdeen in late 1945 and in Dundee’s Caird Hall on January 8th, 1946 (while he showed promise as a fast and clever wrestler, he was KO’d in the 3rd round…).

Realising that he had a lot to learn about wrestling, he spent the following year in Yorkshire, fighting, and learning both the technical and the business side, under the tutelage of Norman Morrell, a famous British Olympian wrestler. In addition to this, he began to develop his own unique style based on the principles of ju-jitsu and hatha yoga. The muscle-stretching exercises of yoga allowed him to develop the contortionist moves for which he was famous. He spent countless hours learning every wrestling move he could and how to counter them.

George’s timing was good. In the ‘30s and ‘40s professional wrestling had fallen into disrepute – it was full of gimmicks with large heavy men, often in fancy costumes, throwing each other from the ring, jumping from the ring posts on to each other, headlocks, pile drivers, and bloodshed. The time was ripe for something new - smaller, more agile, men who were more technically oriented. The term ‘technical chain mat work’ is used to describe it. The wrestlers spend much of their time on the mat using various technical moves to put their opponent into a hold, or to escape from one, and chaining these moves seamlessly together in extended sequences – a cat-and-mouse battle, waiting for an opportunity to pin the opponent.

He excelled in this type of wrestling. After two years as a professional he won the Scottish lightweight championship, when he knocked out Tony Lawrence at the Caird Hall, Dundee. In 1948 he defeated Jack Dempsey to win the British title, and in 1949, on 25th October, defeated Rudy Quartez for the World Lightweight Championship. At just 24 years of age George Kidd was a wrestling star.

Of course, what the fans wanted to see most of all was George bamboozle the villains of the ring. He was more than capable of obliging, as were the biggest names in the business who played the role of the luckless opponent – Mick McManus, Jackie Pallo, Adrian Street, even heavyweight Jumping Jim Hussey.


Mick McManus Jackie Pallo

Over more than 20 years, George successfully defended his championship title 49 times. In 1971 he defeated Adrian Street, and in 1972 Jim Breaks. He fought more than 1000 times, many of these in Dundee’s Caird Hall, and, in his last bout, 2nd March 1976, he defeated Steve Logan, announcing his retirement from professional wrestling as the undisputed, undefeated, World Lightweight Champion.


George early in his career George in his Final year of wrestling.

Wrestling fans fit into a scale – at one end, those who say that it’s all faked, and at the other, those who believe that the two men in the ring are trying to kill, or at least seriously injure each other. The truth is somewhere in the middle… Professional wrestlers are also professional entertainers. They have families to support, they need regular work, and understand that intentional injury is not part of the business. Bouts are usually ‘fixed’ to the extent that the winner is known before they enter the ring, and which round and, sometimes, which submission hold is specified.


Adrian Street Jumping Jack Hussey

But professional wrestlers are athletes, like circus performers or ballet dancers, or stuntmen in movies, risking their limbs and sometimes their lives, skilled men taking part in a risky performance, working with a level of co-operation to produce a contest that satisfies the fans. Bobby Boland, the Dundee boxer. and later wrestler (mentioned in last weeks anecdote) said, “All I can say is that in my years as a professional wrestler I picked up more injuries than I did in 12 years as a boxer.”

George Kidd’s longevity in the ring was due to his ability as an athlete and an entertainer, and to the respect he earned from the wrestlers he encountered in the ring, who worked with him to provide great entertainment for the spectators.

After retirement, George had a career in Scottish television as presenter of Wednesday People and The George Kidd Show and his engaging personality and quick wit led to viewers voting him Grampian Television Personality of the Year in 1965.

He also owned a series of pubs in Dundee including the Ellenbank, on Alexander St (where he once had worldwide boxing great Sugar Ray Robinson as a guest). After his wife died, George led a quiet life in a flat on Lawrence Street in Broughty Ferry, until his death, aged 72, in 1998.

To appreciate the man, you really needed to see him in action. Sadly, there seems to be few examples available. I did find two videos - Match against Black Jack Mulligan and George's final match...

Postscript

I thought I had completed this story and was ready to post it when I stumbled on the following:

Kent Walton was asked a question (he is best remembered as the predominant commentator on ITV's coverage of British professional wrestling from 1955 to 1988).

The question was "Who is the greatest professional wrestler you ever saw perform?" Since he was employed by ITV, and not by the promoters who actually produced the wrestling shows, Walton was seen as an impartial voice with an ecyclopedic knowledge of professional wrestling.

He said, in response, that there was one revered master of escapology, dubbed "the Houdini of the Mat", who earned the most respect from his peers of that era. He was known for extracting chain wrestling elements, submission holds, and weaving them into highly intricate sequences. The result was an often-emulated, breathlessly entertaining art form in which the mat wrestling element of the match became the real focus of crowd fascination.

Walton said he considered this innovator to be a consummate professional and held him in higher regard than all the rest. Short in stature, but a genius in invention - his name was George Kidd.
George Giving Jim Breaks a Lesson...

Seconds Out in Dundee
Bill Kidd
Over the years sport has been an important part of my life, sometimes as a participant and others as a spectator. I have played football, both rugby and association and taken part in athletics, all without any notable success. I have spent much of my leisure time on court for badminton, squash, and tennis. I have dabbled in table tennis and basketball, and it was during a basketball session in Ward Road Gym that I found a casual interest in boxing. This came about because one of the basketball players was Peter Cain who was a professional boxer. You could search for a year without finding anyone less like the popular image a boxer. Peter was in his mid-twenties at that time, he was a modest, gentle, and charming individual and a gifted athlete. Over the few weeks that I attended the basketball sessions with him I learned quite a lot about the professional boxing scene that had come to the fore between the 1930s and the 1950s. Peter retired from boxing shortly after I met him but continued his interest in local sport as a trainer and coach.

Every Dundonian is aware of Dens and Tannadice Parks as football stadia but not as the venue for major boxing promotions, the last open air promotion taking place at Dens Park when Norman Tennant boxed Terry Allen in June 1949 in front of 16,000 spectators. The Caird Hall and Dundee Ice Rink also hosted championship boxing. Dundee’s own dedicated boxing arena, Premierland in William Lane was the scene of lesser events while the travelling Funfair held at Gussie Park usually featured a Boxing Booth where Pro Boxers would take on all comers. Many of the events were promoted by Dundee Bookmaker George Grant who went on to promote an open-air boxing world championship at Hampden Park in 1946 when 45,000 spectators watched Jackie Paterson defeat Joe Curran to become World Flyweight Champion.

The big names from Dundee in the 1930s through the 1950s were Jim Cowie, Jim Brady, Freddie and Norman Tennant, Bobby Boland, and Ken Shaw. However, the best remembered Dundee boxer was never a professional, I refer of course to Dick McTaggart, the 1956 Olympic Lightweight Gold Medallist from Melbourne. In addition to his gold medal, he also won the Val Baker Trophy for the most stylish boxer at the Games.

One of the most famous Scottish boxers was Glasgow’s Benny Lynch but very few are aware that in 1932 Dundee’s Freddie Tennant was one of the very few who defeated him on his home patch. Freddie Tennant became Scottish Fly Weight Champion on the same 1938 Dens Park spectacular that Jim Brady won the British Southern Area Bantam Weight title in front of 10,000 spectators. Jim Brady also featured in the bizarre wartime boxing open air show held in Tannadice Park on New Years Day 1941. Jim Brady defeated Kid Tanner of British Guiana to become British Empire Bantam Weight Champion. Although the event was a sell-out only 2,00 brave souls braved the blizzard conditions to watch the bout.

In the years immediately following WW2 Norman Tennant, Bobby Boland and Ken Shaw were the rising stars in Dundee’s boxing firmament. Appearing regularly at the Caird Hall and Dundee Ice Rink. Ken Shaw (a former Morgan Academy pupil) probably had the most successful career, holding the Scottish Heavyweight Championship for around six years while frequently challenging the top heavyweights for a shout at the UK title.

On retirement from boxing many left the bright lights for more mundane activities. Jim Brady ran a small newspaper cum tobacconist booth on the Lochee Road. Bobby Boland, at the end of his boxing career, and with some help from his friend George Kidd, the famous Dundee pro wrestler, got into the world of pro wrestling for several years. Thereafter he ran a newsagent shop on the Hawkhill before taking up taxi driving. Ken Shaw emigrated to New Zealand and continued his boxing career there for a few years.

Despite what must have been the hard life of a professional boxer and unlike many of today’s sporting heroes, none of them retired with a vast fortune. I only hope that they enjoyed the satisfaction of brightening up so many lives at a difficult time in our Nation’s history.

Lifeboat 3
Hugh McGrory
When researching my previous story on the Mona Lifeboat disaster, I learned that the craft was not ‘self-righting’ – meaning that if it capsized it would not automatically right itself. This caught my interest…

Why do boats not sink? Archimedes gets credit for explaining this:

Imagine you’re sitting in a rowboat on a perfectly calm lake. Part of the boat will be below water level and part above. Gravity, of course, is trying to pull the boat and you down but something is pushing up to prevent this - we call it buoyancy.

There’s an old joke about owning a boat, “a boat is a hole in the water that you fill up with money.” We can think of our rowboat as, indeed, creating a hole in the water. To make this hole the boat has to push some of the water aside (known as hull displacement). Archimedes experimented and found out that the weight of the water pushed aside is always exactly equal to the weight of you and the boat. So, as the water tries to flow back to fill the hole it exerts an upward force that just matches the weight - and the boat floats.

As you add more weight to the boat - passengers, fishing tackle, sandwiches, beer, the process continues - more water pushed aside adding an equal upward force and everything is fine – until you overload the boat, the water creeps over the side.

Bodies of water are never really perfectly calm and sometimes there are huge waves to contend with. If a boat is caught in a storm it may end up beam-on to the waves (parallel to the waves) and this can lead to a capsize – as is believed to be the case with the Mona.

From the mid 18th century people who wanted to be able to go to sea in bad weather in small boats – mostly smugglers as it happens - put a lot of time and energy into creating ‘unsinkable’ craft. They were quite successful using cork and air container inserts inside and high up below the bulwarks.

With the advent of lifeboats, a hundred years later, the search began for a self-righting capability, and again there was progress (mostly modifications of the approaches above), but not perfection.

Another method developed uses inflatable bags mounted high in the boat that automatically inflate, using CO2, when the boat is upside down. Such a ‘balloon’ has very little weight but presents a large surface area for the upward pressure of the water to work on.

The RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) fleet of over 400 lifeboats has two main types of boat:

1) All-weather lifeboats (ALBs) which are capable of high speed and can be operated safely in all weather conditions.

2) Inshore lifeboats (ILBs) which usually operate closer to shore, in shallower water, near cliffs, rocks and even in caves.

The current Broughty Ferry lifeboats - the ALB following the ILB.
All are self-righting. The ILBs rely on the single-use, inflatable bag method actuated by the crew. The ALBs have a much more complete solution. In my musings I imagine some naval architect some sixty or more years ago saying, “so, to pull the boat upright, we need to put the heavy stuff, like the engines, as low as possible to pull the bottom of the boat down, and a big space high up in the boat that the water can’t get into, like a balloon, to pull the top of the boat up...” then “wait a minute, nowadays we have watertight door technology, unbreakable windows – we can make the whole wheelhouse into a bubble!”

(Note: The term wheelhouse means not only the place where the pilot sits, but includes all of the other parts of the superstructure including the space for the crew, for the people who are rescued, for the engines, for storage of gear etc.)

Of course, for daily operations they need ports to let outside air into the superstructure so that people, and the engines, can breathe, and these would have to automatically close on capsize, then re-open - the engines would have to change to idle, and the radar antenna would have to stop rotating, then start again. These and other issues were overcome, and the RNLI were able to decree that all of their ALBs would, in future (from 1980 forward), be able to self-right in no more than 10 seconds!

The change in design is starkly depicted when comparing the Mona to the current Broughty Ferry ALB below. If you're interested in seeing self-righting in action click here.



British National Service in the 1950s
Part Two
Brian Macdonald
The British army in the 1950s had a number of large establishments dotted around Britain. Local regiments had their own regimental barracks and did their own basic training, but the various services corps and general regiments drew from the main intake. I was a regular recruit, not a national serviceman but the initial stages of military life were the same. After St Andrews University and I mutually decided we should part at that stage of my life, I enlisted as a regular soldier, knowing that my call-up papers were not far off and being inclined to the military life. I already had five years of Morgan Academy army cadets and one of the university’s territorial army unit under my blancoed and brassoed belt.

I chose to join the Royal Corps of Signals and was sent, for basic training, with a group of fellow-recruits, mostly conscripts, to a 19th century barracks building of the Green Howards(1) light infantry regiment, on a hillside in the historic Yorkshire town of Richmond(2). At this initial stage, young men from all over UK and from different social strata were flung together and sometimes enduring friendships sprang from this time of their lives.

From the basic stage, I was selected as a potential officer and went on to a pre-officer cadet unit in the nearby huge Catterick Camp garrison, where the Royal Signals have a major presence. This barracks was of 20th century construction and more comfortable (The bare floorboards did not have wide cracks, nor were there dried-out sash window frames that refused to open but nevertheless permitted strong, cold drafts like the Richmond barracks windows), though far from luxurious, with basic toilet facilities and the ubiquitous communal showers and washbasins. Here, hopefuls were assessed and culled and those progressing were tutored in aspects of military training that would improve their chances of passing WOSB(3) and progressing to the short-term officer initial training school at Mons barracks in the English town of Aldershot(4) in Hampshire. Although my army career took a different trajectory from the average other-rank recruit, I know the basic training process well enough and, later, I served as a platoon officer in a unit that trained truck drivers for the then Royal Army Service Corps.

After conscripts and regular recruits alike had been knocked into the basic shape of soldiers over a six-week period and taught how to look reasonably military and well turned-out in ill-fitting khaki clothing, they were ready to be moved on from basic training. With a need for infantry as well as cooks, drivers, vehicle mechanics, engineers, electricians and medical orderlies, there was a range of training establishments. Conscripts were given no choice; they went where they were needed. There is many a tale of a motor mechanic in civilian life being posted as a cook. Regular recruits had given a wish-list when they joined up and, as far as it suited the army’s personnel needs, these wishes were respected and new career soldiers went on to learn their chosen trade and serve in the regiment or service area of their choice.

This, then, was what the vast majority of young British men experienced when the dreaded call-up papers appeared in the mail. Although many spent their whole service time somewhere in Britain, counting the days down till demobilisation, there were overseas postings that were prized. Britain, as a member state of NATO(5), provided at the end of WWII a force, the BAOR(6), to serve in Western Germany, first to help in the control and re-building of a conquered and devastated land and later as a bulwark against the USSR(7) and postings to BAOR were valued. Hong Kong and Singapore also harboured British garrisons and those who were posted there or to Malaya(8) will recall shouts in the mess hall of “Get yer knees brown!” from troops who had been for some time in these tropical locations to new arrivals, as baggy uniform shorts were worn in those locations and new boys were easily spotted. Another common cry in the mess hall was “Two days to go!” from those about to end their service.

A key to enjoying national service in peacetime was to boast a measure of sporting prowess. All the major sports were played competitively in an organisation of young men and those who shone at a sport often found themselves in a sinecure posting, as commanding officers competed for the pre-eminence of their units in sport and collected good players for their unit teams. I served in a unit which had a big throughput of national servicemen and the colonel collected boxers and tucked them into permanent staff jobs. He collected so assiduously that some went on to become champions professionally and our unit team won the Army Boxing Championships one year, to his great satisfaction and kudos and the enjoyment of the whole unit, for it was obligatory to attend the rounds of the tournament when they were held at our establishment. As a training unit, the excuse of driver training was used to ferry truckloads of soldiers to other establishments to provide vocal support for our team in away rounds.

The other side of this sporting coin was that a club-level player often found himself playing for his unit team against an international star or other luminary of some major sport who was well above his level. My own best-remembered incident of this was watching my unit team playing a rugby match against another unit team, that had at scrum-half the then reigning English rugby league half-back, the great Alex Murphy, who was serving his two years in the Army Pay Corps.

So the two years passed, some parading and marching, some military training and field exercises, some real guerrilla war in Africa, Cyprus and the Malay peninsula, some leisure, some fun, until the day came when you took off the khaki for the last time, your two years compulsory national service done, and returned, gratefully, maybe fitter, maybe wiser and more mature, certainly two years older, to your civilian life and ready for the next phase. One more life-ladder climbed, another yet to conquer.

For a smile and a jog of the memory to any who went through the national service mill, I commend to you ‘The Talkin’ Army Blues’(9) by the late Scottish folk singer, Josh MacRae. I think you will enjoy it.

Footnotes

(1) The Green Howards light infantry regiment, more properly Alexandra, Princess of Wales's Own Yorkshire Regiment, was one of several light infantry regiments in the British Army. Some light infantry regiments wore dark green uniforms. They did not have heavier weapons like other infantry and were used when there was a need for fast-moving infantry that could march into battle for guerrilla attacks and skirmishes. The traditional light infantry marching pace is faster than the standard and the troops were usually smaller, nimbler men. Scottish readers may remember the Highland Light Infantry, which recruited in the Glasgow area and had a fearsome reputation in battle.

(2) Richmond is a historic town in northern Yorkshire. It is the nearest town to the huge military garrison of Catterick Camp.

‘The Lass of Richmond Hill’ is a popular English folksong written in the 18th century, with a rousing tune. It honours a young lady of this town, not the better-known Richmond in the outer London area where the famous Hampton Court Palace is located.

(3) War Office Selection Board (WOSB, pron. was-bee) was set up during WWII to vet and select candidates for training for commissioned officer rank, initially to overcome a shortage of leaders in wartime and later for the granting of national service and short-term commissions (aka ‘temporary gentlemen’). Refined over the years, by my time (1957) it consisted of a three day intensive selection process that incorporated written tests, psychological interviews, mental and physical tests and group challenges. It was conducted at an establishment near Andover, a pleasant town in Hampshire in SE England. The accommodation standard was high, with silver settings and good glassware at meals and individual bedrooms. Doubtless there was an element of vetting about this aspect of the candidate’s suitability to fit in, in an officers’ mess environment.

(4) Aldershot in Hampshire is a town with a large army garrison, having a number of different barracks located in it and extensive training areas nearby. At one time it was the largest military garrison in UK. There are other towns with military establishments in the general area. In my time, many of the barracks were of 19th century construction and quite primitive. An extensive reconstruction program was undertaken during the 1960s.

(5) The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was set up by the UK, USA, Canada and the Western European countries after WWII to provide a military bulwark against the USSR9, which controlled Eastern Europe and much of Asia and harboured empire-building ambitions, with covetous eyes cast from the German Democratic Republic (the former USSR-ruled East Germany) on Western Germany and other countries which bordered its client states.

(6) The British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) was the force provided by Britain initially to aid in the control of post-war Germany and later as a component of NATO’s forces in Europe, part of the bulwark of Western Europe against the perceived threat of invasion by the USSR7, whose rulers cherished the memory of past Russian imperial glory and had ambitions to relive it

(7) The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was the name given by Russia to the conglomeration of Eastern European and Asian states over which it ruled from its conquest of them in and after the last stages of WWII in 1945 until it began to break up in1989, heralded by the literal crumbling of the Berlin Wall.

(8) Prior to the founding of the Malaysian Federation in 1963, the Federation of Malaya endured a bitter guerrilla war against communist insurgents, known as the Malayan Emergency, with the significant aid of a British force. This was not a highly favoured posting for British conscripts. The new federation of 1963 included Singapore, Borneo, and Sarawak in addition to the original British Malay states. In 1965 Singapore became an independent country and has remained so.

(9) ‘The Talkin’ Army Blues’, written and sung by Josh MacRae, can be found here.

Lifeboat 2
Hugh McGrory
So, what did happen to the Mona that December morning in 1959? No one can know for sure, but the Royal National Lifeboat Institution did carry out a full investigation and issued a final report.

The report said that the boat was in good condition, there were no structural defects, no decay, and no leaks in the hull. Furthermore, it stated that the coxswain, Ronald Grant, was very highly thought of and possessed the full confidence of the life-boat crew and of the Institution.

The report further noted that the evidence of oil marks on the engine room deckhead and bilge dirt on the cabin deckhead indicated that the boat undoubtedly capsized…

The summary stated:

" It is clear from internal evidence that the life-boat capsized. The capsize was almost certainly caused by the life-boat being thrown off course and across the sea some time between 05.15 and 06.00 in the morning. The life-boat was probably in the shallow water just to the south of the entrance to the River Tay at the time. The life-boat then appears to have drifted bottom up in a north-westerly direction until her signal mast touched bottom in the shallow water between Buddon Ness and Carnoustie. This had the effect of righting the boat.”

So, the crew performed well, and the boat had no defects (but it wasn’t self-righting - more on this later)…

The Mona, 49’6” in length, was a Watson class, built in 1935 - there were 19 Watsons built, and the other 18 had no history of serious problems.

The little town (population probably around 12,000 then) was devastated by the news.

A service was held at St James’ Church, the Fisherman’s Kirk, across the street from the lifeboat station. The Church only seats 450 and the service was relayed to another 300 in the church Hall and to hundreds who stood in Fort Street on a cold windy, wet forenoon. People started to queue outside the church doors an hour


East and west sides of Fort Street. The lifeboat station is seen at the far end. The buildings to the left are the Fisherman's Tavern Hotel (a pub where, over the years, I have spent many happy hours). The kirk is across the street from the Fisherman's.

before the service began, but few of them were able to get in. In the few days thereafter seven funeral services were held attended by hundreds. A national appeal to help the bereaved families raised £77,000 in a few weeks.

The Mona was quickly replaced by another lifeboat, the City of Bradford II, another Watson class. Then the RNLI had to decide what to do with the gallant Mona – she had served faithfully up to the last, and during her years of service at Broughty Fery was credited with saving 118 lives. Though still seaworthy after the disaster, it was decided that lifeboatmen should not be asked to serve on a boat that had such a tragic history.

The Mona was taken secretly to the Forth estuary and beached at Cockenzie, near Edinburgh. All fittings were stripped, and, at 4:30 in the morning, the boat was set on fire. People who lived in a tenement less than 100 yards away wakened the next morning to see the smoking ruin on the rocky beach.


Photo on left shows a magnificent model of the lifeboat as she looked on launching in 1935 - taken at the 60th memorial service - first two rows occupied by the current crew. On the right, the remains of the Mona the morning after burning.

The RNLI advertised for volunteers to serve as crew on the new lifeboat and no fewer than 38 applications were received – a special breed!

To be continued...

Suez 2
Gordon Findlay
Very soon after we were told of the upcoming operation to take over the Suez Canal, we received several bulky packages from 3rd Infantry Div. headquarters in Tripoli, each marked “SECRET. OPEN UNDER AUTHORIZATION ONLY.” I didn’t see all the stuff, but much of it came sifting over our desks in our nice snug I-Section room, which was housed in a building which had formed part of officers’ quarters in the old Italian barracks we now occupied

Much of the material comprised maps of the Suez Canal showing the exact location of Egyptian Army positions all down both sides of the Canal: heavy weapons (like 155 mm howitzers and field artillery) army fortifications and strong points, machine gun positions, troop barracks, mechanized units, and any known armoured vehicles.

We (and the other regiments which formed 3rd Inf. Div.) began to build up a very comprehensive picture of Egyptian Army forces and capabilities in the area, and what we did not know or were unsure about, we set about learning. This was done in two ways.

One was through the use of paid informers within the Egyptian Army forces (usually locals who were pressed into service within the camps, in cookhouses, or as cleaners or merchants to provide the Egyptian Army with food and other services).

The other way was by stealth. S.A.S. or other units like the Royal Marine Commandos, were sent in covertly, usually as 2-man teams, to photograph, measure and check on all the weaponry and fortifications and armed Egyptian personnel our forces would be likely to face. This information then came feeding back to all the Intel units within the Division.

In our own Intel Section, we updated the information and maps we already had on the so-called “masters.” These were the master maps of the area which, when Operation Rodeo Flail went active, would be copied by us (and all the other Intel units in the rest of 3rd Infantry Div.) to be given to all the field officers just before they were to go into action.

As you may know, each field officer is equipped with a map case and a map of the area in which his unit is operating. Fitted over the topographical map is a clear acetate overlay, on which Intel has entered all the Blue (friendly) Forces’ positions plus the Red (enemy) Forces known positions.

Special icons and Code names also appear on this overlay “talc” as it’s called, identifying mechanized forces, and heavy weaponry. Last but not least these overlays also include the F.U.P. (Forming Up Point) for troop assembly before advance, plus the expected L.O.A. or Line Of Advance.

All this was pretty fascinating stuff for us all in I-Section, and I can remember that even Sgt. Krywald, our Polish-born and highly temperamental non-commissioned leader, became quite sober, grim, and taciturn when checking on our work. I suppose he could see clearly that this was no fun peace-time exercise that would be quickly forgotten. This was planning for the invasion of Egyptian sovereign territory by force of arms, a bloody business at the best of times.

What was truly fascinating was –even to our unsophisticated eyes– we were helping put together a very detailed picture of the Canal Zone defences, a picture that left very little to chance. To me, it was a fascinating look into how a modern army prepares itself before going into battle.

We knew the size, range, and field of fire for every heavy weapon the Egyptians had all down the Canal, including precisely how much ammunition they had for each gun. We knew how many personnel each gun had to operate it, plus where the gun crew slept and ate– and how well, or badly, the weapon was guarded. We knew exactly where their transport vehicles were parked, so they could be disabled with a single artillery burst or by an aerial bomb.

I’m sure the British Army had been collecting all this military Intel for years, but when it was all put together it was quite remarkable how great an advantage an attacker would have, knowing all this detailed information in advance. However, it all seemed to be so much treading of water. We kept getting more intel and we kept updating the master maps– but nothing happened.

Until one bright morning.

Lifeboat
Hugh McGrory
I was not living in Dundee when the North Carr Lightship was almost lost (having moved to London, England, the previous year), and I don’t believe I even heard of the incident at that time.

When the ship broke free from its main anchor, the Fifeness Coastguard Station (on shore less than 2 miles away) spotted that it was moving off station and notified the Lifeboat Service.

(As a maritime nation with some 20,000 miles of coastline and lots of opportunities for mariners to get into trouble, the government created the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) in 1834. Today, this charity maintains 238 lifeboat stations around the British Isles, has over 5,600 crew members, mostly volunteers, and more than 3,700 shore crew around 12% of whom are women.)

Neither the Anstruther nor the Arbroath Lifeboat Stations could launch due to a combination of low tide and the fierce south easterly gale. However, the Broughty Ferry Station could launch in any tide (Broughty Ferry is a suburb of Dundee about four miles east of the town centre, and being on the estuary, rather than the North Sea itself, was slightly less affected by the storm).

At 2.42 am on Dec 8, 1959, the acting secretary of the Broughty Ferry lifeboat received the message that the North Carr lightship had broken loose and was drifting in a north westerly direction. He authorised the launching of the lifeboat, the Mona, by telephoning the coxswain and the lifeboat mechanic. They in turn notified the other volunteers by telephone or, in one case by walking about 100 yards, and knocking on his door…

They also fired the maroons (like firework rockets on steroids). About a foot long, two of them soar across the sky and explode with a very loud noise and an extremely bright flash of light. This summons the crew, lets the town know that the lifeboat is going out, and if those in peril are close enough, assures them that they have been spotted, and help is on the way.

The Mona had a crew of eight: Ronald Grant, George Smith, Alexander Gall, John Grieve, his son John T Grieve, George Watson, James Ferrier, and David Anderson. All volunteers, there were three who worked

The Mona and Her Crew

in the Caledon Shipyard in Dundee, a mechanic, a self-employed contractor, a plumber, a boatman at Dundee Harbour, and one who worked for a marine engineering firm.

Under the direction of the Chief Launcher, the Mona was safely underway by 3:13 am and set off down the
Firth of Tay, where the river debouches into the North Sea. The shaded areas show
land which is visible at low tide and presents either as beaches or as sandbars.
estuary into increasingly large waves Much of the following comes from the official report of the events of that day and from published research by Iain T McIntosh:

The weather was overcast with frequent fierce rain squalls. The wind was from the south-east, force 7 to 9, with a very rough sea and a heavy swell. Visibility varied from 2 to 6 miles. Low water neap tide was at 02.52.

The two middle buoys marking the bar at the entrance of the river had been absent from their normal positions since the 20th of November. It is almost certain that the Fairway buoy, the most seaward lightbuoy, was extinguished and adrift from its position at this time.

The Mona sent her first R/T message to the Fife Ness Coastguard at 03.20 and made her way down river at 6 knots. They tried to call the North Carr Lightvessel but without success. The North Carr was also sending up rockets at regular intervals to give her position.

At around 04.00 the senior coastguard at Carnoustie, David Mearns, caught his first sight of the Mona as she cleared Buddon Ness, he reported later that she appeared to have reduced speed and was constantly disappearing in the mountainous seas. He watched as she crossed the bar of the Tay.

At 04.06 the Mona reported that she was abeam of the Abertay Lightship. The North Carr fired another distress rocket at 04.25 and the Fifeness coastguard asked Mona if she had seen it. The Mona radio operator only managed to gasp out “No…our position…. We have just passed the middle buoys on the Bar and we are just hanging on.” Coastguard David Mearns saw the Mona turn south into St Andrews Bay at about 04.45.

At 04.48 the Fifeness coastguard told the lifeboat that the North Carr had sent up a red rocket and they asked
if the Mona had seen it. The Mona reported “Yes, we saw that one. We have just cleared the bar.” That was the last message heard from the Mona.

The Fifeness coastguard saw the Mona’s masthead light in St Andrew’s Bay at 05.39, they were unable to estimate how far away the Mona was, they radioed the lightship to see if they could see the lifeboat, the reply was “Yes, I think it is the lifeboat, will burn another flare.”

Fifeness coastguard sent a signal to the Mona on the distress frequency asking the Mona if their receiver was working, and to fire rockets and flash their searchlight up into the sky. There was no response, and the masthead lights disappeared a few minutes later.

At first light about 08.30 a search was organised by the
coastguards in which a shore party and a helicopter took part. Mr William C. Philip, a barman of the Carnoustie Station Hotel, was the first person to reach the scene of the disaster. He usually went for a walk on the beach first thing every morning and spotted a boat in the distance bobbing in the water. At first, he thought it was a ship’s small boat that had come in with the storm. When he reached the boat, he shouted to see if there was anyone there, but with no response. He stayed around for a while, and when he started to walk back, he saw a man’s body floating in the surf.

Mr. Philip tried to pull him in, but the body was too heavy. Just then Coastguard John Hamilton came along the beach and together they pulled the body up onto the sands. It turned out to be the youngest member of the Mona’s crew, John T. Grieve.

John Hamilton was a Corporation employee, who was also a relief coastguard. When the rocket went off, he left his municipal job and hurried to the coastguard station. He actually took part in both the beginning and the end of the Mona’s disastrous trip. He had been on coastguard duty from 2 am to 8 am that morning (Dec 8th) and he had received the message at 02:45 am from the coastguard at Fifeness that the North Carr Lightship had broken adrift. He had called senior Coastguard David Mearns and the message was relayed to Broughty Ferry to call out the Lifeboat. Shortly after Mr. Hamilton had returned to his job as a Burgh Labourer in Carnoustie he heard the maroon being fired from Westhaven. A message on the pad at the Coastguard station told him the Mona had been driven ashore at Buddon.

When the live-saving apparatus crew with breeches buoy equipment arrived, Mr. Hamilton was sent to telephone the police. The Carnoustie Coastguard Station officer was the first person to board the lifeboat. This was about 09.20. He found five bodies all wearing lifejackets.

Half a mile to the southward of the lifeboat was found the body of ex-coxswain Alexander Gall. Near it was the lifejacket of George Watson along with the broken foremast of the lifeboat. The police walking to the scene found the body of the seventh member of the crew on the beach at South Flat, about half a mile from where the Mona had gone aground.

The Morning After - The Mona, Beached, North of Buddon Ness.
Note both fore and aft masts are missing.

All seven men died from drowning; they suffered no injuries apart from abrasions. The seven bodies were taken to the police mortuary at Carnoustie. The eighth (the body of George Watson) was never found.

To be continued...

The Big Five
Bill Kidd
Saturday forenoon was when my mother dragged me into Dundee City Centre to go round the shops. This was a regular occurrence for the first decade of my life. I do not recall these outings with any great amount of pleasure. I didn’t understand their purpose as it was only rarely that she bought anything. Occasionally there was some activity that I did enjoy. I liked the Students’ Charity Parade. I liked seeing the Spitfire that was parked in the City Square as part of a fundraising project. I enjoyed anything out of the usual that distracted my Mum from the relentless trek round the shops. I now understand that this was an important social activity for her. Being part of the hustle and bustle was an opportunity to dress up and sometimes casually meet her friends and acquaintances.

At some point of the morning we would visit at least two of the “Big Five.” I refer to the five major department stores that graced Dundee City Centre from Victorian times into at least the 1960s. They were D. M. Brown, located opposite G. L Wilson on the northern corner of Commercial Street and Murraygate, while on the southern corner Smith Brothers could be found. Further to the west on the corner of Whitehall Street and Nethergate Draffens ruled in solitary splendour. Almost hidden on the east side of Reform Street the smallest of the five was Cairds. They all sold a similar range of goods, but each had its own specialities, style, and ambience. Social standing could be assessed by who regularly shopped where and whether or not one paid cash or put purchases on one’s account.

Without doubt the magnet for the posh and those who aspired to be posh folks was Draffens. Rather like
Captain Peacock in Are You Being Served? the Buyer in charge of each department would ensure that favoured customers were recognised and properly attended to. The store had a well patronised coffee shop that served silver service coffee with choice of white or brown sugar. It had a restaurant that served lunch and afternoon tea and was the place to go for fine fabrics. My mother only rarely ventured into Draffens and then only if she was looking for a specific item. I understand that the only Draffens now left in Dundee is a cocktail bar in Coutties Wynd.

My experience of Cairds was largely as a result of my joining the Scouts. Cairds was the approved
retailer for Scout uniforms and accessories. It was there that I bought my first woggle, neckerchief, hat, and staff. Gents outfitting and school uniform was also a major part of their business. I vaguely remember there being an upmarket toy department that I liked to visit because it sold Mamod model steam engines etc. Cairds also was only rarely visited by my mother.

We always went into D M Brown’s. This was where my mother felt at home, and this was where she purchased soft furnishings, kitchenware, and bedding. Many of these purchases were made when DMs had its Summer or New Year Sales. These were big events with advertisements

plastered over the Courier weeks in advance. Each department had its sale goods piled high on the counters. My father and I had our shirts and underwear bought in the DM’s sale and my mother tried to zone in on items that she had seen during her weekly visits rather than the items that had been brought in specifically for the sale. The store had a broad range of departments but was rather more impersonal than Draffens or Cairds, there was more attempts to sell the goods and it gave the impression of being the “People’s” store

G L Wilson was another of my mother’s favourite stores. In many respects it fitted neatly into the social space left

between Draffens and D M Brown. In my era it was the only one of the five that was still owned and operated by the founding family. Sir Garnet Wilson was the very active Lord Provost of Dundee during and immediately after WW2. His brother John was also active in the business and was often seen on the shop floor, recognisable by the carnation he wore on his lapel. As a child I loved going to G L Wilson’s because it had a lift with a lift attendant who was always very chatty to the children. I learned later that as a company policy and whenever possible the lift attendants and the boys that helped around the store were injured WW1 veterans or youngsters with

learning difficulties.

The highlight of G L Wilson’s year as far as I was concerned was the Christmas Grotto and my annual meeting with Santa. I do not have a clear recollection of what this store actually sold, but I think that it was primarily a draper with some more specialised range of clothing, particularly for ladies, added on.

The first four stores were definitely Dundee enterprises
and developed from small family firms. The final member of the big five was an English institution that spread into various parts of the UK. I don’t think that my mother was terribly fond of Smith Brothers, and we rarely ventured inside for a look round. What I do remember is that when my mother was doing any kind of dressmaking she went there for material, patterns, thread, and buttons. I seem to recall that the store had quite a sizeable furniture department and that they sold clothing. As the store occupied a prime city centre position for so many years it must have been a popular outlet for some but clearly not for us!

To the best of my knowledge all of the buildings are still standing and are currently in use. The interiors have been refurbished and been put to a different use. The exteriors have largely been restored to their former glory but where have all the crowds that used to congregate in Dundee City Centre gone? Are they at out-of-town shopping centres or are the hunched over a computer buying on-line? On thing is sure, they aren’t going into department stores, nor are they likely to!

Lightship
Hugh McGrory
The North Sea is the northeastern arm of the Atlantic Ocean between the British Isles and the mainland of Europe and is known as one of the most treacherous seas in the world for ships to navigate. It’s often rough,
stormy, or covered by thick fogs, and is shallow, and laced by swift, tangled currents. Its fishing grounds are probably the richest that have ever existed, and more than a quarter of a million ships use the North Sea annually.

Any ships heading for the Firth of Forth, if coming from the north, have to steer well clear of the North Carr Rock before turning west into the mouth of the River Forth. Numerous ships have died on these rocks over
the centuries, and, in the early 19th century, after sixteen ships were lost between 1800 and 1809, the government decided that something had to be done. This resulted, eventually, in a lightship being positioned there.

The photo shows the third of these ships the North Carr Lightship III (1933 to 1975) on station, (it now sits
at its final resting place in Dundee harbour, waiting to be scrapped.) You can tell from the photo, why they call it a lightship – not so obvious is the fact that such ships don’t have propulsion engines, they simply get towed to their station and anchored there. They function like lighted buoys, or lighthouses (with foghorns).

The North Carr was manned by a crew of seven, and on 8 December 1959 a full gale was blowing, and the lightship was rolling and pitching heavily.

Suddenly, the moorings gave way, the anchor was lost, and the ship began to drift north-westerly towards the shore. The crew behaved heroically, and after sending out a distress call, set to work to deploy one of their two spare anchors. They were successful, but soon thereafter the gale was so strong that the mooring line parted again; they finally managed to deploy the second spare anchor so as to hold the ship some 900 yards off the rocky shore at Kingsbarns, near St Andrews.

The ship and crew were still in serious danger, and an attempt was made to tow the ship to safety. This failed, and the decision was made to evacuate the men by helicopter. The rescue would have to be made in extremely adverse conditions. A full gale was blowing, and the Lightship was rolling and pitching heavily.

To assist in the rescue operations the Lightship crew cut away the 40ft aftermast, which allowed the helicopters, two Bristol Sycamores from RAF Leuchars, to fly as low as 5ft above the lantern and pick up all

The Bristol Sycamore The Earner was an Assurance Class sea-going tug identical to the HMRT Jaunty shown here.

seven members of the crew from the chart house roof. The Lightvessel was eventually taken in tow by the Admiralty tug "Earner" on 11 December, repaired at Leith, and put back on station on 16 March 1960.

Brave men all – but not unique. There were others on that December night more than sixty years ago…

To be continued...

British National Service in the 1950s
Part One
Brian Macdonald
In 1949 the British government had a military commitment to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the need to fight fires in other parts of Great Britain’s crumbling empire that could not be met by the regular armed forces. The answer was to enact compulsory universal male national military service legislation. From then until 1960, all able-bodied British males between eighteen and thirty years of age were obliged to complete two years of service in one of the armed services. The last few of two million conscripts gratefully threw off their battledress in 1963. So my contemporaries and I were subjected to the delights of non-voluntary military service.

Exemption could be obtained on grounds of conscientious objection to serving in a military force or for compassionate reasons. National service could be deferred until a university or other post-secondary education was completed, but it was a deferral, not an exemption and many a highly-qualified young man found himself marching up and down on a wet and windy parade ground at the mercy of the eagle eye and sharp tongue of a zealous drill sergeant whose sole aim in life was to achieve total uniformity of movement from a group of disparate individuals or crawling about in long, wet grass, at night, encumbered with rifle, ammunition pouches and small backpack and wondering why his talents and expensive education were not being made better use of. Some professional qualifications were taken appropriate advantage of, and the forces benefitted from the work of doctors, dentists and teachers who were, sometimes grudgingly, giving their service to their country. But many with technical qualifications were not properly used and saw national service as two years lost out of their lives and a hiatus in their careers.

National service was not universally welcomed by those who underwent it. My own military experience was with the British Army, and I assume the RAF and the Royal Navy did things similarly in the early stages, when the service was trying to achieve obedience, conformity and a standard of cleanliness and self-discipline that may not have been highly regarded aspects of life till then. Most conscripts saw it as an unwelcome intrusion into their lives and few looked forward to the high degree of regimentation and restrictions on personal freedom and activities to which they knew they would be subjected.

Older generations of men, who had lived through WWI or WWII as adults, often expressed the thought that national service would ‘make a man ‘ of someone, especially of a youth who was out of control or who needed ‘toughening up’ and maybe it did for some. But in others it bred an increase in a pre-existing hatred of authority and the two years were spent in resentment and silent disobedience. It was not unknown for magistrates to offer young offenders who were out of work the choice of a gaol term or of signing up to military service. While this may have been a useful recruiting tool, it did nothing to improve the overall quality of recruits.

For many, the enforcement of the sometimes ridiculously high military standards of presentation of dress and equipment and ‘spit and polish’ came as a shock. The short back and sides military haircut and the blouse
Teddy Boys before ... ... and after

battledress were unwelcome changes of style for many in an era of Teddy Boys and DA(1) hairstyles. Having to sleep and relax in a large, spartan room with a number of other men was very different to their former lives. The constant polishing of unending items of brass, ironing of clothing to achieve razor-sharp creases and the detested ‘bulling’(2) of boots were tasks few young males had encountered before. Jumping out of bed without hesitation at an early hour every day and queueing with mug, knife, fork, and spoon for breakfast were more unfamiliar routines. The scrupulous cleaning of the barrack rooms and the laborious polishing of floors were new and unwelcome jobs.

A much more active life, which included physical training, often in inclement weather and trotting long distances on boot-shod feet, loaded down with equipment and weapons, wearing uncomfortable, heavy, uniform clothing, and the torturous and usually wet, muddy assault course were a major shock to unaccustomed minds and muscles. Marching in formation with a highly stylised rhythm and stride, the stamping of boots in unison and the maintaining of ruler-straight lines and ramrod posture while doing so was quite alien to all in civilian life. There were some, fortunately for the blood pressure of drill instructors, a very few, who never mastered the strictly timed and obscure movements of rifle drill, at which all were obliged to become proficient, regardless of their future service direction.

A national serviceman’s pay was a pittance, far less than even a modest civilian wage. In my time it was twenty-five shillings a week, barely enough to buy the essential materials needed to present the high standard of polished and pressed uniformity of dress demanded and buy a cup of tea and a bun or a beer in the NAAFI(3) of an evening. If you smoked cigarettes as well, which many did then, the pay was inadequate. Married servicemen got a little more but not enough to support a wife and maybe a child who were back at home. Pay was delivered in cash, weekly, from an officer seated at a table, with much saluting and boot-stamping.

Enlisting as a regular soldier was available as an alternative to being called up but it was an option that most shunned, the minimum term a young man could sign up for being three years instead of the two of national service. ‘Regulars’ were paid about fifty per cent more than conscripts. In the period of which I write, the military had a need for infantry, truck drivers, labourers and other unskilled workers that could not be met by volunteers. Britain’s educational standards were not universally high in the post-war years so there was a good supply of suitable candidates and an inadequate supply of civilian jobs.

First came the initial shock of the raw recruits being shouted at, marshalled into squads, loaded like camels with clothes and baffling military equipment, shepherded into the barracks – their home for the foreseeable future – taught how to make up a bed with the coarse blankets provided and how to fold them just so in the approved style to avoid the wrath of their superiors. Most learned to deal with this new and strange environment. The initial few weeks kept us confined to the barracks, learning the rudiments of military behaviour and getting fitter, thanks to the constant physical exercise and sound, if uninspired nutrition. Youth is resilient for the most part and all was not doom, gloom and misery, however. After three weeks of initial training, we were allowed out of barracks for an evening for the first time. Predictably, this aimed us at the nearest pub and there were some who overdid it and suffered the disciplinary consequences.

An enduring memory of basic training is of being given, one Friday afternoon, an inoculation that was designed to protect you from almost everything, after being told we were being given the weekend off. The rest of the ‘weekend off’ most of us spent in misery, huddled on our beds, with a fever and a sore, stiff arm that lingered well into the following week. There was no suggestion that we had a choice of accepting or refusing that inoculation! Most adapted well enough to army life, but not all. Those few who fell by the wayside psychologically were quietly returned to civvy street. A physical injury earned the victim no such blessing. He was simply treated and put aside to recover from the broken limb or illness and resumed his training with a later intake.

To be continued

Footnotes
(1) The Teddy Boys phenomenon was a British 1950s subculture whose main focus was dandified clothing, the ‘DA’ hairstyle and an interest in the developing rock ‘n roll music. The most identifiable items of clothing were a longer than usual, drape jacket with velvet collar and matching stovepipe trousers. There was somewhat of a gang culture about these youths.

The DA hairstyle had the slightly long, greased hair brushed back from the forehead, with a quiff at the front and was combed into a form at the back reminiscent of a duck’s rear end. The name Teddy Boys is believed to have come from the idea that it was the Edwardian dress culture that was being copied.
The Famous DA
(aka Duck's Arse)

(2) Bulling is the tedious process of imparting a thick layer of black boot polish to the heel and toe area of army boots with a soft cloth and the aid of spit, the cloth, with forefinger poked into it, being revolved in small circles to impart polish until the treated area acquires a perfect high gloss. As wearing the boots tends to damage this gloss layer, the process needs to be repeated endlessly as the boots had to be set out for display. Some who could afford it bought a special pair of high-quality boots kept specifically to be displayed but never worn.

(3) The Navy, Army, and Air Force Institutes (NAAFI) was set up by the UK government in 1920, and still exists, to provide services for troops. The NAAFI runs a variety of retail and service establishments for those serving in the British forces and their dependants and its cafés, bars, clubs, supermarkets, etc. are found wherever there is a UK military establishment. During the initial training period, when recruits are confined to the barracks, the on-base NAAFI club is the sole leisure establishment available and where most spend their evenings after the obligatory pressing, cleaning and polishing work on uniform and barracks was done.

In my time, the NAAFI ran tombola evenings in the barracks club. This number-checking game is known to civilians as bingo and is favoured mostly by older women as a leisure activity where money can be won. All recruits were ‘encouraged’ by their non-commissioned officer superiors to attend and participate in tombola evenings rather than stay in the barracks, lounging on the bed, reading, or writing letters.

Covid...
Hugh McGrory
Covid – makes me think of how I, personally, have been affected – and while there are many ways (perhaps fodder for a future anecdote) I wanted to address just one:

For many years of my working life, lunch mostly consisted of a sandwich and coffee eaten at my desk, but every now and then I enjoyed taking an hour to go out, find a place where I could eat on my own while I read one of the scientific magazines that I got each month (Discover, and Scientific American).

I had two favourites depending on geography and time available:

Fabian’s Café

A pastry chef named Horst Fabian, emigrated to Canada in 1956, and in 1974 opened his own bakery based on the traditional German Bäckerei. It had an excellent, though limited, lunch menu and a huge collection of pastries.

In 2005 he decided that semi-retirement sounded good – if he could find a suitable person to take over his
beloved café. Luckily, he found a personable, trained pastry chef with whom he got along well, and soon Gnanabaskaran Narayanapillai, who came to Canada from Sri Lanka in 1991, was the new owner

Gnanabaskaran was smart enough to make very few changes to the successful business, and the favourite lunch offerings and pastries remained unchanged. Some of this was no doubt due to the fact that the two men got along, and Horst dropped by quite often to help.

I always ordered my favourite lunch, a shrimp-and-egg open sandwich followed by a custard slice (Napoleon, mille-feuille?).


Once, back in Horst’s day, they ran out of custard slices, so I went for my fall-back – a strawberry tart. It wasn’t up to its usual standard, and as I was waiting to pay Horst walked out of the back room. I told him that there was something wrong with the tart – it was soggy and just crumpled under a fork – not up to their usual standard.

He grabbed one from the display counter and took a bite “ Nothing wrong with that”, he said. “OK”, I shrugged, thinking to myself, “You need a better complaints department, fella…”

On my next visit he noticed me and came over. He said “I was a bit brusque with you last time in the way I dismissed your complaint – it’s always my first response.” I thought to myself, “You need a better complaints department, fella…”.

Then he said, “You were right, we forgot to coat the inside of the shell with melted chocolate.” Good for him – I’m sure we both felt better…

Stouffville Fish-n-Chips

Jerry Heikens, a Dutch Canadian, opened Stouffville Fish-n-Chips in 1973 and sold the business to his son John and wife Susan in 1998. I discovered them in the early 2000s when we moved to Stouffville. They made excellent fish and chips, and I dropped in about once a month for haddock and chips followed by dessert – a soft vanilla ice cream cone.

Susan and I had a running joke – “what happens in the fish and chip shop stays in the fish and chip shop” – I would have the ice cream, she wouldn’t tell my wife…


Jerry, though retired, would sometimes drop in to help out on busy days, and he and I would sometimes chat briefly, usually about European football.

Then January 2020 arrived – and so did Covid. Both establishments tried to exist by offering take-out only. Within a few months both closed, and my two favourite cafés were out of business permanently.

Then... Now...

The United Nations has said the following:

“COVID-19 has turned the world upside down. Everything has been impacted. How we live and interact with each other, how we work and communicate, how we move around and travel. Every aspect of our lives has been affected. Decisions made now and in the coming months will be some of the most important made in generations. They will affect people all around the world for years to come.”

At this point, you may be saying to yourselves “Makes your ‘poor me’ story above sound rather trivial, doesn’t it?” And I see that. But think about the story from the perspective of the two families, the Heikens and the Narayanapillais. Decent hard-working people who had built successful small businesses for themselves and their families and suddenly had them snatched away through no fault of their own – like hundreds of thousands of other people around the globe…

I guess it will be left to historians to fully document just how much Covid changed the future of our world.

Suez 1
Gordon Findlay
While we were stationed in Tobruk from 1950 -51, tensions had been building in Egypt, next door to Libya.

At the time, Egypt was ruled by King Farouk, an Anglophile ruler who had been schooled in England and generally kept out of the way of government activities. But Farouk’s indulgent tastes and profligate personal spending ruffled the feelings of the populace, and in particular the nationalistic political party of one Nahas Pasha, who began to sell the idea that all “outside” interference in Egyptian affairs (i.e. mostly from Great Britain and France) was simply colonialism at its worst and had to end.

There began to be real concern for the safety of British ex-pats living in Egypt and for the security of British properties in the country. Pasha and his nationalist party began to threaten that – if they won power – they (or the military junta they would appoint to do their dirty work) would dismantle the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936 which guaranteed Great Britain permanent use of the Suez Canal... which, was and is, essential for a maritime nation like Great Britain which depends on sure and swift passage of its imports and exports.

(The Suez Canal is, of course, the 193-kilometre, north-south waterway through Egypt, opened in 1869 to link the Mediterranean and Red Seas. It saved 15 days for ships leaving London for Bombay compared to the trip round the southern tip of Africa.)

Britain could see the handwriting on the wall: an Egyptian military junta would arbitrarily close the Suez Canal, or would immediately impose massive increases in the rates charged for shipping. Such a move could put Britain’s finances in a serious situation. Quietly, Britain and France together began to plan for an armed invasion and occupation of the Suez Canal Zone in order to protect the orderly passage of shipping through the international channel.

Israel would be the catalyst for this action. Israel would invent an Egyptian offensive action against it as an excuse to attack Egypt. Britain and France would then pile in to “end the aggression and restore peace.” (This action would not take place until I was, fortunately, safely out of Britain’s armed forces, in 1956 when the Anglo-French invasion of the Suez Canal Zone actually took place).

Our commanding officer of Intelligence, Lieut. Thompson, called us all in one morning, and placed copies of the War Department’s official Secret’s Act in front of each of us. Before being accepted into Intelligence we had all read and signed a copy of the Act (you couldn’t work in Intelligence without doing so) but apparently the War Department wanted everyone in Intel to re-sign the form, and to be aware that we were going to be exposed to many new and significant secrets in the weeks ahead – and were we to divulge any of these, the penalties would be severe.

So it was that we came to learn of Operation “Rodeo Flail”: “The air, sea and land occupation of the Suez Canal Zone by the Armed Forces of Great Britain and the Government of France.” Thompson made it clear that we were to say nothing to anyone else in the regiment of what we were doing, reading about, or preparing.

Mars...
Hugh McGrory
If you were male, had lived in Dundee between 1869 and 1929, and misbehaved on occasion, you might have heard something like the following from your parents: “If you don’t smarten up, laddie, we’ll send you to Mars...” To explain this reference to outer space, I need to provide some background:

In the UK, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, life expectancy at birth was about 45 years. There were many poor people struggling to survive and many children were orphans or living in homes where their care was totally inadequate. Many of these kids ended up on the streets and living off their wits, often in bad company.

In 1834 Parliament had passed the Poor Law Amendment Act which resulted in more and more paupers entering workhouses, since other relief measures were essentially eliminated. This increase in admissions meant that workhouses were overflowing, and the Poor Law Board needed to find places to house all the new admissions.

One way that they accomplished this was by sending pauper boys to training ships. These ships were generally moored on the Thames, and pauper boys could be sent to live on the ships once they reached the age of twelve, with the option to remain on board up to the age of seventeen. This was extremely helpful to the over-crowded workhouses of London.

On board the ships, the boys were taught how to become sailors (fit to serve in the British navy). They were also expected to complete ordinary schoolwork and to learn to swim. They were taught carpentry, how to


make sails and ropes, to repair sails when they ripped, and other skills necessary for sailing and rowing.

In the foreground the brig HMS Francis Mollison, tender for the Mars and also used to teach sailing skills. Note the boys manning the rigging...
It was generally agreed by the ‘powers that be’ that the training ships provided excellent care and schooling for the boys, and that keeping them out of the workhouse (but also off the streets) was mutually beneficial. In the twenty years from 1860, industrial training ships began to spread beyond the Thames, and ten were established on major rivers around England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.

So, the rascal at the beginning of this tale who thought he was going to be sent into space had misheard what his parents had said – it was actually “If you don’t smarten up, laddie, we’ll send you to the Mars...” The Mars was an Industrial Training ship first moored in the Tay in 1869. (It was just off the Fife bank of the River Tay roughly halfway between the landfalls of the rail and road bridges.)

The Mars off Woodhaven – Balgay Hill and the Tay Rail Bridge visible middle left. Looking south from the Mars – the three-storey building, Rock House, was used as the ship's hospital and still stands today.

Such industrial schools were meant to house and educate the poor, as distinct from the reformatory school for children convicted of crimes. In practice, children were sentenced to time in an industrial school by magistrates for things like begging, to being in the company of reputed thieves. For the children, the experience would have been difficult to distinguish from a criminal proceeding. On arrival on the ship, the similarity to a prison continued. Children were first stripped and examined by a medical officer. Their hair was cut close to the scalp. Then they were bathed and given a uniform to wear. Their names and details of their families and ‘sentence’ were noted in a logbook. In a practice very much drawn from prison camp life, each child was assigned a number which replaced their name. From that point on, even just amongst the children themselves, they were only referred to by their assigned number.

Efforts to strip away individual identity from the boys were part of their training for a life at sea, but also greatly reinforced the effects of removal from their homes. Boys were deliberately given little opportunity to maintain connections with family and friends. Discipline was strict, and for serious misbehaviour, such as making a break for freedom, boys would be stripped to the waist, tied across one of the ship’s cannons, and lashed (up to a maximum of eighteen strokes).

For 60 years the Mars was a local landmark, but improvements in the education system, changes in the law on juvenile crime and the deteriorating condition of the ship marked its end in 1929. This old warship served as home to over 6000 children with there being around 400 boys living on board at any one time.

My thanks to Libraries, Leisure & Culture Dundee for some of the text and photographs above.

When I was a Lad!
Bill Kidd
After many years of despairing at the declining standards of behaviour of the upcoming generations I have reached the stage of my life when more time is spent in mature reflection than in thinking about the future. One outcome of my honest reappraisal of my own behaviour during childhood and adolescence is the realisation that the following generations were little different to me and my contemporaries. What was different was the culture and economic circumstances in which we grew into adulthood.

I was born in 1935, a time of economic difficulty for most of the population. There was very little cash to spare, and expectations were modest. The majority of families lived fairly close to their immediate family members, and this provided a strong support network. By the time I started school much of this had changed because of WW2. The economic situation strengthened. Women took advantage of the well-paid work that became available and a whole generation of young men were called into the military. Additional responsibilities were thrust upon grandmothers and grandfathers. More cash was around but there was not a great deal available to spend it on. The support network was fraying at the edges, and it was inevitable that changes in society would take place.

All of this affected the children of the time. Many more mothers were at work, many fathers were away from home for long periods, childcare arrangements certainly would not meet present day standards. Older children, particularly girls were expected to look after younger siblings and ensure that they went to school and returned home on time. The firm discipline normally imposed by parents also began to fray around the edges.

In the summer months the streets, in the absence of traffic, became playgrounds. Ball games and skipping games were the girls’ favourites while the boys enjoyed cowboys and indians and other warlike games. Chasing and capture games like Tig and Reliefo were enjoyed by both genders and although we were not exactly feral, we did enjoy a lot of freedom. Wherever and whenever you went there would be a lot of noisy unaccompanied children. Where are the children today? Certainly, the birthrate has fallen, but not to such a great extent. Apart from school starting and finishing times unaccompanied pre-teen children are a rare sight today.

In the winter months the life of wartime children changed. It was dark, there were no streetlights or stair lighting in tenement closes. We read books and comics, we listened to the wireless (not the radio), we went to the cinema, we joined the Lifeboys, Cubs or Brownies while our older siblings attended Boys Brigade, Scouts, or Girl Guides. Virtually every child spent at least some time in these uniformed organisations which were often run by men and women who had participated in WW1. A great deal of the evening, usually in a church hall, was spent in drill and marching but there was also games and lessons in various skills, domestic for girls and military for the boys.

The cinema was a magnet for us, and we would often go two evenings a week. A seat at the very front cost threepence, a little further back sixpence. I you went with a parent or other adult you would likely sit a lot further back in seats costing the adult one and threepence or even one and ninepence, your seat in the same area was half price. The theme for play during the next week was often established by the subject of the film. Errol Flynn like swordplay was re-enacted with a piece of wood and the flowing cloak by a trench was coat slung over the shoulder and buttoned at the throat. No replicating of a kissing scene was even contemplated until many years later!

The dark nights were also the opportunity for various kinds of mischief. Nothing terrible but just extremely irritating to our adult victims. Sometimes while returning from the cinema, we would decide to play Chap and Run. This consisted of knocking at someone’s door and watching for the door to be opened by the resident and having a quiet laugh to ourselves over the puzzled expression on his face when there was no-one there. The big joke was to repeat the exercise a couple of times before we got shouted at and made ourselves scarce. This form of loutish behaviour palled somewhat after one of our number rose to the challenge of knocking on every one of the eight doors of one tenement close. Not being very bright he started knocking on the bottom doors before going upstairs ……. he couldn’t sit down for a week!

A variation on this activity involved a rubber washer from a wire topped lemonade bottle, a wood screw, and a length of string with half a dozen knots, each an inch apart, at the end of it. This was used after dark to stick to the corner of a blacked-out window. When the string was held taut and the knots, gently pulled the wood screw would rap on the window. To see what was causing the resultant knocking the victim would have to extinguish the room light and remove the black out curtain. A tedious and annoying process.

This treatment was mainly reserved for those adults who objected to our noisy play outside their house. To us it was a bit of fun, to the victims it was a case of “Children today are spoiled and have no concern for others.” Exactly the same opinion that I have voiced about successive generations to my contemporaries over the years. Perhaps we need to be a little more tolerant and take aboard the changes in culture when we compare the current generation to ourselves at the same age.

Turtles...
Hugh McGrory
You’ve probably all seen shows on television featuring the annual migrations of millions of turtles to lay their eggs on beaches around the world. In the Atlantic, from the Caribbean up the US East Coast to Canada, and, in the Pacific, from Southeast Asia (Indonesia and Malaysia) to California and then up to Alaskan waters. If you are interested, see this short Smithsonian video

Sheila and I have never seen these great turtle migrations, but we live in the country north of Toronto, and from time to time we see a variety of small animals in our backyard, from field mice to deer and coyotes. Annual visitors include several snapping turtles. We have a small pond to the east of our house and a wet, marshy area to the west. Most summers we will see one or more lumbering across the back of the house from one to the other.

We’d always assumed (without evidence) that this was the females’ annual egg-laying trip. Snapping turtles are a type of freshwater turtle known for their distinctive and often aggressive behavior. They are a common sight in North America. They can be quite large, with some individuals reaching sizes of 18-20 inches in shell length and weighing over 35 pounds. Imagine a tea tray with head, tail, and four flippers sticking out… They’re quite ugly, and sometimes covered in algae which doesn’t help…

One day, some ten years ago we noticed one at the front of the house on the edge of the road – apparently


the soft shoulder of country roads is often a favoured position for egg laying. We watched it settle itself and begin to dig and we realised what we were seeing and grabbed my phone. It was quite amazing how she dug so accurately with her flippers – she manipulated them as if they were hands.

She finally was satisfied with the nest and settled down to lay – apparently you can expect twenty to thirty eggs (though only one or two of those will grow to maturity). By this time, we were right at her backside, but our presence seemed to bother her not one whit. Not sure how many she laid, but below you can see two photos – these are actually the same photo twice (I manipulated the contrast etc. to make the eggs visible):


She covered the nest, made an excellent job of tidying up, then seemed to settle down for a rest – we lost interest at that point, and when we checked some time later, she was gone.

The story becomes rather anticlimactic at this point. We had hoped that we would see the babies emerging – I wondered whether they would head for the pond or the marsh. Since the eggs take some 80 to 90 days to emerge, we realised that we would probably miss the event – but still, we kept checking every now and then…

As it turned out, we didn’t see anything – the spot remained undisturbed – sadly, for some reason, the eggs didn’t hatch…

A few years later, I saw my next door neighbour digging by the side of the road, about 40 ft from the nest
site. I asked him what he was doing, and he said that a turtle had laid eggs there and he was going to dig them up and put them in a more secure spot in his back garden. He said he’d done it once before, successfully, and had hand-carried the hatchlings down to the pond. He dug a hole, put the eggs in, then placed a wooden box on top weighed down with stones to keep out predators – raccoons, skunk, foxes, birds, and dogs.

Some months later I asked him if it had been a success and he said that it hadn’t – that he eventually dug up the nest and said that he couldn’t find any signs that the eggs had ever been there, despite the fact that the box on top was undisturbed… another one of Nature's mysteries, I guess!

Growing up in Kingsway Place
Brian Macdonald
My parents got married in 1937, my father the Dundee-born son, with two sisters who both worked in jute factories, of parents who hailed from rural Aberdeenshire. They were late 19th century immigrants to Dundee looking to find work in the growing industrial city, and my mother was a London East Ender, whom my dad had met during his wandering as a merchant seaman. It was my mother who had to relocate, so they started their life together in Dundee. My father’s seaman’s skills were not very useful on dry land, and he became an insurance man, travelling around Dundee in all weathers on his big, heavy Hercules bicycle, selling small life insurance policies to poor jute factory workers so they would have enough to bury the head of the family when the time came, and collecting the weekly premiums.

My mother was from an industrious East End Jewish family of Polish heritage that had established a fishmonger’s shop and she understood retail and had a ferocious work ethic; she and her brother Nathan both had to help out in the family business from an early age, although neither stayed in the family business: my mother became a nurse and her brother a London fireman who drove a fire engine throughout the WWII blitz. But it was natural to my mother to establish a shop. Not a fish shop in her family tradition, but one that sold sweets, cigarettes, lemonade, milk, ice cream and dry groceries from a tiny wooden building on a street corner on Old Glamis Road in Dundee, then an area of many small factories so there was a ready and keen market for her range of products.

Right across the road was Old Glamis Fabrics, a specialist jacquard-weaving factory set up by Donald Brothers, a firm with its origins in Dundee’s main industry of the early 20th century, jute processing. The then queen, Elizabeth’s family (Bowes-Lyon, the earldom of Strathmore) lived in Glamis Castle some miles from Dundee and were said to be patrons of the factory and made occasional visits. There was a factory that made sharp pins for flax and jute processing called hackles (or heckles in Dundee) and the simple gramophone needles used then. A sawmill stood nearby. There were two engineering factories. The Cabrelli family, of the early 20th century Italian immigration to Scotland, whose name became well known in Dundee for ice cream and fish and chips, lived on the corner of Balgray Street, just opposite the shop. The Dundee North End Football Club ground was – and still is – a short street away and Saturday afternoons in winter were good for business.

The shop prospered and was not only my mother’s business for most of her life but also the financial mainstay of the family. Both my father and I did stints behind the counter over the years and proficiency in mental arithmetic in pounds, shillings and pence became a skill of mine. Often, of a Sunday, as a teenager, I was on duty and, with few customers, spent most of my time outside cleaning or tinkering with my cherished burgundy-coloured BSA motorbike.

My parents looked for a home near the shop and a new housing estate was just springing up ten minutes’ walk away, on the northern side of Fairmuir Park, which was all grass with football pitches marked out and with a fringe of trees. A railway line with a steel footbridge over it ran along the south side, past Dundee North End FC’s modest stadium. Park Road bordered the park on the north side, with a row of houses on one side, facing the park and a private bowling club was on the east side. Park Road ran ruler-straight, from Old Glamis Road to Strathmartine Road, along which the Downfield to Blackness double-decker trams rattled and swayed. Old Glamis Road carried the number eleven bus from the then tiny rural village of Trottick to Shore Terrace in the city centre. From Park Road to Dundee’s loop road, the dual carriageway Kingsway, it was largely lush paddocks, grazed by milking cows, with a few streets slowly developing. Strathmartine Road was bordered by grander detached houses. Beyond the Kingsway was the Downfield suburb, Caird Park golf course and countryside.

The Fairmuir Enclave Today
Just before I was sprung on an unsuspecting world in June of 1938, my parents became the owners of 13 Kingsway Place, the first house occupied in the street, a modest, two bedroom, semi-detached bungalow
with a stone front wall with railings on top that were cut off during World War II for the war effort. The houses quickly grew along our street to Kingsway Terrace, Elgin Street and Elgin Gardens, both of which were offshoots of Park Road, although a dairy farm still ran at the Strathmartine Road end of Park Road till some years after the end of WWII.

Park Road had bigger houses than those in our street and the occupants had a fine view of the weekend activity on the football pitches that patchworked the park. Until after the war ended, the few houses on the
Kingsway side of our street had cows staring over their back fences.

As the whole area became populated by young families very like our own during the year or more leading up to World War II, there was a crop of children born all about the same time before the war, with only a few younger stragglers. Most families had one child, a few two, the conflict that began in 1939 putting a damper on thoughts of bringing another child into the world in many minds and it was an era of small middle-class families. When the time came, most families who could afford it enrolled their children at the Morgan Academy, one of Dundee’s better schools and a not unreachable distance from our district, which was called Fairmuir. One black sheep went to the Dundee High School, but I can’t recall another in the street who did not attend the Morgan. The McGills, whose family’s large department store, McGill Brothers, stood on Victoria Road at the top of the Wellgate in central Dundee, lived on Kingsway Terrace, facing Kingsway Place and the son was a part of our group, even though he, too, was a High School lad.

So we were a crowd of boys and girls growing up mostly within a year’s age of one another, living close to one another and going to the same school and this was our playground, on the little, outer suburban street, before cars became commoner in the 1950s. There was a kink in the middle of Kingsway Place, where Fairmuir Street and North Street formed a T-junction, which made a bit of an open space for bikes and ball games, with a gas-light lamp post that made a useful wicket or the post for games of Touch. There was a cundie(1) that was used for the game of pinner(2). It was also where we collected rubbish for Guy Fawkes(3) day and where the annual bonfire warmed November faces, tatties were dry roasted in the embers and fireworks were let off. All the neighbours turned out for the bonfire and fun once a year.

That space was the start and finish for the many bike races that were run for all the boys had bikes. It was at the foot of Fairmuir Street North, a short and not very steep but sloping street that ended with a T-junction left and right into Kingsway Place. The slope was used as a sledge run in winter and in summer offered the daring a chance to scrape the pedal of a bicycle on the tarmac as the rider hurtled round the right-angle corner into Kingsway Place. When I was older and started riding a motorbike, it became a point of honour to scrape the centre stand mechanism going round the corner. In those days before TV reached us in 1953, kids played active games outside all the time and we were a lively group, always at something. The boys often used to take a football the short distance up that little slope to the corner of Fairmuir Park and set up an impromptu game of ‘fitba’ till it got dark.

As we got older, we were allowed to stay out playing in the street later and I well recall the long northern summer evenings when daylight lingered till after10 o’clock and only the parental calling of a child’s name forced that bairn reluctantly to leave the fun and go home. In a cold, east coast Dundee winter, dark before we left school at 4 o’clock, snowball fights and sledging on the car-free street would go on well into the dark evening. There was much house hopping, especially on Christmas morning (to the disgruntlement of parents who wanted peace and quiet) as we were all eager to see what our friends had got in their Christmas stockings and show off our own treasure.

After WWII ended, the Scottish economy slowly grew and changed, as did the population. Men returned to civilian life and wanted nothing more than to settle down to a job, set up a home and start a family. The demand for housing was insatiable. Kingsway Place was extended towards Old Glamis Road and became Elgin Terrace, forming a rectangular block between our street and the Kingsway, which it was separated from but parallel to. Dundee had to expand outwards beyond the Kingsway, where there had already developed a large industrial estate that became the home of NCR(4) and Timex(5) factories, both major employers as the jute industry was overtaken by synthetic rope, paper sacks and plastics and Dundee’s not insignificant shipbuilding dwindled. Both male and female labour was plentiful.

This rectangular street loop became a handy bicycle race circuit until increased prosperity brought more cars to the neighbourhood. There were no garages in the new ‘Pre-fab’(6) houses that soon covered the whole area and it became not uncommon for there to be cars parked on the street and more commercial traffic. Not now safe for dare-devil kids on bikes! Many of us rode our bikes to school but the growing traffic made that an increasingly hazardous activity and I remember the tragic death by a collision with a school bus, one lunchtime, of a fellow Morgan boy, who lived nearby.

By the mid-fifties, we were well into our teens, our bodies and minds were changing, and other interests were taking over from bike racing and street games. The halcyon days of our childhood were slowly ending, and society was changing as rampant technology reshaped the twentieth century. Kingsway Place is still there, with its now elderly and much-extended houses, as is Elgin Terrace. The pre-fabs were removed at the end of the 1960s and replaced by larger, more substantial houses. most now owner-occupied. Fairmuir Park still has its quota of football pitches but the public bowling green that nestled in a corner of the park, by the long-gone railway line, is closed. No tramlines run down Strathmartine Road, although buses still use Old Glamis Road and car yards occupy the places where factories stood. The H Samuel jewellery store that stood on the corner of Reform Street in Dundee’s city centre and sold Timex watches, once the place in the city centre to meet friends, is gone, as is McGill’s department store. Although my part of Dundee is still similar to the past, there are many places and streets I do not recognise.

I left Dundee at the age of 18 and never returned to live there. On a return visit to the city of my birth, spending a day or two with an old friend in the old street, I sometimes think, in my old age, that I hear children’s voices and see the flash of a bicycle or a bouncing ball as I walk up Fairmuir Street North. Faint, but still there, in a back corner of my mind. The echoes of a distant childhood.

Footnotes

(1) Cundie is the Dundee dialect word for the cover of a cast iron street drain or manhole. A cundie was used as the target of a boys’ street game known as pinner.

(2) Pinner, in Dundee, was a boys’ street skill game played with a square metal object, usually a piece of broken file about two inches square, with the rough edges ground off. The object of the game was to throw or slide your pinner as close as possible to the centre of a metal drain cover and, if you could, shunt the pinners of other players away. The name is used for other games elsewhere.

(3) The Guy Fawkes Bonfire Night celebrates, with a stuffed dummy which tops the bonfire and fireworks, all over Britain, the failure of the plot to blow up England’s Houses of Parliament on November 5th in 1605. (It did not become the United Kingdom’s parliament until the 1707 Act of Union, when the Scottish and English parliaments combined to sit at Westminster. The Scots King, James VI, became also the first king James of England in 1603, thus becoming king of the United Kingdom.)

(4) National Cash Register (NCR) is a multi-national technology company that set up in Dundee to manufacture cash registers and mechanical adding machines. Later, automatic cash point machines were manufactured at the Dundee factory. The company still has a small research presence in Dundee.

(5) Timex is a multi-national watch-making company that manufactured lower-price watches in Dundee, putting watches on to the arm of the ordinary person for the first time. Timex closed its Dundee factory after a bitter labour strike in 1993.

(6) The Pre-fab or prefabricated house was an early post-WWII innovation, a small single-storey house built off-site in modules and installed rapidly in numbers on concrete slabs in hastily constructed estates to provide quick and gratefully received rental housing for a growing populace of young post-war families.

The Innocents Aboard...
Hugh McGrory
My previous story of my dad’s seafaring adventure reminded me of another tale …

This one is set, once again, in Algonquin Park, in the early ‘70s. My parents had come over to Canada to see their grandkids, and we decided to take a day and drive them up to the Park to see some of our Canadian ‘wilderness’.

We left early(ish) for the three hour plus drive and finally arrived at one of the outfitters in the park that rented canoes (since the kids, and their dad, wanted to have a little canoe trip).

I rented a canoe which would take two adults and two kids complete with PFDs (Personal Flotation Devices – life jackets). I asked who wanted a canoe ride - the kids said, “we do, we do”, and the adults said, “we don’t, we don’t!”

So, the kids and I set out. I sat in he rear seat and the kids shared the bow seat. We had made sure that the kids had PFDs that fitted them and they looked ready to enjoy the trip - like the children in this stock photo.
There was a light, steady breeze from the north, but the lake was quite calm. As soon as we pushed off , the canoe naturally oriented itself to the breeze and pointed south. As Captain, I should have realised the significance of this (the adage “what goes up must come down” or “every mile downwind eventually means a mile upwind…” comes to mind) but it just didn’t register at the time…

The edge of the lake was oriented north to south and the ‘land lubbers’ in our party wandered down the road keeping pace with us as we paddled, actually really drifted, along – it was very pleasant, and the kids and I enjoyed the new experience. All good things come to an end though and I
finally decided it was time to reverse course and head back.

I turned the canoe so that we were pointing north, into the wind, at which point Mother Nature said, “I don’t think so”, and the wind turned the canoe back to point south again. At first, I didn’t think it was a problem, but I soon realised that it was more than that – no matter what I did I couldn’t get the canoe to settle into a northbound course. The nose would approach north then swing back or it would go through north and circle back. I was stuck!

While this issue was no doubt known to indigenous people all over the world for thousand of years, not a
single one of them thought of mentioning it to me, so I had no idea what to do, such as, for example, tacking, or using the J-stroke, or turning the boat around, sitting in the bow seat facing the stern and paddling the canoe backwards – this puts you forward in the canoe and helps trim it for wind-paddling, i.e. more weight forward.

Our landlubbers had been watching us, bemusedly, as we twisted and turned and made no progress - actually we made negative progress getting pushed further and further south each time - and gathered on a little dock to ask what was going on. My solution to the problem was to pull into the small jetty and ask my daddy for help.

Despite his fear of water, Dad got himself into a life jacket and climbed into the bow seat while I remained in the stern. (The role of the bow paddler is to supply power – the stern paddler supplies power and also steers.) This extra power up front made all the difference, and we were soon back at the outfitter’s dock and returning the canoe.

The kid’s and I enjoyed our little adventure, but I’m sure that I didn’t appreciate just how nerve-wracking it must have been for my dad - he never complained once…

Sadly, I’m sure if I found myself in a canoe today, I’d be just as gormless as I was then…

War Frozen in Time
Gordon Findlay
While we were stationed at Tobruk, 1st H.L.I. took part in a long-range reconnaissance as part of “military preparedness” for all the parts of 3rd Infantry Division, to which we were attached.

Our I-Section was distributed among several of the vehicles which set out from Tobruk; I was aboard a specially equipped Jeep which among other things carried a heavy-duty radio to handle some of the communication between the elements of our group.

There were 3-ton and 15-cwt Bedford trucks, a flock of Jeeps, plus a couple of armoured cars from the Royal Signals Regiment. We headed towards Bir Hakeim (Old Man's Well), a small oasis south and west from
Bir Hakeim and the battle for Tobruk in 1942.
Tobruk, the site of a famous armoured division battle during WII when Rommel’s Afrika Corps clashed with British, French, Australian and South African forces.

Contrary to what many people imagine, the Libyan desert is far from flat. It has mountain ranges and hundreds of miles of low hills. Many of the trails across these areas are simply that– trails or tracks followed by the nomadic people who cross the area. They’re not roads in the way we think of roads, solid and well-defined and easy to follow.

Much of the time the only indication of a “road” is a small pile of rock with a matching pile of rock a few hundred yards further on; you try to keep your vehicle close to the rocks, because to veer too far off means sinking into soft sand and instantly getting bogged down.

When that happens, it’s everyone out of the truck, digging out the wheels and throwing wooden-slatted tracks under them, so the driver can s-l-o-w-l-y inch forward on the wooden slats, a foot at a time which fresh sections of slats thrown in front of the tires until the truck can regain firm sand again. It’s hot, sweaty, and exhausting work.

We ground over this grey-brown and gritty landscape for several hours, then all at once we were sliding down into a shallow valley and into a living museum of warfare, for all around us were littered the shattered and burned-out hulks of Allied and German trucks, tanks, half-tracks, anti-tank guns and armoured cars.

The battle at Bir Hakeim had ended in 1943 and this was only 1951, but the scrap-metal scavengers hadn’t managed to find their way out into this isolated desert area. The bodies had long since been removed and buried but the mechanized components of a modern army were still scattered everywhere: blasted apart, riddled with holes, and torn into piles of twisted metal.

A self-propelled gun was lying upside down with its barrel peeled apart. There were a couple of tanks that had had their turrets blasted away. Others were lying on their sides with the tracks blown off. Most were torn open and blackened with the fires that had raged nine years ago.



One Australian armoured car was sitting on its own on a low rise, and it looked quite new and untouched, with well-defined camouflage and paintwork still clean and bright. It was only when we drove closer that we could see one perfect hole just below the small turret. A single anti-tank shell had obviously made a direct hit and had exploded inside.

You could only imagine what sudden, shocking, and bloody death that had caused for the crew inside. We all stared at it in total silence.

We were not allowed to get down to look closer because there was still live ammunition and unexploded shells buried in amongst the wreckage and lying around the sand and rocks.

There were also reported to be many landmines still buried in the area. . . another reason why the metal scavengers hadn’t visited this area. So, instead, we drove slowly past, keeping to the well-marked trail, all of us silent, looking at this grotesque open-air museum of desert war where so many men had died.

Butlin's
Hugh McGrory
Many of you will remember Butlin’s Holiday Camps, particularly the one in Scotland, outside of Ayr which opened in 1946.

Holiday Camps were very popular in the late ‘40s and ‘50s as the country began to re-build a ‘normal’ life after six years of war. The Heads of Ayr holiday camp contained all of the typical Butlin's ingredients: the
army of support workers (known as Redcoats for their red blazers) who helped guests make the most of their time, early morning wake-up, chalet accommodation, a dining hall, bars, coffee lounges, indoor and outdoor

Chalets Continental Bar

swimming pools, a ballroom, a boating lake, tennis courts, a sports field (for the three-legged and egg & spoon races and the donkey derby), table tennis and snooker tables, an amusement arcade, a medical centre, a theatre, arcades of shops, a chairlift system and a miniature railway.

Ballroom Coffee Lounge

I’ve never been to a Butlin’s myself, but I was reminded the other day of a story my dad liked to tell:

Sometime in the early fifties, my parents and my dad’s younger brother and wife (my Uncle Mick and Aunt Ina) decided to have a week at Heads of Ayr - without the kids… Probably the main idea behind the week was to get away from me and my wee brother, and our two cousins, Isa, and Margaret.

I’m pretty sure that the idea of taking a turn in a rowboat on the boating lake came from Uncle Mick. My dad couldn’t swim, and I think he was afraid of large bodies of water, so it wouldn’t have been his idea, but then again, he wouldn’t have wanted to spoil his brother’s fun.

I’m sure the ladies said something like “Not on your nelly” when asked, (then whispered to each other “It’s going to be more fun watching Laurel and Hardy in a boat…”)
Since this was about seventy years ago, the details are rather sketchy in my mind – I don’t know if the ’fun’ began before they went off for a trip on the inland sea, or whether it was as soon as they got near the boat but as I remember the tale my dad told it went something like this:

Uncle Mick was towards the stern, with the oars, and my dad was towards the bow. Somehow the boat began to rock and shipped some water so that they were ankle deep. My dad panicked at the thought of drowning (unlikely in some 18 inches of water) and since they were adjacent to the shore he decided to evacuate.

He managed to get himself on to terra firma, splashing more water into the boat in the process. When his weight was removed, gravity did its thing, the bow rose up, the stern went down and the water in the boat moved towards the stern.The result was that the water was no longer up to his brother's ankles - it was up to his butt...

I can just picture Aunt Ina and my mum sitting in their deckchairs laughing so hard they almost choked on their ice cream cones. I’ll bet it was the highlight of their week…

The intrepid McGrory seafaring brothers (my dad on the left.)
A French Lesson
Bill Kidd
For business and pleasure, I have found myself having to negotiate the streets of many cities in the UK and Western Europe. On most occasions this has been during the day when there were many people around and I always felt very secure. At other times I had to cope with deserted streets late at night and I was always very conscious of how vulnerable I was to becoming a victim of crime. To minimise the danger, I always tried to keep to well-lit areas, ideally with a reasonable amount of traffic on them. I always avoided underpasses or short cuts through narrow lanes even if in doing so this lengthened my journey.

By following these self-imposed rules, I survived, without incident, many journeys through the late-night streets of Paris, Amsterdam, Lisbon, and Brussels. Nearer to home, I survived unscathed many visits to Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh, and London. Yes, in my late teens and early twenties I even traversed Dundee’s Stobswell, Kirkton, and Beechwood areas very late at night. I won’t pretend that I was never frightened but my prudence or, some might say, my cowardice, paid off and I always got to my destination safely. As the years moved on and the need for such adventures reduced, I became more confident and less nervous about late night treks. Truth to tell, I made more use of taxis and only made very short journeys on foot. I followed the rules, I had nothing to fear as long as I continued to do so. They say, “Pride comes before a fall”. Alas, how true this is!

In the first Spring following our retirement Muriel and I decided to have a holiday in the South of France, and we decided that Marseilles would be the ideal place to base ourselves. We had spent a couple of nights there several years before and it seemed to be a good place to explore further. After an uneventful journey we arrived and booked into our hotel which was located at the quayside of the Old Port.
Having made ourselves comfortable after our journey we went out to explore our immediate surroundings. The quays of the old port are in the form of a “U” with the two main legs each about 600 metres in length and the quay joining them around 200 metres. The buildings surrounding the quays were set back about 30 metres. There were several small hotels in addition to ours but most of the buildings were restaurants, cafés, and nautical supply stores.

We learned that the short quay hosted a fish market every morning. On the water there were cabin cruisers, yachts, fishing boats and even a floating restaurant housed on a sizeable sailing ship. We were in tourist heaven. As the evening wore on the area became more and more lively and we sampled the fare in a restaurant that we chose at random, it was excellent and not very expensive! After a libation, well several, we left the lively scene and returned to our hotel only a few yards away. I was familiar with the reputation of Marseilles as a centre of crime and had watched The French Connection, but I was confident, that provided we kept to our rules, no harm would come to us at any time of the day or night in the vicinity of the Old Port.

Each of the next few days followed the same pattern. A leisurely breakfast followed by some sightseeing
ometimes taking in a feature of the city or a day trip by rail to Aix-en-Provence or a boat trip to Château d’If, the prison island home of the Count of Monte Cristo. Back to the hotel to rest and recuperate before returning to the Old Port and its restaurants and cafés for evening meal and a bit of socialising. At school my attainment in French was almost non-existent but over the years I have learned from holidays in France that at least three or four glasses of wine is needed for fluency in the language. I hope that every teacher of French who happens to read this takes note and will in future provide pupils with wine as well as irregular verbs!

Saturday morning started in the same way as the days that preceded it. We decided that we would walk to a market near to the Old Port. It was a bright sunny day, and the streets were busy with pedestrians but perhaps
because it was a Saturday, there were many more cars than usual parked nose to tail on both sides of the side streets. On some of the narrower streets the cars were parked half on and half off the pavements. I had stopped off to look in camera shop window while Muriel carried on ahead. Most of the pedestrians, Muriel among them, were walking in the middle of the road. When I had finished my window shopping I saw that Muriel was quite a long way ahead, and that I would have to thread my way through crowds of people to catch her up. Being observant I noticed that the
pavements that had cars parked on them provided a clear path to the end of the street where I could catch up with Muriel. Naturally I opted to take the fast route!

I had travelled about twenty metres when a car door about five metres ahead of me opened and a man in his twenties got out of the car. As he stood up he dropped a large bunch of keys that he was carrying. Being the gentleman that I am, I stopped to allow him to pick them up. I became aware of something touching my socks and then the area of my hip pockets. I turned round to find another young man smiling at me and holding my arms. I immediately went into victim mode and shouted, “Au Secours!”, proving that all my teacher’s efforts weren’t wasted. Whilst I was having my modest panic attack the two young men got into the car and out the other side and merged into the crowd. I continued to the top of the street where I rejoined Muriel who was blissfully unaware of my ordeal.

With the aid of a small Cognac I soon recovered, and had an audit of my remaining assets, a few coins, and a credit card! I think that I had about forty Euros that were no longer in my hip pocket. I was concerned that my assailants may have somehow cloned the credit card, so I decided to report the matter to the police. They were sympathetic but assured me that even if I recognised them, I would not get my money back. The credit card was left to me because they only take cash. If they are identified and arrested and only have cash on them, how does one prove that it is my cash? After all those years of following my rules for staying safe I suffered the gentlest of muggings by not staying in the crowd – and in broad daylight!

Yuck!
Hugh McGrory
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes... Remember when many, many people smoked, whenever and wherever, including on aeroplanes – and we just lived with it?

I wrote a previous anecdote about a trip I made to Brussels, late ‘70s or early ‘80s as a member of a Canadian Trade Mission. (I remember it as more of a junket than anything else.)

Be that as it may, the ’duty’ part ended on the Friday, and the flight back was on the Monday. This gave us the weekend to explore Brussels, but I decided to fly to Spain for the weekend to visit my cousin, Mike McGrory, and his family - he worked for BP and was based in Madrid.

I booked a flight on Sabena (Societé Anonyme Belge d'Exploitation de la Navigation Aérienne), the Belgian national airline. I remember the experience as being a pleasant one.

I hadn’t seen Mike and his family for some time and spent an enjoyable couple of days catching up with him, his wife Jan and daughter Alison (their son Stephen was at school.)

Mike was busy on the Saturday morning, so Jan took me to the world-famous Prado, Madrid’s wonderful Art Museum. My wife, Sheila, liked Bruegel, so I visited the gift shop and bought her a souvenir - a print of
Pieter the Elder’s ‘Winter Landscape with a Bird Trap’. It still hangs on our wall, a pleasant reminder of an enjoyable weekend with family.

Sadly, the nadir of that weekend was the flight back to Brussels. My return flight was with Iberia (Líneas Aéreas de España) Spain’s National Arline. I didn’t know it at the time, but apparently, back then, Spain was a nation of ardent smokers…

When we took off and the no-smoking sign went out, it seemed that everyone except me (a lifelong non-smoker) lit up. The flight lasted about two and a half hours, and everyone seemed to be smoking old jockstraps… I remember watching the smoke gathering on the ceiling and the noxious cloud slowly moving down until we were enveloped in it. At one point I actually wondered if I might smother to death before we got to Brussels.

It was to be around twenty more years before non-smoking air flights were establised universally. I still remember how much I hated every minute of that flight – definitely the worst I ever experienced!

Yuck!
Scots ‘Fathers’ of Australia
Part 3 of 3
Brian Macdonald
Major General Lachlan Macquarie, CB; 31 January 1762 – 1 July 1824 – The Scots ‘Father of Australia’

Part two

Lachlan Macquarie’s tenure as fifth governor of the Colony of New South Wales was longer than any of the four who had gone before him but was not without its trials. Macquarie alienated many of the middle class as years passed by an enlightened policy towards the Australian Native people, previously treated with contempt and hostility and often the object of raids that have been called massacres. These raids were usually because of the white settlers’ desire to take possession of land, for farming, land over which Aborigines roamed and as punishment for the theft of livestock for food, which the Aborigines saw as acceptable in their culture. Macquarie established a Native School for Aboriginal children, built a village for the Indigenous people, set up an Aboriginal farm and organised an annual Aboriginal convocation. In this very progressive attitude he was at least 100 years ahead of his time, and it was not appreciated by his fellow-Anglo-Celtic citizens. He also was obliged to institute punishment by the military when some of his initiatives were not well received by the Aborigines, whose culture and deep spiritual attachment to land but without an ownership aspect to it was not easily understood by a European.

Despite the long-awaited birth of a son in 1814 after several misfortunes and the early deaths of previous children, the second part of Macquarie’s governorship did not go as well as the first and he applied to resign with a pension after eight years, as he had been promised by Lord Castlereagh. A commissioner had been appointed to enquire into an incident concerning an American vessel and an unfavourable report of Macquarie’s overseeing of it was handed down. This report circulated widely in England after Macquarie’s return from Australia in 1822, to his disadvantage.

He was twice refused retirement from his post but finally his resignation was accepted in 1820, although he was not able to hand over until 1822, leaving the colony to the sixth Governor, Major General Sir Thomas Brisbane. Macquarie and his family returned to Britain to the small estate he had bought in absentia on the Inner Hebridean island of Mull and named Jarvisfield in memory of his first, short-lived wife, Jane Jarvis.

From 1823 Lachlan Macquarie spent much time in London, fighting a drawn-out battle against the blows to his reputation and the damage inflicted by the report published on the American ship incident. He unsuccessfully sought the promised pension, exhausting his private funds and his health. He retreated to Mull but was financially unable to set up his estate as he had wished or to sell the land. In 1824, at age 62, in very straitened circumstances, Lachlan Macquarie learned, after an arduous trip from Mull to London, that he would finally receive a generous pension but would not be granted a title, something he believed he was due. Before he could leave London for his beloved Inner Hebrides, he fell ill and died soon after. His funeral was attended by a large gathering of the great and the good. His body was taken back to Mull, by his wife, who had raced to London to be by his side. He was entombed on Mull.

Lachlan Macquarie’s influence on many aspects of the development of the structure, economy, finances, morals, and architecture of the Colony of New South Wales into a modern country is inestimable. His work is perpetuated by many graceful buildings from the pen of his architect, Francis Greenaway and his name lives on in Macquarie Street, a major Sydney thoroughfare and in many other Sydney locations. A university in Sydney bears his name. He is less noted in Melbourne, Australia’s other major city, which was a child of the later 19th century Victorian Gold Rush but a street in an inner-city 19th century suburb carries the family name.

The NSW city of Port Macquarie, 240 miles north of Sydney, founded by him, bears his name and the graceful inland city of Bathurst, although born of a gold rush, was encouraged and legally proclaimed by him. He was as much respected and admired by those convicts whom he had restored to their rank, appointed to positions of responsibility and encouraged to take up land after their time expired, as he was disliked by the free settlers and the higher-ranked citizens for the same reasons.

Lachlan Macquarie acknowledged that the colony had been founded as and was intended to be a penal colony – a place to dump unwanted British citizens. But he always took the view that, one day, the colony that became Australia should be a thriving and valuable member of the British Empire and his gubernatorial policies reflected this view. His faults were those of a man of absolute rectitude and a strict moral code, characteristics learned from his birth and upbringing and which he displayed by his actions throughout his life. His prediction that 'my name will not readily be forgotten after I have left it' holds to this day. He is justifiably labelled ‘Father of Australia’.

Elizabeth Henrietta Macquarie (née Campbell) (1778-1835 No picture of Lachlan Macquarie would be complete without mention of his devoted second wife, Elizabeth Henrietta Campbell. She was Scottish born in 1778 of poor but genteel and well-connected parents and was educated and highly intelligent. A distant cousin of the 17 years older Lachlan, she met him as a widower at a family funeral on Mull when she was 26. He had spent most of his life overseas as a soldier and not encountered her before then. A quick engagement followed but marriage had to await the completion of Macquarie’s next tour of military duty. They were married in Britain when he returned to take command of a regiment which later became a component of the famed Black Watch, whose depot was in Perth in Scotland.

Reported to be a ‘strong-willed and determined woman’ with a lively mind, she went with her new husband to Australia. Apart from accompanying the governor on the many visits he made to far-flung parts of his territory, such as the southern island of Tasmania, the northern town of Port Macquarie and the inland Bathurst, an arduous trip over the Blue Mountains, she took an active part in initiating, designing and even supervising the progressive public works Macquarie instituted during his tenure. She supported his progressive policies towards the Native Australians. She worked with Mrs Macarthur, wife and working partner of the Merino wool industry pioneer and Rum Corps officer, on the development of better agricultural policies.

Mrs Macquarie’s Point is a small promontory jutting into Sydney Harbour. From it there are panoramic views of the harbour, now including Björn Utzon’s Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge (familiarly known to Sydneysiders as ‘The Coathanger’), as well as the Heads, the narrow passage thorough which all vessels must sail to enter Sydney harbour. On the point, the governor caused a large rock to be carved by convict labour into the shape of a bench, on which Elizabeth liked to sit for long periods, enjoying the splendid Sydney Harbour views and watching ships from England sailing in through the heads. The bench is still there, now in the Botanical Garden, and is a well-known landmark, officially named Mrs Macquarie’s Chair.



Lachlan Macquarie’s resignation as governor took the family back to live on his estate, Jarvisfield, on Mull, named for his first wife. Lachlan Macquarie’s death in 1824, a mere two years after they departed Australia to go into retirement, left Elizabeth a widow at 46. She campaigned, until her death in 1835, to ensure her husband’s achievements in Australia and as a soldier were justly recognised.

The Macquarie clan left no family line in Australia, as the Macarthurs have done. Elizabeth and Lachlan Macquarie had a son born in 1814, halfway through the governorship and named Lachlan, as had been his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. This boy lived into adulthood and married but did not leave either issue or a good reputation behind him. He is not well-remembered.

The family tomb stands on Mull, with an inscription upon it informing of Lachlan Macquarie’s
achievemmentsThere rest Lachlan, Elizabeth, son Lachlan and another son and daughter who both died in infancy and also first wife Jane. That inscription and the huge effect on the development of Australia is their commemoration. On his tomb, which is administered by the National Trust of Australia, Elizabeth ensured that the following words from a longer inscription honouring his upright character and the services he gave to the future of Australia, were inscribed “… truly deserving the appellation by which he has been distinguished: THE FATHER OF AUSTRALIA”.

Elizabeth Macquarie is justly remembered as a faithful, devoted, and supportive wife.

I spent five days, one afternoon, recently…
Hugh McGrory
A ‘funny’ thing happened to me last week – but before I tell you the tale, you’ll need some background...

I’ve been losing weight, fat and muscle, unintentionally, for quite some time. My first thought was that it was simply old age (I’m in my mid-eighties), but as it continued, month after month, my thoughts turned to cancer, and eventually the medical profession decided we should go on a hunt to see if we could pin down the cause.

Over the past year I’ve had various scans MRI, CT, Ultrasound, etc. Nothing specific was found, but, as for most people, various cysts showed up in various organs. Most of us have them and most are benign and don’t cause any problems. One cyst in my pancreas required a more detailed look.

The pancreas produces digestive juices and insulin, as well as other hormones to do with digestion, and is a
long flattened gland located deep in the abdomen with the liver and stomach in front and the spine behind – difficult to get to, so I was scheduled for an Endoscopic Ultrasound. This means a tube down the throat which has a video camera, a light, and a miniaturised ultrasound transceiver on the end of it.

The procedure consists of pushing the tube down the throat until the sensor is in the stomach then turning on the ultrasound and scanning the pancreas through the stomach wall and, further down, through the duodenum (connects the stomach to the small intestine).

Sheila waited outside the theatre expecting the procedure to take about 30 minutes – it actually took about seventy. It turns out that, as the surgeon was pushing into the duodenum, he realised that he could see my liver – the instrument had gone through the wall of the duodenum…

His assistant told me later that I was lucky (since, after being unlucky to have this happen (out of thousands of procedures he’d only seen it happen once before)), I had a skilled surgeon who was able to close the wound endoscopically. Otherwise, I would have needed “major abdominal surgery". (The Mayo clinic says “The risk of this complication is very low — it occurs in an estimated 1 of every 2,500 to 11,000 diagnostic upper endoscopies.“)

The surgeon used a Padlock Clip) (similar in principle to self-drilling hollow wall anchors for drywall
when you can only work from one side of the wall). It seems to have done the trick and sealed the wound.

So, my afternoon turned into five days in a hospital bed, with no solid food and having, in addition to my endoscopic ultrasound, a gastroscopy and a colonoscopy.

PS
On the bright side, no sign of cancer was found anywhere.

Artillery Practice
Gordon Findlay
The 1st Battalion of the Highland Light Infantry had a battery of 25-pounders to serve as our immediate


artillery support and anti-tank defence. We almost never saw them being used (we were, after all, just ‘showing the flag’ in Libya and not deployed against any enemy at that time).

But on one occasion it was decided that our artillery would get an active workout. As part of the work-up towards Operation “Rodeo Flail” (the 1956 Anglo-French invasion of Egypt and the military takeover of the Suez Canal) it was decided to stage a live fire exercise against targets towed offshore by the Royal Navy.

Tobruk is on the coast, so we had some nice headlands from which to shoot out into Tobruk bay and the Mediterranean. Our 25-pounders were wheeled up into position on a headland overlooking the bay, and the Navy dutifully arranged for a launch to tow a large wood-and-canvas target across the line of fire.

Typical towed target back in the day - with a longer towrope, of course...
The target was dragged very slowly by the launch at the end of a long towline, and our intrepid gunners opened fire at a range of perhaps half-a-mile. As the battalion’s Intelligence Section, we were designated to study the shots through field glasses and keep score of the hits and misses.

It was sobering to watch. The first shots from our gunners splashed well beyond the huge white target. The next series of shells sent spray shooting up well short – and well behind the target. The following blasts were well to the right . . . in fact, closer to the towing launch than the target. And so it went for the next half-hour as our 25-pounders boomed away.

Our teams of sweating gunners kept blasting, and the Mediterranean Sea absorbed a lot of punishment with spray flying up all over the place as the shots thundered out . . . but that large and taunting target escaped without a scratch.

Eventually, the Navy decided in their wisdom (and no doubt eager to see their launch come back unscathed) to cut the target loose and let it quietly and slowly drift across the bay. There it sat, gently bobbing in place, as juicy and inviting a target as you’re ever likely to see. And only then did our valiant gunners manage to send a couple of shells flying through the canvas structure.

There was a muted cheer from the ranks of our artillery support crew. When this happened the “Cease Fire!” order was given, our 25-pounders fell silent, and we were left to dwell on the thought that if that massive, almost stationary target had instead been a flock of Russian T-52 tanks racing towards us. . . . well let’s just say it would not have been pretty.

I See Trees of Green…
Hugh McGrory
Red roses too…

Everyone recognises those lyrics - the 1968 song has been covered some 200 times – personally I think the great Satchmo’s version is the best. (Did you know that Louis Armstrong, didn’t refer to himself as ‘Louie’ – he preferred ‘Lewis’?)

Sometimes though, despite the sentiments of the song, when I’m sitting, cogitating, I ask myself “How did we humans manage to make such a mess of everything. There is so much wrong with the world we live in…
  •  global warming - heat , forest fires, tornadoes, floods

  •  poverty – amongst the richest countries, the top 1% of people have between 20% and 60% of the wealth, the other 99% of us share what’s left – we live increasingly in a world of rich countries full of poor people

  •  health – we’re a long, long way from the World Health Organization’s goal of ‘universal health care’

  •  education – UNICEF says, “Over 600 million children and adolescents worldwide are unable to attain minimum proficiency levels in reading and mathematics, even though two thirds of them are in school.”
I’m sure you could all add several other issues of major importance to the wellbeing of the human race… how about pandemics, extremists of left and right and their attacks on democracy, world armed conflicts (currently, depending on your definition of the term there are between 32 and 110 around the world)…

A couple of years ago I was depressing myself with such thoughts, wondering what kind of world we were leaving to the grandchildren of our grandchildren, when I happened to get an email from Tom Burt. Many of you will know Tom as a schoolmate, or perhaps as the author of several stories in this collection – he has made his home in New Zealand for many years.

It lifted my spirits, and I thought you might like to read, or re-read it:

------------------
Jerry Brown a flight attendant on Delta Flight 15,wrote this story following 9-11:

"On the morning of Tuesday, September 11, we were about 5 hours out of Frankfurt, flying over the North Atlantic.

All of a sudden, the curtains parted, and I was told to go to the cockpit immediately, to see the captain. As soon as I got there, I noticed that the crew had that "All Business" look on their faces. The captain handed me a printed message. It was from Delta's main office in Atlanta and simply read, "All airways over the Continental United States are closed to commercial air traffic. Land ASAP at the nearest airport. Advise your destination."

No one said a word about what this could mean. We knew it was a serious situation and we needed to find terra firma quickly. The captain determined that the nearest airport was 400 miles behind us in Gander,
Newfoundland. He requested approval for a route change from the Canadian traffic controller and approval was granted immediately -- no questions asked. We found out later, of course, why there was no hesitation in approving our request.

While the flight crew prepared the airplane for landing, another message arrived from Atlanta telling us about some terrorist activity in the New York area. A few minutes later word came in about the hijackings. We decided to LIE to the passengers while we were still in the air. We told them the plane had a simple instrument problem and that we needed to land at the nearest airport in Gander, Newfoundland, to have it checked out.

We promised to give more information after landing in Gander. There was much grumbling among the passengers, but that's nothing new! Forty minutes later, we landed in Gander. Local time at Gander was 12:30 PM!...that's 11:00 AM EST. There were already about 20 other airplanes on the ground from all over the world that had taken this detour on their way to the U.S.

After we parked on the ramp, the captain made the following announcement: "Ladies and gentlemen, you must be wondering if all these airplanes around us have the same instrument problem as we have. The reality is that we are here for another reason." Then he went on to explain the little bit we knew about the situation in the U.S. There were loud gasps and stares of disbelief. The captain informed passengers that Ground Control in Gander told us to stay put.

The Canadian Government was in charge of our situation, and no one was allowed to get off the aircraft. No one on the ground was allowed to come near any of the air crafts. Only airport police would come around periodically, look us over and go on to the next airplane. In the next hour or so more planes landed, and Gander ended up with 53 airplanes from all over the world, 27 of which were U.S. commercial jets.

Meanwhile, bits of news started to come in over the aircraft radio and for the first time we learned
that airplanes were flown into the World Trade Centre in New York and into the Pentagon in D.C. People were trying to use their cell phones but were unable to connect due to a different cell system in Canada. Some did get through, but were only able to get to the Canadian operator who would tell them that the lines to the U.S. were either blocked or jammed.

Sometime in the evening the news filtered to us that the World Trade Centre buildings had collapsed and that a fourth hijacking had resulted in a crash. By now the passengers were emotionally and physically exhausted, not to mention frightened, but everyone stayed amazingly calm. We had only to look out the window at the 52 other stranded aircraft to realize that we were not the only ones in this predicament.

We had been told earlier that they would be allowing people off the planes one plane at a time. At 6 P.M., Gander airport told us that our turn to deplane would be 11 am the next morning. Passengers were not happy, but they simply resigned themselves to this news without much noise and started to prepare themselves to spend the night on the airplane.

Gander had promised us medical attention, if needed, water, and lavatory servicing. And they were true to their word. Fortunately, we had no medical situations to worry about. We did have a young lady who was 33 weeks into her pregnancy. We took REALLY good care of her The night passed without incident despite the uncomfortable sleeping arrangements.

About 10:30 on the morning of the 12th, a convoy of school buses showed up. We got off the plane and were taken to the terminal where we went through Immigration and Customs and then had to register with the Red Cross.

After that, we (the crew) were separated from the passengers and were taken in vans to a small hotel. We had no idea where our passengers were going. We learned from the Red Cross that the town of Gander has a population of 10,400 people and they had about 10,500 passengers to take care of from all the airplanes that were forced into Gander! We were told to just relax at the hotel and we would be contacted when the U.S. airports opened again, but not to expect that call for a while. We found out the total scope of the terror back home only after getting to our hotel and turning on the TV, 24 hours after it all started.

Meanwhile, we had lots of time on our hands and found that the people of Gander were extremely friendly. They started calling us the "plane people." We enjoyed their hospitality, explored the town of Gander, and ended up having a pretty good time.

Two days later, we got that call and were taken back to the Gander airport. Back on the plane, we were reunited with the passengers and found out what they had been doing for the past two days. What we found out was incredible.

Gander and all the surrounding communities (within about a 75 Kilometre radius) had closed all high schools, meeting halls, lodges, and any other large gathering places. They converted all these facilities to mass lodging areas for all the stranded travelers. Some had cots set up, some had mats with sleeping bags and pillows set up.

ALL the high school students were required to volunteer their time to take care of the "guests." Our 218 passengers ended up in a town called Lewis Porte, about 45 kilometres from Gander where they were put up in a high school. If any women wanted to be in a women-only facility, that was arranged. Families were kept together. All the elderly passengers were taken to private homes.

Remember that young pregnant lady? She was put up in a private home right across the street from a 24-hour Urgent Care facility. There was a dentist on call and both male and female nurses remained with the crowd for the duration.

Phone calls and e-mails to the U.S. and around the world were available to everyone once a day. During the day, passengers were offered "Excursion" trips. Some people went on boat cruises of the lakes and harbours. Some went for hikes in the local forests. Local bakeries stayed open to make fresh bread for the guests.

Food was prepared by all the residents and brought to the schools. People were driven to restaurants of their choice and offered wonderful meals. Everyone was given tokens for local laundromats to wash their clothes, since luggage was still on the aircraft. In other words, every single need was met for those stranded travelers.

Passengers were crying while telling us these stories. Finally, when they were told that U.S. airports had reopened, they were delivered to the airport right on time and without a single passenger missing or late. The local Red Cross had all the information about the whereabouts of each and every passenger and knew which plane they needed to be on and when all the planes were leaving. They coordinated everything beautifully. It was absolutely incredible.

When passengers came on board, it was like they had been on a cruise. Everyone knew each other by
name. They were swapping stories of their stay, impressing each other with who had the better time. Our flight back to Atlanta looked like a chartered party flight. The crew just stayed out of their way. It was mind-boggling.

Passengers had totally bonded and were calling each other by their first names, exchanging phone numbers, addresses, and email addresses. And then a very unusual thing happened...

One of our passengers approached me and asked if he could make an announcement over the PA system. We never, ever allow that. But this time was different. I said "of course" and handed him the mike. He picked up the PA and reminded everyone about what they had just gone through in the last few days. He reminded them of the hospitality they had received at the hands of total strangers. He continued by saying that he would like to do something in return for the good folks of Lewis Porte.

He said he was going to set up a Trust Fund under the name of DELTA 15 (our flight number). The purpose of the trust fund is to provide college scholarships for the high school students of Lewis Porte. He asked for donations of any amount from his fellow travellers. When the paper with donations got back to us with the amounts, names, phone numbers and addresses, the total was for more than $14,000! The gentleman, an MD from Virginia , promised to match the donations and to start the administrative work on the scholarship. He also said that he would forward this proposal to Delta Corporate and ask them to donate as well. As I write this account, the trust fund is at more than $1.5 million and has assisted 134 students in their college education.

I just wanted to share this story because we need good stories right now. It gives me a little bit of hope to know that some people in a faraway place were kind to some strangers who literally dropped in on them. It reminds me how much good there is in the world."

In spite of all the rotten things we see going on in today's world this story confirms that there are still a lot of good people in the world and when things get bad, they will come forward."
------------------

Strangers helping strangers - when I read this, I think of the people of London during the eight months of the Blitz of 1940/41, the people of Ukraine defending their country against rapacious Russia, the volunteers flocking to Maui to help after the recent devastating fires – so many examples.

I hear babies cry
I watch them grow
They'll learn much more
Than I'll ever know
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world.

I so hope that Satchmo got it right, and that my misgivings are unwarranted…

Thanks again, Tom Burt, for sending me the article.

Time Just Flies By
Bill Kidd
When I was around six years old, in Dundee, Scotland, I remember being on the top deck of the Broughty
Ferry bus and my father pointing out to me the seaplane base at Stannergate. Like most small boys in the early days of the war I was fascinated by aeroplanes, and I was excited to see to see several seaplanes at once. It was many years later that I learned that the aeroplanes that I saw that day were actually amphibians, known as the Supermarine Walrus and that they were probably the ugliest machine to fly operationally in WW2. It was later still that I learned that the designer was R. J. Mitchell who also designed what was arguably WW2’s most beautiful aeroplane, the Spitfire.

Dundee was an important location for seaplanes in both World Wars. In WW1 seaplanes were located at RNAS Dundee which was established at the Stannergate. Although their main function was maritime reconnaissance, they also saw action against the German Zeppelins that were attacking Northern England. Between the wars the site was largely unused but was recommissioned as a satellite unit of HMS Condor the Fleet Air Arm base in Arbroath and designated the imaginative name of HMS Condor II . The aircraft based at Stannergate were mainly used for aircrew operational training. Flights by the Dundee based Walrus aircraft often involved maritime rescue and anti-submarine operations. The base was closed in June 1944 before WW2 ended and it is now an industrial site without any trace of its glory days! A fuller and probably more accurate account of the history of the Stannergate base can be found on the Dundee Transport Museum website.

Although I have no clear recollection of it my parents told me that I had been taken up to the viewpoint near the entrance to Balgay Park to see another highlight of Dundee’s seaplane history. On Thursday 6th
October 1938 as many of Dundee’s population as could occupied vantage points along the Tay to watch the seaplane Mercury piggybacked on to the flying boat Maia take off from the river at the commencement of an attempt to break the non-stop distance record for a flying boat. See short video here.

The pilot Captain Donald Bennett and Ian Harvey, his co-pilot, would try to reach Cape Town before touching down and they anticipated being in the air for around 48 hours. Bennett, an Imperial Airways flying boat Captain, was no stranger to long distance seaplane flights. In the previous July he had piloted Mercury, initially attached to Maia, to make the first non-stop, commercial cargo flight across the Atlantic from Ireland’s mid-west coast, to Montreal, a distance of 3,175 miles, and he was therefore the natural choice for the record distance attempt.

To undertake the flight to South Africa the Mercury would have to carry an enormous amount of fuel. This would be stored in the wings and floats of the aircraft. The biggest consumption of fuel occurs during lift-off, and this is the reason that Mercury was attached to the Maia for take-off. Once the combination was airborne and at cruising height Bennett would separate Mercury while Maia returned to her base. This is exactly what happened that October morning. After making a perfect take-off the aircraft separated somewhere between Dundee and Forfar and carried on with their journeys. Damage to one of the engine cowlings on Mercury occurred during separation. This had an adverse effect on fuel consumption and ultimately meant Bennett had to end the journey some 390 miles short of their target and set down in Alexander Bay on the Orange River. Despite not reaching Cape Town they had set a world distance record of 6,045 miles for a non-stop flight by a seaplane, a record that still stands today. There is a commemorative memorial to the historic flight located near to the Dundee V&A Museum. This was unveiled in 1997 by Captain Bennett's wife, Lys.

Captain Donald Bennett (1910-1986) was born in Queensland Australia. In 1930 he became a cadet in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and in 1931 he was accepted for a short service commission with the RAF and settled in the South of England which became his home for the rest of his life. He trained as a pilot and on leaving the RAF in 1936 he joined Imperial Airways, flying to Europe and Africa then flying Empire Flying Boats to India and South Africa. In 1938 he took charge of the Mercury and Maia project described above. Bennett continued with Imperial Airways until September 1941 when he was commissioned in the RAF as an acting Wing Commander. In April 1942, his aircraft was shot down by ground fire over Norway. Bennett and several of his crew evaded capture and reached neutral Sweden. After release from internment, he returned to Britain and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order.

In July 1942, Bennett, now acting Group Captain, was directed by Air Marshal Sir Arthur Harris to form and command the Pathfinder Force within Bomber Command. The aircrew of Pathfinder aircraft were expert navigators, and their function was to use fast aircraft to mark targets with flares to guide the following bomber formations to the correct target. This proved to be a very successful strategy and greatly improved the overall effectiveness of RAF Bomber Command. By the end of WW2 Bennett at the age of thirty-five was an acting Air Vice-Marshall. Bennett left the RAF in 1945 to successfully contest a parliamentary by-election as the Liberal Party candidate. His Parliamentary career was a short one, he lost his seat in the General Election later that year and despite several attempts over the years he never managed to return to Parliament. The remainder of Bennett’s life was taken up with a variety of business ventures, not all of them successful. He published a book about the Pathfinders that resulted in a libel case. He continued his interest in politics in a fairly controversial manner, resigning from the Liberals in 1960 over the Common Market. He died in September 1986 aged seventy-six. A varied and exciting life but perhaps not achieving as much as he had hoped.

And to think that all my interest in this came from a Sunday outing to Broughty Ferry!

A Slow Learner
Hugh McGrory
I can remember, as a young parent, every now and again looking at my very young children and wondering how the human race manages to perpetuate itself given that children are so helpless at that age and surrounded by all kinds of accidents waiting to happen…

Case in point: When my son Mike was around a year old (plus or minus a couple of months) we decided to give him a baby walker to help him learn to walk. For those not familiar with them, baby walkers are those wheeled devices that allow kids to push themselves around before they can walk (see photo).

We lived in a home (row house, rented) that was slightly unusual in design (see photo). Unlike its
neighbours, it was all on the second floor – we entered a small hallway at ground level and had to immediately climb a flight of stairs to get to the living quarters. I quite liked it, though it was a cold house – the winter wind in Scotland used to howl through the close below.

Mike took to the walker with enthusiasm (his mother liked it too) and he was soon darting around in it. He seemed very happy piloting it around exploring his environment. One day he escaped from the living room while our attention was elsewhere, and we heard a bumpity-bumpity bump, bump, bump noise
and then screams… The little guy had done a Thelma and Louise right off the end of the hall and down the stairs to the ground floor! Miraculously he didn’t seem to have any injuries.

I said that I’d build a little gate at the top of the stairs to make sure it didn’t happen again and put a temporary obstacle at the top of the stairs in the meantime.

Shortly thereafter Evel Knievel was at it again… you guessed it, more bumpity-bump bump and screaming. So much for my temporary barrier… Once again, he came through it quite unhurt – don’t ask me how!

I immediately went out, bought some wood, and made a gate – as I should have done right after the first escapade! So, despite the fact that I once again showed that I’m a slow learner, we were lucky… this could easily have been a real tragedy.

Postscript

About baby walkers: In the 1970s, when the market for infant walkers was booming, babies were frequently showing up in emergency rooms with injuries like broken bones, concussions, and skull fractures. Such walker-related injuries can be severe and can include brain injury, burns, poisoning, and drowning.

The US and UK addressed the problem by creating design regulations that manufacturers have to adhere to. This has much reduced accidents, though some 9,000 kids are still hurt each year in the US.

Canada took a simpler, more direct approach: As of April 2004, Health Canada, the government’s health regulator, banned the sale of baby walkers entirely. Anyone caught selling or importing baby walkers, even used ones, faces very heavy fines or even jail time. Try to cross the border with a baby walker and you face detention.

Mothers loved baby walkers – they kept the baby interested and allowed the mother to get on with her chores – they also helped infants to learn to walk – so the advertising said… In fact, pediatricians know that the opposite is true.

An infant has to master two main skills to be able to walk. First, they have to figure out how to get up on their feet (initially by crawling to the nearest chair, or sofa or friendly leg, and holding on to pull themselves up). Then, they have to learn how to keep their centre of gravity over their feet. Neither of these skills can be learned from a walker, so they actually delay the child’s development.

Scots ‘Fathers’ of Australia
Part 2 of 3
Brian Macdonald
Major General Lachlan Macquarie, CB; 31 January 1762 – 1 July 1824 – The Scots ‘Father of Australia’

Part one

To continue this series on three Scots who have had a major impact on Australia, I offer you Lachlan Macquarie, the most ‘Scottish’ of the three for he was born in Scotland, married two Scots ladies and died in Britain, unlike John Macarthur, who was born in England of Scots parents and died in Australia. Macquarie rests in his family tomb on Mull, in the Inner Hebrides. The third member of the trio is the least ‘Scottish’ of the three, boasting one pair of Scottish grandparents but having been born in the late 19th century in Australia of first-generation Australian parents. His name is Robert Gordon Menzies, a 20th century man, no early colonist, very different from the earlier two. His story will come later.

Lachlan Macquarie is another Scot who had a decisive effect on the early development of Australia from a penal settlement into a well-governed, democratic land. He is often labelled ‘The Father of Australia’ for his progressive initiatives during his eleven years as the fifth Governor of the Colony of New South Wales (NSW) from 1810 till 1821, following the debacle of the unfortunate William Bligh, who was cast adrift by his own mutinous crew from his British Naval command, HMS Bounty, and then deposed as Governor of the Colony of New South Wales, 17 years later.

Macquarie was born in 1762 on the tiny island of Ulva, west of Mull in the Inner Hebrides, of a father of the same name, a carpenter and miller and a poor, one-third tenant farmer of the Duke of Argyll. Macquarie’s father was a cousin of the last chief of the Clan Macquarie. His mother was the sister of the chieftain of Lochbuie in Mull, by name Murdoch MacLaine. It was a poor upbringing but not unusual for the era and the place. He may have spent time as a student at Edinburgh’s prestigious Royal High School (founded in 1128 and one of the oldest schools in Scotland) but this is not certain. He would have had a sound, basic, Scottish parish education.

Macquarie became an ensign in the British Army’s 84th Regiment, the Royal Highland Emigrants, commanded by his cousin, colonel Allan Maclean, in 1777, at age fifteen. His uncle, Murdoch MacLaine, was in the same regiment, a common family linkage. After seeing action in America and Jamaica, Macquarie, now a lieutenant, was repatriated to Scotland on half-pay reserve. With the help of his cousin, now General MacLean, he soon re-enlisted for active service as a senior lieutenant, aged twenty-six, embarked for Bombay (Mumbai) and, shortly thereafter, was promoted to captain.

Lachlan did well in the Indian Wars and rose rapidly, becoming a brigade major and saving enough money to pay off the debts he had left behind in Scotland on his re-enlistment. In 1793 he married Jane Jarvis, the heiress daughter of a former chief justice of Antigua in the West Indies, then a British possession. Sadly, Macquarie’s 24-year-old wife died in Macao of consumption (tuberculosis), leaving him a sizeable inheritance. He continued his military progress, gaining promotion and prestigious posts. In one extra post he acquired, he had the emolument paid to its previous occupant, a friend in poor circumstances, a clear sign of his affluence and sense of rightness.

Appointed commanding officer of the 86th Regiment of the British Army, he took leave to return to Scotland and take possession of land on Mull which he had been able to buy. Now a lieutenant-colonel, he dreamed of being a Highland Laird and of having an estate, which he would name for his late wife, and could leave to his descendants. Returning to London, he moved easily in society and met royalty.

A swift return to service in India came next, followed by a return to England to assume the command of the 73rd Regiment Macquarie married again, to a kinswoman, Elizabeth Campbell, some years his junior, whom he had met on Mull and asked to wait for his return from India. The regiment was soon posted to the colony of New South Wales, with its general, Miles Nightingall, to become the governor in place of fourth governor, William Bligh, who had, ignominiously, been mutinously deposed by corrupt New South Wales Rum Corps officers. The government in Westminster was anxious
Lachlan Macquarie Elizabeth Macquarie
to see order restored in the young penal colony.

When Nightingall declined the position, Macquarie applied for the role and, supported by such dignitaries as the Duke of Wellington, who went on to defeat Napoleon at the battle of Waterloo and Lord Castlereagh, who held many high offices in Britain, was granted it. In 1809, the forty-seven-year-old Lachlan Macquarie and his second wife, Elizabeth, set sail for Terra Australis. Ironically, they crossed paths in Rio de Janeiro with the two leading mutinous Rum Corps officers, Colonel George Johnston and John Macarthur, the Merino sheep breeder, heading back to England, thus relieving the new governor of the problematic task of arresting them as his first duty. Macquarie sailed into Botany Bay at year’s end 1809 and was sworn in as its governor on New Year’s Day, 1810, a propitious day for a Scot. Ellis Bent, a lawyer, was a fellow traveller on the voyage to Australia, to take up his appointment as the first qualified senior legal officer of the colony. He and Macquarie, for now comrades, would one day cross swords.

The new governor took quick action to reinstate in control of the Rum Corps those upright officers who had not participated in the ‘dethroning’ of William Bligh and to ensure Bligh’s return from his imprisonment to Sydney, as it was now being called. Bligh and the disgraced Rum Corps were bundled off back to Britain as soon as possible and Lachlan Macquarie got down to governing the colony, restoring stability, and imposing civilian rule.

Lachlan Macquarie’s place in Australia’s history is marked by a period of development in many fields. Till then the colony had been run by the corrupt Rum Corps officers who overrode the civilian governors nominally in charge. His tenure ran from 1810 till 1821, a longer period than any other governor and one that saw the start of a civilian legal structure and growth in many areas. He found that the colony, despite the grip of the Rum Corps officers, was thriving. The early years of his rule saw the restructuring on an efficient basis of all the public departments. In this he drew on his experience as a staff officer and the administrative posts he had held in India and elsewhere. Previous governors, as naval officers, had not had this breadth of experience. Customs duties were imposed. Regular markets and fairs were established. The strengthened Police Force became the controller of public revenue. A coinage was established to replace the ad hoc barter and notes of hand system which had served till 1813. Three years later, Macquarie established the first bank, contrary, it may be said, to the wishes of the government in London.

Macquarie encouraged farmers to improve their practices, adequate food production being a necessity and cycles of gluts and famines the rule. He actively toured the outlying parts of the growing colony and encouraged exploration, the result being that the explored area was many times greater on his departure than on his arrival. The Blue Mountains, part of Australia’s Great Dividing Range, which separates much of the continent’s east and south coasts from the inland, were crossed during his tenure. This led to a road being built from the coast to the large inland settlement of Parramatta (now a major suburban centre of western Sydney) fifteen miles to the west and beyond to the inland city of Bathurst being planned over the mountains. Macquarie made two visits to the southern, island colony of Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) and founded the coastal city of Port Macquarie, 240 miles north of Sydney and another coastal city fifty miles south of Sydney, which became Wollongong.

An Army barracks was very quickly built and a general hospital, funded by what is now called ‘public-private partnership’, by granting the developers a trade monopoly over the importation of alcohol, the consumption of which Macquarie disapproved of but which he found it impossible to eliminate, as others have found before and since in other societies. His decision to legitimise and control alcohol sales was shrewd. He had strong views on public morality and passed laws to ‘encourage’ marriage rather than informal cohabitation and the keeping of the sabbath. Church parade became obligatory for convicts working for the government. The introduction of liquor licensing helped to reduce the number of drinking establishments although ‘sly grog shops’ (clandestine, unlicensed, drinking places) persisted.

But the attention to public morality was not all one way. Macquarie set up a number of schools throughout the colony. An orphanage was established, a Benevolent Society and a Bible Society. Organised horse-racing was allowed, the enjoyment of which is still high in Australia to this day. A blind gubernatorial eye was turned to the fact that several high officials were living without benefit of wedlock. A striking major reform of Macquarie’s was to make it possible for convicts who had served their sentences and were acceptable as citizens to be restored to their former rank in society as free people and to own businesses. Freed convicts were known as ‘emancipists’ and this term was also used for those who held the belief in such a policy. An Oxford-educated lawyer transportee was appointed as poet laureate of the colony, a remarkable position for a convict settlement. It also became possible for time-expired convicts to be granted land which they would work as owner-farmers. Emancipists were appointed as magistrates and Macquarie had them to dine at his table.

Francis Greenway (also Greenaway), transported for forgery, was an architect and was appointed by the governor as the first government architect, to design and oversee the building of gracious public buildings. Many of his works still stand and are on UNESCO’s World Heritage and New South Wales Heritage Registers. Convict labour was used by Greenway as was the case with public works in the Tasmanian colony. The extensive public building program initiated by Macquarie gifted modern Sydney many fine late Georgian and colonial buildings that adorn the city today. Like Macquarie, Greenway’s image has appeared on an Australian banknote.

Before taking up his role, Macquarie had been briefed by Lord Castlereagh and his policies generally followed Castlereagh’s strictures. Even so, Lachlan Macquarie’s progressive, emancipist policies were not well received by the colony’s growing middle class and free settlers, who saw them as an erosion of their privileged position. Some law officers and preachers refused to serve, work, or associate with emancipated convicts. Among the disaffected were Ellis Bent, who had arrived on the same ship as the governor to be the senior law officer and Colonel George Molle, a former friend and military colleague of Macquarie, who came with the 46th Regiment in 1814 to take up the post of lieutenant-governor.

To be continued

No Matter How Bad Things Are…
Hugh McGrory
… with little thought you can always make them worse!

This truism has proved itself to me on many occasions - often associated with attempts to repair household appliances – but in other circumstances too…

In the mid-seventies I left work one evening in Toronto and walked to my car. It must have been spring or fall since I had a raincoat with me – not sure whether I was wearing or carrying it. When I got to the car, I opened the trunk put my briefcase in, threw my raincoat in after it ,and slammed the lid.

Instead of the usual ‘thunk,’ I heard a different sound, and the lid opened up a few inches. I pushed it down again - same result. Now with hindsight, I think I may have had a trying day and was in a bad mood. Instead of looking to see what was ‘broke’ I chose to slam it a few more times…

Each time I got the same result, so I finally opened the lid completely to investigate. I found that when I threw my coat in, I didn’t get it quite far enough, and the hem had landed over the closing mechanism.

When I slammed it shut the first time, the protruding part of the lock had pushed the cloth down and punched a neat hole in it. As if this wasn’t bad enough, it seems that every time the lid lifted up the raincoat was dragged sideways about an inch or so then fell back into position ready for the next attempt to close. The result was a line of five or six identical holes stitched along the hem. You have to laugh, don’t you…

Not, mind you, what I was doing, that weekend, when I was out buying a new raincoat!

Sphincter Practice in the Night
Gordon Findlay
One of our Intel duties within the regiment and within 3rd Infantry Division was the unified radio ‘net’. This was a radio link which was maintained between lst H.L.I. and the other units which made up 3rd Infantry Division.

While in the Middle East we were part of a larger military group which included a 5th Royal Marine regiment, a R.E.M.E. (Royal Electrical & Mechanical Engineers) company, an R.A.S.C. (Royal Army Service Corps) component, and a regiment of Indian Gurkhas. All of these individual units maintained a radio link, and while we were all stationed in or around Tobruk, we kept in touch.

The idea was: in the evening each of these units checked in to a central call-in at 3rd Infantry Div. at 18.00 hours, 19.00 hours, 20.00 hours, etc. right through the night, to make sure all was peaceful and calm. We had a 3-ton Army Bedford truck which was fitted out with our most powerful radio.

The duty operator (provided by Intelligence, of course) was on duty for 4 hours at a stretch. His job was, at the appointed hour, to call up Headquarters at 3rd Inf. Div. ( “Three Item Dog. This is One How Light Item… Situation normal. Out.”) Pretty standard and simple stuff.

But. There’s always a “but.”

Our camp at Tobruk was well outside the old city itself on the coast, but we attracted attention . . . mostly from all the local dogs – and there were literally hundreds of them roaming around. They were all hungry most of the time, and when our camp was set up with a simple barbed wire perimeter, the dogs smelled opportunity... and food for the taking.

We employed some local Libyans to do the ugly work of food preparation: peeling spuds, trimming veggies, opening cans, and so forth. But we also employed them to do most of the cleanup, and let’s just say they weren’t the most fastidious fellows in that part of the world. A whole lot of food was carelessly tossed into the crap cans and naturally, this quickly attracted the dogs of the area.

These animals in the Middle East are called “pye” (for pariah) dogs. They don’t belong to anyone, they roam free, and they are hardened in their fight for survival among other dogs like them. In short– they are a force to be reckoned with!

Word began to spread within our encampment that there was a very aggressive pack of pye dogs roaming around, led by one massive white wild dog. The story was that one of our Libyan cooks had been out at the crap cans disposing of some food when he had seen a huge white pye dog at the head of a pack of wild dogs, and that the big white pye dog leader had leapt, snarling, at the cook and made him drop his pan of leftovers. The experience had terrified the cook, who envisioned having his throat torn out by this rogue animal.

The Libyan had run from the cookhouse and had quit on the spot. Other cookhouse workers supposedly also spotted this huge white pye dog, and at least a couple claimed that it had attacked them. Or so went the story…

Anyway, yours truly drew the midnight to 0400 hours shift one night on radio watch. Our radio truck was parked at the far edge of the wire perimeter, out on its own, where there would be no other radio or electronic interference. I relieved my opposite number and settled into the 3-ton Bedford, checked the radio, then settled in on the padded chair for the usual dreary watch where all you have to look at are the illuminated dials of the radio transmitter and the open square of darkness at the back of the truck.

As I recall, I had completed one routine radio check at 0100 hours, and was sitting trying not to doze, when I suddenly heard a heavy thump above my head on the canvas cover of the truck. I was startled, and looked up to see the protruding outline of four feet on the canvas above me – and as I looked up I saw these bumps in the canvas slowly moving towards the open back of the radio truck.

Instantly I thought of the massive white rogue pye dog. Mygawd! That bloody thing thinks there’s food in this truck and is about to leap in to claim it! I had visions of Corporal Findlay found in the morning in a pool of his own blood, his throat ripped to shreds.

I had no weapons of any kind in the truck. But, with my heart hammering in my chest, I slowly unbuckled my Army web belt (which had a substantial brass buckle on the end) and got up off the chair, which I then held in my other hand. (We all have childhood memories of lion tamers doing their work with a chair in one hand and a whip in the other…)

I stood there, in the darkness of that truck, and watched as those disconnected feet above me slowly advanced down the canvas and towards the open back. Would it look down over the canvas, see me, decide to chance it, and leap in? Or would it just leap in looking for food? It seemed to take forever, but I watched those imprints advance to the very back of the canvas cover… my mouth dry… my Scottish sphincter being put to the test… then just as suddenly there was a flash of white as the animal on the roof of the truck leapt past the open back and into the night.

Had it been the huge white pye dog pack leader? Had it been casing our radio truck as a possible food source? Had I just escaped a battle or mauling by sheer good luck? I’ll never know . . . but what I do know, and remember, is that it took my heart and my blood pressure a few minutes to return to normal, and that, come 0200 hours, I was able to croak over the Division ‘net’: “Three Item Dog. This is One How Light Item. Situation normal. Nothing to report. Out.”

Slaving Over a Hot Stove...
Hugh McGrory
Cooking - one of the many things in life that I can’t do well…

Case in point… Many years ago, when Sheila and I were both working long hours, we didn’t always make it home at the same time, and so the evening meal would be whatever we could find in the fridge or the pantry to throw together.

On one such occasion I got home first and, being hungry and knowing that she would be late, decided to ‘do for myself…’

When she came in, I asked her what she wanted to eat and she said that she’d decide later - just wanted to put her feet up and watch some TV for half an hour, so I carried on preparing my meal.

Our living room had an alcove for the dining table which in turn had a door to the kitchen, so she was able to keep an eye on me as she sat on the couch.

After a bit she said “You walk back and forward a lot…” I pointed out that I’d never had any schooling in cooking whereas she was taught by her mother from a pre-teenager. In particular, I said that I often had trouble trying to get everything to come together, hot, at the right time.

She asked what I was making, and I said, “boiled eggs and toast.”

She looked at me for a silent moment then erupted into a gale of laughter. I made matters worse by saying something about timing the tea, and the hardness of the eggs, and the colour of the toast… This made her laugh even more - and even I realised how ridiculous I sounded...

At least I can say that I made her day! Sadly though, my cooking skills haven’t improved much since then…

Intensive Culture
Bill Kidd
In some of my past contributions I have referred to the time when Muriel and I lived in Caithness in the ‘60s, and how we often share happy memories of the seven years that we spent there. It was a busy time for us, both professionally and socially. However, having been used to the facilities available to us in Dundee, we did miss having a wide selection of shops and although there was a great deal of quality amateur theatre and music available to us in Thurso we did miss going to the “Rep” in Nichol Street and to the orchestral concerts in the Caird Hall. In order to fill these gaps in our lives we decided that when we could afford it, we would take a “Cultural” trip to London where we could sate ourselves on those missing elements.

Our first sortie to the bright lights would be carefully planned, our budget was very tight, but we wanted to cram in as much as we could in the six days that we would have there. We decided that the optimum time for our trip to London would be mid-July before the English schools broke up towards the end of the month. This would allow us to spend a week in Dundee to visit parents and friends before setting off for London.

In March we started to think seriously about the best way of going about this adventure. Neither looking at the adverts for coming events in the Sunday Times nor seeking the advice of colleagues and friends who came from the London area were a great deal of help, the latter knew even less about the London scene than we did! We knew that we could easily book theatre tickets in advance but as we wanted to see a lot of shows during our stay, advance booking for more than a couple of performances would limit our freedom to take potluck and take advantage of what was available on the day.

Having decided on this somewhat haphazard approach we thought that it would be prudent to arrange our accommodation. Clearly this had to be somewhere fairly central and very cheap. Two areas sprung to mind, Kings Cross, and Paddington. After taking advice from some, more worldly, friends I learned that one does not take one’s wife to a cheap hotel near Kings Cross but that there were some suitable hotels near St Mary’s Hospital which was close to Paddington Station. After a quick trip to the local library and the use of its London Hotel Guide and a London Tourist map, I identified a number of possible hotels that I could contact shortly before we set out for the big city. Our only other piece of advance planning was writing to the BBC seeking audience tickets for TV and radio shows for that week, but we only received two for a radio game show.

At last, the great day arrived, and we set off from Dundee Tay Bridge Station on the overnight train for King Cross. After an uneventful journey we arrived at our destination around 6.30 am and had some breakfast in the station buffet. As we had suitcases, we decided that we should go to the hotel and leave them there. We did realise that our room would not be available until after 1.00 p.m. but if we registered and paid our deposit, we would be free to explore. Neither of us had any experience of London so it became a bit of a shock to us to discover how busy the Underground was at 7.00 a.m. on a Monday morning and that tourists carrying suitcases were not exactly welcome. After some fruitless requests for information from station staff we eventually found ourselves staggering off the Bakerloo Line at Paddington. I immediately went to W H Smith and purchased that essential little book the London A-Z and from the information gleaned from this we made our way to our hotel.

The hotel lived down to our expectations, it was clean, impersonal and the only amenity offered was the breakfast room. Although there was no charge for using the WC, a bath had to be booked in advance and
three shillings was added to your bill. By the time we had deposited our luggage and made for Piccadilly Circus via the Bakerloo Line it was mid-morning and time to do some exploring. We spent the rest of the first morning and early afternoon of our holiday just wandering around Central London and in the process managed to get two upper circle tickets for that evening’s performance in the Strand Theatre of a Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum starring Frankie Howerd, a great favourite of mine. We returned to our hotel about 3.00 p.m. to book in and freshen up then have something to eat and return to the theatre in time for the theatre at 7.30 p.m.. We enjoyed the show and got back to our hotel absolutely shattered at about 10.30 .pm.

On Tuesday morning having breakfasted and enjoyed six shillings worth of baths we set off again to see the sights. We agreed that our aim was to enjoy the facilities available to us without exhausting ourselves so today was going to be less frenetic so why not a visit to the National Gallery?
Frankie Howerd

So off we go on the tube to Trafalgar Square and by 10.30 a.m. we were looking at least some of the wonderful pictures on display. We left the Gallery at about 2.30 p.m. and sought out some lunch before getting tickets in the “Gods” for a play at a nearby theatre, both picked at random. After a quick trip back to our hotel for a freshen up we were off again for some exploration before enjoying the easily forgotten play at the equally forgotten theatre. After the theatre we enjoyed an inexpensive meal nearby before heading back to the hotel.

Having now established some sort of routine we stuck to it for the rest of our stay and managed to take in
Robert and Elizabeth, a musical starring Keith Michel who later found fame as Henry VIII on TV; Wait a Minim, a hilarious review at the Fortune Theatre; a wonderful As You Like It at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre where Muriel was thrilled to find Patrick Troughton sitting in front of her! We also managed a lunch time concert at the Wigmore Hall and to make use of the BBC radio game show tickets, this turned out to be based on tennis scoring and was so memorable and complex that I can’t recall who was on it or what it was called. By the end of the week we
Patrick Troughton Keith Michel
had become expert in the use of the underground system and reached culturally sated status. We returned exhausted but happy to our busy social life in Thurso with excellent bragging rights.

We repeated the exercise again in July the following year but at a less frenetic pace and were able to take in a couple of Promenade concerts and by a simple ‘phone call to the BBC Ticket Unit, a TV show as well. Two years later we moved to Berkshire, only an hour or so away from London and very near to Oxford, each with its theatres, museums and concert halls, the strange thing is, we only very rarely went near any of them!

Does this mean that absence really does make the heart grow fonder?

Escape from El Adem
Hugh McGrory
In a recent story about his period of National Service in the army, Gord Findlay mentioned arriving in Tobruk, Libya, in trucks that had carried them from RAF El Adem, where his regiment had disembarked.

(Some background on Britain’s National Service in Peacetime:

After World War II ended, the country still had an urgent need to keep up high levels of military manpower in parts of the world where Britain had strong ongoing commitments – in Germany, Palestine, and India. The government concluded that these requirements could only be met effectively by continuing National Service in peacetime. This was not, however, popular, especially now that Britain was no longer at war.

So it was with difficulty that Clement Attlee's Labour government persuaded Parliament in 1947 to pass the National Service Act. It came into force in January 1949 and meant that all physically fit males between the ages of 17 and 21 had to serve in one of the armed forces for an 18-month period.

They then remained on the reserve list for another four years. During this time they were liable to be called to serve with their units but on no more than three occasions, for 20 days maximum.

Students and apprentices were allowed to defer their call-up until they completed their studies or training. Conscientious objectors had to undergo the same tribunal tests as in wartime.

In 1950 a further National Service Act lengthened the period of service to two years. During the 1950s national servicemen took part in various military operations in Malaya, Korea, Cyprus, and Kenya.

National Service ended in 1960, though periods of deferred service still had to be completed. The last national servicemen were discharged in 1963.)

I personally was facing the prospect of being ‘called up' in 1960 when my two-year exemption ended. However, towards the end of 1959 the government announced that National Service was to be ended. I remember having two reactions – on the one hand I had thought it might be an interesting couple of years and that I might see a bit of the world; on the other, one or two friends who had ‘been there, done that’ characterised it as “a bloody waste of time”. Which brings me back to El Adem.

Believing that I was going to be called up, I hadn’t thought too much about where I wanted to work afterwards. With conscription ended, I decided that I might find a job abroad somewhere. To cut a long story short, I applied for several positions and the first one I was offered was from an engineering contracting company to work on airfield extensions at El Adem. I accepted their offer then went back to Dundee for Christmas.

While there I met a fellow who had been at university with me, and he said an uncle of his had just returned from a visit to El Adem. He said if I wanted to talk to him, he’d arrange it – and he did. It turned out that his uncle worked for a construction company in Scotland and had been to El Adem to consider the possibility of bidding on a construction project.

He described the place as a “boring hellhole” and said he wouldn’t dream of working there. (Gord Findlay in his tale described it thusly: “ El Adem is surely one of the dirtiest and most depressing parts of Libya... at that time a collection of battered metal structures, the usual perimeter wire, and an airfield surrounded by


discarded oil drums and other detritus.”) The ‘Uncle’ also said that the company he worked for had an opening for a young engineer in Dundee if I was interested.

I considered this new input, realising that his description of El Adem may have been biased by his need to fill a position in his firm… I decided to contact the firm that made me the El Adem job offer. I told them of the description of the site that I had received from someone who had been there, and suggested that they might like to up the salary. Apparently not, since I never heard from them again… I accepted the job offer from ‘Uncle’ and returned to Dundee to work for several years.

In researching this story, I found a description of conditions in El Adem written around the same time (early ‘60s) by an RAF National Service inductee. Here are some of his comments:

------------------
• As we stepped down from the air-conditioned comfort of the TransAir Viscount we immediately became acquainted with the sort of temperatures with which we would have to contend in Libya: although it was in the small hours the gentle breeze wafting over us felt as though it had originated from a hair drier.



• We awoke to an intense all-surrounding brilliant glare. On peeping out of the tent we realised that the brightness was just how one should expect it to be in these parts at 05.00, and we hurriedly fished out the dark glasses.Surveying our surroundings more easily we could see that beyond the tents and control-tower was a thin perimeter wire fence and then open scrubby desert, whilst in the opposite direction lay the majority of the camp. Of more urgent interest was the grim concrete ablutions block which was a hundred yards away across the dusty ground and we were soon experiencing our first saline lather-defeating shower: we later learnt that water for drinking came in a ship from Malta, but water for washing purposes came from an Artesian well within the camp.

• We were warned in all seriousness that sunburn requiring medical treatment was a crime not far short of being a capital offence, and then we were advised of the dangers of scorpion bites. An unexpected hazard was announced next: it seemed that the entire surrounding desert was a minefield left over from the war and that many of the decaying mines had become self triggering. This was the explanation for the mysterious bangs which we might have heard in the night, and therefore we would be most ill advised to ramble outside the perimeter wire.

• We changed into our short sleeved pyjamas by the light of a hurricane lamp, and each put himself, his clothing and shoes into his mosquito net and tucked that in firmly around the edge of the mattress, this being standard anti-scorpion drill. The heat was still overpowering and our little room airless. We quickly found that the most comfortable way to sleep was pyjama-less but loosely covered by a sheet : those sleeping entirely naked found themselves subject to stomach cramps and 'the runs' the next day, as the temperature dropped significantly towards dawn. I should add that the close-mesh mosquito netting provided some measure of cocoon-like privacy besides its intended function of bug protection.

• However, we were not protected from all bugs, for in the morning each of us found that he had suffered a trail of flea bites. Henceforward our sheets received copious doses of the Keatings Powder readily available from the stores, and this was generally effective. One morning we found a huge millipede about six inches long, dead on the floor in a spilt pool of dhobi Daz water. Our knowledgeable MT sergeant who had been in these parts before declared that we had been lucky as it had a dangerous bite.
------------------

All in all, I think I had a lucky escape from El Adem...

Scots ‘Fathers’ of Australia
Part 1 of 3
Brian Macdonald
The Scots have a long and proud reputation as successful immigrants. A part of that reputation came about due to historical, economic necessity, when Scots crofters were summarily and often brutally driven off their small patch of land in Scotland to be replaced by sheep and more efficient large-scale production. This was the infamous Highland Clearances of the later eighteenth century, when landlords, often clan chiefs, needed to slash costs and increase income to avoid bankruptcy. In later years of greater affluence, landlords sometimes paid the fares to the British colonies of the Scots they were obliged to evict.

Some went as the result of the need to escape persecution by a ruthless enemy bent on mass punishment and oppression after the 1745 Rebellion. Before the growing need for factory workers in expanding cities, many chose to go to new lands, far from their island home, where they hoped to make a fresh start and a fortune. Most of those were poor, peasant folk but, many had at least the rudiments of an education, thanks to Scotland’s parochial education system and the existence of libraries. The Scots peasantry had a higher education level than the English or the Welsh.

In a later century, Scotland exported engineers and seafarers to the world. Some emigrants were from affluent, educated backgrounds and sought adventure, fame, wealth, discovery, or freedom from the constraints of home. Many Scots immigrants have made significant contributions to young countries. At least two of the signatories of the American Declaration of Independence were Scottish and a good number claimed Scottish descent(1).

I have spent fifty-five of my eighty-three years in my adopted land, Australia, and learned a bit about it on the journey. I want to tell you of three towering Australians, all of whom have been justifiably dubbed “Father” of some significant aspect of life in this country. They all claim Scots ancestry and their tales are worth the telling.

John Macarthur (1767 – 11 April 1834) The Father of the Merino Wool Industry

John Macarthur’s father was a Scottish fugitive from the 1745 Rebellion who escaped to the West Indies. He did not make a fortune and returned to England. John Macarthur was born in Plymouth. John had an all-consuming drive to rise in society and was ashamed of his father’s lowly trade as a haberdasher and tailor. From biographies of him it is clear he always had an eye on the main chance and a willingness to do what was needed to succeed in his aims. He somehow obtained a commission as a lieutenant in the newly founded British Army New South Wales Corps, a regiment set up to serve at the new colony of Botany Bay in Terra Australis under its governors appointed from Britain. He, his wife, and infant son sailed with his regiment and about one thousand convicts on the Second Fleet(2).

The regiment was commanded by Major Francis Grose, who took every opportunity to increase its power in to the downtrodden convict men and women, throughout the growing colony. Its officers developed a cartel that controlled much of banking, trade, justice, discipline, and general government. Macarthur was up to his neck in it, a veritable Al Capone of his day, who used any and every means to improve his position and wealth in the colony. While maintaining his commission in the Corps, he obtained a grant of forty hectares of land in a good area for soil and water and the free use of convicts to work it. He built his house and rooted
his future there. He also came into possession, from the captain of the vessel who brought them, who was a crony, of four Merino(3) ewes and two rams, from the first of this breed of sheep to reach Australia. His sheep-breeding vision was established.

Merino ram Merino ewe and lambs
Macarthur later found it necessary to travel to London to fight charges of corruption brought by the British government and emerged from this encounter exonerated and granted five thousand acres of land in a prime area of the colony, with a further similar grant to follow, for the purpose of developing a large-scale wool-growing industry. He thus became an early, if not the first, large-scale grazier. While in London, he was also able to buy nine Merino rams from the Royal Flock at Kew. His sheep-breeding and wool-production enterprise went ahead exponentially. Most of the wool was sold to the British government.

A later governor of the colony, naval officer William Bligh(4), attempted, in 1808, to arrest Macarthur and to bring him and his corrupt regimental cronies to justice for their many misdeeds. Such was MacArthur’s power in the colony’s affairs that the outcome was the setting free of Macarthur and the arrest of Governor Bligh by a coterie of the corrupt officers of the Corps(5). Macarthur was becoming the richest and most powerful man in the colony and had left his regiment. Another attempt to court-martial him in Britain failed as he was no longer a serving officer. He later served on the Legislative Council of the colony and continued to wield power for illicit purposes. His financial and political dominance continued for many years.

John Macarthur was legally declared a lunatic in his later years. He died on his sumptuous estate in 1834. He has been commemorated in several ways for his admittedly huge contribution to the Australian economy in
founding the Merino wool industry, which was a major plank in Australia’s prosperity throughout much of the twentieth century. He was featured on a stamp on the centenary of his death and on a two-dollar note in 1986. A suburb of Australia’s federal capital, Canberra, is named for the family and an electoral division in the federal parliament. Most recently a football club has been founded, Macarthur FC.

The Macarthur story is not complete without mention of his wife, Elizabeth
John Macarthur Elizabeth Macarthur
(1766-1850), who outlived him by sixteen years. As the daughter of a wealthy English farmer, she was educated to a good standard of reading, writing and arithmetic. Her letters home to family of the voyage to Botany, a year after her marriage, are a valuable part of the records of the early voyages to the colony. As a woman of education and the wife of an officer, she held a privileged position in the colony’s limited society, although, as her husband’s infamy grew her place in society diminished and most of her later life was spent at Elizabeth farm. During his time in the Rum Corps and on his absences in England, Elizabeth Macarthur ran his household and the growing farm. She was also responsible at such times, as a farm daughter, for the development of the Merino flock and was an active participant in the development of the industry.

John Macarthur and Elizabeth had four sons. The two youngest were born at Elizabeth Farm, the estate Macarthur established and named for his wife. They also had three daughters. Established at the top level of NSW society, advantageous marriages were made, and the family grew in status and influence, which it continued to wield until near the start of the twentieth century. The extensive family, now Macarthur-Stanhams and Macarthur-Onslows, is no longer influential in public affairs in the state of NSW or federally but remains wealthy.

With all his warts, John Macarthur rightly takes his historical place in the development of Australia, as The Father of The Merino Wool Industry.

Footnotes

(1) The number of the fifty-six signatories of the American Declaration of Independence who claimed Scottish ancestry has been said to be as high as forty-one. There were fifty-six signatories.

(2) The Second Fleet reached Botany in 1790, two years after the founding First Fleet, with a quarter of the convict passengers having died on the journey, it being managed by former slave traders, who did not much value human life. Conditions for convicts were appalling, in contrast to Arthur Phillip’s First Fleet, where attempts were made to allow convicts on deck for fresh air and to maintain as good conditions below decks as possible. The Second Fleet earned the soubriquet of ‘The Death Fleet.’

(3) The Merino is a large sheep, known for the high quality and prolific growth of its wool. It originated in Spain.

(4) William Bligh, Royal Navy officer and colonial administrator, has his own colourful career to relate. He was the victim of a mutiny in 1789 while in command of HMS Bounty of the British Royal Navy and was set adrift in an open boat with eighteen loyal men with some provisions. They reached the south-east Asian island of Timor safely, all alive, after an epic voyage of 3,618 nautical miles (6,700 km). He then returned to naval duty. Seventeen years after this adventure, Bligh was appointed Governor of the colony of New South Wales. The mutiny and the later overthrow of the governor by the Rum Corps officers may say something about Bligh’s martinet management style. William Bligh went on to reach admiral rank in the British Royal Navy and died peacefully in London.

The 1962 Hollywood film, ‘Mutiny On The Bounty’, starring the craggy-faced English actor Trevor Howard as the disciplinarian William Bligh and the American Marlon Brando as the mutiny’s leader, Lieut. Fletcher Christian, is a fictionalised version of this historical episode.

The mutinous group of nine seamen hid on the remote Polynesian Pitcairn Island with some kidnapped Tahitians. The somewhat closely-bred descendants of this group still live on Pitcairn and bear the surnames of the mutineer seamen.

(5) This sorry episode was an effective coup d’état and is known as ‘The Rum Rebellion’. Bligh was confined in Sydney, and then anchored off Hobart, the main town of the southern settlement in Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania), for two years while the military continued to rule at Botany. In 1810 Major-General Lachlan Macquarie arrived from Britain to take over as governor.

The splendidly named Lachlan Macquarie will be the subject of another essay on Scots ‘Fathers’ of Australia.

Spitfire
Hugh McGrory
In a previous World War II story, Gordon Findlay told of the crash of an aircraft, which, for more than fifty years, he thought was a Spitfire, in Dundee’s Caird Park. It turned out that the aeroplane was actually a Hurricane and sadly the young pilot-in-training, from Tealing Airfield, died.

Hurricane behind Spitfire
We discovered that, by a strange coincidence, a few months later, another aircraft, a Spitfire, did crash about two and a half miles away. It was another student pilot from Tealing Airfield who was undergoing training in low-level flying.

(Flying at low level is used to avoid detection by radar systems; to escape from enemy planes; to avoid certain types of ground weapons; to fly underneath poor weather where it’s important to keep in sight of the ground or water; to strafe enemy personnel and vehicles on the ground; and to prepare for low level search and rescue operations. It is one of the most dangerous parts of military flying and has led to the deaths of many young, and even experienced pilots.)

There were two different versions of where the crash occurred – one said Drumgley near Forfar, the other Balmydown farm on the outskirts of Dundee. This confusion existed in some circles for more than sixty years. See the excerpt from a forum for WW2 vets:

------------------
05-Nov-07, 04:47 PM (GMT)

"Spitfire P8650"

In Numerous Communications I have seen it stated that this aircraft met its end at or near RAF Tealing. This is not correct. It hit trees while low-flying at Drumgley, between Forfar and Kirriemuir. This happened on 29/12/43. The pilot, who lost his life, was 1313908 F/Sgt J M Jones of 58 OTU, Grangemouth. A medical party from Tealing attended the incident and this may have given rise to the misunderstanding.

Harry.
-------------------

I decided to investigate this further, and finally managed to talk to several people with knowledge of the affair:

My first contact, by phone, said that he had heard, while at school, that an airplane had hit trees near Drumgley, but that he hadn’t seen this happen, nor had he seen the crash site.

I also contacted, by phone, a long-time resident of Tealing in his mid-eighties, who said that he and a school friend were first on the site of the crash, and that it was in a field on Balmydown Farm, near Tealing, NW of the farmhouse. Confirmatory evidence came from the current farmer at Balmydown. My contact offered to take me to the site on my next visit to Scotland.

I believe that both of those reports are genuine, and that the scenario which connects them is probably that
the Spitfire hit the trees at Drumgley, the pilot pulled his stick back and increased power, then tried to regain control of the airplane. He continued on the same heading passing about two miles east of Glamis Castle(1). Presumably the damage was too severe, and he crashed at Balmydown Farm. The approximate coordinates, I estimate as 56°30'33"N 3°00'01"W. From trees to farm field is about 9 miles and would’ve taken less than two minutes.

The young pilot was a Welshman:

JONES, John Morgan - F/S (Pilot) – 1313908.

"A family tree on ancestry.co.uk records that he died in a flying accident in Scotland. The Graves Registration Report Form lists his unit as 2 T.E.U.

The family tree includes the following information: John Morgan Jones, Flight Sergeant (Pilot), 1313908, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve. John was the brother of Tom Jones, Post Office, Pentrecwrt.

He volunteered to serve with the Royal Air Force and was posted to No. 58 Operational Training Unit at RAF Tealing near, Angus, Scotland, for training as a fighter pilot. On 29 December 1943, John was flying Spitfire P8650, when he hit some trees during a low flying exercise, and crashed. John was killed in the accident and was brought home for burial at Bwlchygroes Independent Chapel graveyard. Source: Llangynllo War Memorial - Cardiganshire."

Footnotes

(1) Glamis Castle is the ancestral home of Lady Elizabeth Bowes Lyon (later Queen to King George VI, and mother of Queen Elizabeth II, and of Princess Margaret, who was born there).

Tobruk
Gordon Findlay
Our camp in Tobruk was pretty basic. The only permanent buildings were the guardhouse, a couple of cookhouses and the armoury where all our heavy weapons and ammunition were stored. The battalion was housed under canvas, and for the first two weeks we slept on the ground, in two-man tents, on palliasses stuffed with a mixture of local grass and straw.

Inevitably, your body weight squeezed most of this stuffing to one side or another and you found your hip digging into the unyielding surface of the Libyan desert, a greyish compound of light sand and gravel. And while it was extremely hot during the day, it got cold quickly at night.

Another problem: trying to set up your mosquito net above your palliase. First you ran a string along the inside ridge line of the tent and hooked the top of your net to that. But it was a long way to the ground, and it was very difficult to get it right when there were two of you in each tent, trying to sort out your sleeping arrangement.

After a couple of weeks however, a shipment of metal army cots arrived, and we were able at least to get up off the desert floor. And these cots came with an adjustable wire frame over which you could hang your mosquito net.

You quickly learned to be careful in dressing after reveille sounded... Sand flies loved to slip into the folds and creases of your shirt, so you shook it out and ran your finger along all the seams before you put it on. And you learned to carefully turn your boots upside down and shake them hard– for nothing attracted the local scorpions more than the nice dark and warm confines of an Army boot.

More than one squaddie who ignored this step would feel the agonizing sting of a scorpion and would suffer half a day of throbbing pain in the toe or the soft tissue of the foot.

Sand flies were everywhere and if you were unlucky enough to be bitten, you were almost certain to get a dose of sand fly fever. Bannerman. who was in our Intelligence Section, got bitten by sand flies, and contracted the fever.

The Medical tents area was at the far side of our camp but you could hear Bannerman yelling and raving all across the area. He shouted and moaned on and off for three solid days. When he finally rejoined the Section he had lost 20 lbs. and all his colour. He looked like a ghost.

It was hot at Tobruk. Every day was the same. By 7.00 a.m. the sun was climbing in a brilliant blue sky and the temperature was rising fast. By 10.00 a.m. it was 85 degrees and by noon, a stupefying 100 or more.

The heat rose in shimmering waves from the desert sand and bounced off the whitewashed walls of any stone buildings like the door of an oven thrown open. It enveloped you like an invisible and suffocating blanket.

Sweat trickled down the side of your face, from your crotch, and down the side of your legs. It pooled in the hair under your hat, then slowly leaked down the side of your face to gather in the creases of your neck and shoulders. It ran in tiny rivulets down your arms and the centre of your chest. No matter how much you drank during the day you were always thirsty.

The dress code was relaxed in the desert. You wore your beret or tam o’shanter, shorts, socks, and boots. Your sergeant or corporal stripes were attached to an elasticized band which you wore on your left arm. Otherwise, you were stripped to the waist (this was before concerns about sun damage to the skin, and certainly before the era of sunblock lotions and creams). In short order we were all brown as walnuts.

By contrast, night-times were cool in Tobruk. Without a cloud in the sky the air quickly got cold once the sun went down. Shirts came on, then green Army-issue sweaters. Men on guard duty around the camp perimeter wore heavy greatcoats and were grateful for them.

But if you walked away from the camp lights into the darkness and looked up, you saw the great vast blackness of the sky encrusted with a billion points of light from the stars. It was a silent and deeply impressive show you never tired of.

I Don't Remember
Hugh McGrory
The incident happened about eighty years ago – I would have been about five years old – and there is so much that I don’t remember about it...

I don’t remember who else was there that morning in Fairbairn Street, Dundee (where I was born and brought up until the age of twelve); I don’t remember who the child was, about a hundred yards away; I don’t remember who I was playing with; I don’t remember why the child cried out the way she did; I don’t remember who the people were who responded.

I do remember her blood-curdling scream of agony; I do remember being scared; and I do remember some people responding.

What I will never forget, was one man (whom I didn’t recognise - a neighbour or a visitor) who appeared suddenly. He was dressed in only a singlet and pants, and I was intrigued to see that half of his face was covered in shaving cream.

I don’t remember how the incident ended (I’m sure I would have heard if the child had been badly injured – I’m thinking a broken bone, or torn ligament, or some such), and I don’t know if the man contributed anything significant to the affair.

But I will always remember how, as a five year old, I was given an insight into the way so many of us, as social animals, have an innate need to respond to others in peril, and why so many ordinary people become heroes in response...

I’m going to stop here, because I’ve nothing more to add, and because anytime I think about that man – in the midst of shaving, dropping his razor and taking off running in response to the cry of a terrified child – my eyes tear up... as they’re doing now...

Early to Rise
Bill Kidd
During the late 1940s and early 1950s I was part of a hidden workforce. This came about as the result of a brother of a friend relinquishing his morning roll delivery job because he was leaving school. The job was easy. All that was required for the ten shilling per week on offer was that I turn up at the local bakery at 5.30 am Monday through Saturday, collect a basket containing around thirty bags of warm morning rolls and deliver them to the address marked on each bag. It was expected that I return with the empty basket by 6.30 am. The opportunity of a lifetime and despite the misgivings of my parents I decided to grasp the opportunity with both hands!

On a chilly morning just after Easter I was less sure that my decision was a wise one when I entered the warm bakery to pick up my basket of already bagged rolls and a list of the names and addresses of my customers. I saw that some of the names had specific instructions regarding delivery. On further inspection I noted that because of these instructions I would have little choice in the route I would take or the order in which the deliveries would have to be made. I decided that I would just get on with it and study the customer list in detail after I had completed my initial venture into paid employment. The first thing that I discovered was that although one bag of rolls weighs very little thirty of them in a basket is quite a heavy load. The second thing was that the most morning roll eaters tended to occupy the top flat of their tenement. My third, and ultimately most important discovery, was that I was joining a layer of society that only existed before most folks got up in the morning.

At the time of my first brush with the world of work Dundee was an industrial city and most of the working population was engaged in some form of manual labour. In most of the UK married women did not have employment outside their home and many employers terminated the employment of female staff when they married. Even those enlightened employers who continued to employ married women usually dispensed with their services when they became pregnant. In Dundee, the jute industry needed skilled female labour and continued to employ married women and, in many cases, even had nurseries to look after their pre-school age children. This all had a bearing on the need for a delivery of morning rolls.

The early morning society that I had just joined came about because virtually every household took daily delivery of a morning newspaper and as there was no domestic refrigeration at least one bottle of milk. In most homes that had rolls delivered the wife went out to work at the same time as her husband. In those far off days porridge or cereal was only part of a cooked breakfast. The enjoyment of this and a look at the newspaper before setting off for an 8.00 am clocking on time at work was the normal start to the day. To make this possible it was important that the milk newspaper and rolls were on the doorstep before 06.30. What about those folks who didn’t have rolls delivered? The less discerning made do with bread and jam but, where the wife didn’t go out to work, she often went down to the bakers herself before returning to cook the breakfast. Who said that the women didn’t work?

Over the next few weeks I realised that there was rather more to the job than I had first thought. I quickly got to know the other, exclusively male, members of the pre-dawn army and almost as quickly I realised that there was a symbiotic relationship between the delivery of a newspaper and a bag of morning rolls. Within the first week I had arranged to meet up with a newspaper delivery boy and share out the common customers. This meant that I delivered his newspapers to all the homes in a particular close where I had customers while he delivered my rolls and his newspapers to another close. From this I learned that a job gets done easier and quicker if you can cooperate with others, a lesson that has served me well over the years. Cooperation with the milk delivery sector was more difficult not least because the adult milk float drivers were not very friendly but also because it was physically difficult to manage newspapers, bags of rolls and bottles of milk while going up the stairs of a tenement building!

By the end of the summer I considered myself to be a fully skilled member of the early morning work force and had already learned that in addition to my regular wage I received weekly tips from many of my customers. One customer stands out in my memory. I was offered one shilling per week if I would deliver her rolls at 6.15 am every day and while doing so, enter the house (the door was unlocked), knock on the bedroom door until either she or her husband answered, then go into the kitchen and light the gas under the already filled kettle before leaving. Needless to say I performed logistical somersaults to meet the 06.15 deadline and secure that extra bob a week.

I didn’t find juggling schoolwork and roll delivery too difficult, I got into a routine of doing my school homework in the time between returning from work and leaving for school. I went to bed soon after 9.00 pm and my alarm clock was set for 5.15 am. I very rarely slept in. Sundays were a special day when I often slept until noon. The cold dark mornings of winter were not my favourite time of year, but summer mornings were a delight. School holidays were just days that I didn’t go to school. On the rare occasions that I joined the family for a few days holiday I had to find someone to take over my delivery round and of course give him my wages!

My most common arrangement was with a classmate who delivered the Evening Telegraph. He would stand in for me in the morning and when he needed someone to undertake his evening round, I would be his locum. I continued my early morning employment until well into my third year of secondary education when I found that having a social life would be a good idea, and that a Saturday job in a local shop was an easier way to earn pocket money.

What a Dive 2
Hugh McGrory
Brave, cowardly, or just plain dumb?

American Cyanamid was a large chemical company that, in 1909, began to manufacture calcium cyanide (used as an agricultural fertiliser) in a plant in Niagara Falls, Ontario, a couple of miles from the famous Falls. A major reason for the choice of site was the plentiful supply of both water and electricity from the Niagara River.

In the mid ‘30s, George Cox, Cyanamid’s plant manager for many years, spied a group of young boys sneaking under the fence to swim in the cooling-water channel. Instead of calling the police to chase them off, Cox went in a different direction – he decided to create a safe place for the youngsters to swim.

The channel was soon enlarged to accommodate a huge swimming tank that was 210 feet long and 105 feet wide. The tank was shallow at one end and gradually deepened at the other. Many truckloads of beach sand arrived to turn the south side of the pool into a miniature beach. On the north side, maple trees were planted to provide shade for the large and inviting picnic area. Two stone fireplaces were also provided for cooking purposes.

All of the water in this massive pool was completely changed each and every hour and a half. Anyone who swam in the Cyanamid pool will remember the currents as 500,000 gallons of water moved from one end of the pool to the other before entering the plant.

The pool proved to be very popular with locals and tourists alike. Within four years of opening in 1936, the changing rooms were expanded, and the emergency station doubled in size. New spaces for volleyball and horseshoe facilities were also added. In the early 1950s, a concession stand was built and proved to be a popular pit stop for many hungry swimmers.

The Pool with the Manufacturing Plant in the background.
Some sources say crowds of up to 150,000 people visited the Cyanamid pool yearly during their opening season, traditionally the last day of school in June until Labour Day. Sunday was the busiest, with daily attendance reaching 6,000 visitors.

So, in 1967, the three stooges, I, Bob and Iain (whom you met in the previous story) decided to make the two-hour trip to the pool, so our families could have a day at the beach.

At lunch time, as we sat by the sand, we watched two young men diving from the high board (about ten or
twelve feet above the water surface - see photo of the actual board). They were very good, and hundreds of people around the pool were being entertained by them. I then had an idea…

I suggested to my two buddies that we three should have a go. Where that idea came from, I’ll never know! What the hell was I thinking? I could barely swim, and the last time I tried diving (see previous story) it hadn’t worked out too well – and that was from a height of zero feet above water level!

Surprisingly, my suggestion was not well-received by Curly and Larry… After some discussion and prodding on my part, the best I could get was, “Yeah, right, you go first…”

This was a perfect opportunity for me to call them chickens then lie down for a nap, but instead I said “Right.” then got up and walked over to the diving board where the two divers were taking a little rest.

I climbed the ladder and went to the edge of the board and looked down. At that moment I felt like the dog that caught the car bumper. “Whoa“, my left brain said to me, “that must be twenty feet if it's an inch. Just so we’re clear,
numbnuts, there’s no way on earth we’re diving off this platform!”

I looked around for inspiration and all I could see were hundreds of upturned, expectant faces waiting to see another beautiful dive. My right brain said “Now just hold on a minute! We can’t turn around and climb down again. Oh, the ignominy…”

What to do, what to do?

Well, I didn’t dive. To be clear, I didn’t do a climb-down either. I did a very bad imitation of a dive, throwing myself headfirst off the platform and hitting the water in a huge belly-flop – it certainly wasn’t anything you could call a dive!

I remember coming back towards the surface and holding on to the wall of the pool, under water, for as long as my breath lasted, before I let my head break the surface. I figured if people thought I might be drowning, maybe they'd forget about my total incompetence as a diver...

I climbed out, and, as my belly and chest turned red, the two guys who had been diving came over and were very nice to me. They gave me some tips (which I can’t remember now, since I had already decided my diving career was over)!

I headed back to Curly and Larry and said, “Ok guys, whose first?” They looked at me and said, “No way – you must think we’re as dumb as you…,” and I said, “#$%^(&*!!!”

Sadly, the pool closed after the 1971 season due to high renovation costs needed to bring the facilities up to new provincial codes and standards.

(Note: It seems that diving with no training is a really stupid thing to do. Diving from a height of 10 or 12 feet, as I did, isn't likely to do any serious damage – a red, stinging face or belly, perhaps some bruising. However, from a greater height, say 30 feet and higher, abdominal injuries that affect internal organs, such as the liver, kidneys, pancreas, and bowels, have occurred.

Of course, if you know what you're doing, the result can be quite different. See world record-breaker Professor Splash in action here.)

So, was I brave, cowardly, just plain dumb, or perhaps all three? Looking back, it occurs to me that a smarter alternative would have been to jump rather than dive – perhaps do a cannonball (why does hindsight never appear when you really could use it, eh?)

A Scottish take on Aussie English
Part 3 of 3
Brian Macdonald
Regrettably, to my generation, colourful Australian English is disappearing with Aussies my age and a generation or two younger as a dwindling coterie of custodians. Today’s young Australians do not indulge in conversation face to face or write lengthy articles or letters but communicate remotely by smart phone, with text messages so cryptic and punctuated with emojis that I have to ask my 12-year-old granddaughter to translate for me, and by contributions to social media. The written and spoken word as art forms have gone out of favour with many. Poor grammar and a lack of respect for accurate, polished English or verifiable truth are common aspects of the online social media platforms to which so many have taken so enthusiastically.

To finish this tale, here is a short primer of words and phrases from the colourful Australian English lexicon for the ‘newbie’ to learn and use if he or she wishes to fit in when visiting us or coming here to live. Australians are by a huge majority urban dwellers and are far from stereotype Crocodile Dundee’s or characters from the comedy films of the 1970s about an ocker(1) Australian, Barry (Bazza) Mackenzie’s assault on England but there are examples of them flourishing and they do, at least, perform the useful function of keeping this part of Australian culture alive. A working knowledge of Aussie phraseology will stand you in good stead in many social situations.

Mate. The essential Australian word. Depending on the length of the vowel sound and the tone, this word can be a confirmation of close friendship as in “Duncan’s me mate”, a friendly greeting to anyone, not necessarily a close friend, as in “G’day, mate”, an expression of scorn, as in “Don’t come the raw prawn with me, mate!” or a sound of disbelief or disappointment when uttered as “maaate”. There are innumerable versions, and it helps to learn the appropriate facial expression that accompanies each.

A standard Aussie greeting, even to those with whom the speaker does not have any prior relationship at all is “G’day. How ya goin’” The standard reply is “Good! How a’ you?” Radio talk show hosts have lost their minds trying to get callers not to waste time on this salutation with absolutely no effect. A useful variation is to have a pithy reply ready. “G’day, mate. How ya goin’.” ‘Flat out, like a lizard drinkin’!”

If you are accosted in a shop by an assistant, with the aggressively uttered phrase “Are you right?”, be neither offended nor frightened. It simply is the standard way of asking if you wish to be served.

The word ‘bastard’ is another staple, like ‘mate’, with a wide range of meaning. “G’day, ya old bastard” is a greeting to a good friend. “Mind you, he can be a right bastard” lends a very different meaning to the word. “’E’s not a bad bastard” is an affirmation of someone being a ‘good bloke’.

“Whadda you do for a crust, mate?” Australians have no compunction about asking even a stranger what he does for a living, in any social context. This may be partly because there is a strong level of egalitarianism in behaviour, dress and socialising between men and it can be impossible to distinguish a street cleaner from a managing director in the pub, on a sports field or at a barbecue and a wide social range is common in such environments.

The Sunday arvo (afternoon) barbie. In a land of (now hotter and hotter) sunshine, backyard barbecue parties are a standard event. The invitation may be given as “D’ya wanna come and sacrifice a steak?”. This is a good way to get to know your neighbours and is a major group activity of amateur sports and social clubs. The snag or mystery bag (sausage) is likely to be on the menu. A recognised ritual offspring of the barbie is the ‘Satdee morning sausage sizzle’ in the car park at the local Bunnings (a category-killer hardware chain) always to raise funds for some local organisation. As in UK, DIY-ers are out in force at the weekend, raiding the hardware stores.

Other colourful expressions:

As mad as a cut snake – very angry
Kangaroos loose in the top paddock – not very smart and prone to erratic behaviour
A beer short of a carton (or ten cents short of a dollar or any similar expression – of low intelligence or ‘not the full quid’, a quid being a pound (or dollar)
“You wouldn’t be dead for quids!” It’s great to be alive!
A man with red hair or a red-haired dog is inevitably called ‘Bluey’.
Someone who hasn’t got a zack is broke, a zack originally being a sixpence, now a five-cent piece.
In Australia, a team’s supporter barracks for his or her team.
A larrikin is a person who is prone to unorthodox, but not usually harmful behaviour, but is likeable.
A lair is a man addicted to flashy, vulgar behaviour and clothes. He may also be described as a ‘show pony.’ A ‘mug lair’ is just a bit worse.
A ratbag also indulges in unorthodox behaviour but is not likeable and may go too far with loutish or minor criminal behaviour.
If you are going for a swim in Melbourne, you will need your bathers. In Sydney you’ll want a cossie (costume) but in Queensland it’s ‘togs.’
An untrustworthy person probably ‘couldn’t lie straight in bed.’
‘Fair dinkum’ can mean authentic (of anything), genuinely Australian, true (of an unbelievable tale) or a suggestion that something is not genuine, or of surprise if spoken in a questioning tone. Other versions are‘dinky-di” or ‘dinks’ with or without the question mark.
‘In like Flynn’ means to be accepted in society or to have insider access to something. It derives from the reputation of the 20th century Australian film star Errol Flynn as a seducer.
‘She’s a beaut day, eh!’(2)

‘The Penguin Book of Australian Slang’ by Lenie Johansen was first published in 1988. In the millennial edition it was a dictionary 536 pages long, three columns to a page. It and ‘Strine’, ‘Let Stalk Strine’ and ‘Nose Tone Unturned’ by Afferbeck Lauder are all available from Amazon. Lauder also wrote Fraffly Well Spoken and Fraffly Suite, in both of which he focuses on the strangulated English spoken by the English upper classes.

‘They’re a Weird Mob’ is a novel published in 1957, a period when there were many Italian immigrants. It is purportedly written in the first person by a newly arrived Italian immigrant, Nino Culotta, about his entry into Australian working-class society by way of joining a building crew as a labourer and featuring his difficulties in adjusting to the idiosyncratic ways and incomprehensible language of Australians. The author’s name is John O’Grady, who was born and died Australian. The book was made into a popular comedy film by the well-known filmmakers Emeric Presburger and Michael Powell. This book, too, is readily available.

“Hooroo!” Goodbye.

Footnotes

(1) An ‘ocker’ may be defined as ‘an uncouth, uncultivated, or aggressively boorish (usually young), Australian male, stereotypically Australian in speech and manner’.

(2) In some parts of Australia, particularly in Queensland (viewed by some in the southern states, where people think of themselves as more sophisticated, as a redneck state), the ejaculation ‘eh’ is often tagged on to the end of a sentence as a form of punctuation or emphasis. This tends to confuse foreigners, who think they are being asked to respond.

What a Dive
Hugh McGrory
In past stories I’ve mentioned more than once my belief that chance plays a larger part in our life stories than we credit. I’d guess that most of us can think of occasions where another time or place, a few seconds or inches, could have made an enormous difference to our life from then on.

One that comes to mind for me took place in 1966, the year we moved to Canada. We got together one weekend with two of my colleagues, Bob and Iain, from Scotland, who’d emigrated the previous year,
and we decided to visit Sibbald Point Provincial Park with our families. A previous story set in the park may be seen here.

We all enjoyed the supervised swimming area, much of the time spent keeping a close watch on the kids, but when they tired out and retreated to the beach for a rest Bob, Iain and I got a chance to relax in the water.

The swimming area was delineated by a rope tethered in position and kept on the surface by multiple floats along its
length. The area, of course, had been cleared of debris, such as fallen trees, when first established, and was well maintained and guarded by a lifeguard perched in a tower.

So, we, The Three Stooges, were larking around and at some point, I, as Moe, had a ‘bright’ idea which
Curly and Larry went along with – if they held on to a stretch of the guard rope, I would climb on top of it and dive off. It seemed like a good idea…

We figured we’d have to be quick (before the lifeguard spotted us) so we got into position, standing in water about four foot deep, they held the rope tight, I got on top of it and launched myself outwards…

I draw your attention to the word ‘outwards’ – not one of the Stooges cottoned on to the fact that it might have been better to have performed this, admittedly stupid, manoeuvre by diving inwards. It did occur to me a split second later…

It seems that someone had placed a large boulder just there (conceptually, imagine a huge cannonball about three feet in diameter, about a foot below the surface, and invisible).

This is where chance came into effect - in the form of good luck for me! I had dived in at the side of the rock, my arm hit the boulder first and my forehead in turn hit my arm – while it scared the life out of me, I got away with only a skint elbow and a few minor bruises…


Addendum
(source CBC/Radio-Canada)

In the month of July 2020 alone, the trauma centre at Montreal's Sacré-Coeur hospital saw five cases of spinal cord injuries related to diving, three of which occurred in the last week. Dr. Piette, head of the trauma team at the regional health authority that oversees Sacré-Coeur said that these were all young people diving without knowing the dangers, and hitting their heads…

He further emphasised that, before doing any kind of diving, people must make sure they know how deep the water is and check for hazards like rocks.

All five of the people admitted are now quadriplegic...

The Middle East
Gordon Findlay
When you are a member of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces, flying is not a comfy business. The planes that flew us out of the U.K. were utilitarian in the extreme.

Down each side of the interior fuselage was a single row of simple tube steel and canvas seats facing inward. The centre part of the plane was for your kitbag and weapon.

We were allowed off the aircraft, but only thirty yards from the doorway to a small metal building which contained a row of smelly toilets. Back outside we stretched our legs, sniffed the warm air of southern France for a few minutes, then it was back on board again

It was late afternoon before we touched down at Tripoli’s military airport. By that time, we were all heartily sick of the bellowing noise and the oily smell of our plane. Off we trooped and into 3-tonner trucks for the short drive to a military base nearby. We were all wearing thick British Army battledress, and since it was 85 degrees at least, everyone was soon drenched in sweat as we lugged kitbags and personal weapons into the trucks.

But at least one small part of this military exercise had been thought out properly. As soon as we arrived at our wooden barracks, we dropped off our kit, then were marched across to another building where – oh, miracles of miracles! – we were issued our Mid-East gear: two pairs of shorts and short-sleeve shirts, thin socks and light underwear. Our U.K.– weight battledress would go to the bottom of our Army kitbags and stay there for the rest of our stay in the Middle East.

We didn’t stay long in Tripoli, just long enough to make sure we got acclimatized to the heat and got used to wearing our new Middle East togs. Then it was back into those bellowing airplanes again for a shorter flight – this time to El Adem.

El Adem is surely one of the dirtiest and most depressing parts of Libya... at that time a collection of battered metal structures, the usual perimeter wire, and an airfield surrounded by discarded oil drums and other detritus. We didn’t really have a chance to look around, for the usual collection of 3-ton trucks was waiting for us at the edge of the airfield and we were stuffed into them for the hot and dusty drive into Tobruk – that famous World War Two battlefield that changed hands several times and was largely shattered and flattened in the process.

Algonquin
Hugh McGrory
In 1893, the Ontario government of the day established Algonquin Park as a Forest Reservation and National Park. Now known as Algonquin Provincial Park, the area, for thousands of years, was home to the Indigenous people known as the Algonquin. The area was very sparsely populated, with scattered family


groups of Aboriginal peoples coming to fish, hunt and pick berries, but their numbers were never large. It wasn't until the 1800s that momentous changes came to the rugged Algonquin highlands when the demand for white pine from the expanding British economy became huge, and the logging industry mushroomed.

The park was not established to stop logging, but rather to establish a wildlife sanctuary, and by excluding agriculture, to protect the headwaters of the five major rivers which flow from the park.

Over the years since then, the Park has become a beloved place for all those who cherish Canada’s natural and cultural heritage. It attracts over half a million visitors yearly who participate in day-use activities, camping, or back-country travel. It occupies 7,630 square kilometres of land and water, with water making


up approximately 12% of the area and contributing an extensive network of canoe routes. (This is a huge park – for comparison, its 3000 sq miles is half as large again as the Orkneys, Shetlands, and the Western Isles combined. Scotland itself covers 30,0000 square miles.)

Somewhere around 1970 John, a friend and colleague, and I decided to take a day trip to the park for a canoeing adventure. We left really early on a Sunday morning for the three-hour trip and by about 9:00 am had hired a canoe and set off. I was in the bow, since it was my first time in a canoe – John was the experienced one having once sat in a canoe – the blind leading the…

We had splendid weather, warm but not too hot – now, fifty years or so on, many of the details escape me, but I have a few cherished memories:

• We pulled away from the dock and headed north up a slow-moving river. In no time we were alone,
surrounded by water, trees, and rocks – indeed the whole day we met very few people.

After about ten minutes, John spotted a deer ahead on a small rise about a couple of hundred feet from the bank. We kept very quiet and paddled gently. She watched us until we were almost abreast then turned and walked quietly away.

• We came to a point where the stream narrowed, and the water flow was stronger. We saw a sign indicating that we needed to portage, so paddled ashore, figured out how to get the canoe above our heads and set off. It was
only a few hundred yards, but the hired canoe was built to withstand the depredations of amateurs like us and was quite sturdy – meaning heavy!

I was glad when we reached the end of the trail and were able to lower the canoe into the water again. Not fun, but we did feel a little more like voyageurs.


• We headed out onto a large lake and decided to try to cross it to the opposite shore and look for a river that we could explore. An hour or two later we saw a ledge of rock on shore about two feet above water level and


decided to stop and have lunch.

When we were ready to get going again, I held the bow while John attempted to get in. He ended up with one foot on shore, one in the canoe, and the stern of the canoe moving slowly away from the rock. It was so funny watching him slowly doing the splits and teetering on the edge of total immersion that, I have to admit, I seriously considered letting the event play out. At the last minute, my better angel intervened – I stuck out my leg and hooked it into the gunwale – it took all my strength to stop the canoe and John teetered there on the edge of disaster for a few moments before the craft began to slowly come back. (A little bit of me still wishes that I’d let it go – it would’ve been spectacular!)

Addendum: A week after this story was published I stumbled across this photo.
It shows my friend John, just after he almost fell into the lake...

• One thing that made quite an impression on me was paddling from the river into the lake and heading straight out, then, after ten minutes or so , turning, looking back, and realising that the river had disappeared from view. The effect was as if we had come through a curtain in the trees which had then closed up again…


One stretch of dense forest trees looks just like any other, it behoves the boater to pay attention by looking back frequently and making sure that the location of the access point is related to the wider geography. (Of course, much better to take along a pocket compass and note the outbound course readings…)

• On the return journey, some many hours later, we came to the portage point again (it really hadn’t struck me that we would be there again until we arrived). Of course, we were now going in the same direction as the water. Being such amateurs, we could have portaged down again, but that wasn’t what voyageurs do! So, we carried on…

After a few minutes we saw that the channel was becoming quite narrow and, the water picking up speed.


We were both quite uneasy, but there didn’t seem any way to stop and get out, so we did our best to keep the canoe in the middle of the passage and hoped for the best. Soon thereafter we realised that just ahead there looked to be a waterfall and that we were about to go over…

(Full disclosure, it was indeed a waterfall – total drop must have been at least two feet…)

We shot over the little drop into a wide pool below, managing to remain upright. We both let out a whoop of adrenalin-fuelled relief then saw that, floating in front of us, there was a capsized canoe with two very wet


guys trying to right their craft.

We asked if they needed help, they said no, and we carried on downstream (no doubt with a modest air of superiority…)

The rest of the paddle was uneventful for such experienced paddlers… We turned in the (undamaged) canoe and set off on the three-hour drive home. We were, of course dead tired, and aching from muscles we didn’t know we had…

A wonderful day!

A Scottish take on Aussie English
Part 2 of 3
Brian Macdonald
People speak more slowly in remote country Australia (the outback) than in the cities, as is the case in many English-speaking countries, but not significantly so. Spoken Australian English has become colloquially known as ‘Strine’ and our country as ‘Straya’, due to the tendency to fast speech and to clip both vowels and consonants ruthlessly. Several humorous books have been written on this strange tongue by the pseudonymous Afferbeck Lauder(1). In my early days in Sydney I was a ’reffo’, the contemptuous term used for all immigrants, refugees or not. I wondered who the often-mentioned lady ‘Enara May’ was until I twigged that it was the National Roads and Motors Association (NRMA), the New South Wales equivalent of the British Automobile Association.

The original convicts who founded modern Australia came largely from the London area, not mostly from Ireland (although some did), as many believe, because most of the convicts on the First Fleet and subsequent further shiploads were from the overflow prison ships known as hulks, moored in the Thames and off the south-east coast of England and were, preponderantly from that part of the country. Thus the Aussie twang was born, an offshoot of cockney. Most larger towns in Australia developed on the strip of coastal land around the east and south coasts, with the Great Dividing Range at first providing a wall to the inland, running from tropical northern Australia to as far round the south coast as Adelaide, SA. Sydney was the largest city.

The second largest city, Melbourne was founded in 1836 as a commercial venture, from the southern island of Tasmania, which was originally named Van Diemen’s Land after a Dutch governor of the East Indies. It was so named by the first European sailor to discover the island, the Dutchman, Abel Tasman. Subsequently it was the British who renamed it Tasmania to honour him. It had been colonised directly from Sydney. The expedition back to the mainland was led by John Batman, a grazier and explorer, and founded a colony of free settlers. Batman landed at what is now named Blairgowrie, which many readers will recognise as a town near our own home city of Dundee in Scotland.

Named for Victoria’s first Prime minister, Melbourne’s mushroom growth in the later 19th century was due to the discovery of gold in the inland of what became the state of Victoria. As well as miners from many lands, there was a good number of Chinese settlers who established their own mines but, with a hard eye on profit, became growers of vegetables, shopkeepers, and traders. Several large Victorian gold mining boom towns of the 19th century have a heritage of splendid buildings and continue to have significant populations of ethnic Chinese origin, which are well integrated but maintain their ancestral culture and whose temples, dragon festivals and museums are a major part of community life in these cities. Other parts of Australia grew more slowly as agricultural hubs and industries developed.

Australia became a federation in 1901, when the separate colonies agreed to become one country with a number of states, under the British queen, Victoria, a component country of the British Empire. The states had a substantial level of autonomy but were subject to federal government control over national matters. A Governor-General, at that time always a senior member of the British nobility, represented the crown. Largely British immigration continued, by government policy, even after convict settlement was ended, to build Australia until after WWII. Indeed, although Sydney, Port Arthur in Tasmania and Fremantle in Western Australia were originally convict settlements, South Australia and Queensland were founded by free settlers. English remained the statutory language.

I quote the words of a song written some years ago by a member of the hugely successful Australian pop group of the 1960s, The Seekers,

“We are one, but we are many. And from all the lands on earth we come”.(2)

Many races have contributed strongly to the still-changing culture of Australia(3). This island continent is the beneficiary of successive waves of immigration in modern times, starting from the immediate post-WWII period. First came large numbers of Italians and Greeks, as well as many displaced persons from every European nation, then immigrants from the other lands of the eastern Mediterranean. These were followed by Vietnamese. More recently, immigrants have come from the African continent and from many Asian countries with strong ethnic Chinese populations. We must not forget the importance of acknowledging and understanding the complex culture of the First Australians, with their deep, spiritual attachment to the land, whose voices are only now beginning to be heard.

There continues to be a flow of immigration from Britain, which is still the major source of New Australians. The Pacific Ocean island nations have made a huge contribution in the last couple of decades, not least to the sports of rugby union and rugby league, although they have made little impact on the local football code, Australian Football(4). That game is all about tall, strong but lightly-built men running and twisting and leaping high into the air for a game lasting two hours on an oval pitch twice the size of any other football code’s area with four goal posts each end and no corners. A team consists of eighteen players on the ground at the same time. It does not suit the more heavily-built Pacific Islander peoples.

Many languages are spoken; there are districts where English is not the language of the shops, businesses and medical and legal practices. Ethnically-based social clubs, sports clubs and community organisations proliferate, but English is still the major and the official language. Fortunately the sometimes shamelessly manipulated language test which was used to keep Australia a white-skinned country of European ethnic origin(5) was abandoned in 1966.

To be continued

Footnotes

(1) Think about it and say the name fast a few times. The author’s real name is the splendidly Scottish Alastair Ardoch Morrison. Not much doubt about ancestry there, although he was born and died Australian. Apart from the books on Strine, he wrote the song ‘With Air Chew’ on the same theme.

(2) The link to the Seekers singing the song ‘I Am Australian’ is here. It has become popular in this era of inclusion of many races in Australia.

(3) As an example: Australia has a hugely diverse culinary culture. The major cities boast restaurants and cafés of every major and many minor national cuisines and major markets offer an endless variety of fruits, vegetables, cheeses, meats, breads and specialty foods and ingredients. In particular, Melbourne, is known for its coffee culture (The Italian influence was strong in Melbourne.) and small cafés and ethnic restaurants abound, not just in the central city, but throughout the suburbs too. Interestingly, Australians prefer locally-owned coffee shops to the large multi-nationals. Starbucks is not a major chain here. Alas, McDonald’s and its fellow fast food mills are popular but not for the quality of their coffee!

(4) ‘Aussie Rules’ or ‘Footy’ is the only football code in which points are awarded for missing with a kick at goal. One point is scored if the ball misses the tall inner pair called the goal posts (not less than 6 metres [20 feet] with no cross-bar) but goes through the shorter outer set, which are called ‘behind posts’ and rise to a minimum height of 3 metres [10 feet] either side of the main set. If the ball passes untouched through or even above the goal posts a generous six points is awarded. There has been notably successful recruitment of Gaelic Football players from the Irish Republic to the Australian Football League. The game is unique to Australia except for minor, amateur competitions set up in other countries by nostalgic expatriate Melburnians, as the game had its birth in Melbourne and is virtually a religion there.

(5) The language test of the White Australia Policy that ruled immigration from 1901 till officially abandoned in 1973 was shamelessly used to ban from entry to Australia anyone the federal government wished to keep out for political reasons. There is a well-known tale of an little-used, obscure language being found for the application of a test to deny entry to a foreign left-wing intellectual who spoke a number of major European tongues fluently. A federal immigration minister of the 1950s, Arthur Caldwell, is infamously credited with saying publicly, “Two Wongs do not make a white”.

Tsunami
Hugh McGrory
Do you know what it’s like to be caught in a tsunami? Probably not – I certainly don’t. Indeed, I don’t think that anyone can really appreciate what it feels like to be caught in one of Mother Natures cataclysms – tornadoes, major floods, earthquakes, landslides, avalanches, forest fires… unless they actually experience one.

In a recent story I told of our experience with a derecho, a straight ahead windstorm with the force of a tornado that, in 90 seconds left us with five uprooted trees and a dozen more damaged. My wife and I wouldn’t have believed it if we hadn’t lived it.

Getting back to tsunamis, I once had an experience that gave me a wee taste of what it might be like…

It happened over 60 years ago. I was a young engineer in the City Engineer’s office in my home town of Dundee. We got a report that there was some flooding on a bridge on the A90 (The main road between Dundee and Aberdeen) where it crossed the Dighty Burn (pronounced Dichty).

I went to the location with Jim Johnstone, another young engineer (and a year behind me at Morgan
Academy) who worked in the City’s Water Department. We assumed that it was because of heavy rain that we’d experienced, and not from a burst water main – but we had to be sure, of course.

We parked a few hundred yards uphill from the bridge, put on our Wellie’s and walked down. It was immediately clear that we didn’t have a water main issue, and that the drains on the bridge had probably gotten silted up with mud and
Jim back in the day. The Venerable Wellie
debris and would need clearing. We advanced onto the bridge to get to the lowest point – with a bit of luck we might have been able to clear the drain as a temporary fix. We were smart enough to tread very carefully in the six inches or so of water so that we didn’t cause waves that would overtop our boots – we didn’t want to get wet and there’s nothing worse than wellies that are full of water…

As we stood there looking for the drain, I glanced back up the road and saw a large truck bearing down on us, very close, and moving quickly. I realised that he was not going to slow down – I could see the driver’s smiling face…

I shouted, “Look out, Jim!” (A lot of good that was...) All we could do was turn our backs, pull up our collars, and brace... A tidal wave engulfed us – overtopped us – and in an instant we were like twa drookit rats...

Yes, I know that was nothing like a tsunami, but still...

Things Start to Look Up.
Gordon Findlay
Completed in 1796, Fort George, at Ardersier, some dozen miles north-east of Inverness, has to be one of


the draftiest and coldest barracks in the Western world, but we had to make the best of it. Within a couple of days we shed our MP hats, white belts and holsters, and were issued tam o’ shanters, kilts, sporrans, black brogues and gaiters.

And of course, we were daily reminded of just how chilly it was any time we wore our kilts on parade – since the rule is historic, cast in stone, and absolute: in a Scottish regiment NOTHING is worn under the kilt. (And the standard joke is: Q: “Is anything worn under a Scotsman’s kilt? A: “Nothing’s WORN – everything’s in perfect working order.”)

But, at this point, my old friend Lady Luck came strolling by and paid me a visit. Perfect timing. For although I really didn’t mind Army life or life in an infantry regiment, I didn’t fancy spending the rest of my service lugging a rifle and bayonet and being ready to serve as cannon fodder for the next bit of nastiness to confront the British Army.

I wasn’t aware of it, but 1st H.L.I. had been tagged for overseas duty and the regiment was busily working itself up into battle readiness, should overseas duty turn into something requiring British military clout. Part of that readiness campaign required the regiment to bring an Intelligence Section into being.

An “I-Section” acts as the eyes of any regiment, using OPs (Observation Posts) out in the field. The I-Section prepares all the maps showing the disposition of Blue (friendly) forces and Red (enemy) forces; these maps are allocated to each officer of each rifle and mechanized company, and are regularly up-dated as events and positions change.

The I-Section looks after the code books used for secure communications; maintains radio contact with other friendly forces; monitors enemy radio transmissions; knows the battle formations, troop numbers, likely armaments and military tactics of enemy forces.

And more important, all our training henceforth would not come from our Highland infantry regiment: it would be provided by The Intelligence Corps, a part of MI-7 in Great Britain, responsible for all Army Intel.

For example, our training in SigInt (Signals Intelligence) – which involved monitoring both our own signals traffic and that of a potential enemy force – came from I-Corps specialists who came to us and spent a couple of weeks bringing us up to speed on the latest (for then) Intelligence coding, masking and cyphering, as well as the transmitters and receivers used to do all this.

And of course, we all had to be instant and proficient in radio-alphabet usage: you know, “A for Able, B for Baker, C for Charlie, D for Dog, E for echo, F for Fox” and so on.

When I showed up at Fort George, the 1st H.L.I’.s Intelligence capability consisted of one Lieutenant – “Pug” Thomson– one sergeant, Jonas Krywald (a Polish-born trooper who had reportedly served time in the French Foreign Legion) and one corporal – Russell Dagg, a product of Heriot’s School in Edinburgh.

It seems that Lieut. Thompson looked over all the personal backgrounds and education of all the current recruits within the H.L.I. and spotted the info on yours truly, recently kicked out of the Military Police but a private school boy with a decent education. Very shortly I was told to report to Thompson for an interview, most of which involved talking about rugby, since he’d noted that I had played club and Old Boy rugby in Eastern Scotland.

There were a few questions about education and interests, but it all went quite well, and Lieut. Thompson informed me that I, Corporal Findlay, was now a fully-fledged member of the regiment’s Intelligence Section. Training in military intelligence work, Thompson said, would start immediately and would continue once we arrived at our overseas posting.

Naturally, I was delighted. No more monotonous square-bashing or obstacle-course training. No more main gate guard duty. No more kitchen duty, vehicle “maintenance” cleaning, or ceremonial parade “volunteer” duty when VIPs came to visit our battalion. All that was behind me. I was now– whoop dee doo– an Army specialist with special duties.

Within a week, he had spotted another catch – one corporal Les Howson, from Birmingham (what are Englishmen doing in a Scottish rifle regiment, you ask?) Well – often the answer is: they chose it because of a love for the traditions of the regiment, their pipes and drums, and their history of prowess on battlefields down through the ages...) Later, Lieut. Thompson added one private– Ian Bannerman – and the Regiment’s Intelligence Section was ready to go.

The timing was perfect, for within a month, we were all stuck with needles for typhoid, anti-rabies, dengue, and yellow fever, after which the 1st Battalion the Highland Light Infantry – as part of 3rd Division – was loaded into transport planes for the long flight to Tripoli in the Middle East.

Try as I might, I cannot remember which airfield in Britain we were driven to for the flight to the Middle East, or the types of planes we flew in. I just remember that, for quite a few of the 1st H.L.I. this was the first time they had ever flown in a plane, so there was a definite under-current of excitement as we boarded.

Alex 2
Hugh McGrory
In my previous story you met Alex – accomplished tow truck driver, gold prospector and – wait for it – paranormal investigator… He said that he had a company (he and his partner, a woman) and was available for hire.

As you know, the term paranormal refers to occurrences which are impossible to explain by known natural forces or by science. I asked if he meant that they were ghostbusters, and he said that was one term that people sometimes used to describe them. He said that quite often, though, they are able to ascribe what was happening (strange noises or visions, perhaps) to normal causes, and in so doing set their clients minds to rest. I asked him if he had psychic powers, and he said no, but that he believed that his partner did.

As I said last time, listening to strangers can often be eye-opening…

The paranormal is often broken into two areas, religious and non-religious, in both of which people, faced with something they can’t understand, choose to believe in a mystical or magical explanation – reincarnation, the spirit living on after the body dies, ghosts and so on.

With regard to the non-religious paranormal realm my belief is that there is always a rational explanation for the occurence – we just haven’t found it yet. Indeed, a number of possible causes have been documented for many so-called paranormal events:

Carbon monoxide poisoning can cause auditory hallucinations, a feeling of pressure on your chest, and an “unexplained feeling of dread.” A well known story from the 1920s about a family hearing footsteps, seeing apparitions, and feeling malicious paranormal presences, turned out to be the result of carbon monoxide poisoning from a broken furnace.

Many ‘haunted house’ events occur in old houses, and it has been discovered that certain types of black mould can produce effects similar to carbon monoxide.

Infrasound is just below the range of human hearing and can cause some strange sensations. Some people subconsciously respond to lower frequencies with feelings of fear or dread. In 1998, engineer Vic Tandy of Coventry University spent a night in a supposedly haunted lab. He and his colleagues experienced anxiety and distress and felt cold shivers down their spines, and Tandy even reported seeing a dark blob out of the corner of his eye. It turned out that there was a silent fan creating sound waves at just below the sound threshold and at a frequency that can cause the human eyeball to vibrate and “see” optical illusions. When the fan was switched off the effects disappeared.

In my own home, I sometimes think that I’m hearing several people in the basement having conversations – can’t make out any words but it sounds like a cocktail party... It’s actually the forced air HVAC system that’s generating the noise.

Other sources of such low frequency sounds are events like earthquakes and volcanic activity or lightning; animals including elephants, whales, and hippos that communicate using infrasound; nearby industries can also be a source – diesel engines, electrical generators, wind turbines, and even some loudspeakers.

Sleep paralysis happens when the brain gets the process of falling asleep or waking, wrong. When we are in REM sleep, we can have all kinds of dreams some involving physical activities. The brain normally turns off the bodies ability to move so that the sleeper does not attempt to lash or kick out or attempt to run.

Your brain usually turns this paralysing effect off before you wake up, but in sleep paralysis, you awaken while it’s still happening – it’s like dreaming with your eyes open, and people may believe that the events are real.

Electromagnetic waves are all around us and are a combination of electric and magnetic energy. They can’t be seen or heard by humans directly, and include radio waves, microwaves, infrared, ultraviolet, x-rays and gamma rays. Ghost hunters use EMF meters and often find electromagnetic fields in ‘haunted’ dwellings.

Studies using helmets that delivered weak magnetic stimulation to people showed that eighty percent of test subjects said they felt “an unexplained presence in the room” when they wore the helmets.

The attraction of horror movies is partly explained by the fact that neurologists have found that our brains release dopamine, a chemical associated with pleasure, when we’re afraid. Also, it’s been shown that high levels of dopamine can increase the likelihood of finding meaning, patterns or significance where none exist (Apophenia) and this results in a higher tendency to believe in ghosts or alien encounters.

Finally, my brother and I have some personal experience with apophenia: When our mum was in her late eighties she began to show signs of dementia. (We later learned that this was probably caused by several TIAs that she had suffered unknowingly.)

In particular she would awaken sometimes in the belief that she had seen people in her room during the night. These varied from family or acquaintances to, for instance, a ballerina who floated down from the ceiling and danced at the foot of her bed. (Fortunately, these were pleasant experiences for her, and she would talk about her ”visitors”.)

This was explained to us as her brain, half asleep in the semi-darkness of her bedroom, trying to make sense of what she was seeing, patterns of light and shadow, and putting these together in a form that made sense to her.

On one particular occasion when I was home on a visit, she told me in the morning that my dad had visited her during the night.

The following conversation took place:

“Ma, you remember that Dad died about 20 years ago?”

“Eh, but he’s still gae’n aboot.” (Yes, but he’s still going around.”)

“Really, how did he get here?”

“He has a car now – he parked on the street out there,” and she went to the window and looked out, “it’s awa’ now.” (“It’s away now.”)

Not quite knowing how to proceed, I said “Well I hope he drives carefully, Ma, you remember Dad wasn’t a very good driver…”

Not missing a beat, she said “Eh, but he’s had twenty years to learn!”

And all I could think to say was, “Right enough, Ma, right enough.”

Memories – Who can Forget Them?
Bill Kidd
I am now of an age when the journey that started in the bedroom ended on the way to the kitchen when I realised that I no longer remembered why I was going there. The really annoying thing is that when I returned to the bedroom, I knew that I still needed the item that I was going to fetch from the kitchen! What was so important that I had to make a second trip to the kitchen you may ask and I in all honesty would reply “I can’t remember”.

Memory is a funny thing. I can still remember that 6/8 is one third of a pound and that a dozen at 1/3 each amounts to 15/- but I cannot remember how much a second-class postage stamp today costs or where I last saw my spectacles. Oh, now I remember I was going into the kitchen for my spectacles, I remember putting them in the fridge!

What is the very first memory that you can still clearly recall? Mine occurred three days before my fourth birthday, it was Neville Chamberlain’s broadcast saying that we were at war with Germany. Why has this memory been retained so clearly? I had no idea who Neville Chamberlain was or even what war meant. I think that that the event was etched into my mind because my parents transmitted its importance to me as they listened so intently. I have heard recordings of that broadcast many times and they never fail to take me back to that Sunday in September and that top-floor tenement flat in Dundee.

Of course, I can remember many things from my childhood. Things like the white model racing car with front wheels that moved when I turned the steering wheel. This was a gift from my mother’s bridesmaid, the lady that I knew as Aunty Madge who disappeared from our lives early in the war. It is a very long time since I last sat in a Dundee tramcar, but I do recall kneeling on the downstairs bench seating looking out of the window while eating from a package of red sweetmeat that I had rested on the window ledge. When the tram reached our stop, my mum grabbed me and ushered me off the vehicle. The moment my feet touched the pavement I remembered that my delicious treat was still on the window ledge of the tram. I will never forget or forgive that loss so early in my life.

Because I spent much of 1940 living with my grandparents in Forfar, I didn’t start school at the start of term but joined my class some months later. My first day was memorable because I got lost! I was brought into Miss Findlay’s class by Miss Gow, the formidable Infant Mistress, shortly after 9.00 am. At 10.15 I had my third of a pint of milk then, for our fifteen-minute playtime, was marched out with the rest of the class. I managed to get separated from my classmates by going into the boys’ toilets which were located at the end of the playground. By the time I found my way back to where the infants were allowed there was no-one there. Meanwhile the upper school interval had started so I joined in with them. When it came time to line up to return to the classrooms there was nowhere for me to go. The teacher in charge had never seen me before and asked who my teacher was. I didn’t know so it was suggested that I should get myself home. When I found my way home there was nobody there. Fortunately, Mrs McIntosh, our next-door neighbour, found me and took me back to school. Through Miss Gow I was returned to Miss Findlay’s class only to find that nobody had noticed my absence. I was not party to the conversation between the two Misses, but I think that I can still feel the burning in my ears! I was given a couple of playtime minders for the rest of the week.

The more observant of you will realise that even after eighty odd years I can still remember the names of my mother’s bridesmaid (not that I was at the wedding of course), our next-door neighbour, my first teacher and the Infant Mistress at Blackness School. I can recall the names of the butchers, bakers, grocers, chemists, and newsagents that we patronised. I remember the names of pretty well anybody, anything, any place, or any event that occurred between 1939 and 2010 but don’t ask me what I was doing on Tuesday or what I watched on TV last weekend.

Is this because of my advancing years or is it just what I consider to have been important in my life?

Alex
Hugh McGrory
I’ve found that, if you’re thrown together by happenstance with a stranger, it can be quite surprising how much you can learn by listening – it can often be enlightening, entertaining and educational…

The ‘Alex’ of the title is the tow truck driver from my previous story and he and I spent several hours together, particularly driving from Dundee to Glasgow Airport with the car I damaged. He said that we’d break the journey, as he always did, at Balhaldie Filling Station on the A9, north of Dunblane. I treated him to his favourite Starbucks Vanilla Latte and a muffin, and we had a chat as we ate.

I asked him if this was a full-time job for him and he said that it wasn’t, that he liked variety and had a couple of hobbies/part-time work that kept him busy and earned some money (I defy any of you to guess what his two interests are...)

The first… gold prospecting in the Scottish Highlands – and yes, there is gold in them thar hills and people have been recovering it for hundreds of years...

At Cononish, in the Tyndrum/Crianlarich area of Perthshire (the area I worked in for a couple of years while living in Killin), the new (five-year-old) underground mine is currently producing nearly 1000 ounces of gold per month. This is much more than has ever been produced in Scotland before.

However, we’re not talking about mining but rather recreational gold prospecting – panning for alluvial gold in streams. Alluvial gold is the flecks and tiny nuggets found in Britain’s rivers exposed from mining, earth movements and erosion over millennia. The gold does wash downstream, but its relatively heavy weight means that only strong currents can move it. When the flow slackens the gold sinks into the gravel and dirt of the riverbed. Locations in the river where the current is weakest, particularly at bends, are choice locations.

Gold is usually removed by panning. This is quite simple to learn, and panning kits can be purchased. The amount of gold found from panning is generally small and it’s believed that most people who get into it never recover their costs… If you’re interested see panning in action here.

To put this in perspective, the first photograph below shows Britain’s largest ever gold nugget, found in a


stream in Perthshire in 2017. (The exact location has been kept secret to avoid a ‘gold rush’.) Known as the ‘Douglas Nugget’, it now resides in The Hunterian Museum at the University of Glasgow. Weighing in at about 86 gm or 3 oz, the value of the gold itself would be around £4,500 though it’s suggested that, at auction, it might sell for over £50,000 thanks to its ‘fame’. In contrast to the 'biggest ever', the second photo shows a gold pan with a more likely content – lots of sand with (sometimes) a few gold flecks.

I wondered at the time why Alex would bother, but when I think about it now, in little more than a one-hour drive from Dundee he can be in the beautiful, rugged Highlands, breathing the fresh air and getting exercise, enjoying the anticipation of treasure hunting (and the now and again adrenalin rush of actually finding some and making a little money).

As I said earlier, listening to strangers can be interesting. Next time I’ll tell you about Alex’s second pursuit – you’ll never guess what it is…

PS
If you’re interested, see panning in action here.

Shetland Revisited 2
Brian Macdonald
Another place worth visiting is Unst, the most northerly of the Shetland Islands. It is reached by island-hopping from Mainland to the nearest island of Yell, then another by ferry from there to Unst. It is not possible to get to the very northern tip of Unst, as there is now a military radar establishment at the tip and the most northerly land of Britain, the volcanic rock called Muckle Flugga, reachable only by boat,

Muckle Flugga
can only be glimpsed. On the way, you pass through the small village of Baltasound, which has within its little general store the most northerly post office in Britain. The postmistress will happily sell you a picture postcard of the village and frank it with the commemorative rubber stamp before accepting it for the mail. Unst is the home of the charming but often quick-tempered tiny Shetland pony. There are breeders of the ponies around Shetland, but you will see many on Unst, grazing in fields by the roadside.

As you tour around Shetland, marvelling at the starkly beautiful, rugged coastal scenery and the many cliffs with their populations of nesting seabirds, in the outlying villages you may find a modest café that provides tea and coffee but offering only a few sweet cakes as food. I will briefly mention some other aspects of this most northern archipelago you may find of interest, if this tale motivates you to make a visit, as I believe that doing your own research and the subsequent exploration are a big part of any such expedition.

Esha Ness is a headland on the Atlantic west coast of Mainland, less than an hour from Lerwick, with magnificent rugged coastal scenery and a Stevenson lighthouse. A geographical feature of Esha Ness is a dramatic gorge that runs a kilometre inland from the sea as if slashed by a Viking axe.

Haroldswick is a settlement in the north of Unst. As the name suggests, there is a strong Norse influence and there are a Viking Museum, a longhouse, and a longship to explore. Everywhere there is evidence,
Longhouse Longship
by way of ruins and names of places and people, and particularly by the melancholy sight of ruined churches and abandoned graveyards, of widespread occupation to the furthest extent of the islands, of the Vikings who settled there, and of a flourishing rural population till the early 20th century.

Shetland’s Viking culture is celebrated each New Year by the Up Helly Aa torchlit procession of bearded and
Up Helly Aa
armed ‘Vikings’ that culminates in the ceremonial burning of a specially constructed Viking longship. Orkney and Shetland fly their own regional flags and, in this, demonstrate their difference from the rest of Scotland. Shetland’s is a white Nordic Cross on a blue ground, in its colours similar to the Scottish Saltire(1) but with the vertical cross rather than the diagonal Scottish one. You will rarely, if ever, see the Union flag of Britain that combines the flags of Scotland England and Wales flying in either Shetland or Orkney. You will see the Scottish Saltire printed on the plastic bags of the Lerwick Tesco supermarket but not elsewhere.

Throughout the islands you stumble over little museums dedicated to some aspect of Shetland life. In Lerwick the large Shetland Museum, ceremonially opened in 2007, is comprehensive and gives a broad picture of the culture and history of Shetland. The culture is strong in seafaring activities. A boat known as a ‘sixareen’ was formerly used for fishing in the Atlantic Ocean. The heart quails to think of such a small boat
A Sixareeen
rowed by six men competing with the Atlantic waves and history tells of many fishermen’s lives lost for Shetland at one time had a fishing industry that sold fish to the cities of the Hanseatic League.

While Orkney has a larger collection of prehistoric settlements and structures, Shetland is not without such attractions and there are brochs(2) to be seen, most notably the restored Clickimin Broch in Lerwick, where you can crawl in and marvel at the drystone-building skills of the ancients.

The smaller town of Scalloway, a mere 15-minute drive from Lerwick, on the west coast of Mainland, has a dramatic 17th century castle, the key to which is available on request, and you can wander through it. Scalloway is also where the World War II 'Shetland Bus'(3) was based and there is a museum dedicated to it in the town. Shetland Islanders are proud of this wartime activity these many years later.

The furthest north the visitor can drive on Mainland is to Isbister, just a couple of houses and a few incredibly white sheep huddled away from the wind. The ‘bister’ part of the name is commonly found and signifies a settlement. The furthest south is Sumburgh. On the way there you can visit St Ninian’s Isle, a small grassy island, named for an early Christian saint. It is connected to the mainland at low tide by a narrow strip of sand known as a tombolo. It is possible to walk to the island at low tide, but the visitor should pay heed to the posted warnings about returning before being trapped by the rising tide. St Ninian’s Isle is said to have the largest such geographical feature in Britain. Closer to Sumburgh on the same road is the Scatness Broch, another example of this Iron Age dwelling.

Scatness Broch
On our own visit, we heard many English accents. On asking why they were there, many said they had ‘emigrated’ from the overcrowded, industrial parts of England, particularly the Midlands and south-east England and had done so to get away from the busyness and pressures of life in those regions. None expressed regret over their move. Although Shetland maintains a robust spirit of independence there is frequent traffic by ferry and passenger plane between Shetland and mainland Scotland.

If you wish for a travel experience different from the normal tourist runs and a chance to see a part of our own country that still has an isolated and unique culture, and which many of us know too little about, you could consider Shetland, a part of Scotland but with a different flavour and back story, which gets fewer tourists than it deserves and which remains largely unspoiled. You will be able to feast your eyes on a rugged beauty of land- and sea-scape, observe the many colonies of seabirds and seals, browse ancient ruins from Scotland’s prehistory and communicate with a populace that is courteous and approachable but still retains some of the independence of spirit that stems from its history of Norwegian nationality, which is still cherished. It is an experience to savour and remember.

Footnotes

(1) The Saltire is the Scottish white diagonal cross on a blue background. It is incorporated in the union flag

The Saltire Norway Shetland

of Great Britain. The Saltire is also often called the St Andrew’s Cross. The Saltire is the official flag flown on Scottish government buildings. The St Andrew’s Cross spider lives in Eastern Australia and is commonly seen hanging in its vertical web, splayed out in a diagonal cross configuration.

(2) A broch is an Iron Age, round, drystone construction, somewhat beehive-shaped, found all around Scotland, including the Western Isles as well as in the Northern Isles.

(3) The Shetland Bus was a clandestine small boat ferry service that operated in WW2 between the little port of Scalloway on western Mainland and the Norwegian coast. Originally crewed by Shetland fishermen but later taken over by the Royal Navy, it carried spies, saboteurs, arms, supplies and documents in both directions until Norway was liberated in 1945.

An Accident? – 2
Hugh McGrory
It was a Saturday evening in April 2018, and I was in Dundee – actually I was in the suburb of Broughty Ferry, driving back westward in my rental car along Queen Street (aka Ferry Road, to Dundonians). I had just spent a pleasant evening at the home of my friend, Dunc, eating dinner and watching Manchester United beat Tottenham 2-1 in the semi-final of the FA Cup.

It was just before sundown, and the blinding sun was aligned perfectly with the stretch of road I was on
making it very difficult to see ahead. I had the sunshield down and had to sit up straight so that I could keep my eyes above the bottom of the visor.

I was the first car in a platoon and had to stop at traffic lights at the junction with Fort St, just by the Post Office Bar. When the lights turned green, I pulled away – the road began to climb – this caused the sun to slip below the visor and hit me like a searchlight. I was blinded for a moment – then suddenly in shadow.

The relief I felt was instantly wiped out when I realised that
the cause of the shadow was a single-decker bus parked by the side of the road. I slammed on the brake and wrenched the wheel to the right – too late, as the front passenger side of the car hit the right rear corner of the bus - see red 'X' in photo. (The bus was owned by a company called Stagecoach which provides local bus service under contract to Dundee City.)

The good news was that no one was hurt. The young driver of the bus appeared, I asked him if he’d call the
police and he said he’d already informed his dispatcher. As you can imagine from the photo, the car was not driveable, but as we waited I managed to reverse it out of the traffic and tuck it in behind the bus. There wasn’t much damage to the bus, and the driver said that he hadn’t realised what had happened until the passengers told him – said he did hear a noise but thought it came from his engine.

Two police cars showed up and one, with two constables who looked awfully young, stayed. I explained that I was blinded by the sun and they said that it was a well-known problem at this location. The cops were very pleasant, and apologised for the fact that they were required to breathalyse me.

It happens that at dinner that night, Dunc had offered me a beer or a glass of wine with the meal which would normally have been a very acceptable choice for me – but
that night I said I’d prefer a glass of Irn-Bru (a favourite Scottish drink from my chidlhood), if he had any, which he did – thank goodness – so I was able to say to the constable, “That’s fine, I haven’t had any alcohol and it’ll be a new experience for me.”

So he gets out the machine, fits a new mouthpiece and says “Blow hard until I say stop”. I do. He says “Just a minute”, fiddles with the machine, then says “Try it again.” I do. He says “Just a minute”, fiddles with the machine, then says to his partner, “This thing isn’t working.” They both fiddle with the machine then say, “Try it again.” I do… They say, “Forget about it – it’s obvious you haven’t been drinking.”

Then I reached for my phone to report to the hire company and found that I’d forgotten to bring the damn thing with me… One of the cops said “We’ll call them for you”, and they did – a tow truck was on its way.

My cousin Frank lived just a couple of minutes away, so I asked if they would call his number for me and he headed down to help.

When the tow truck arrived the driver, Alex, hooks up the car and says, “Where do you want me to take it?” I say, “I’ve no idea, you tell me…” It turns out that he works for a towing company contracted to the hire car company and just gets told where to pick up and where to deliver. So he calls base and they say “The car and driver have to come to Glasgow Airport tomorrow”, and that we should put the car somewhere overnight. So we found a place on a side street for the car, the tow truck driver said he’d come back in the morning, pick me up, then the car, and we’ll head to Glasgow. Frank drove me home, and the next day I travelled to the Airport in the tow truck.

The car hire company said the quick estimate of the cost of repair was £2,300. They charged £1,000 to my VISA card, this amount would be adjusted after repairs were complete and I would be responsible for the full final amount. They then gave me gave me another car and I headed back to Dundee.

At this point a little primer on rental car insurance:

My car insurance does not cover rental cars in the UK. When you hire a car there, Third Party Liability is included by law, and the charge is added to the hire cost. (Third-party liability insurance protects you when you're at fault in a motor vehicle accident. It covers the victim's property and any medical costs due to injury.)

The car hire company will offer you a Collision Damage Waiver. This is not isuance but it will cover damage from an accident, vandalism and/or theft of the car that you are renting. They may be quite aggressive in trying to get you to buy this. It will cost you a daily charge on top of the cost of renting the car and may be around double the rental cost. A big money earner for the rental companies…

I was able to refuse this since I had coverage from the VISA credit card issued by my bank (and that I used for the transaction). This was the first time I had to access this cover, and I was somewhat anxious as to how it would work…

To cut a long story short, whilst it took several months and quite a few email and phone exchanges, at the end of the day I was completely reimbursed.

All-in-all it was an interesting experience, and while I can hardly say “No damage done,” it could certainly have been much worse.

One bright moment in the whole affair came a couple of days afterwards… My friend Jim Howie (in the same year as me at Morgan Academy and author of several stories in this collection) called me up. He said,

“Have you seen today’s Courier (the local paper)?”

“No”, I said, “why?”

“You’re famous, even got a headline…"

“You’re kidding – what did it say?”

He said, “I’ll read it to you.”

“STAGECOACH HOLDUP ON FERRY ROAD – POLICE QUESTION PENSIONER”

Yugoslavia 6
Michael Marks
Following my Morgan/British Council sponsored visit and my next visit 25 years later, Sheila and I spent many happy holidays with Deso and his family, and we discussed the possibility of buying a piece of land near Deso’s own holiday house. This proved impossible as foreigners were banned from – Fitzroy Maclean excepted.

We had often had lunch in a secluded inn about twenty minutes from Ljubljana. So often that we got to
know the innkeeper very well. Once, we arrived at the inn only to find it closed – for the first time ever. Just as we were leaving, the innkeeper saw us and invited us in. We asked him why he was closed, and he explained that the inn was booked for a private function later that day.

After our rather later than intended lunch and just as we were about to leave, the guests for the evening started to arrive. To our great surprise, they were all male and smartly dressed in business suits. On our way out, the innkeeper introduced us to one of the guests and explained why we were there, including how we came to know each other – Morgan Academy and all.

The guest listened with interest to our history of connections
with Slovenia and what we loved about the country. Then he asked a strange question – what was there about the country that we did not like? I explained that while he, for example, could buy a house in Scotland or England, we could not do the same in Slovenia. He said, don’t worry, you soon will be able to do this!

The next day I told Deso about this and he asked me what this man looked like. He turned out to be the leader of the Slovene non-communist secret opposition party and about a year later became the first president of Slovenia.

Hugh asked me to write a little about the difference between communist and non-communist and the anecdotes above shed a little light on this. Basically, the difference is freedom. The freedom to do within reason what you want rather than what the state decides you may do. The freedom to own property or to own things. The freedom to decide what to do with your life.

Nothing is perfect. Some of the charm of the country has been lost. But the great majority of the population live better lives now than was ever possible under the communists. Many people have regained some of their assets lost not only to the partisans but to the communist regime. On the whole, the current leadership is for the best.

An Accident?
Hugh McGrory
My previous story dealt with correcting vehicle skids, and an email in response, from an old friend, reminded me of a related issue…

Many of you will have been driving for many, many years – some more than 60...? In that time, I’m sure that, amongst us, there have been a few major accidents, quite a lot of fender-benders, and more than a few near misses? I’ve been fortunate to have escaped the first category but have had quite a few of the other two over the years.

Some thirty years ago on my way home, I stopped at a little plaza to pick up some milk. The actual location, for those who know Toronto, was Lawrence Avenue at Curlew Drive. There are traffic lights at the


intersection and the X on the maps shows where the incident occurred just at the entrance/exit of the plaza.

I had been parked in front of a little convenience store (now the office of a physiotherapist) and had reversed
out of the parking spot and headed for the exit. I looked to my left, didn’t see any traffic, then gave my
attention to my right. I was concerned since it was close to the traffic lights, and I was afraid someone might come through the lights quickly. Seeing nothing coming, some part of my stupid brain said “no need to stop at the exit, then” so I kept going. As my gaze came back to straight ahead, I saw a car right in front of me and proceeded to plow into the right passenger-side door (a classic 'T-bone' collision).

The driver of the other car (a young woman in her twenties) told me that, at that moment, she saw me and was thinking "Oh I hope he’s going to stop” while I was saying
to myself “Where the hell did that car come from?”

Once the initial shock wore off, we realised that the fates had been kind to us – neither of us was going that fast (I, because I was just beginning to accelerate, and she because she was slowing for the traffic lights), no one was injured, and no other vehicles were close enough to be involved.

Ontario had recently created a system of Collision Reporting Centres for ‘fender-benders’ (a self-reporting
system designed to make better use of police officers by concentrating on major accidents) and since both cars were driveable, we set off to report the accident. The process turned out to be reasonably simple. The woman’s husband turned up (and I did tell him that his wife was in no way to blame).

I still couldn’t figure out how I managed to miss seeing her car, so I retraced my steps to the scene drove into the parking lot and it was obvious… There was a row of
newspaper boxes – three selling national papers via money-in-the-slot (the Globe and Mail, the
Toronto Star, and the Toronto Sun) and a couple with free offerings. There was also a telephone cable system box, and, I think, a post box, all lined up in a row forming a little wall just before the exit from the lot.

Her car was obscured from my view when I checked left – not that this is any kind of excuse for my hubris – I should, of course, have stopped before pulling out onto the street.

The 'Xs' represent the boxes (the red car is in the position of the victim at the moment of collision).
I remember, as a bairn, my mother telling me to “look right, then left, then right again”…

Always listen to your mother!

An Escapade Goes Bad...
Gordon Findlay
My career as a Military Policeman came to an end in a rather ignominious fashion. Here’s what happened.

After a couple of months at the Musselburgh detachment a few of us were getting a little antsy, bored, and in need of some diversion. That’s when we came up with The Idea. It was the brainchild of Bob Finlay (again I hasten to add – no relation).

One evening he said: “Look, we’re stuck out here, miles from anywhere, no good pubs, no decent dance halls – nothing. But,” and here he paused dramatically, “I’m good pals with the RASC sergeant who looks after all the vehicles in the yard. When I asked him, he agreed not to lock the gate to the yard some evening when we want to go into Edinburgh for a night out.

“The keys to all the trucks are in the maintenance office. All we have to do is pick out a 15-cwt,get into the
city, have some fun, then bring the truck back before reveille, lock the gate – and we’re home free!”

Four of us didn’t need much convincing. We looked at our duty schedule and found a date when we would all be off the duty roster. That would be our boys’ night out...

It worked like clockwork. On the evening in question four of us dressed in our civvies, slipped out of barracks and quietly opened up
the gate to the RASC motor pool yard. We picked out a nice clean 15 cwt truck that had come in for maintenance, checked that it had been serviced, found its key in the maintenance office and ten minutes later we were bowling down the road to Edinburgh and a night on the town. We went to one of the good, lively pubs off Princes Street, then found our way to the Heather Club dance hall just off Lothian Road.

As you probably know, I was no better a dancer then than I am now, but after two or three McEwen’s strong ales, well – everything looks bright and inviting and you even imagine that you can dance pretty well.

I recall it was around midnight by the time we made our way to a fish-and-chipper and had a late supper (for me, a batter-covered black pudding and a massive helping of chips – that is, french fries). Then it was back to our truck and a nice easy drive back to Musselburgh MP barracks, with the prospect of a good snooze, knowing that we had quietly beaten the system and won ourselves a good night out.

Only – we hadn’t.

Of all the nights for the four of us to pick for our slightly illegal night out, which night did we pick? Of course – the night of the National Census throughout Great Britain, when at midnight of that day everyone in the country had to have been counted and checked off. On that day, all over Britain, checkers went door to door verifying residents, checking on family members, on the number of parents, children, and other dependents; on the size of the homes and apartments, on the cars they owned, on the money they earned, which school they attended, and so on, and on.

And of course, when the Census-takers came to the Musselburgh barracks of Military Police detachment 33-ES (East Scotland) they found that four MPs who were off duty were not on the premises, and had not signed out (as they were required to do by Army regulations). Moreover, it was also quickly discovered that a 15-cwt trick was missing from the RASC motor pool.

It was not long before our neat little plan came apart like wet newspaper. We were “absent without leave and unaccounted for” and on a more serious note: so was a valuable piece of Army property.

Which is why all four of us were all roused from our beds before reveille the next morning and told that we were all being charged with being “absent from barracks” and “theft of military property.”

It was all over pretty quickly. We were marched in together around 9.00 a.m. into the C.O.s office where the charges were read out to us and we were asked if we had anything to say. Well – what was there to say? We hadn’t signed out from barracks as required; we had illegally taken an item of Army property, namely a 15-cwt truck; we had illegally used Army petrol in driving the truck; and we had neglected to sign in when we returned from Edinburgh. We were up S - - t Creek with no paddle in sight. None of us said a word. We were dismissed and within the hour we learned our fate. All four of us were to be released from the Military Police (law-breakers are not allowed) and we were to be re-assigned to another branch of Britain’s military machine. I can remember the four of us were pretty subdued as we read the notice posted on the bulletin board.

The next day when we were again marched in front of our C.O. we were mum when we were told that we were off to join an infantry regiment – the 1st Battalion The Highland Light Infantry, currently stationed at Fort George in Inverness, Scotland.

As a parting piece of advice, our C.O. said: “I would recommend that when you get to the H.L.I. you keep it to yourselves that you are all former military policemen. As you probably know by now, MPs aren’t too popular with the rest of the Army.” It was good advice. We took it.

401
Hugh McGrory
The MacDonald-Cartier Expressway in Ontario, Canada, runs for almost 560 miles, all the way across

Ontario from, in the west, the Detroit/Windsor border crossing, northeast to the Ontario-Quebec border. It is better known as Highway 401 or simply the '401'. (Some of you may recognise this from the Discovery TV channel programme 'Highway to Hell / Heavy Rescue: 401').

It acts as a by-pass for traffic that wants to avoid downtown Toronto, but also carries lots of urban and suburban trips by Torontonians. Where it passes the Pearson International Airport it is 18 lanes wide – traffic


counts on this stretch have shown almost 500,000 vehicles a day which makes it the most heavily travelled road in North America ahead of the Santa Monica Freeway in Los Angeles, and the I-75 in Atlanta.

In the ‘80s my wife, Sheila, and I decided to go back to school – Skid School that is; not sure now what inspired it – perhaps just the idea of something different to do one weekend, with a useful new skill on completion.

It was a four-hour course and took place at what looked like a large former parking lot southwest of Toronto, halfway between Mississauga and Hamilton. It was on Bronte Road north of Lakeshore Road West (I just checked and it's no longer in operation).

We were two of six students – they wisely split up husbands and wives, so I found myself in a car with an instructor and two strangers. The surface had been wetted with water and some kind of additive to get an appropriate slippery condition. The instructor did some demonstrations of what he was going to teach us, then we each had a turn at the wheel with the spare two in the back seat.

The car was fitted with a handbrake on the instructor’s (passenger) side so that he could lock the wheels and cause a skid that we then had to deal with. I was OK when driving, but as soon as I got in the back the sliding, spinning, jerking, and sudden stops brought on my innate tendency to car sickness, so I had to be let out and stand on the sidelines to recover when it wasn’t my turn to practise (embarrassing, but it hadn’t occurred to me…)

Apart from this, the course was quite good, and we left knowing a lot more about what to do if our car suddenly made a break for freedom – of course, the proof of the pudding...

A few years later, I was driving on the 401 between the 404 and Markham Road. The 401 along this stretch was twelve lanes wide in four three-lane roadways, two east, two west. I was in the core eastbound roadway (generally used if you were going further – the outer (collector) roadways were used for shorter trips and had the interchanges with the major cross-streets).

It was winter, cold, but bright and sunny. There had been a snowfall the previous evening, but if there's one
thing Canadians know it's how to manage snow, and the snowploughs had been out during the night. The road surface had some remnants of snow, but it seemed fine to drive on and I was cruising along at about 110 km/hour (about 70 mph) in the slowest lane, not a care in the world...

Suddenly the front of my car decided, in a split second, to turn left – I still have no idea why – perhaps I tweaked the accelerator or moved the steering wheel too sharply, or...?
In any event, I was suddenly heading across the next lane to mine and my car seemed determined to perform a doughnut!

Would you believe it, in that split second my brain remembered the instruction from skid school (this was before ABS (Anti-Lock Braking Systems) became standard...) summarised as: “feet off the accelerator and the brake; look in the direction you want the car to go; and turn the steering wheel like a maniac in that direction.”

It worked – the nose of the car jerked back to the right – an over-correction which needed a swift turn of the steering wheel to the left followed by a few more, minor corrections to straighten us up in the original lane.

By a stroke of good fortune, there were no cars or eighteen-wheelers close enough, either to the side or behind, to be involved. I was able to drive on as before, though slower, as my heart rate slowly returned to normal. I hate to think what might have happened if the road had been busier – unusual for the 401. How lucky was that? If there had been cars and trucks closer to me, it might have needed the ‘Heavy Rescue’ units to clear up the mess!
A Scottish take on Aussie English
Part 1 of 3
Brian Macdonald
English is not one language. It is many, all essentially the same but all different in a number of ways. The rules of grammar and syntax are the same wherever English is spoken but their observance is often cavalierly disregarded or modified by local usage. As for spelling, the USA has adopted a simplified version for many words that may confound standard English pedants. Very different regional accents have developed around the globe from contact with the way native people whose prime language is not English pronounce English and from the variety of accents that the first English speakers brought with them from home to their new environment.

English spread, during Britain’s era as a colonising sea-power, from its source, the melding of Roman Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Norman French languages, largely through the presence of English speakers, often the members of British military forces imposing imperial sovereignty on the local populace, but sometimes by peaceful colonisation. In such cases the language of the in-comers usually became the official language of government and bureaucracy. Local languages became restricted to the native people and dwindled in importance and use as the local upper classes adopted the language, mores and dress of their conquerors, with whom they wished to be identified. In my adoptive Australia, the original Australians spoke over two hundred different tribal languages, most of which are now, sadly, dead. Some have survived and are being robustly revived.

From an early age I was a voracious reader. I kept DC Thomson(1) in profit by buying the Beano and the Dandy weekly comics, then the Wizard, the Adventure, the Rover and the Hotspur with their tales of Matt Braddock, the bomber pilot, Wilson, the mysterious athlete clad in a black, one-piece bodysuit, Alf Tupper, the working-class runner, the Tough of the Track (who trained on a fish and chip diet), Blockbuster Brown, a mild-mannered schoolteacher who moonlighted as a wrestler and Gorgeous Gus, a rich man whose right foot could propel a football with amazing ferocity. The Eagle was a more elevated and educational comic, founded in 1950, just as I hit my teens and I enjoyed not just Dan Dare and his arch-enemy, ‘the Wee Green Mekon’ but also the scientific articles and the exploded diagrams of great engineering projects.

The Dundee Courier, the Evening Telegraph, the Weekly News (especially the sports pages with Dinny Drappit the goalie and Aulden Dunne the centre-forward) and the Sunday Post were all grist to my insatiable mill, and were read from cover to cover, even Francis Gay’s Friendship column. As I have said in another article, I was the holder of an account at Frank Russell’s bookshop, then located in Barrack Street in central Dundee, and made good use of it over a number of years. I found at school that I had a facility for and an enjoyment of languages that extended even to the minutiae of English grammar and parsing. The joys of written and spoken language and a love of reading and writing are traits that endure in me to this day.

I have had the luck to live in a number of different English-speaking countries. With a lifelong interest in spoken and written language, I relish the regional uniqueness in the spoken tongue and enjoy (and often adopt) colourful local expressions. I have delighted in the differences from my native Dundee or from standard BBC English that are found in England, Northern Ireland, the Irish Republic and Wales. When our daughter was born in Northern Ireland, I was asked by a workmate if the child was ‘plain or stone-finished’. Took me a wee while to work that one out.

In 1966, my young wife, our new-born daughter and I emigrated to Australia. We arrived one day before Australia Day(2) in 1967 and have lived in four different states of this vast land since then, most of the years in Melbourne. We were prepared for warmer weather, a different diet, a new job, different housing styles and numerous challenges to be dealt with, although we naively believed the culture would be similar to that we had left. But I was not prepared for the many differences in our common language that I encountered with delight, amusement and sometimes bafflement.

Australian English, as spoken by ordinary people, spoken quickly, as foreigners complain it often is, can be hard for the untutored ear to understand. When colloquialisms are added to the mix it can be incomprehensible to the stranger. How Europeans, many of whom speak excellent standard English, understand us, I wonder. They are, in contrast, usually well enough understood by locals. There is not much by way of distinctly different local dialects and accents in Australia, even comparing cities as far apart as Sydney on the east coast and Perth, WA, on the west. Even a lifelong Australian resident with a good ear would find it hard to place an accent geographically although there are some differences in word usage from one part of the country to another that are giveaways.

To be continued

Footnotes

(1) D C Thomson is the largest independent publisher in Britain, founded in 1886 but not so named till 1905. It has always been based in Dundee, Scotland. It represents the ‘Journalism’ in the ‘Jute, Jam and Journalism’ label formerly applied to the city.

(2) Australia Day, 26th January, commemorates the arrival of the First Fleet(3) which sailed from Portsmouth on England’s south coast and landed on that day in 1788 at what the explorer James Cook had named Botany Bay, to colonise what the British government assumed to be an uninhabited land. In the 21st century the Australian Native people, who have inhabited this land continuously for 40,000 years, are now demanding that the date of this day of celebration of white Anglo-Celtic colonisation be changed, as that day is known to them as ‘Sorry Day’.

(3) The First Fleet consisted of eleven ships, of which six were convict transports, commanded by the naval officer Arthur Phillip, bent on establishing a penal colony at the place in Terra Australis where the then Lieutenant Cook had landed on his previous exploratory voyage in 1770. The first colony, Sydney Cove, which became the city of Sydney in the state of New South Wales, was composed of those convicts (both male and female) plus a contingent of soldiers and their officers. A stream of later voyages brought more convicts and members of noble families sent by their families to be out of the way as black sheep. The last shipment of convicts was to Western Australia in 1868. By then there was a good flow of free settlers to a young country.

Melbourne was founded in 1836 as a commercial venture, from the southern island of Tasmania, which was originally Van Diemen’s Land after a Dutch governor of the East Indies. It was so named by the first European sailor to discover the island, the Dutch Abel Tasman. Subsequently it was the British who renamed it Tasmania. It had been colonised directly from Sydney. The expedition to the southern mainland was led by John Batman, a grazier and explorer, and founded a colony of free settlers. Batman landed at what is now named Blairgowrie, which was most probably named after a town near our own home city of Dundee in Scotland.

Named for Queen Victoria’s first prime minister, Melbourne’s mushroom growth in the later 19th century was due to the discovery of gold in the inland of what became the state of Victoria. As well as miners from many lands, including a good number of Chinese settlers who established their own mines but sensibly became growers of vegetables, shopkeepers and traders. Several large Victorian gold mining boom towns of the 19th century continue to have significant populations of ethnic Chinese origin, which are well integrated but maintain their ancestral culture and whose temples, dragon festivals and museums are a major part of community life in these cities.

South Australia’s capital city, Adelaide, was also a free colony. Inland Perth in the far west, originally founded from the city’s port town of Fremantle, had a convict source.

Today, claiming convict ancestry from the First Fleet is highly prized.

Tell Me When I'm Having Fun
Hugh McGrory
Many years ago, my wife Sheila worked for the Ontario Government in the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade. One of her main tasks was to encourage and assist businesses to locate in the Province.

She came home one evening and announced that we had been invited to an evening function at the home of a prospect. Being my usual supportive self, I probably whined something like “Do I have to go?” Once I understood that I did, she gave me the invite which said “black tie” or some similar phrase.

I said “OK, I can rent a tux,” to which she replied “No, I think a business suit will be fine.” I was doubtful, “but maybe the phrase means something different in Canada than it does in the UK.”

“Well, one of my colleagues, Maureen, and her fiancée, Robert have also been invited I’ll get her to check with him.” The word duly came back that Robert, a Canadian, would be wearing a business suit to the ’do’ – so no problemo.

So, the day arrived, I dressed in my dark blue suit with a modest matching tie, and we drove over to the client’s small-mansion-type home.
I had my first “Oh, oh…” moment when I saw that there were young car-jockey’s in white shirts and bow ties parking guests’ cars. The second came moments later when I realised that the music we heard was coming from a mariachi group on the front steps.We walked into the house and I got my final “Oh, oh…” when I saw that all of the men in sight looked like a colony of penguins.

I thought, “Oh, damn, I guess Robert and I will be the only two schmucks not appropriately dressed.”

I asked Sheila if her friend had arrived yet and she said “No”, then “Oh yes, they just came in…”

I looked up to see Maureen, whom I'd met before, walking towards us followed by Robert, a tall good-looking fella looking very sharp in his TUX AND BLACK BOWTIE...

$%^#$%^&*!!!
I could have looked like this guy...
Yugoslavia 5
Michael Marks
The remainder of my month with the Yavornik family passed too quickly and we parted company at the railway station, promising to keep in touch. My journey home was uneventful.

We did keep in touch, but inevitably less and less frequently. As the years passed I married, and we soon had two daughters to look after. There was always a good reason to postpone a return to Ljubljana and Deso also had travel restrictions caused by the communist regime. By 1971, I was living in Manila so there was yet another potential barrier to a return trip. How to get from Manila to Ljubljana and on to the UK?

When 1979 arrived my wife and I decided to bite the bullet and celebrate a very long postponed anniversary - a quarter of a century from my introduction to the Yavorniks. We realized that if we didn’t go that year we might never do so.

We took our annual home leave in December to be with our daughters for Christmas together with our families in Invergowrie and Blairgowrie and agreed to go to Ljubljana en route. We could fly to Trieste, hire a car, drive to Ljubljana, meet the Yavorniks for a couple of days, drive back to Trieste and on to the UK - simple! And that is where Fate took a hand.

For reasons not relevant to this story, our flight from Manila involved changing flights in Athens. At this point we were told that there was thick fog in northern Italy and Trieste airport was closed. We rearranged our flight and managed to get a flight to Rome. At least travelling in the right direction!

We had hoped that we might find an alternative flight to somewhere else in north Italy and get to Ljubljana that way. No joy. The airline paid for a rather rundown hotel for the night near Rome airport. Next morning we got to the airport early and tried our luck. Bliss! The fog in north Italy had lifted and there were two seats on the next flight to Trieste. We landed in Trieste and went to get our hire car. There wasn’t one.

We explained our problem and they not only found a car for us but upgraded us to a BMW. Now we had sunshine and a car and had only lost a day. We arrived that same morning in Ljubljana.

Now all we had to do was find Deso’s new apartment.

We stopped and asked for directions and soon arrived at the correct address. Or rather where it ought to have been. All we could see was a row of shops. There was a door in the middle of the row, so we tried it and got in. Now at last our luck had changed. Not so.

On the first floor we found the correct apartment, with an envelope pinned to the door and our name on the envelope. Inside the envelope was a note saying that Deso was sure we would turn up (even a day or so late) but he had to leave and would phone us that afternoon at a nearby hotel where he had booked us a room.

We easily found the hotel and yes, there was a reservation for us. Better news still, the hotel was a new Intercontinental! More on this in the next installment.

Deso duly phoned and explained that this was a bank holiday. The family were spending it in their country house (see also my next column). We agreed that I would drive down to the nearest village where Deso would meet us and take us to their house. We would meet at the village of Visna Gora. No problems. We did a little shopping, had a dinner and a drink or two and so to bed.

All was at last going well - or was it? Next morning we woke to see thick fog!

We set off driving very cautiously and managed to find the village and a few minutes later Deso arrived. The reunion with the family was a great success. The whole family were there and Sheila (my wife) got a great reception.

I know she was relaxed because that evening we had a swim in the hotel’s indoor heated pool. Sheila can swim but is nervous, and never swims unless her feet can touch the bottom. That evening she swam several lengths!

Glomangiomas
Hugh McGrory
In my last story, Dr. Sophie had asked me about taking part in a research project as a subject – so what was that all about…?

Well, as you know, our blood circulates around our body through arteries – which take oxygenated blood outwards from the heart, and veins – which bring the blood back again. The transfer of the blood between these is accomplished by capillaries, vessels which are so tiny that blood cells have to pass in single file.

Glomus bodies, like capillaries but independent of them, also provide a connection between arteries and veins – the purpose is to shunt blood away from the skin surface when exposed to cold temperature, thus preventing heat loss, or allowing maximum blood flow to the skin in warm weather to allow heat to dissipate.

There is a rare condition affecting these glomus bodies called glomangioma, where multiple benign (non-cancerous) growths of blood vessels occur. These are apparently caused by a mutation in a gene known as FAP68 (don’t ask me…). I was born with this mutation (which causes small visible, blue-coloured tumours under the skin) hence the request that I might become part of the study.

As you can see from the photos below, these tumours come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and various shades of red, blue, and purple. They also appear individually or in various clusters. Fortunately, despite having had these tumours since birth, they haven’t really bothered me apart from the odd collision with a ball, a stick, or a racquet, when they can be painful.

My Chest My Right hand My Right Hip

So, to cut a long story short, a few weeks later I found myself in an examining room in the Dermatology Division at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto with the young(ish) Study Director and a colleague, both female. They wanted to examine my skin from top to toe, to document and count the tumours, photograph them, and biopsy one for study under a microscope.

They asked if I’d like privacy while I stripped and I said that since I had to be nude anyway it didn’t really matter so “I’ll just strip, you two can get your clothes off, and we can get started.” They stared at me for a moment amid dead silence in the room until I said “I figured it was worth a shot…"

So, they went over every inch of me, using a magnifying glass on occasion – final count of tumours was well over 100. They had asked if they could biopsy one, and in fact, talked me into a second one.

They said that they would be presenting their findings at an upcoming dermatology conference in Toronto and asked if I would attend to show off some of my tumours. I agreed, but when they sent me the details, I realised that I would be in Scotland on that date. So I lost my one and only chance to show off my magnificent body in front of hundreds of people…

As I said, this condition is rare. In organising the study, they contacted dermatology colleagues across Canada to see if they had patients with this condition and turned up the grand total of four (including me). At around this time my brother and I had been delving into our family history and in talking with the study director it occurred to me that there was a small chance that the four families may be related. I asked her if we could explore this, and she said the Ethics Board at the University of Toronto wouldn’t allow the release of the information.

I said “How about I give you written permission to release my details to the other three so they can choose
whether to contact me or not." She said it was worth a try and eventually got the OK from the Ethics Board.

In the end, two of the three corresponded with me. It would have been great to be able to tell you that we were able to identify a common ancestor – that didn’t happen.

However, it turned out that we three all had Irish ancestry, me in County Donegal, and they in Leitrim, Fermanagh, and Tyrone all of which have common borders with Donegal. So it suggests that we had a common ancestor in this part of the world back in the
mists of time, who had this mutation, and passed it down to each of us...

A Little Live Action
Gordon Findlay
Two or three weeks after we arrived in Edinburgh, I got my first taste of policing. Two of us had just finished our 6.00 to 10.00 p.m. shift and were walking back to the parking area behind Waverley Street Station where we expected to find our 15-cwt truck waiting to take us back to Musselburgh.

Instead, one of the sergeants from our detachment came running out of the station area and yelled at us to “get over here!” We followed him at a trot into the railway station itself – and came on a scene of battle. Half-a-dozen Army types were mixing it up with Air Force personnel, in a welter of bodies, arms and screaming curses. One Air Force fellow was lying full length on the platform, bloodied around the head and groaning softly. “Get ‘em apart!” roared our sergeant. Easier said than done.

Ever tried to get between two grown men, drunk but viciously angry and doing their best to flatten the other? The trick is to wait until a punch is thrown and try to grab the puncher’s other arm and twist it in the opposite direction so he’s thrown off balance. We tried that, but it really takes two of you to subdue one man – and by that time his opponent is trying to take advantage of your intervention and is whirling in to thump him while you hold his arms.

For a couple of minutes we looked like we were part of the fight, wrestling Army types or Air Force blokes apart only to have them break away and try to get at each other again. Funny thing was, for all the painstaking effort we had exerted in putting together our shot-filled “saps”, we realized later that we never had a chance to get them out before we were suddenly smack in the middle of that dustup. We had to separate the fighters with the strength of our arms.

At this point – hallelujah! – in came the reinforcements. Someone in the station master’s office had called Edinburgh Police and a minute later a squad of bobbies – very large and solid men in dark blue equipped with night sticks –came pouring on to the platform. In no time at all they whacked and bashed the combatants down to their knees and the fight was over.

Our job then was to get the personal information from the fighters, both Army and Air Force, but since they had been “disturbing the peace and endangering citizens” the Edinburgh Police took over and hauled the lot of them to holding cells at the local prison

It seems that one or two of the Army types had made a nasty comment about the Air Force men as they exited the train – more insults were exchanged, then a punch was thrown, and the battle was on.

For our part, we handed over the names, service numbers and regiments of all the battlers, handed them over to the police, and we were then free to climb into our 15-cwt truck to head back to barracks in Musselburgh – breathing a bit harder, a couple of bruises here and there, but all of us still in one piece.

Dr. Sophie
Hugh McGrory
Some twenty or so years ago I had an annoying rash on my forehead that my GP couldn’t shift, so he sent me across the corridor to Dr. Sophie, a dermatologist. She identified the rash and cleared it up for me quite quickly. This was the first of a series of visits for minor skin ailments over the next ten years or so.

Dr. Sophie was Polish born, about 4’10” in height, strong-minded, very knowledgeable and respected in her

Dr. Sophie front left
field. She retired at 88 – sadly she died a few years ago at the age of 96.

We had a friend in common, and so spent a little time chatting during my visits. One time I told her that I didn’t like coming to see her. She asked why not, and I said, “Because every time I come you find a new way to torture me – you’ve stuck needles in me, sliced me with a scalpel, stitched me, frozen me – the only one you’ve missed is burning me!”

She laughed, and, I believe, decided then and there to go for the full house… You see, while I was there for some reason I can’t remember, I had mentioned that I had quite a lot of annoying skin tags and wondered if she could remove them. She said that she could do them then and there – then she asked:

“Do you haf a high tolerance for pain…?

My mind immediately said to me "Did I hear that right...?" and I’m sure I must have looked like a deer caught in headlights…

I can’t remember what I said exactly – probably hedged my bets... I mean if you say No, you look like a wimp, but if you say Yes, you might very well not enjoy what ensues. Whatever I said she took it as a Yes and said, “there are a number of ways to do this: cryotherapy to freeze them, cut them off with scissors or scalpel, or my preference, electrodessication – using an electric needle to burn them off.”

“With a local anesthetic,” I asked, hopefully?

“No,” she said, “that’s why I asked the question, dummy!” (OK, she didn’t say dummy – she just thought it...)

So, she got out her latest torture device and a pair of tweezers and in two shakes had taken off about a dozen tags.

The pain couldn’t have been that bad since I don’t really remember it, but I thought it amusing that, when it was over, there was a smell in the room like barbecued steak…

Then she said “Before you go, I have a colleague doing a study of a rare congenital defect and I wondered if you might volunteer as a participant…”

But that’s a story for another day…

Badminton
Bill Kidd
From time to time when I am flicking across the hundred or so TV channels available to me, I stumble upon
a badminton match and while watching the amazing athleticism of the present-day players I reflect on our own badminton journey. This started in 1960 shortly after we married and moved to Caithness. Among the new friends that we made were a couple of keen badminton players who invited us to come along to a badminton session at the local social club. We were both tennis players with only the barest experience of badminton, but nothing ventured... etc.

We went along and quickly discovered two things. First, that the only thing that badminton and tennis had in common was that the racquets both had strings and second, that because of the local climate, badminton was a
serious year-round sport in Caithness. Thanks to the patience of our new friends we enjoyed a couple of games and accepted their invitation to return the next week. Over the next few months we bought our own racquets and became regular members of the club. Muriel showed great aptitude for the game and within a couple of months she was representing the club at friendly matches. My own journey was less spectacular, and I became a regular travelling supporter at those friendly matches.

During the course of that winter we learned that there was a very active and competitive badminton league in Caithness with almost every village and township with a suitable hall having its own badminton team. Over the next five years we spent a great deal of time improving our standard of play and travelling around the county sampling the idiosyncrasies of the various venues.

Schools in both Wick and Thurso had excellent venues with the high roofs needed to play good standard badminton but regretfully this wasn’t the case with most village halls where low roofs, light fixtures, rafters, and obstructions on the playing area meant that local rules had to be observed.

One village hall had a working coke stove on the corner of the court, fortunately it had a wire guard round it. The local rule was, if the shuttlecock landed on the top of the stove and was burned, it was a foul, if it was undamaged, it was a let. Another hall was too short to accommodate a full-size badminton court so the base line at one end was painted a foot above the floor, if the shuttlecock hit below the line it was ”In” and “Out” if it was above. One hall had roof trusses, if the lower part was hit it was a “Let.” Needless to say, the local players had made serving through the trusses a fine art form and gained quite a few victories by exploiting this.

The off-court facilities were also very basic. At one match I asked one of the opposition where I could find the Gents toilet and was told to go to the back door. I followed the instruction but could not find the toilet, so I went back and asked if he could show me. He did, he took me to the back door and with a wave indicated the miles of moorland saying, “There it is!” The lack of such facilities did not indicate any lack of hospitality nor did the keen rivalry affect the warmth of the welcome and friendly banter. These were happy days when sport was an important part of the social scene.

In 1966 we moved to Berkshire and quickly resumed our badminton activities by joining the A.E.A. Wantage Badminton Club. This was a serious, competitive club with a good reputation in the Berks, Bucks and Oxon Counties League. By this time we were both competent players and were welcomed into one of the club teams. Once again the facilities were a little quirky. The club met in a WW2 aircraft hangar; it had a concrete floor with four badminton courts marked out on it. There was a rota of members responsible for erecting and dismantling the system of portable lighting the nets before and after each session of the club. Nothing quirky about that you may be thinking but what about the operating irradiation plant grumbling away in the corner of the hangar. That is quirky and although perfectly safe, caused much trepidation amongst visiting teams.

Badminton become a major part of our lives and we joined a second club in 1967. This was another A.E.A. sponsored club that met on a Saturday evening in Abingdon’s Old Jail. This Facility had been purchased by a consortia of local badminton clubs and altered into a dedicated two court facility with excellent changing facilities, a clubroom and bar, However, being part of our badminton journey, there had to be something quirky! How about the two fuselage sections of WW2 Horsa Glider placed at one end of the courts to provide the original changing rooms of the facility?

This was a serious competitive facility that Judy Hashman (née Devlin) used for training. Judy Hashman was
probably the greatest ever female badminton player. Born in Canada but moved to UK when she married in 1960. She won 86 international tournaments including 10 All-England singles Championships and was runner up 3 times, 7 All-England Ladies doubles and was runner up 5 times. Once in The Old Jail I watched her when she was four months pregnant play singles with and thoroughly demolish, a male county standard player. What a competitor!

Starting a family and a change of job for me brought our competitive badminton career to an end, but when we moved to Leighton Buzzard we took our badminton kit with us and soon found a badminton club that concentrated on the social aspects of the game. The only quirky venue that we played in was the National Spinal Injuries Hospital at Stoke Mandeville
where we played a friendly match with the staff club. The highlight was being able to have a swim after our game, a long way from Caithness village halls!

Our next move was to Congleton in Cheshire and yet another badminton related experience. The club that we joined was a large one and we played in the town’s disused Territorial Army Drill Hall. During our time there the club got the opportunity to buy the hall and I ended up as the convenor of the fund-raising committee. In a flash of brilliance I arranged a Wrestling Show in the town hall and we had a fascinating time seeing what went on behind the scenes at a professional wresting show. This consisted mainly of negotiating with the wrestling management, helping to set up the ring, and during the show, removing the kids who, to the painful discomfort of the wrestlers and the delight of the perpetrators, scattered grains of rice onto the ring. It certainly added a grain of quirkiness to our lives.

Our last move involving badminton was to Cumbernauld, no club this time but a system of booking a court in the large sports centre and bringing along your group of friends. Nothing quirky, a pleasant evening out with established friends in a well-equipped venue. Looking back over more years than I care to remember I have come to the conclusion the Caithness experience in village halls was the most fun and that for anyone


moving around the country, badminton was a great way to meet new people.

Feeding the Backyard Animals
Hugh McGrory
My friend Ross and I competed against each other at squash twice weekly for about thirty years – we finally had to give up at the behest of Mother Nature in our late sixties (his rotator cuff, my knee replacement...).

One day, after a match, he mentioned that he’d put up a hummingbird feeder in his backyard hanging from a branch of a maple tree, and he couldn’t believe how much sugared water (one cup of table sugar to four cups of water) those tiny birds could consume.

The following week he said that the syrup was disappearing at a ridiculous rate and there had to be some critter getting at the feeder – it couldn’t be the hummingbirds alone…

We went over the list of known predators:

Raccoons? (our first choice) No – the feeder was 'raccoon-prooof' – held up by twine that wouldn’t support the weight of a raccoon.

Squirrels? No – he didn’t get a lot of squirrel activity and didn’t think they could drink that much.

Chipmunks? No – same as for squirrels.


Other birds? No – he hadn’t seen much activity near the feeder.

Bats? No – same as for birds.

Black bears? (We were reaching...) Nah – not in suburban Toronto.

That was as far as we got – we were both baffled and gave up.

A couple of weeks pass, we’re in the change room getting ready to play, and he says he’s finally solved the mystery…

He said he was in the backyard about to go in for the evening when he sensed a movement out of the corner of his eye. At first, he wasn’t sure what it was then suddenly realised that the feeder was moving – it was disappearing upwards into the leaves of the maple…

He slowly bent down into a squat and looked upwards. There was a family of raccoons, dad, mum and three youngsters in the tree and dad was pulling the feeder string up hand-over-hand.

Ross said, “I watched amazed as that bloody masked bandit picked up the feeder in his little human-like hands and proceeded to scoff the sugar water!”

Chance Meeting
Clive Yates

Your recent story about a coincidental meeting reminded me of a personal story also set in New Zealand:

Some years ago, in Auckland, I was in the recreational area called ‘Onepoto Domain’ which is on the North Shore (part of Aukland, north of the harbour). I was there indulging myself in Egyptian PT... (actually, having a snoozy nap in the sunshine on a seat).

Along came a chap with a white West Highland Terrier on a lead. I patted the Westie and mumbled
something about how ‘good’ the little dog looked and how affectionate he appeared to be. My wife and I had always wanted a Westie, so the conversation drifted into ‘Where to obtain such a dog, and general comments about how they behaved.’

The owner suddenly asked me about my accent (still quite Dundonian despite every effort for years to disguise it!)

I replied, “I am from Dundee.”

He said “ I have a friend who is from Dundee. He used to be in the Merchant Navy as a Deck Officer on tankers.”

“What's his name?” I asked (half-interestedly). He replied “Morrison, Charlie Morrison.”

“I knew a Charlie Morrison once” I said, “That Charlie Morrison had a sister called Janet who married an Engineer on the Shaw Saville Line operating to New Zealand. They moved to New Zealand back in the 1960’s.”

The unknown man remarked that he would tell his friend that he had met someone from Dundee. He asked me for my name and phone number, which I gave him, and thought no more about it.

You can imagine my surprise when I got a phone call a day or two later; “I am Charlie Morrison from Dundee, Janet’s brother.” He went on to tell me that she and her family are still in NZ. However, her husband had died quite recently with Big C.” At this we had a conversation and he told me that he had ‘retired’ in NZ after years at sea ‘driving’ large oil carrier vessels around the globe.

Small world; even smaller islands; minuscule chances of such an encounter. And if you think the story a bit strange, how about these extra bits:

Tommy Burt, a classmate at Morgan Academy, rugby player (and a contributor to this story collection) lived half a mile from me in Auckland;

and Dorothy Fenton (as was) in a former Primary school class, (who left Morgan and went to the Harris,) bumped into me at a conference in 1996!

Some of you will remember the words of our school song - “O’er the bridge that spans the river;” etc.

Morgan Academy The Bridge that Spans the River Tay

A Song of the Morgan

O’er the Bridge that spans the River
Moving slowly to the sea,
Looks ‘The Morgan’, now as ever,
Fairest school in all Dundee.
And as day by day we view her,
Standing stately on the hill,
Proudly pay we homage to her,
Gladly sing with right good will.

Chorus:
Hail “The Morgan” stately, splendid,
Hail the teachers, every one!(1)
Cheer we every goal defended
Every hit and every run!
We would strive with every lesson,
As we strive when at our play,
Learn with every passing session,
“Who would rule, must first obey.”

O’er the Bridge that spans the River,
Soon we pass away alone,
Leaving comrades keen and clever,
For the lure of the unknown.
But, though much or mean our treasure,
Though our fame be great or ill,
We shall still recall with pleasure,
Our dear “Morgan” on the hill.

Repeat chorus

Though the Bridge that spans the River,
Take us far from home and friend,
Hide them from our sight forever,
Till the “long trail” has an end,
There’s a beacon that will light us,
Lone on land, or far at sea,
There’s a name that will unite us,
‘Tis “The Morgan” of Dundee.

Footnote

(1) It's a school tradition that pupils sing "Jail the teachers, every one."
Cherries Jubilee
Hugh McGrory
The famous chef, Escoffier, creator of the Peach Melba (for a dinner honouring opera diva Dame Nellie Melba), also invented Cherries Jubilee, in 1887, to celebrate Queen Victoria’s 50th year as monarch.

It was well known that the Queen loved cherries, and he adapted the old French method of preserving fruit in sugar and brandy to make this celebratory dish.

Briefly, you gently warm sour cherries in a pan with sugar, salt, lemon juice, and scraped vanilla bean. When the sugar dissolves, turn up the heat until the mixture thickens. Add Kirsch or Brandy (away from the heat source) return the pan to the heat and then flambé by igniting the alcoholic vapour. Allow the pan to cool until the flames disappear.

Today, the mixture is usually poured over vanilla ice cream for each serving (Escoffier did not do this originally.)

So, as I mentioned in a previous story, I was in Houston, Texas, in 1971 attending a conference on (as usual) computers and engineering. My great friend, Sam, who lived in Houston, was the Conference Chairman, and, as part of his duties, had had to set up a dinner for all of the attendees.

Some time before, he had met with the appropriate manager at the hotel who introduced him to the chef. After discussing the menu, he and Sam chatted. The chef wasn’t a Texan; Sam asked him how he ended up in Houston, and he proceeded to tell the following story:

He'd been working at a major hotel in Denver, Colorado, and was asked to prepare a meal for some kind of major charity function to be attended by many hundreds – everyone who was anyone in Denver – black tie and evening dresses, of course.

He wanted to make a splash – he put together a plan to serve Cherries Jubilee for dessert, and to make the flambéing a spectacular event.

The ballroom was filled with tables, but a space had been left in the middle. At the appropriate moment the lights were dimmed, an anthem played, and a spotlight followed his staff as they wheeled in a platform with a large pot/cauldron in which the warm melange was ready to be flambéed.

He followed in his chef’s uniform and tuque, shining bright in the spotlight. He carried aloft a bottle of brandy, and when they reached the centre, the music ceased and there was silence. With a flourish he held the bottle aloft then poured it into the mixture, lit a long taper then held it to the rim, and BOOM… The mixture exploded and launched an expanding wave of cherries out over him, his staff, and the surrounding tables.

Fortunately, no one was badly hurt, though apparently the bedraggled spectators were a sight to behold. He was fired that evening – and that was how he eventually arrived in Houston…

PS
Flambéing is a technique that can be used for many types of dishes, but it’s often associated with desserts – Baked Alaska, Bananas Foster. While it can improve the look and taste of the food, it’s not without its dangers:

In Coral Gables , Florida, in November 1979, two elderly women (aged 88 and 81) were burned when a Cherries Jubilee dessert at a country club dinner exploded and set their clothing on fire. One of them died…

In Tampa Bay, in June 2011, four diners were injured while awaiting their Bananas Foster dessert. Particularly badly hurt was a 25 year old primary school teacher who suffered third degree burns.

In 1999 a California woman suffered third-degree burns when a server prepared Cherries Jubilee tableside at a steak house.

A woman in London was seriously burned in 2005 when a flaming Portuguese sausage dish exploded after it was topped with rum.

A 5-year-old girl and her 8-year-old sister were burned in Arizona in 2006 when alcohol in a hollowed-out "onion volcano" was ignited at a Japanese restaurant.

In 1996, a waitress died after suffering severe burns at a Dublin wedding reception when an open liquor bottle caught fire as staff prepared a flaming Baked Alaska.

In the late 70's, the hotel administration department at the University of New Hampshire, put on theme dinners. The students would go all out, and the multi-course meal included Cherries Jubilee as the grand finale.

The "chefs" in their starched white uniforms and caps, wheeled a shiny cart laden with a huge bowl of cherries into the center of the room. All eyes were on them. With a dramatic flourish they poured alcohol over the cherries and set them aflame…. A stray elbow suddenly bumped the alcohol flask. It fell to the floor splashing alcohol in a long stream... directly toward the seated diners and disappearing under a table.

The band played on as everyone watched the flames jump from the cherries, down to the floor, working their way toward the seated diners. No one moved until the flames ran under the table and up an unfortunate gentleman's pant leg. He leapt into the air and headed for the platform only to be tackled by guests who sprang into action and smothered the flames. Fortunately, he wasn’t badly hurt.


Getting back to our main story, do I believe it…? I’m sure that’s the story that was told to my friend Sam, (as best I remember it after fifty years).

Given the litany of accidents above, something of the like could well have happened. There was no Internet fifty years ago, and my latest research, though it turned up the list of accidents above, did not uncover any story set in Denver.

We’ll never know for sure – I’m inclined to think that the basis for the story may be true but that it was somewhat embellished in the telling...

But it’s a good story is it not...?

Shetland Revisited
Brian Macdonald
In a previous traveller’s tale, I mentioned that one day, we would re-visit the Northern Islands of Scotland. At the time of our first visit, only one short look-see was contemplated as we were enjoying mainland Europe too much, with its varied cultures, peoples, scenery, and cuisines. As we neared the close of our eighth decade and knew our overseas travel days were coming to an end, due to the brutal marathon journey from Australia just to get as far as Europe, one final journey of discovery was pondered.

Then came the TV series of author Ann Cleeves’ Scottish detective, Inspector Jimmy Perez, which we watched from the comfort of our Melbourne armchairs. It was named Shetland, set and filmed on the Shetland Islands, which we had visited and enjoyed seeing again on the TV screen. That settled it! It would be a return trip to the Northern Islands, ten years after the first. We now knew how small distances are in Shetland, everywhere being well within a day trip, so we sought and found an apartment in Lerwick(1) for the full ten days we would spend there. That would give us a chance to experience the local culture in more depth than as itinerant visitors and to meet and talk to Islanders. We planned to spend more time on Shetland than on Orkney, which is more akin to the Scottish mainland in its landscape and culture as well as being much closer to the Scottish mainland.


The ferry trip from Aberdeen is a painless overnight experience and Shetland comes into view as low-set islands as you approach the Sound of Bressay, as daylight brightens. Installed by mid-morning in our apartment in one in of a terrace of stone houses, a five-minute walk from the centre of Lerwick, and with a trove of supplies from the supermarket, you are set and ready to go. On the short stroll to town centre stands Fort Charlotte, an artillery fort dating from the 17th century but most recently rebuilt in the 19th century, strategically facing the Sound of Bressay, on which Lerwick stands.

Little planning is needed for a stay in Shetland. Just get in the car and drive. Take your best cold- and wet-weather clothing, even for summer, as Shetland is a fair way north . Ferry The inter-island ferries are frequent


and cheap drive-ons.

As all roads start at and return to Lerwick, it is there you pay your modest fare. After that, there is no checking and you simply go, hopping from island to island and returning to Lerwick by the same route. Occasionally it is necessary to wait for a second ferry if you are going to one of the smaller and more remote islands, if a few vehicles – usually goods transports and tradesmen’s vans – are already waiting for the small ferry. This simply encourages a relaxed view of life and makes the big-city visitor slow down a bit. As Lerwick faces steadfastly east, looking towards Bergen, in Norway, some 200 miles away, it is possible to travel from there north, south, and west to the furthest extremities of Shetland.

Lerwick is a working town, mostly standard Scottish provincial architecture, the grander buildings with a touch of the Scottish baronial or civic about them. There is little of architectural interest to the tourist. A few smaller cruise ships dock there(2) briefly but not many tourists are to be seen. The town sprawls round the coast of the sound in a rough L-shape. A couple of cafés huddle on and near Commercial Road, the flagstoned, building-hemmed main street that wanders through the mostly original residential area and town centre from north to south, and which is patiently shared between vehicles and pedestrians. Narrow lanes, often called ‘wynds’ in other parts of Scotland but here known as ‘closses’, dart off from Commercial Road between the buildings and up the steep hillside.

In the centre small square stands the modest Market Cross. the tourism office and one of the town’s two music pubs, The Lounge. A busier road, the Esplanade, runs parallel to Commercial Road, but along the shoreline, lower down the sloping hillside. It carries the commercial traffic and services the harbour precinct and the ferry terminal.

At the southern end, The Esplanade turns right, away from the coastal fringe, leaving the older part of the town, towards a little headland, The Knab, which projects into the Sound of Bressay and has an interesting walk round its cliffside. The road then becomes again the A969, the main road, which runs from the northern end of Mainland to Sumburgh Head, at the southern tip. A newer part of Lerwick with a housing estate is in this part of town and the ubiquitous Tesco supermarket. There is a growing accommodation shortage in Shetland, partly due to increased immigration of recent years. It is planned to build more housing in this part of Lerwick.

If the visitor is hoping for sophisticated or exotic experiences on the islands, there is disappointment to come. There are a couple of restaurants whose menus show some pretensions, but the height of fine dining is Sunday lunch in the Grand Hotel, a dignified stone pile that stands tall in the inner town. There, a toqued chef presides over a buffet and the tail-coated head waiter takes your order. The food is good, solid, unimaginative, traditional fare, the atmosphere quiet and restrained. The few cafés are quiet, dark places with many coat hooks for the heavy coats and waterproof jackets that are essential here and often have an atmosphere redolent of the damp outer coats of patrons. Below the wall of Fort Charlotte stands a popular fish and chip shop, usually with a hungry queue outside around tea-time. A few Indian and other takeaway restaurants exist to provide variety.

On our first visit some ten years earlier, cinema entertainment consisted of periodic shows in a hall, with a travelling projectionist who brought his own huge canisters of film. That may still happen but now there is high-definition digital TV reception and internet connection is fast and reliable so there need be no shortage of canned entertainment.

There are two ‘music pubs’ in town. The Lounge is a fairly plain lounge bar where music is played once a week. The Douglas Arms is a cheerier establishment, with a lively bar with a roaring fire and a row of Viking shields above the curving bar counter. By happy chance it was a mere hundred yards from our apartment, and
The Douglas Arms
we were in Lerwick for two music evenings. Shetland is as known for lively fiddle(3) music as it is for its little horses and it is a grand evening sitting in The Douglas with your drink of choice, tapping your foot to the music of the fiddles. There may also be an accordion being squeezed and a guitar or two.

Travellers do not visit Shetland to lie on the beach, a good summer day being windy and about 15°. Nor is it a place with amazing buildings or grand art galleries. What Shetland offers is stark natural beauty of coastal scenery and a history of occupation that dates from 2500BC with ruins a-plenty. A week spent on Shetland is not wasted. Driving is easy with little traffic and distances are short, but it is wise to take your own car. It is necessary to learn the protocols and courtesy of traffic crossing on the narrow single-lane roads with their frequent passing places. While the scenery is entirely grassland, what few trees there were having long been cut down for building or firewood, and the climate not friendly to anything standing at a height, it is by no means boring and great coastal vistas are open everywhere.

The most famous prehistoric settlement is the extensive Bronze, Iron, Stone Age and Viking Jarlshof, which

Jarlshof
also holds ruins of a 17th century ‘Laird’s House’. Situated on the coast at the southern tip of Mainland, at Sumburgh, this fascinating settlement first was revealed to a farmer near the end of the 19th century when its cover of centuries of soil was blown away by a ferocious storm. It has since been extensively excavated and restored and it is a mind-boggling experience to walk around and marvel at the millennia of history revealed. Jarlshof’s name was probably plucked from a novel by Scotland’s famed 19th century novelist, Sir Walter Scott, and a loose translation may be ‘The Earl’s Court’.

To reach the exhibit, it is necessary to pass through the grounds of the Sumburgh Hotel, a good place to fuel up the body after your ramble round Jarlshof, usually in the teeth of a bracing Atlantic wind and sometimes driving rain, before you tackle the steep kilometre-long walk up to Sumburgh Head lighthouse at the very tip

Sumburgh Head
of southern Shetland. There you will find one of many lighthouses around Scotland built by members of the Stevenson dynasty(4).

Footnotes

(1) Lerwick is a royal burgh, the most northerly in Britain and, at about 7000 population, the only sizeable town on Shetland. Ask a local and you will be told that both pronunciations of the town’s name are used – ‘Lerrick’ and ‘Ler-wick’. This is not how it is with the town of Berwick-on-Tweed, the border town between Scotland and England, where the only acceptable version is ‘Berrick’.

(2) The local shopkeepers and café owners are not enthused about cruise ships for they disgorge their passengers, who stroll through the town looking around but mostly buy nothing and return to their ships for meals and refreshments.

(3) All over Scotland the violin is known as the ‘fiddle’ and its exponents as ‘fiddlers’. The Shetland Fiddlers’ Society is a renowned group of fiddlers which not only plays at festivals and events on Shetland but has also performed at the Edinburgh Tattoo and around the world. Its many members turn up for pub music evenings too. Scottish fiddle music is lively and gets the blood going.

(4) Four generations of ‘the Lighthouse Stevensons’ family designed and built many of the more than 200 lighthouses around the coasts of Scotland. Many still stand although most have now had their mechanisms replaced by modern electronic lights or are out of use. The author Robert Louis Stevenson was a member of this family (Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde are possibly his best-known novels, although other works are familiar to generations of Scottish youngsters.). He was not a lighthouse builder.

To be concluded next time...

The Smart Brothers...
Hugh McGrory
Some time in the early ‘90s my brother and I took my mother and her sister, both in their late 70s, down south (of England that is) to see their brother who was not well. We stayed a couple of days with our cousins in Tewin Wood, Herts, (Michael and Jan).

Being two smart fellas, we had the bright idea to take with us Mum's two shoe boxes filled with old family photographs (no doubt many of you have the equivalent treasure trove). We figured it would be a great opportunity to scour the memories of Mum and her sister and have them name people and events that would otherwise disappear into the mists of time...

It was some thirty years ago, but I still remember a very pleasant evening, sitting after dinner for a couple of hours with family, drinking wine and listening to the sisters as they remembered long forgotten people and events, and told little stories about ‘the old days’. It was an evening of nostalgia and laughter, and I believe all six of us thoroughly enjoyed it.

Did I mention my brother and I were smart cookies? We realized that we should record the names for posterity and so we had each taken a pile of photos and alternated passing them around then noting the names on the back (a few, of course were complete mysteries...)

Halfway through the evening, the following conversation took place between my brother and myself. (To protect the guilty, I’ll refer to us as A and B - but I won’t tell you which is me and which my brother...)

A: “Can I see that photo again,” then, “You’ve got the names round the wrong way!”

B: “Oh, do I? Let me see,” then, “No - that’s right.”

A: “Mum, who is that on the left in this photo?”

Mum: “Mary.”

A to B: “See you're wrong.”

B: “No - it’s right.”

A: “But you’ve got her name on the right and she’s on the left.”

B: “Right.”

At this point we were more like Abbot and Costello in their famous ‘Who’s on First'. sketch, than two smart brothers...

To cut a long story short, one of us was looking at a photo of say three people X, Y, and Z, turning the photo over and writing on the back, X, Y, and Z. The other was turning the photo over, looking through it at the table lamp and printing the names right behind the person. The result on the back was, of course, Z, Y, and X .

So we’d ended up with dozens and dozens of photos, half labelled one way, and half the other!

Smart brothers indeed...

Yugoslavia 4
Michael Marks
The remainder of my month with the Yavornik family passed too quickly and we parted company at the railway station, promising to keep in touch. My journey home was uneventful.

We did keep in touch, but inevitably less and less frequently. As the years passed I married, and we soon had two daughters to look after. There was always a good reason to postpone a return to Ljubljana and Deso also had travel restrictions caused by the communist regime. By 1971, I was living in Manila so there was yet another potential barrier to a return trip. How to get from Manila to Ljubljana and on to the UK?

When 1979 arrived my wife and I decided to bite the bullet and celebrate a very long postponed anniversary - a quarter of a century from my introduction to the Yavorniks. We realized that if we didn’t go that year we might never do so.

We took our annual home leave in December to be with our daughters for Christmas together with our families in Invergowrie and Blairgowrie and agreed to go to Ljubljana en route. We could fly to Trieste, hire a car, drive to Ljubljana, meet the Yavorniks for à couple of days, drive back to Trieste and on to the UK. Simples!

That is where Fate took a hand.

For reasons not relevant to this story, our flight from Manila involved changing flights in Athens. At this point we were told that there was thick fog in northern Italy and Trieste airport was closed. We rearranged our flight and managed to get a flight to Rome. At least travelling in the right direction!

We had hoped that we might find an alternative flight to somewhere else in north Italy and get to Ljubljana that way. No joy. The airline paid for a rather run down hotel for the night near Rome airport. Next morning we got to the airport early and tried our luck. Bliss! The fog in north Italy had lifted and there were two seats on the next flight to Trieste. We landed in Trieste and went to get our hire car. There wasn’t one.

We explained our problem and they not only found a car for us but upgraded us to a BMW. Now we had sunshine and a car and had only lost a day. We arrived that same morning in Ljubljana.

Now all we had to do was find Deso’s new apartment.

We stopped and asked for directions and soon arrived at the correct address. Or rather where it ought to have been. All we could see was a row of shops. There was a door in the middle of the row, so we tried it and got in.

Now at last our luck had changed. Not so.

On the first floor we found the correct apartment, with an envelope pinned to the door and our name on the envelope. Inside the envelop was a note saying that Deso was sure we would turn up (even a day or so late) but he had to leave and would phone us that afternoon at a nearby hotel where he had booked us a room.

We easily found the hotel and yes, there was a reservation for us. Better news still, the hotel was a new Intercontinental! More on this in the next installment.

Deso duly phoned and explained that this was a bank holiday. The family were spending it in their country house (see also my next column). We agreed that I would drive down to the nearest village where Deso would meet us and take us to their house. We would meet at the village of Visna Gora. No problems. We did a little shopping, had a dinner and a drink or two and so to bed.

All was at last going well - or was it?

Next morning we woke to see thick fog!

We set off driving very cautiously and managed to find the village and a few minutes later Deso arrived. The reunion with the family was a great success. The whole family were there and Sheila (my wife) got a great reception.

I know she was relaxed because that evening we had a swim in the hotel’s indoor heated pool. Sheila can swim but is nervous, and never swims unless her feet can touch the bottom. That evening she swam several lengths!

During the war there were rival partisan groups – they fought each other rather more than fighting the
Germans. Initially the Allies mainly supported a Serbian group, which was a Yugoslav royalist entity. The British military sent Fitzroy Maclean to investigate the rumours and he decided that Tito and his partisans
should get all the required support, leaving the royalist group harmless.

This decision, made personally by Churchill, meant that massive financial and arms support helped tie down the Germans, which was of great help to the allied forces in Northern Europe. It also helped Tito to form a new government when the Germans were defeated.

Tito initially formed a post war government along democratic lines but his personal power due to his wartime leadership enabled him to forge a more typical communist regime.

Before the war, the Yavornik family had been wealthy, owning a beautiful house in the centre of Ljubljana as well as a forested estate in the countryside. During the war, they had been very supportive of the partisans, even
giving them some of their property including their own cars, plus financial aid. It was due to this that they didn’t suffer too much after Tito came to power.

As an example, they confided in me, the communist authorities gradually stripped them of many assets including their country estate and a paper mill which had produced paper from the trees in their own forest. The town house had been reduced to an apartment with just enough room for them on a single floor. While I was staying with them, they had just been informed that they had to start paying rent for the use of it.

They owned some beautiful furniture and paintings by a leading Slovene artist. These paintings still hung on their walls, but a communist civil servant visited them from time to time to ensure that they hadn’t sold them as they were considered to be national assets.

So I suppose I shouldn’t grumble about those slatted wooden train seats...

Out of the Mouths of Babes - 3
Hugh McGrory
Sometimes it just depends on how you look at things…

One Sunday, about twenty years ago, we were expecting the whole extended family, 12 or 14 of us, to turn up at our place for dinner. As usual, I lost track of time and, belatedly, jumped into the shower to get ready for the doorbell ringing.

I had dried myself, slipped on my underpants and was sitting at the bottom of the bed, about to put on my socks when I hear, "Where’s Granddad?" then the clatter of little feet.

My granddaughters, Sarah and Katie, about five and three at the time, burst into the bedroom. Sarah sits
beside me and Katie stands facing me.

Sarah asks, “What are you doing Grandad?”

“Getting dressed – and what have you two been up to.”

Katie says “Nothing,” puts out her arm - and pokes me in the testicles…

“What are you doing, Katie?” I ask, whereupon she raises her shoulders up to her ears, grins, and does it again…

At this point, I’m saying to myself “Don’t make this into some kind of big deal when it isn’t!” I believed that my son and daughter-in-law used proper anatomical names for body parts with the kids – ‘penis’ not ‘pee-pee’ etc. So, I say to her “What are those called, Katie?”

Up go the shoulders again. “I bet your Dad told you and you’ve forgotten – do you know Sarah?” turning to her.

She gives me that look that speaks volumes - the one that kids give to stupid old folk – in this case I think it meant “Of course I know Granddad, I’m five years old!”

“Tell your sister then”, I urged

Sarah leaned towards her wee sister and, enunciating carefully and slowly, so that she'd understand, she says:
Nailed it, Sarah!

As I said, "It all depends on how you look at things..."

First Post
Gordon Findlay
Waiting for the postings to be announced, and being early in the alphabet, I hoped that they would allocate the “good” postings early, but when I joined the mob goggling at the posted bulletin, the first voice I heard was from Bill Finlay (no relation) who yelled: “Hey – you and I are going to Edinburgh.”

Four of our lads saw that they were heading for Northern Ireland where “the troubles” were starting up again and the IRA liked nothing better than taking pot shots at British redcaps on traffic duty. So Edinburgh it was to be, and a day later four of us were on our way north.

We wound up reporting to our detachment: a small Army barracks at Musselburgh, about six miles outside Edinburgh. We shared space with an R.A.S.C. (Royal Army Service Corps) unit who maintained the small and medium Army trucks used by units in and around the Edinburgh area, so our barracks included a wired-off compound where Army vehicles were stored and serviced.

We four newcomers were quickly brought up to speed by the staff sergeant MP in charge of our detachment. Our responsibilities were to patrol the main thoroughfares of Edinburgh, to ensure that military order and discipline was observed by all the troops in the area. We would also be available to handle any “disturbances” caused by military personnel.

Our sergeant was matter of fact about it all. “Most of the time you’ll walk the beat and do bugger all,” he said. “But we’ll have a few rumbles in the pubs now and then. So, get yourselves a sap.”

A sap? What the hell was a sap? The old hands in the detachment soon showed us. A sap –or a “snake” as some of them called it– was a long, narrow leather tube, about fifteen inches long, and filled with lead or steel shot. At one end it had a loop. After sewing the steel shot into the leather tube and attaching the loop, you had yourself a very handy “pacifier.” You cut a small entrance in the side seam of your battledress pants, slid the snake into place down your leg, and left the leather loop showing at the top – ready to be pulled out quickly when needed. One whack with the snake to the head or jaw of a drunken private would send him to the deck – or at least stun him into submission.

They weren’t Military Police issue; in fact, they were brazenly illegal, but the Army almost never equipped you with truncheons or night sticks, and if you were facing some drunk and aggressive soldier who wanted nothing better than to paste a redcap – you had to rely on something more than your size and your strong arms. That was where the sap, or snake, came in.

My first foot patrol in Edinburgh was calm and uneventful. Two of us (you always patrolled in pairs) started out at Waverley Station – the main in-city railway station in Edinburgh – and thence along “The Royal Mile” of Princes Street, passing Edinburgh Castle on our left and on to Lothian Road where we crossed Princes Street and walked back towards Waverley Station on the north side.

A normal shift was four hours; we started at the almost always peaceful time of 2.00 p.m. and walked our beat on Princes Street until 6.00 p.m. Most of the interest in us came from civilians who’d stop and ask us directions.

Question: “Can you tell me how we can visit Edinburgh Castle?” Answer: “Walk down to the Castle and you can buy a ticket at the front gate.”

Question: “Where is the nicest pub in this area?” Answer:“All the pubs in this area are very nice. And you can get a cheap meal inside.”

Question : “Is there a public toilet nearby?” Answer:“Nearest one is in Waverley Station. Or you can pop into any restaurant on Princes Street and use theirs.”

The Army types on the street tended to hurry past us, eyes averted, and checking that all their buttons were done up. Now and then, of course, you’d run into a couple of tough little tarts, all short skirts and lipstick, who’d come walking towards you and say: “Hey– show us yer pistol”, and cackle hysterically.

As I recall, my partner that first day on patrol was Bill Finlay: that may have set some sort of unusual record, having two military policemen on the beat, both called Findlay or Finlay . . . anyway, fellow clansmen from the same tribe.

The only excitement we got was stopping a recruit who came out of a pub near Lothian Road with his blouse all askew and his beret stuck in his belt. “Improperly dressed” as our military dress code would say. We were behind him as he emerged from the pub, and he didn’t see us until we yelled: “Soldier!” He was short and scrawny and when he wheeled around and saw us bearing down on him he almost soiled himself in fright.

Bill administered the bollocking while I wrote him up as my first 252: that’s the code number of a military charge for “being improperly dressed in a public place.” It was a bit like shooting fish in a barrel. The little squaddie was obviously terrified and was now aware that, once our charge was filed with his unit, he’d be good for at least one week “Confined to Barracks” or a spell on kitchen duty.

Ah me – the long arm of military law...

Another Cold Winter Night...
Hugh McGrory
Bill Kidd's story last week reminded me of another cold evening, in Toronto. Sometime in the early ‘80s I attended a business meeting in mid-town, which ran into the evening, and when it ended, some of the participants, being hungry and thirsty by then, decided to go for something to eat at the aptly named CHICK’N’DELI on Mount Pleasant, south of Eglinton.


I decided to join them since they said the place was quite famous - also, my wife Sheila was working late that evening and it would save me from making my own dinner (boiled egg sandwiches) when I got home…

The ‘Deli’ had decent wings and beer, and live jazz – even dancing if you were up to it – and I spent a pleasant couple of hours there. (By the way, after a bit of research I discovered that the ‘Deli’ closed in 2011, but through several reincarnations – People’s Chicken, Seven44 (guess the street number on Mount Pleasant Avenue), and Smokeshow BBQ & Brew – it is now The Mount Pleasant Rose) – but, from what I can tell, the ambience seems to be very similar.

It was winter, and I had parked my car on Taunton Rd, one of the residential streets that run south of Eglinton Ave to Soudan Ave, quite a short walk away. It was bitterly cold; I had decided to leave my topcoat in the car since the restaurant was only a few minutes away. At the end of the evening, I hustled to get to my car and out of the wind…

I hurried up Taunton and was soon puzzled – I thought I’d parked closer to Soudan – and then panicked, as I got close to the end of the street. “Calm down, you idiot,” I thought, “you probably walked right past the car.” So, I re-traced my steps, and no, I hadn’t walked past it… “Somebody stole my bloody car!”

I headed back to Mount Pleasant and found a phone box (no cell phones in those days) and called the cops. They were polite but said that it might be a long wait before they could get a car there – they were very busy due to the bad weather. So, what now…?

It was cold in the phone box, but at least it was out of the wind… I looked at the time and wondered if by any chance Sheila was still at her office. Picked up the phone again and hallelujah, she was. Half an hour later she arrived, and I was able to sink into the warm car – wonderful…

After I stopped shivering, we sat there wondering what to do while waiting for the cops. Sheila said, “Lets drive around nearby streets just in case,” and I probably said something like “No point, I know where I parked it!” On the other hand, I realised that we’d nothing better to do…

So we went north on Taunton Road, east onto Eglinton then south on the next street over, Falcon Street. We drove halfway down – and there was my car , just where I’d left it – what a numbskull...).

Those streets were two of nine identical streets running from Eglinton to Soudan the others are Forman, Petman, Marmot, Banff, Cleveland, Hoyle, and Mann (who picks street names?) – and they all look exactly the same... We went back to the phone box, and I told the operator that I was the idiot who'd reported a non-stolen car...

I got into bed that night a happy (and humbler) man.

On a Cold Winter Night
Bill Kidd
I spent most of my national service as a photographer at RAF Kinloss in Morayshire where I and my colleagues spent our days and sometime nights fitting cameras into Shackleton Maritime Reconnaissance Aircraft, removing them and processing and printing the resultant exposed film.

Most of the photographs simply showed a floating dummy submarine periscope with a splash at either side of it and were used to assess the bomb aiming skills of the crews under training. In addition to this boring routine, we provided the whole establishment with a comprehensive photographic service. However, photography played no part in the most memorable event of my time with the Royal Air Force.

At around 2.30 am on January 10th, 1958, the twenty occupants of our hut were rudely awakened by two RAF policemen switching on the lights and banging on the coke bin with their batons. As we blearily came to life one of the Snowdrops, (RAF police wear white covering on their hats) asked which of us was SAC Kidd. Wondering what I had done and more importantly how had I been found out, I rather nervously confessed that I was he.

I was ordered to get into my working uniform and greatcoat at once and accompany them. Within five minutes I was sitting in a Land Rover along with the driver, one of the Snowdrops and another two equally puzzled and nervous airmen. While we were being driven out of the sleeping camp, we were told that we had been selected for this duty because we were on the Fire Picket list for that day and that we were required to attend an emergency that had occurred about five miles from RAF Kinloss. We were also informed that we would be fully briefed when we arrived at our destination.

After a bumpy, partly overland journey, we were driven up a forest track to a scene of devastation. We were confronted with the wreckage of a Shackleton bomber that had ploughed into the tops of the trees and caught


fire. The smell of high-octane fuel and charred wood and metal was overpowering. We were greeted by an officer and a flight sergeant who told us what had happened and what was expected of us.

The aircraft had been on a routine training flight with a full crew of nine aboard. At about 22.00 hours (10.00 pm) it had abandoned a landing approach and was making a second approach when it failed to clear what was the only piece of high ground on its flight path. After the aircraft had come to a stop the automatic fire suppressant system had deployed. Both pilots were killed and three of the crew sustained serious injuries, miraculously the remaining crew members only had minor cuts and bruises. The Rescue team had arrived within thirty minutes of the crash, got the survivors to hospital, and made the site safe.

Our function was to remain at the crash site and deter any souvenir hunters or other unauthorised persons from interfering with the site. We would remain on this duty until we were relieved. An urn of tea, three mugs and some packs of sandwiches were unloaded from the Land Rover, and we were left to it.

During the course of our briefing, we were informed that the pilots who died were a trainee and the
instructor. We were horrified to learn that the instructor was Master Pilot Karl Stastny who was a well-known and well-liked character around RAF Kinloss. He was a Czechoslovakian who had served alongside the RAF during WW2. After war ended he returned to his native land, and not liking the regime, he made his way back to the UK and joined the RAF as a sergeant pilot. It was rumoured that he left Czechoslovakia by means of a purloined aeroplane that he flew to the British Zone of West Germany. He was a small man with a large moustache and a big smile. His memorial is in the cemetery at Kinloss Abbey, and he was mourned by all ranks at Kinloss.

When the Land Rover left at about 4.00 am the three of us, strangers to each other, took stock. It was very cold, and a frost was forming, there was no shelter other than the remains of the aircraft fuselage and for obvious reasons we quickly ruled out its use. The tea urn was insulated so its content remained hot, we thought of lighting a fire, but the strong smell of aviation fuel quickly changed our minds. We agreed that if anyone wanted to smoke they would have to move a hundred yards down the forest track.

We were cold and miserable and couldn’t help feeling that the whole area was very creepy! We spent the next few hours in the dark, gossiping, drinking tea, and trying to keep warm. From time to time one of us would take a walk round the site or go down the track for a cigarette. None of us could clear our minds of the tragedy that had happened here or reflecting on the reality of service life.

At about 7.30 am we began to notice the first glimmers of light and by 8.00 am we could make out the length of the forest track. I was the first to notice some movement in the distance and thinking that it might be a deer I mentioned it to my companions. We watched the movement on the track for a few minutes before it resolved itself into a white patch that was slowly moving toward us.

After another few minutes we could see that there were two distinct images, but we couldn’t define what they were. We began to feel a little uneasy about what we were seeing, and we went very quiet. Then, in the improving light we could make out that there were two figures dressed in white and that they were not walking but seemed to be gliding along the track.

At this point the hairs on the back of my neck began to prickle and the blood seemed to drain from me. I was scared and so were my colleagues. Inexorably the figures continued to float upwards along the track toward us and they gradually became clearer. I didn’t believe in ghosts until that moment, but I felt that this was as likely a place to find one, or even two, as anywhere.

When the figures were less than a hundred yards away, they resolved themselves into two of the Benedictine Monks from Pluscarden Abbey which was only a short distance away. They had come to see what had happened and they brought a large and very welcome flask of soup with them.

I will not pretend that we saw the funny side of this right away and even now, more than sixty years later, I still get the creeps when I think about that cold winter night.


PS
Pluscarden Abbey, six miles south of Elgin by the Black Burn in Moray is the only medieval monastery in Britain that is still used for its original purpose by the resident Catholic Benedictine Monks.

Derecho
Hugh McGrory
If you know this word, I’m impressed – I didn’t until a few months ago. It’s Spanish, pronounced (de-REH-cho) or (de-RAY-cho), it means straight, straight ahead, or directly and is used to describe a meteorological phenomenon.
Part of a derecho, South Dakota, 12th May, 2022.
A derecho is basically a wide line of very active thunderstorms or microbursts. It can produce destruction similar to a tornado, but the damage typically is directed in one direction along a relatively straight swath rather than the meandering path of the typical tornado. To be termed a derecho, the wind damage swath has to extend more than 240 miles (about 400 kilometers) and includes wind gusts of at least 58 mph (93 km/h) or greater along most of its length.

Ontario and Quebec experienced a derecho on Saturday, May 21st, 2022, and as you can see, in about 10
hours it travelled from the US border at Detroit/Windsor to the St Lawrence Valley north east of Quebec City and into Maine, where it died out.

Lasted for nine hours during which time it covered more than 700 miles and was 50 to 60 miles wide. Ten people were killed and initial estimates of damage were approaching one billion Canadian.

My understanding of this phenomenon (and I may not have it quite right) is as follows:

Let one of your arms hang by your side then bend it at the elbow so that your forearm is horizontal pointing forward, your hand open, palm down, gaps between each finger. Imagine your hand is the derecho travelling away from you. Each finger represents one of the violent downburst winds of up to 80 to 100 mph dropping vertically to the ground then horizontally forward – it’s these that do all the damage – the gaps between the fingers are (relatively) calm. That explains why we got hit and the neighbours either side of us largely escaped.

It happened around 1:30 in the afternoon, the sky darkened and suddenly the house was shaking in a violent wind – it only lasted about 90 seconds!

I guess we were fortunate in that our house wasn’t damaged – but we had 17 trees that weren’t so lucky… Five were uprooted and the others sustained multiple injuries, branches snapped off, many caught up dangerously on other limbs. We had to bring in tree specialists – cost more than $10,000 Cdn. (not covered by home insurance).

We had a willow that we loved. I searched my computer for a photo but I don’t seem to have one. So I found one on the Internet:
This tree looks very similar to our willow, sitting on the edge of a pond.
This how it looked 90 seconds later:
Lying in the pond...
And as a work in progress...
Just as well it fell away from our house...(note the pond in the background)
Like most of you, no doubt, we have been increasingly dismayed at the effects of global warming around the world. Forest fires, windstorms, floods, melting glaciers, droughts, food shortages, increasing numbers of displaced people...

Our personal 90 second derecho certainly underlined for us the fact that we ignore Mother Nature at our peril...!
A Road Less Travelled
Brian Macdonald
In a previous article published in this collection I talked of my lifelong love of camping and how this began with a small tent in Britain and continues to this day in Australia, now by car and caravan. The love of camping and travel is an infection that never dies. But the range and the means grow and change through a life.

I wrote of our generation’s ethos of putting off such major discretionary expenses as travel till later, for the sake of establishing a life, a home, and a family. So, our travel during the earlier years of a long marriage and the growing and educating years of our children were confined to Australia, our chosen homeland since 1967. With a land the size of the continent of Europe to roam and a range of climates to experience, this gave us plenty of scope and a huge variety of places to visit and we did this with enthusiasm. We continue to do so.

Finally, the time came in our lives when our now-adult children had flown the coop and our future for the second half of our lives was secured. We could take a more expansive view of our travel horizons. We still enjoyed travelling Australia but were in a position to contemplate extensive visits to our homelands of Scotland and Wales. There was much to see and many to meet again and a yearning to refresh our love of our birth lands. Scratch an expatriate Scot and the blood will flow dark blue, Ann’s red Welsh blood maybe even more so.

By 2008 we had made a number of return visits to UK, the first around the Highlands on what is now the North Coast 500(1) by motorbike in almost continuous heavy rain. We had voyaged, drier and warmer, by car to many parts of Scotland, including the Highlands, again. We had revisited Dundee, made the obligatory pilgrimages up the Dundee Law, and gazed on the old school, the Morgan Academy, before the fire that devastated it in 2001. We had been in Edinburgh during its famous August festival and clasped hands for Auld Lang Syne at the last performance of the Tattoo on the last Saturday night. We had taken a Caledonian MacBrayne ferry to the Inner Hebrides. We had boarded the little ferry from Kyle of Lochalsh for the five-minute trip to Skye, the last summer before the Skye road bridge was built and rendered the ferry obsolete. We had toured the Borders and viewed magnificent, ruined abbeys there. We had driven through Ayrshire. We had visited Speyside and Islay distilleries. We thought we had seen and done all we wanted to.

Then. one evening, at home in Melbourne, my wife said it would be interesting to visit Orkney and Shetland.
We I had never thought of a visit and had never been there. You see programs on TV about the Hebrides quite often. They are tourist country and have been slowly becoming repopulated of recent years. The Scottish comedienne, Susan Calman, has made a TV series in which she quarters Scotland. But you rarely, if ever, see or hear even a mention of the Northern Isles unless it be about the traditional knitting patterns of Fair Isle, which sits alone in the Atlantic Ocean, halfway between Orkney and Shetland. An expedition was born.

Orkney and Shetland are usually bracketed together in people’s minds, but we were to find them very dissimilar, both culturally and geographically. Their history is interesting. Most Scots who think of these two archipelagos at all believe they were given to Scotland as a marriage dowry in the fifteenth century. This is not quite the case. By then both regions had long been Norwegian and had had thriving populations of Vikings since the eighth century. Before them there were the Pictish people of northern and western Scotland. Both races have left indelible marks on the northern archipelagos.

By the fifteenth century, Scottish influence had been growing through increasing immigration. A Norwegian king did pledge the Northern Isles against the payment of a dowry for the marriage of his daughter to a Scottish king. That dowry was never paid, and Scotland cannily took possession of Orkney and Shetland in the late fifteenth century. Scottish they have remained since, but exhibit a visible degree of independence in many ways. We expected the two regions to be similar. We were to find they are quite different from each other as both are different to mainland Scotland.

In summer 2008 we drove our car on to the Northlink ferry in Aberdeen. Northlink’s logo features a Viking warrior. It is an overnight sail to Lerwick, Shetland’s 7000-strong main town, more than a hundred miles

Shetland seen early morning, from Northlink ferry

beyond the Scottish north coast, reaching the Sound of Bressay as daylight shows the burgh of Lerwick, huddling 60° north on the eastern coast of Mainland. Orkney, to the south, within sight of the Scottish mainland, is on the return leg of the round sea trip from Aberdeen so a tourist’s introduction is to the far-flung and different Shetland rather than Orkney, which is closer akin in most ways to mainland Scotland and not just geographically.

Our five days in Shetland showed us a still somewhat isolated community of around 20,000 inhabitants with its own culture and bleak but beautiful, treeless landscapes and rugged coastlines with dramatic cliffs with great slashes of gorge running inland from the coast, where seabirds nest in their thousands and seals bask on rock shelves. The land is treeless because Shetland sits exposed in the cold, windy Atlantic Ocean, with North America a long way to the west and Norway’s coast to the east. The Atlantic winds scour the land and forbid


trees to flourish except where a garden plot is surrounded by houses and high walls. There is little shrubbery, just grassy land sloping to the sea. We saw no cows, and few horses, probably for the same reason. No creature of any height would be comfortable there – just the endemic rabbits, well-upholstered sheep and the miniature Shetland ponies, not drystone dyke height, whose ancestral home is the northernmost island of the

archipelago, Unst. Travel between the major islands is by cheap, fuss-free drive-on ferry, and is frequent and quick. Unst boasts the most northern post office in Britain, in the tiny settlement of Baltasound, and the most northern land of UK, the quaintly named lump of rock that juts from the sea just north of Unst, Muckle(2) Flugga.

The town of Lerwick is a conservative, industrious place of solid, substantial, grey stone buildings, hardly

Lerwick seen from Bressay Sound

a tourist mecca, with no evidence of urban renewal except for a housing estate on the outskirts, by the prehistoric Clickimin Broch(3), built to house a slowly expanding population. The Tesco supermarket company has established itself in that area, with an eye to advantageous positioning. Commercial Street, the main thoroughfare of this thriving community, is a narrow, flagstone-paved lane that meanders from one end of the town to the other, hemmed in by grey stone buildings on both sides and amicably shared by pedestrians and vehicles. In some parts, it is necessary to press yourself against the building to permit a van to pass.

The splendid, modern Shetland Museum sits on the waterfront, opened in 2007 jointly by Queen Sonya of Norway and the Duke and Duchess of Rothesay(4). The museum tells the tale of the islands’ past, of the culture and crafts of the people, of the now almost extinct sea-fishing industry that once supplied the Hanseatic League cities of northern Europe, of the Viking culture with its annual New Year Up Helly Aa festival that culminates in the burning of a Viking longboat after a procession of bearded Vikings brandishing flaring torches, of the 20th century oil industry, that for some decades brought prosperity from the North Sea but is now past its prime. The museum offers a well-patronised café, a pleasant place to be eating and drinking while watching the rain coming horizontally outside, a frequent event, even in summer.

The presence of the Norwegian Queen at this occasion gives an indication of the strong connection the islanders feel to Norway and to their Viking heritage. Many names of people and places bear strong indications of the Norway connection. During World War II, a clandestine small boat ferry service, The Shetland Bus, operated from the little western port town of Scalloway, originally staffed by Shetland fishermen. It sailed to the Norwegian coast, carrying spies, saboteurs, supplies and documents to and fro until the end of German occupation of Norway in 1945. A museum and a memorial in the town are devoted to this operation, of which the islanders remain fiercely proud, seventy-six years later.

The whole of Shetland is dotted with small settlements of a few houses out to the furthest extremities of the land. There is strong evidence, by way of ruined houses, of centuries of habitation everywhere across all the larger islands. Further evidence is provided by small, ruined kirks with cemeteries whose gravestones have become illegible through age and exposure, in quite remote places. Lerwick, on Mainland’s east coast, is the only good-sized town and is a royal burgh. Scalloway, a town of around a thousand souls, is the only other town. There are a number of very small settlements. There are many sheep, well-nourished on the rain-fed grass, very clean and white, shampooed by Atlantic rainstorms and blow-dried by the strong winds. There is little pollution since traffic is sparse and industry is small-scale, and the air is sweet, if somewhat bracing, even in summer, that far north and in mid-Atlantic.

Our too short visit to Shetland ended with us driving on to the Northlink ferry for the three-hour sail to Orkney, where it would dock at 11.30 at night to pour out those disembarking there before its overnight leg back to the Granite(5) City of Aberdeen on Scotland’s north-east coast.

Shetland made a strong impression on us. We would enjoy the comparison with Orkney and the comparison of both with mainland Scotland and would revisit the two regions again in more depth, but that is a story for another time.

Footnotes:

(1) The North Coast 500 is a tourist construct. It describes a scenic loop route of just over 500 miles (the name inspired by the Scottish group, The Proclaimers’ pop song?) around the east, north and west coasts of northern Scotland, from Inverness to Inverness, and promotes tourism in the Highland region.

(2) The Scots word ‘muckle’ means ‘big’. There is no ‘Mickle (little) Flugga’. Maybe the even smaller lump of volcanic rock called Out Stack, just north of Muckle Flugga, stands in for that. Muckle Flugga is reachable only by boat and there is a closed-off military radar establishment occupying the northern tip of Unst, so it is not possible for civilian visitors to reach the very northern tip or even to get more than a glimpse of Muckle Flugga. An old Scots proverb says ‘Mony a mickle maks a muckle’ – essentially ‘Save the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves.’ An almost identical proverb is familiar to Jamaicans. I can only assume it was transplanted into Jamaica by a frugal Scottish immigrant.

(3) A broch is a Scottish Iron Age dry-stone dwelling, round, beehive-shaped and built to withstand Atlantic

Clickimin Broch

weather. They are found all over the Northern Isles and in other parts of Scotland. The Clickimin Broch in Lerwick is restored (but not to full height) and open to tourists.

(4) The Duke and Duchess of Rothesay is the title by which Prince Charles and his wife, the Duchess Camilla, are known in Scotland.

(5) Aberdeen is often called ‘the Granite City’ as that is the local, handsome, grey, quartz rock of which most of the city centre is built. When the sun shines after rain, this stone sparkles and presents a marvellous sight, with the ancient Marischal College of Aberdeen University a stately pile at one end of the gracious main street.

Believe It or Not 2...
Hugh McGrory
We’re still on the subject of coincidences (let’s use the definition: “a surprising occurrence of somehow-related events with no apparent cause”). When we encounter one we're amazed and ask, “What are the odds?”

In fact, though, such random events are really quite commonplace (because there are billions of people in the world and so billions of opportunities for such events to occur – but almost all of these aren't notced...). What makes them remarkable (rightly so) is when we actually notice one.

Here’s another...

My dad had a younger brother (he was another Michael McGrory, and we knew him as Uncle Mick). He had two daughters, my cousins Isa and Margaret, and the latter married a man, Robert, known as Rab.

Rab built a fine career for himself as a member of a team of consultants experienced in many aspects of oil/gas production. He went all over the world on contracts to manage and provide site supervision at operational production programmes. He was inspired by the previous story from Big Mick and Jan to share one of his ‘coincidences’...

He was on a consultancy project for Shell Todd, in New Plymouth, New Zealand. The town is located on the southwest coast of North Island, (and no, that's not Mount Fuji below but Mount Taranaki, less then 20 miles distant).


It was Melbourne Cup Day in Australia, and Rab had stayed at the office while the rest of their small team went off to a BBQ and to watch the race.

He went back to the Brougham Heights motel and, as he walked through the garden to his room the lady owner called and invited him into their private quarters. A number of their friends had watched the race with beer and snacks, so he chatted with a few that he hadn’t met before.

An elderly lady recognised his Scots accent, and she was pleased to tell him how she and her husband had been back to Springburn, in Glasgow, to visit family and friends. They had enjoyed visiting the streets where their parents had lived.

They had also visited Dunfermline, Kirkcaldy, and East Wemyss in Fife. It was at that moment that Rab remembered something. He told her that he was born in East Wemyss, and she was quite amazed. He asked if, by any chance, it was an Agnes McMurray that she had visited in Dunfermline, since he knew her younger brother Bill had emigrated to New Zealand when Rab was sixteen. The lady almost fainted and in tears said that Bill and Irene McMurray were her best friends!

One phone call, and a short time later Bill came through the door. It was a very emotional meeting for him and Rab since they had been neighbours in Alexander Street, East Wemyss, and hadn't seen each other for 47 years!

On his next trip to New Zealand, Margaret went with him, and they visited Bill at his home. He produced a photograph of Rab and himself as teenagers, sitting on a fence in the back garden...

What are the odds, eh...?

Yugoslavia 3
Michael Marks
One day it was proposed that we visit some relations who lived in the countryside some 45 minutes by train from Ljubljana. I was very happy to agree. I was warned that the train would be a bit uncomfortable and remembering my train journey from London resigned myself to this small additional trip.

All aboard Yugoslav train in 1950s
Uncomfortable it was! Local trains in Yugoslavia had seats, which was a pity as they were very basic wooden slatted structures. Additionally, it was high summer and daytime temperatures were in the low 40s... Luckily, I was able to offer my place to a local and spent the rest of the trip standing.

We were to be met at the station and driven to the farm. Bliss. Unfortunately, the car turned out to be a pony and very small trap. For about six people.

We spent a very enjoyable day with the family and had a splendid barbecue lunch, with lots of good local wine. At some point Deso suggested that he and I leave together and try to hitchhike back to Ljubljana. Having imbibed a few glasses of wine, eaten a massive meal and feeling relaxed, I agreed.

Nowadays, there is a multi-lane motorway linking Ljubljana with Zagreb and Belgrade but in the early 1950s this was a wide dirt road. We joined this highway and started thumbing. We got covered with dust, but no vehicle stopped to offer us a lift. We discussed retracing our steps and catching the train but at that point a huge American saloon stopped, and the driver agreed to take us all the way to Ljubljana. Deso just had time to warn me that such a car was almost certainly owned by a high communist functionary and therefore to be very careful what I said.

It turned out that the passenger was indeed someone to avoid, and his driver was his son. There was a huge change in the road surface just a few miles from Ljubljana and we were soon almost home. Conversation in the car was the usual mixture of me speaking English, the Party functionary Slovenian and German and Deso trying to play dumb. The day wasn’t quite finished however as our benefactors insisted on taking us to a very nice bar where they bought us glasses of sparkling wine with fresh peach slices.

We avoided visiting that bar for the rest of my stay!

Believe It or Not...
Hugh McGrory
We’ve all encountered coincidences in our life – about eight or so of the stories in this collection deal with the subject – and they are always a source of some wonderment. Often the occasion is a chance meeting with someone you know in an unexpected place or time.

My previous story, featuring my cousin Mick and his wife Jan in Nigeria, reminded me of another of their stories – one of the most amazing coincidences I’ve ever come across. The tale begins with a chance meeting with someone they didn’t know…

They were spending a week in the sun on the Costa del Sol, in Andalusia, Spain. They were having a drink in the crowded hotel bar while waiting for their table to be ready for dinner. The room was quite full, and they saw a couple come in and look, in vain, for a table. The newcomers saw that Mick and Jan were sitting at a table for four, came over to them and asked if they’d mind sharing.Of course, they agreed.

They began to chat, and it wasn’t long before the conversation turned to ‘where are you from.’ When the other lady – I’ll call her Mary – found out that Jan had lived in Dundee, Scotland, she said “Me too!” A coincidence, though not that unusual.

But wait – there’s more… In answer to the question ‘where did you live in Dundee?’ it turned out that they were both west-enders, living on the Perth Road, just west of Windsor St. Comparing Street numbers they realised that they had lived in the same walk-up apartment building!

But wait – there’s more… As they continued to talk, they established that they had both lived on the top floor of the building (see red oval in photo) and remembered the lovely view to the south, out over the River Tay estuary to Fife County.


But wait – there’s more… Mary asked Jan’s birth name and when she heard it said, “Your parents bought that apartment from my parents!”

But wait – there’s more… The outgoing family had more furniture than they were going to need, and Jan’s parents agreed to buy some of their furnishings – including the bedroom suite in the room that Mary was moving out of, and Jan into.

So those two young wives who had just met, by chance, for the first time, 2000 miles from Dundee, had both slept in the same bed…

An M.P. at Last
Gordon Findlay
Midway through our training – around the 7 or 8-week stage –we were interviewed to see if any of us had an interest in joining the two specialist arms of the Royal Military Police: the Special Investigations Branch (SIB), or Close Support.

The first of these comes into play in criminal investigations where a member of the Armed Forces is involved. The training period, naturally, was going to be somewhat longer; successful candidates would become military detectives with all the meticulous investigation and forensic skills that civilian police detectives must have.

The second branch acts essentially as bodyguards for VIPs and foreign dignitaries who are in Britain and who are entitled to be guarded closely…

Most, if not all, of those who asked to train as SIBs had their goal set on a career in the military (that wasn’t me at that time). As for the second option – Close Support branch – I really didn’t fancy acting as a bullet-absorbing shield for some Arab sheikh. Who needs that?

I elected to take my chances as a regular Military Policeman, and, at long last, 16 weeks of Military Police training at Colchester came to an end. With all the successful members of our intake, 188 Squad (plus 185, 186 and 187 Squads) we dressed in best BD (battledress), white belts, gun holsters with attached lanyards and cross-straps; boots polished to a dazzling brilliance.

We marched out on to the main square for the last time. And on this special day each of us wore the red hat cover which signaled that we were now fully-fledged military policemen ready for active service.

No question about it: we were proud to have made it, and conscious that we looked pretty damn impressive as we wheeled out on to the square, one squad after another with our Staff sergeants leading the way. Squad by squad we came to a crashing halt and stood motionless in the sunlight for the formal inspection by our commanding officer.

He kept the speechifying mercifully short: told us we should be proud to have come through a “rigorous and demanding training schedule.” Reminded us that on the following day, the notice of where we were being sent on active duty would be posted at 9.00 a.m. on the bulletin board by the main guardhouse. And added that this evening we were all granted an 8-hour pass as a reward . . . and that we were not to cause too much trouble in Colchester as we celebrated.

He then walked down the rows and presented each of us with our corporal’s stripes (when you qualify as an MP you are automatically elevated to the dizzying rank of Corporal). Then, he led us in three hearty cheers – and we were dismissed.

Sgt. Sheldrake circulated among us, shaking our hands, and wishing us well . . . telling us that we had been “one of his best squads ever.” And laughing along with us when we told him that he doubtless said that to every squad he trained (which I suspect he did…).

The rest of that day is a bit foggy, since we all went out to the biggest pub in Colchester and get stuck into pints of dark ale, Guinness, and lager. I got started on Guinness (it was on tap) and earned myself one of the biggest hangovers in my personal history. I can remember standing in the urinal at the pub, my head spinning, and leaning my forehead against the cold-water pipe to try and keep upright. Every one of us was totally fried and the walk back to barracks was more of a weave from side to side.

Everyone was dry-mouthed and thick-headed the next morning – but there was an electric air of anticipation. This was the day we found out where we would be serving. Everyone knew the cushy postings: four MPs went to Bermuda (who wouldn’t like to go there?); two were scheduled for duty in Jamaica; two would go to Belize; a couple to Malta – but most of us would be posted to Germany or somewhere in Great Britain.

The Sassenach
Hugh McGrory
I’ve mentioned before that I have two double cousins, Mike, and Frank. Since our family has a liking for the name Michael McGrory, we had to qualify their names, so, within the family, cousin Mike was known as ‘Big Mick’, my brother was ‘Wee Mick’, an uncle was ‘Uncle Mick’, and Granda was known in the town as ‘Auld Mick’.)

Big Mick (we’ll call him Mick for this tale) and Jan, his wife, spent several years in Lagos, Nigeria, in the early ‘60s (Mick was a CA working for BP). He was a keen golfer and on this particular occasion he and Jan had made a trip north about 100 miles to Ibadan, the third largest city in Nigeria, for a golf match.


Ibadan City and Golf Club

After the game was over everyone retired to the club lounge – Mick and Jan were sitting at a table facing the bar, and Mick was looking at the back of a man standing enjoying a drink with some friends. He said, “I think I know that guy.”

“Really”, Jan asked, “from where?”

“From schooldays – I think he’s Graham Rosie who was in my class at Buckhaven High School.” (Buckhaven High was a six-year, co-educational school in Leven, Fife, Scotland, almost 5,000 miles and a dozen years away.)

“Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure – I recognise the back of his head – I sat behind him...”

“Well go see if it’s him.”

Mick did – he walked over tapped the fellow on the shoulder, and when he turned said, “Hi Graham”.

The fellow barely missed a beat – he looked at him and said “Hey, Mike, what are you drinking?”

What are the odds, eh? Graham was actually English, but his parents had moved north to Fife. Had he been a Scot, instead of a Sassenach, and his wits about him, I'm pretty sure he would’ve said:

“Hi Mike – must be your turn to buy a round...”

I Love to Go Awandering
Brian Macdonald
As a young lad growing up in Dundee, I was preoccupied with the affairs of everyday and did not develop much of an interest in the wider world’s affairs until I became a bit older and started to look around me and from a higher elevation. Some things impinged, though. The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 and The Suez Crisis of 1956 were events that hit my consciousness. The same short-sightedness was true of my view of geography. Life was home, school, working in the family shop, holiday trips to inland Kirriemuir and seaside Arbroath and a rare train trip to London with my English mother. Lochearnhead(1) and a picnic by the shore of Loch Earn was a favourite excursion destination of my parents of a weekend and that was as far afield as we went.

When I got old enough to ride a motorbike, I did venture further afield, covering many miles around Scotland and down as far as southern England. I was fortunate to spend time on a farm near Orleans in France as part of a multi-school group and to go to a military barracks in Lüneburg in Germany as a school army cadet, both in my mid-teens. A highlight of my teens was a month in Belgrade at age seventeen. I know now that I did not so much experience travel then as skim over the surface of places, did not absorb local culture or scenery, rather got a temporary fix from them, and often rapidly moved on, with little lasting impression made on me.

Then came the serious business of growing up, earning a living, establishing a nest, having a family. My generation did not do what many young adults do now, spend up on life, travel, the arts, while still young and worry about accumulating worldly goods later, after a couple of years of enjoying freedom and wanderlust after the bonds of school are removed. The ethos back then was that you got a job, worked hard, saved your money, and put off what was seen as non-essential spending till later. I do not grudge today’s young folk their lifestyle; it helps broaden the mind and develop a less parochial culture. But that was just how things were in the 1950s in Scotland. Even so, the life-building stage took me to England, Northern Ireland and then to Australia, and included the acquisition of a wife and children, and we have lived in Australia in a number of different states for the greater part of our lives. Our family has always had the wanderlust.

Australia is the place for wanderers and campers. It ranges from the cool, temperate climate of the island state of Tasmania in the south, where it occasionally snows on Mount Wellington, which looms over the capital city, Hobart, at 42° south, to Cape York in the far north of Queensland, only 10° south of the equator, well inside the Tropic of Capricorn. From Sydney on the east coast to Perth on the west is from London to Moscow, but with a vast, empty tract in between, unlike Europe. Australia has a mountain range that runs round the south coast from Adelaide and all the way up the eastern coast of the continent, with its tallest peak, Mount Kosciuszko(2) in New South Wales, over 7000 feet high. There are deserts of different types in the mostly flat inland, which was once largely a huge sea, magnificent cool-climate and subtropical rainforests, two cities of five million inhabitants with spectacular architecture, as well as a number of other large cities and gracious 19th century goldmining boom towns. Australia has its own unique fauna and flora too. Lots to see and do.

Australia has some of the world’s richest geology. Large tracts of Western Australia are composed of the world’s highest grade iron ore. There are geological features such as Wilpena Pound, in outback South Australia, a natural amphitheatre formed of two mountain ranges, with its own micro-ecology and gorges though the area where you can gaze on rock 500 million years old and discover fossils. There are extensive lava tube formations in tropical northern Queensland, miles of wonderful, unspoiled and almost deserted beaches all round the coast, parts of outback Queensland where dinosaur fossils are frequently dug up, most recently the whimsically named Australotitan cooperensis(3), said to be among the 15 largest dinosaurs ever found. There are moderately-trafficked major highways across the land and rough tracks to delight four-wheel drive addicts and adventure motorcyclists and terrorise suburban motorists. It is not surprising that people of many nations come to Australia to experience outback adventure and that many Australians love to travel in our own country, for over ninety per cent of us live in cities, our family among them.

Camping used to be a cheap travel and holiday option but has moved a long way up-market over time. Our life of leisure travel started with a small, white, cotton tent in rainy Ireland, bought cheap from a fellow-worker as young marrieds and much-patched by us before use. It did not resist rain. A big improvement was a domed, igloo tent of rain-resistant orange canvas, that had hydraulic poles, blown up with a foot pump, and


the great luxury of a sewn-in vinyl groundsheet. We took that tent with us to Australia, where it was used by us and by the local scoutmaster. Our first camping rig in Australia was the quaintly named Cargill Caravanette, a steel trailer with a superstructure of steel-pipe poles, canvas, and fly-screen mesh (essential in


Australia) that ingeniously slotted and zipped into a form of cabin. That clever setup, towed easily by a small car, not only carried all our travel equipment, including, on one trip, a large crib and a stroller for the latest addition to the family, but also housed us dry and warm all over Australia. It was followed by a semi-caravan that closed down to half height and a short towing length and rejoiced in the evocative name of ‘Sunwagon’. When you raised the fibreglass roof – by hand! – and pulled the ends out, it morphed into a four-bunk caravan with sink, fridge and cooking stove built in. Luxury! That served us well with two growing children and a Labrador dog for some years. Since then, we have owned every kind of camping and caravanning device. That includes a sleek, blue, lightweight, fibreglass trailer, designed to be towed by a motorcycle,


which quartered our continent north to south and east to west, two up on the bike, holding all our camping needs.

Now we are quintessential grey nomads. This is an affectionate Aussie term for older, retired Australians who tow their holiday home behind them, travelling extensively to enjoy the cultural and scenic variety of the country and to escape the dreary winter climate of the southern states for the balmy mid-twenties winter sunshine of the tropical north. Every year there is a winter exodus from southern Victoria and Tasmania of many thousands of hardy pensioners, like migrating swallows. With a nod to our age and desire for comfort, we have the latest in a number of caravans we have owned (see below). We trundle from holiday park to


holiday park and town to town as we trek, following the sun, heading for favourite places, often meeting the same folk again and again, soaking up the warm evening sunshine, sitting with a glass of wine, plotting future movement.

Well, we did until covid-19 came along. For now, we are restricted to our own state borders and sometimes even to the confines of our home for many weeks. But this, too, will pass and we will be off again ‘on the wallaby'(4) enjoying the roaming life and the variety of Australia to the full.

Footnotes

(1) Lochearnhead is a village about 60 miles from Dundee, situated at the head of pretty Loch Earn.

(2) Australian pronunciation Kozz-ee-us-ko (not what you’d expect from the original Polish name).

(3) The Cooper (or Cooper Creek) is a river in outback Queensland, in the area where this dinosaur was found, hence ‘cooperensis’ The Cooper flows only when there is enough tropical rain further north to flow south and fill the river. It has no permanent source and flows into Lake Eyre in South Australia, a huge inland sea that contains water only when rarely filled by the Cooper and other creeks after extensive rains in Queensland, hundreds of kilometres further north. Lake Eyre has often been used for land speed record attempts. As is the way of Aussie humour, Lake Eyre has a flourishing yacht club, with its clubhouse in the tiny township of Marree, situated on its southern shoreline, at the junction of the famous Birdsville and Oodnadatta Tracks. The yacht club holds regular sand regattas and sails when the lake is full.

(4) Australian expression ‘on the wallaby (trail)’ meaning ‘awandering’.

Sink and Swim
Hugh McGrory
My previous story took place on the A85 at the foot of Glen Ogle, and it reminded me of another tale which occurred not far from there – another story that I heard not long after I arrived in the area.

So, follow me north on the A85 from Lochearnhed for about 4 miles, climbing up beside the Ogle Burn, then
turn west at Mid Lix towards Crianlarich, where, after about 8 miles, Loch Iubhair appears on the right/ (pronounced You’ar, in Gaelic it means Loch of the Yew Tree).

The road along the lochside was one of our road improvement projects needed to allow heavy road transport vehicles to carry large turbines and other equipment to the many new hydro electric schemes being constructed in northern Scotland. In particular, many of the roads were built on a peaty substrate which had to be removed before the road could be rebuilt.

On visiting the site , I heard the story I’m about to relate, more than once -- usually it began something like:

“Pity you hadn’t been here this spring,” one of the crew would say, then to a mate “Remember the guy in the sports car?”

His buddy would reply something like “Oh yeah; what a twat…”

It seems that the loch had overflowed across the road due to snow melt and some heavy rainfalls. Traffic on the two lane road was held up under the control of flagmen.

In order to construct the road to be able to withstand the heavy loads, it was necessary to excavate the layer of peat down to bedrock – about 10 to 12 feet – and replace with properly compacted earth fill. Traffic had to be maintained on the two-lane road, so the eastbound lane was excavated and refilled while the westbound lane did double duty, east and westbound traffic alternating .

On this occasion several westbound cars were waiting their turn when the queue was joined by an open top sports car. The driver was a nattily dressed young man complete with the, de rigueur, leather gloves with knuckle cut-outs.

As he joined the end of the line and looked west at the road ahead, he saw something like the photo below.
The loch had flooded across the road to a depth of six to eight inches. What he thought he was seeing is shown in the first sketch below. He was wrong… The road cross section actually looked like the second sketch.

So, Jack-the-Lad sized up the situation and decided that he didn’t have to be Tail-end-Charlie… He pulled out into the eastbound lane past the frantically gesticulating flagman and coasted west. Of course, a few seconds later he fell off the end of his world, and he and the car disappeared into the depths of the dark, peaty, 12-foot-deep water.

He swam to shore and was fished out (the car took a while longer to be pulled from the depths…) Of course, everyone, workers and motorists, were delighted, and laughed their heads off…

We can only hope that he learned a lesson that day and realised that he got off lightly – if he hadn’t been in an open top car his situation might well have turned deadly!

I wish I’d been there to see it…

Yugoslavia 2
Michael Marks
We arrived in Ljubljana that afternoon and the eight or nine of us looked around for any sign of welcome.

There was an equally concerned group of Yugoslavs wondering what they had let themselves in for. We were each introduced to the relevant families who had been paired with us. In my case it was the family Yavornik. This consisted of Deso who was about my age, his younger sister Tosia, and their parents. Later I was to meet an older sister and later still other family members. (In the photo, Deso is bottom right, his dad has the walking stick, and Momi is hiding behind Dad.)

Mrs. Yavornik was a very good cook and we soon settled in for one of her meals over which we started to get to know each other. Ljubljana used to be the capital of Slovenia but was now a part of Yugoslavia and almost all of the two million inhabitants referred to themselves as Slovenes. I was able to form a bond with them when I explained about Scotland, England, and the UK.

I determined to pick up some useful words and phrases as quickly as possible. Items of food such as fresh fruits and delicious home made fruit dumplings were a good start. Deso and I were well
matched at tennis and table tennis, so numbers were also fairly easy to pick up.

I remember being grateful to Mr. Hutchison (aka Bunny Hutch, Morgan language teacher) for my limited knowledge of French and German. The problem was that Deso’s mother, known to all as Momi, spoke excellent French and some English, Deso spoke excellent English and German, and his father spoke excellent German but little English. Conversations were never dull!

As part of our further education we were asked to visit some factories and where appropriate make use of their production output. The British Council seemed to think this would be a good introduction to understanding the wonderful communist economy. Deso had volunteered to organise suitable visits. One of these was a cigarette factory and the other was turning out some rather good alcoholic beverages. We followed directions and sampled a good cross section of these.

As far as our little group of eight or nine brave souls was concerned there was only one further group get-together. This was a visit to the caves at Postojna, an enormous cave system about 45 minutes by road from Ljubljana.
Postojna, between Trieste, Italy and Ljubljana, Slovenia
Apart from the stalactites and stalagmites the caves are famous for two features. One is a huge cave with a perfectly flat floor. It was used from time to time as an underground concert hall. The other is a unique fish


which is totally blind. Functionally, there was no need for sight as there was no light at all. An excellent example of evolution.

Deso had volunteered to organise the visit. The journey by train wasn’t cheap, but there was a greatly reduced fare for Slovene students. Our party contained about eight British and the same number of Slovenes. So, we paid Deso at the local Slovene student rate and agreed to leave all the talking to the locals especially when the ticket inspector was nearby...

To be continued…

A Moment in Space and Time
Hugh McGrory
Funny how you can start thinking about something, which makes you think of something else, which makes you think of….

Recently I saw a video of dogs running the length of a football field to catch a frisbee (apparently my favourite dog, the border collie, is recognised as the best of the best in this role). This made me think of fielders in baseball or cricket who do the same thing – that is, man or beast, they are able to move part of their body into the path of a flying object so as to arrive at the same point in three-dimensional space at exactly the same moment.

This got me thinking of what wonderful organisms brains are – human or animal. Think of it – running at speed, watching an object flying through the sky and instinctively adjusting course and speed so as to arrive at exactly the spot to make the catch. Few of us could perform this feat, though we’ve all experienced it in a small way when someone throws us something to catch...

Finally, that thought of objects coming together in time and space reminded me, strangely, of a story…

In the early sixties. I had just moved to Killin in Perthshire to manage a tiny office of 5 people as a Resident Engineer for Perth County on road and bridge projects in that part of the Highlands.

I was driving west along the A85 on the north shore of Loch Earn and turning north at Lochearnhead into
Glen Ogle. I was with a local man, though I can’t remember who, and, as we turned into the glen, he told me of an incident that had occurred some time before at that spot.

An army truck loaded with army cadets (much like the teenagers in the photograph) was travelling north on
some kind of training exercise, and they stopped just outside the village for a break. Some of the cadets got
out to stretch their legs while others relaxed in the back. It was probably a Bedford RL Troop Carrier – soft canvas sides with benches down each side facing each other.

As the kids lounged on the benches, leaning on the side canvas, feet up on the supplies in the middle of the lorry, there was a thump. One of them pitched forward – he was bleeding badly from his head – and quite dead!

A heavy vehicle had passed by and the side mirror had brushed the canvas side of the lorry… Later, police tracked down the vehicle in the Glencoe/ Ballachulish area and the driver said
that he remembered the army truck but hadn’t felt a thing.

PS
I’ve tried to verify this story more than once to no avail, but:

1. While I can’t remember who the source was, I did believe it at the time, so presumably I felt the person could be trusted.

2. In my research I did find references to accidents of a similar nature with soft-sided army vehicles, and subsequent changes made in army regulations. See here:

Traffic Control
Gordon Findlay
Our traffic control training began on a benign square of concrete painted with road markings and equipped with fake traffic lights. We would take turns acting as “traffic”, walking in groups of three (a big truck), two (a van) or singly (posing as a car). The lucky trainee on duty at the crossroad would control the “traffic” flow with hand signals, watched carefully by the sergeant in charge to make sure he did not allow the “traffic” to back up on any one of the painted streets.

And woe betide the trainee if he inadvertently allowed two streets of “traffic” to drive into each other. “You stupid arse!” the sergeant would bellow. “You just smashed up ten bloody trucks!”

But then came the day when we were unleashed on the unsuspecting citizens of Colchester to help control
their traffic flow in and out of the historic old town. One by one we were allowed to pull on the long white
gloves and don the red hat-cover of an active MP. Then we were taken to one of the intersections of town where the traffic lights would be switched off – and we were in control.

What was magical about this exercise was how suddenly and wonderfully powerful you felt. Up went your white-gloved hand and a massive 22-wheel Foden diesel truck would grind to a halt. Behind it, a flock of Austins, Hillmans and Fords coasted to a stop. Keeping that left hand high, you did a sharp turn to your right and firmly waved on traffic in the other lane, sweeping your right hand smoothly past your head from front to back...
and like a solid stream of coloured metal, a column of cars and vans rumbled past your shoulder

You kept a sharp eye on how much traffic was backing up in the stopped lane, and when you guessed they had waited long enough, you raised that right hand again to stop the flow. Then with the left hand beckoned on the lane of traffic waiting patiently for your signal.
For the first few minutes it was nerve-wracking. What if they don’t stop? What’ll I do if some idiot disobeys the signal and crunches into someone’s truck or car?

But slowly you discover that they ARE obeying your signals. You are in charge. Those white gloves on your hands and the red cover on your hat demand obedience from the drivers who approach your intersection. And the sheer power of being in control of all this becomes hypnotic. For those fifteen minutes on duty at that crossroad, you felt twelve feet tall.

Bearing Witness
Hugh McGrory
The Charles Smith story reminded me of my own appearances as an expert witness early in my career in Canada...

The Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) was an independent, quasi-judicial body that existed in Ontario from 1906 to 2018. The OMB was an independent administrative board, operated as an adjudicative tribunal, and a very powerful body. One of its major functions was to act as a planning review tribunal – which was where I became involved.

Toronto in the late ‘60s was in the midst of a land development boom. Developers were buying up single-family homes in particular areas with a view to razing the whole area and erecting high rise buildings thus creating a much higher-density environment – and much more revenue, of course.

However, these areas were typically designated as ‘low-density residential’ under the Official Plan of the municipality. Developers would require a variance from the plan – but often local residents didn’t want to sell and move away, and so objected. Eventually this often resulted in a hearing before the OMB which had the power to overrule the municipality and its official plan.

Many objections were often raised against such developments – incongruity with existing low density neighbourhood and violation of the Official Plan; lack of open space; shadows, and loss of sunlight, to name a few. I worked for a consulting engineering and planning company and developers would come to us for help. Another objection often made was that the new building would generate too much traffic for the local street network. Since my background was in traffic engineering, I would be part of the team working on the project.

The way it worked was that I would carry out various analyses (including having people go out and count cars entering and leaving the area, and similar existing high-rise buildings) then write a report for the client. If my report concluded that there was a problem, they would say thanks and pay us off. If, however, I concluded that the traffic generated would not create problems they would hire us to provide expert witness testimony at the OMB hearing – and I would be the designated 'expert'.

The presiding ‘judge’ for these hearings was usually the Chairman of the OMB, Joseph Kennedy, a very powerful character in Ontario because of his position, and followed the strict format of a court of law – witness box, opposing counsel, spectators etc. – just like TV…

This was a great experience for me (not to mention nerve-wracking) since I hadn’t been in the country that long. There was a great deal of money involved, and so the best (and most expensive) counsel in Ontario were hired (and examined or cross-examined me when I was giving evidence). I particularly remember Edwin Goodman (sometimes referred to as ‘Fast Eddie’, a mover and shaker in the inner councils of the
Edwin A Goodman Joseph A Kennedy Charles L Dubin
governing Progressive Conservative party of Ontario), and Charles Dubin (later to be appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Ontario).

Ethically, the role of an expert witness is to present to the court the facts of an issue based on education and experience, and on any specific investigations that they have carried out. They are not supposed to ‘fight’ for one side or the other, regardless of which side hired them. As we have seen, this was one of the deficiencies in Charles Smith's behaviour.

In terms of procedure, the witness is examined and cross-examined by opposing counsel and it is the role of such counsel to ask those questions which help their client's case ("experienced lawyers never ask a question unless they are sure of the answer they are going to get..."). The witness should answer both counsel in the same way – based on the facts and subsequent analysis – and not slanted to either side.

One of the quirky things that I remember from those occasions springs from the fact that the public was allowed to observe, and the seats were often filled with citizens in opposition to the proposal in question. Those citizens were 'armed for bear', not surprising – some of them were fighting to keep their homes of 40 or 50 years – and they were allowed to ask questions of witnesses...

I didn't usually have trouble answering questions, under cross, from opposing counsel, or from the Chairman who, on occasion, would question witnesses himself, but I did have some difficulty answering those from the public benches. Counsels' questions were mostly predictable, they tended to be technical and were mostly anticipated in our pre-trial prep. sessions.

Questions from spectators came from left field... What I wanted to say sometimes was "That's a dumb question", or, "What does that have to do with anything...". That would have been a huge faux pas, of course! I had to be very courteous and try to come up with a reasonable answer.

One way or another, when my testimony was over, I was usually sitting in a pool of sweat – I guess I didn't have Charles Smith's confidence...

The Odeon Club
Brian Macdonald
The Dundee Odeon cinema of my childhood stood on Strathmartine Road next to the Coldside branch of the

Dundee public library, just across the roundabout at the bottom of Caird Avenue, where five major streets meet. It had a grand, art deco frontage, with a huge, vertical sign that blasted out the cinema’s name at night in big, red, illuminated letters. It was built in 1936 as the Vogue cinema. A year later, the group of which it was part was taken over by Oscar Deutsch, an English entrepreneur, who went into the picture show business in 1928 and built up a successful chain of Odeon cinemas that covered Britain. It was subsequently re-named The Odeon.

By the end of World War II, when I was seven, the Odeon chain of more than two hundred cinemas had been
sold to the British Rank company. Many filmgoers of my age and much younger will recall the J. Arthur Rank Organisation’s logo of a heroic, muscular, male figure in profile striking a huge gong, complete with sound, at the start of a cinema showing.

J.Arthur Rank was of the family of the same name which already had a Britain-wide flour milling business, which became Rank, Hovis, McDougall, and whose huge flour tankers were to be seen on England’s roads carting bulk flour to bakeries to be turned into
loaves of sliced bread.

J. Arthur Rank became the dominant company in film production and distribution in Britain, followed by
Gaumont British and Pathé, both of which had their origins in French companies. The J. Arthur Rank Organisation disappeared before the turn of the last century. Most of Dundee’s cinemas of this era were owned by large cinema companies but an exception worthy of mention was Green’s Playhouse in the Nethergate, close to the city centre, also unashamedly art deco inside and out, with a flamboyant tower that carried the vertical name ‘Playhouse’.

Green’s Playhouse was grand and luxurious with a very large auditorium that boasted and often filled four thousand seats in stalls and circle and had in addition a small number of private boxes. It was built and owned by an independent distributor. The complex incorporated a popular tearoom furnished with armchairs,
which enjoyed a vogue as a meeting place among Morgan Academy senior students during my last years at school. On occasion the large tearoom also did duty as a ballroom.

Most of the city’s picture houses(1) were scattered around the city centre and it was a bus or tram ride from where most Dundee citizens lived to get to them. The Odeon, located in what was, in the 1930s and 1940s, an outer, mostly working-class, residential area, was an anomaly. As I lived on the other side of Clepington Road, in the Fairmuir area, with a short-cut leading straight down Fairmuir Street and Caird Terrace, it was a ten-minute walk to reach the Odeon and the library, both of which I patronised. The cinema is gone now, making way for a supermarket and a sun-tan centre, although the Coldside library still stands and serves the local community, thank goodness.

J. Arthur Rank closed the Odeon in 1973 and it was later demolished. The Odeon Cinema name still exists in Dundee but is borne by a modern complex with ten screens, located near the eastern end of the Kingsway, the city’s loop road, where the Kingsway becomes the A92, the coast road heading northward to Arbroath, Montrose, and Aberdeen. In my young days we simply called it the Arbroath Road.

As well as having a well-patronised schedule of general films, the Odeon Cinema of my childhood ran an event very popular with the local kids, the Odeon Club. This was a Saturday morning matinée showing for young people with films to suit. You paid a modest ticket price at the box office, and you could join the club by filling in a form with your name, address, and birth date. You still had to hand over your cash on a Saturday morning (In my day it was sixpence for a stall seat and ninepence for a balcony or circle seat.) but were entitled, as a club member, to a free ticket for the Saturday nearest your birthday. The free pass came in the post, which was much quicker and more reliable in those good old days.

The Odeon Club proved a mecca for us local urchins and there was always a noisy queue on the pavement on Saturday morning before nine o’clock, silver sixpenny pieces clutched in our hands or in our pockets, eager for the doors to open so we could jockey for the best seats. I suppose our parents were glad to be rid of us for a couple of hours too, on their morning off work. Most of us paid the cheap rate, which entitled you to a neck-stretching seat looking up at the screen, and only enjoyed an upstairs balcony seat when we got our free birthday pass. I believe this privilege ended when the balcony was closed for the Saturday morning showing.

The format was always the same. There were a few trailers of coming attractions to whet our appetites for future attendance then the show proper. Laurel and Hardy, Old Mother Riley and the comic genius Charlie Chaplin were favourites. There would be an intermission when we filled ourselves with a Walls’ ice cream slider(2) or a bag of Smiths Crisps, only one flavour, complete with salt in a twist of blue waxed paper. There was always a very popular sing-along session, when we belted out Harry Lauder(3) favourites like ‘I love a lassie’, ‘It’s nice tae get up in the morning’, ‘Roamin’ in the gloamin’’ and ‘Keep right on to the end of the road’, with the words appearing on the screen with a bouncing ball above them, keeping time for us as it followed the words. After the interval there would be a Roy Rogers, Tex Ritter, Gene Autry or Hopalong Cassidy cowboy film and sometimes a short, educational feature.

At the end of the showing, only a reprobate few left before we had obediently stood and sung the national anthem, with a film clip and the music by a military band from the annual king’s birthday(4) Trooping the Colour parade. Then we poured out of the Odeon, a boisterous rabble, blinking in the daylight, ready for another Saturday and Sunday of sport and play before the drudgery of school started again on Monday.

It would be a long time till the next Saturday.

Footnotes

(1) Between 1940 and 1955, Dundee boasted twenty-six cinemas. In the early 1950s, cinemas played to packed houses and large-scale musicals such as Oklahoma (The opening scene of Curly riding his horse out of a huge screen at me while he sings the joys of “Oh, what a beautiful morning” is still in vivid, glorious Technicolor, in my memory.) and South Pacific commanded huge audiences. Now it seems there are only three cinema houses in the city, but each has multiple auditoriums and musical films are now derived from standard stories which are not just the pure entertainment of these mid-20th century indulgences.

(2) A ‘slider’ was an oblong of ice cream held and eaten, with much licking to contain the melting drips, between two thin, flat wafers. Walls ice cream came as a solid, somewhat waxy block wrapped in grease-proof paper but in most cases the softer and creamier local product was scooped from a container and formed in a metal mould with an ejector mechanism. The packaged version was more convenient for the young women who patrolled the cinema aisles with a dimly lit tray of sweets, ice cream and cigarettes slung from their shoulders. The popular and manageable cornet style of the delicacy was known as a ‘cone’ or sometimes a ‘poke’ in Scotland.

(3) Sir Harry Lauder was the most popular Scottish music hall and radio entertainer of the first half of the 20th century. He wore full highland attire and carried a cromach (a Scottish walking stick, usually longer than the standard walking stick and often irregular in shape) and sang Scottish dialect songs, many of which he wrote. His popularity far exceeded his native Scotland. He was said to have been, at one time, the most highly paid entertainer in the English-speaking world. He was knighted for his charitable and fund-raising work during WWI. Lauder’s songs were wholesome, upbeat, and cheerful. It is reported that he was offered Will Fyffe’s ‘I belong to Glasgow,’ a song about a Glaswegian working man somewhat incapacitated by alcohol on his Saturday night out, who is incoherent, dizzy, and garrulous, but that Lauder refused it because it celebrated the consumption of alcohol.

(4) King George VI reigned over the United Kingdom from 1936 till his death in 1952. On his death, his older daughter, Elizabeth, ascended to the throne, becoming Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain. Only then did the national anthem become ‘God Save the Queen’ and the June parade become The Queen’s Birthday Trooping the Colour.

Once again, I am indebted to the memories of Dorothy and Neil Alexander, contemporaries and neighbours of my childhood, and fellow Morgan Academy students, for bolstering my failing memory.

A Man Called Smith 5
Hugh McGrory
The Smith affair was a sad commentary on a failure of the Ontario justice system, and one has to ask the question, "How the hell could this have happened?" I want to conclude the series by addressing this...

We’ve seen some of the damage caused to many, many people, not only the principals in each case, but their extended families, friends, neighbours, work colleagues and acquaintances. Of course, some received compensatory damages. The Ontario Government provided some compensation: those 'directly' affected by the debacle were eligible for amounts of up to $250,000, children removed from their parents’ custody were entitled to up to $25,000 and other family members up to $12,500.

Beyond this, some turned to civil law and sued various parties, winning varying amounts – Bill Mullins sued for $14 million and was awarded $4.5 million. It seems however, that for many of the victims the money didn’t really heal the deep wounds left by their journeys through hell.

It doesn’t seem that Smith acted with malice, with intent to harm innocent people – the law system in Ontario seems to agree since no charges were ever brought against him. However, the Goudge Report revealed a litany of problems.
  • First, despite his training and experience in pediatric pathology, he knew virtually nothing about forensics. He admitted at the Inquiry that his training in forensic pathology was "minimal", that he was basically “self taught". Adding fuel to the fire, he seems to have been supremely self-confident, believing that he was always right, and when coupled with his manner of presentation, seems to have convinced everyone from police to judges and juries (not to mention his superiors and colleagues…) that he was indeed ‘infallible’.

  • He was not properly supervised by his superiors, the Chief and Deputy Chief Coroners for the Province of Ontario (while Smith had no education in forensic pathology, neither of them had any expertise in pathology!)

  • Many of his practices in performing autopsies were woefully inadequate – he almost never attended the death scene; he didn’t always ensure that the appropriate medical records of the decedent were available and consulted; he was sloppy and inconsistent in documenting his work; his reports were nothing more than a recitation of his findings and his conclusions were not supported by a persuasive connection to the facts.

  • He misplaced evidence that sometimes turned up many months later, and he frequently missed deadlines for producing reports (twice police actually subpoenaed him in order to have him produce the information).

  • He did not prepare adequately for his court appearances usually only reading his report from months before to remind himself of the case. This was inappropriate and insufficient and not surprisingly often caused difficulties.

  • Finally, he seems to have had a lack of understanding of the independent role of an expert witness, an area in which I have some personal experience... Smith is quoted as saying, in his first day of testimony before the public inquiry probing his work, that he now realised he had little understanding of the criminal justice system or the role an expert witness should play in a trial. "I thought I knew it, but I realize now just how profoundly ignorant I was".

    He said he used to think his role as an expert witness in a trial was to support the prosecution. He didn't realize it was his job to be impartial.

    "In the very beginning, when I went to court on the few occasions in the 1980s, I honestly believed it was my role to support the Crown attorney," Smith told the inquiry. "I was there to make a case look good. That's the way I felt."

As I end this story that turned out so badly for so many, I can’t help returning to one of my pet themes – the randomness of our lives…. Charles Smith and I crossed paths very briefly more than forty years ago – he was a doctor, and I an engineer, but we were both computer nerds.

When I first came across computers I was hooked, and through happenstance, I went from being a user of computers in my engineering work, to a role providing the software and hardware computer tools that other engineers could use in their work – and had a very satisfying career.

Perhaps if Charles had taken a similar path and concentrated on computing as a tool for doctors, rather than specialising in pathology, the heartache of so many people would have been avoided…

Yugoslavia
Michael Marks
When we started our sixth year at Morgan Academy (1953) I had heard of Yugoslavia, but that was about it. Little did I imagine that by the next summer I would spend a month living with a family there.

The way it happened was as follows. A UK government organisation called the Education Interchange Council (an offshoot of the British Council) had been set up to offer subsidized travel to the then Yugoslavia and, it was hoped, foster closer ties with that Communist country. To that end, about a hundred UK schools were asked to nominate one sixth former to make the trip. The way the schools were selected should ensure a cross section of the UK. The Yugoslav schools were chosen the same way.

That meant that Scotland would be allocated eight places, one of which would be from Dundee. That place was given to the Morgan, and I was the lucky one to get it.

Sixty-eight years later and sadly my friend Deso (nickname for Desimir) is no longer with us, but we are still regarded as family members, so I suppose the scheme was a success, at least as far as Dundee and Ljubljana are concerned.

Once I heard that I had been accepted for the exchange visit, my first job was to read all that I could about
Yugoslavia and here I was lucky to find a book entitled Eastern Approaches by a former diplomat turned soldier called Fitzroy Maclean. He tells a thrilling tale in a best selling novel, a large amount of which is about his liaison work with Tito and his partisan group during WW2. Incidentally, he became the youngest brigadier ever in the British army.

I read many other books about the country at that time and that helped when I first met my host family and their friends. Thanks are due here to the Dundee library, whose staff helped me with books about the country and its history.

Having got whatever information I could about Yugoslavia I needed spending money plus permission to take it out of the UK – we were all still facing postwar austerity. I have my old passport from that era and it shows that I had
permission to take the magnificent sum of £20 to cover my spending money for four weeks.

So, armed with a little knowledge and very little cash, I left Dundee and found my way to London, where the real journey began. I mentioned above that our group was about a hundred strong. We all made our own ways to London’s Victoria Station where we were herded into our various groups, according to our destinations. The biggest group was heading for the capital, Belgrade. The others being destined for Zagreb, Novi Sad, and our little group for Ljubljana.

It took two days to get there. First we went from London to Dover. Next the ferry to Calais and finally on the Simplon Orient express to Yugoslavia.



Two events remain fixed in my memory of the journey. First was passing through Frankfurt in the middle of the night. I was astonished to see building work in the middle of the night with builders working with floodlights to repair the damage done by the RAF and the Americans. It was obvious that the German economy was prospering.

The other memory was as follows. You may or may not be able to imagine the boredom of being cooped up in a train carriage for two whole days. So, passing through Austria and into Yugoslavia, I decided to walk down the train and get the blood circulating again. As I started to enter the last carriage I realized that it was a sort of guard’s van with some big packing cases in the middle. A group of young Yugoslav soldiers were sitting round these boxes drinking and playing cards.

What to do? One of the soldiers started to speak to me in the local language so I indicated that I didn’t understand. Fortunately, I had taken German at the Morgan and this they could speak. I was soon sitting down with them and being plied with the local fire water known as Slivovitz. Welcome to Yugoslavia...

To be continued…

A Man Called Smith 4
Hugh McGrory
We previously looked at the first of three types of cases – where people went through hell, but in the end, no charges were laid.

The second type of case:

Where people who were innocent of the charges they were facing, felt obliged to plead guilty to lesser charges to avoid the likelihood of much longer sentences.

In 1992, at the age of 23 and pregnant with her fourth child, Maria Shepherd pled guilty to manslaughter in the death of her three-year-old stepdaughter, Kasandra.

Maria changed her not-guilty plea to guilty, mid-trial, when faced with Dr. Charles Smith's expert evidence that Kasandra had been killed by a blow to the head. Court documents show Kasandra began vomiting and became unresponsive in April 1991 after a long period of ill health. She died two days after being admitted to hospital.

The advice from her defence counsel was that, with Dr Smith’s reputation as an infallible expert, she would in all likelihood be found guilty. Instead, she should accept a deal worked out with the prosecution to enter a joint submission on a sentence of two years less a day with three years probation. This lesser sentence would mean that she would probably be released after about a year, and was a strong inducement to plead guilty, as she may otherwise have faced a much longer sentence.

Maria was incarcerated and taken from her young family for 11 months. Twenty-five years later the
Ontario Court of Appeal set aside Maria’s conviction on the basis of new forensic expert evidence which demonstrated that Smith's conclusions were without scientific basis.

It was believed that Kasandra may have had a previous brain injury, which could have caused seizures. They also believe that she may have suddenly developed a seizure disorder that could have killed her. Her guilty plea was set aside and she was acquitted of manslaughter.

The third category:

Wrongful convictions where the accused maintained their innocence and received long prison sentences.

The most egregious case was that of William Mullins-Johnson (known as Bill Mullins) is an aboriginal man from the Batchewana First Nation in Northern Ontario, a gentle giant of a man. He was described as a six-foot-five, 250-pound, ‘soft-spoken’ man. Sadly, he went partially blind and deaf as an infant and was also left with a speech impediment due to swelling in his brain. This caused him to be deemed ‘different’, even by his own Ojibwe mother.

In 1963, he was living with his brother Paul, Paul’s partner, Kim, and their three children in Sault Saint

Uncle Bill, and Valin at 10 months old

Marie, Ontario. Bill got along well with Kim and the children and was very close to his brother. Paul and Kim decided to have an evening out and asked Bill to babysit the children. Next morning, when Kim went to waken the kids, she found her four-year-old daughter, Valin, was dead.

An autopsy was performed by a local pathologist who determined that Valin had been strangled to death; a local pediatrician said the child had been sexually abused – there was bruising on her body and her anus was distended; Charles Smith consulted on the case from Toronto and concurred – he further concluded that the four-year-old was being sodomized at the time of her death.

The police arrested Bill Mullins and he was charged with first degree murder. Paul and Kim did not believe that Bill, the uncle the children adored, was guilty.

The jury decided that Bill had killed Valin while sexually assaulting her – he was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years. At that point, Paul and Kim’s love for Bill turned to hate.

For his part, Bill heard the ‘expert’ testimony in court that the child was sexually assaulted, and , like everyone else, believed it. So, knowing that he was innocent, the only other person who could have done it was his brother who was sitting watching him go to prison. Bill’s love for his brother turned to hate too.

Valin, four years old Her father and Bill's brother, Paul Johnson

Bill continued to maintain his innocence through his years in prison, where, as a convicted baby killer, he was subject to assaults and torture from fellow inmates (everyone needs someone to look down on...)

After 10 years a lawyer from the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted (Innocence Canada) visited Bill. He said that they believed that he was wrongly convicted, that no sexual assault had taken place, and that Valin had really died of natural causes!

They had consulted a number of experienced forensic pathologists and they agreed that the bruising was lividity (blood pooling), and the distension of the anus was a relaxation of sphincter muscle, both natural post-mortem processes.

Eventually the Ontario Court of Appeal agreed to hear the case based on the incompetence of Charles Smith and the new interpretation of the evidence. Bill’s first-degree murder conviction was set aside, and an acquittal entered in its place. Bill was set free.

Bill, just freed after 12 years in prison, with his mother

Sadly, by then, Paul and Kim’s relationship had ended, Paul had lost his children, and his life had descended into drugs and alcohol.

(To be concluded...)

Weaponry
Gordon Findlay
After we had learned most of the rudiments of military discipline and British Army law, we got stuck into motorcycle and truck driving, traffic control and pistol shooting, Although on duty we wore white cross-webbing that included a pistol holster which could accommodate a .38-calibre Webley pistol, we were never entrusted with such a weapon in normal duty. That bulky and imposing holster was stuffed with nothing more dangerous than yesterday’s 'Daily Mirror'.

When we did, finally, get an opportunity to shoot the .38 Webley, we fired at plywood figures some 30 yards away, set up against large mounds of sand and gravel. The Webley always fired high and right. You had to physically force it down and to the left as you fired. You were instructed to hold the Webley with your right hand (if you were right-handed) straight out fully extended... none of this bracing the gun hand with the other hand. That was for American shooters, gangsters, and foreign mobsters – not for British policemen.

The disconcerting fact that emerged from our day at the shooting range came when we 'spotted' for our fellow trainees as they blasted away at the plywood figures. Comfortably, and safely ensconced in ground-level pits, we watched as those .38 Webley bullets barely punched through the plywood before dropping like tired bumblebees into the sand behind. It was pretty obvious our pistols were worn more for their intimidation effect than their stopping power.

We trained on Army-issue 350 and 500 c.c. BSA motorcycles, complete with levers for spark and mixture


control. In theory we should have been able to set our petrol mixture at 'rich' when starting cold, then slowly switch to the “lean” setting as the engine warmed up. Same with the spark control – to be set in the ‘advance' position on starting, then quickly moving to the 'regular' setting to achieve the most economical and advantageous use of our machines. Well, that was the theory...

Unfortunately, these motorcycles were clapped-out old beasts that wheezed and groaned like the pensioners they were. Legions of trainees before us had misused and mangled the levers so that the bikes staggered on as best they could, coughing and farting on a much-too-rich diet of pure petrol and wildly inaccurate spark settings.

As a group, we thundered down the quiet roads of Colchester, belching blue fumes and poisonous smells like a mobile gas attack. On my sagging old machine, I remember, the speedometer was stuck permanently at a highly unlikely 85 miles-per-hour – a speed the machine might have aspired to in its youth but could now only achieve if it were fired from a cannon.

A Man Called Smith 3
Hugh McGrory
The Coroner’s Review examined 45 of Smith’s cases; it found problems with 20, of which 13 involved convictions. The 45 cases generally fell into three categories, and we’ll look at an example of each:

Where parents or caregivers were investigated but charges were never laid, or were withdrawn, or in which the accused was acquitted at trial.

Lianne Thibeault's son Nicholas died in 1995, in Sudbury, Ontario. The little boy was 10 months old when


he fell and hit his head on a sewing machine. His mother saw immediately that he wasn’t breathing, called 911, and tried to revive him. Sadly, the baby was declared dead at the hospital. Almost 18 months after Nicholas died, police told Lianne that she was a suspect for her son's death. This is how that came about:

A local pathologist had caried out an autopsy, categorizing the cause of death as ‘SIDS’, (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). However, months later, a supervisor found an error in the post-mortem report – the cause of death should have been classified by the broader ‘SUDI’ (Sudden Unexplained Death in Infancy) since the baby had not been asleep at the time.

That relatively minor error triggered a review, which fell to Smith – he dismissed the original pathologist’s findings and carried out an exhumation in order to perform a second autopsy. Lianne attended, and when she arrived at the cemetery, she was shocked by what she saw.

"I could see a group standing beside my son's grave and – they were still in the process of pulling the dirt out of the ground," sad Lianne, “and I could see a little boy playing in the dirt. I was furious."


That little boy was Charles Smith's son (seen above, with his father). Smith said he brought his son to Sudbury to help keep him awake during the long drive from Toronto. The Chief Coroner later admitted the child should not have been present at the exhumation.

The Crown did not proceed with charges against Lianne, but that was not the end of her ordeal. She was pregnant, and Children's Aid announced it would be apprehending her unborn daughter at birth because of the police investigation into Nicholas' murder.

"During my first trimester of pregnancy, I was being accused of murder and did not know whether or not I would be going to jail, and in my third trimester, I was being told my baby was going to be taken away."

Children's Aid seized the child at birth and Leanne's name was added to the Sex Offenders Registry. She was placed with her grandparents, who acted as de facto foster parents. Lianne was only allowed limited access and required strict supervision.

Lianne's father, Maurice Gagnon spent more than $100,000 over the next six months hiring a top Sudbury lawyer and searching for medical experts and pathologists to challenge Smith's opinions. He found several who felt Nicholas' death had been a tragic accident.

Faced with competing opinions, the provincial chief coroner's office hired its own independent pathologist to review the case again. Dr. Mary Case's report finally put the matter to rest. She found no evidence of foul play and said Nicholas could have died from bumping his head. Lianne's explanation of what happened was entirely plausible.

It took 18 month's before Children's Aid dropped its application, and, in 1999, return Lianne's daughter to her care.

(To be continued…)

 The Golden Age of Science Fiction 5 
Brian Macdonald
Other notable science fiction writers

Raymond Douglas Bradbury, another from this era, born American in 1920 and dying in 2012, wrote not
only science fiction, both fantasy and hard SF, but also horror and mystery. As was usual, most of his output started as short stories, some later becoming novels. His best-known science fiction work, known even to those with no knowledge of SF, is Fahrenheit 451 of 1953, which tells of a dystopian, totalitarian, future America, where possession of books is a crime and ceremonial burnings of discovered hoards of books are held. A film was made of the book but, maybe surprisingly, not till 2018, and there have been TV series.

Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles is science fiction only because it is set on Mars. It describes the trials of an Earth colony set up on the red planet and is not rigorous in its science. His The Illustrated Man is not really a novel, more a compilation of short stories loosely linked by a heavily tattooed man who is the protagonist of one of the tales. Because Bradbury was not exclusively or even mainly a writer of science fiction, the style and content of his SF books made SF more palatable to non-SF readers. Ray Bradbury continued to publish until several years before his death.

John K H Brunner (English, 1934–1995) won the Hugo Award in 1969 for Stand on Zanzibar, about a dystopian, overcrowded world. Brunner wrote many science fiction novels, some under the name of Keith Woodcott. Another novel by Brunner on social topics was The Sheep Look Up in 1972. This grim tale forecasts and goes beyond the situation the world finds itself in now, in 2022, when we are slowly and
inevitably destroying our planet’s ability to support life through our profligate use of natural resources and the consequent, ever-increasing pollution which is changing the atmosphere for the worse.

In doing so it builds on the work of Rachel Carson, whose non-fiction scientific Silent Spring, took the thinking world by storm in 1962. Carson warned of the damaging effects of the overuse of pesticides. Brunner’s title is drawn from a poem, Lycidas (The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed), by the 17th century Englishman John Milton, author of Paradise Lost. Milton had a strong concern for social issues and the welfare of the poor, whom he likened to sheep needing direction and support. Brunner drew attention to a growing social and economic problem of his time.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a work from 1968 by Philip K Dick, another notable SF writer of the Golden Era. The plot is of a bounty hunter seeking androids (robots) which have gone wild. Earth is dystopian, polluted (common themes), with limited human population, those who could having decamped to other planets. Most other creatures are dead. I mention this tale because it is the inspiration for the very popular Blade Runner film series.

Edward Elmer Smith, better known as E. E. ‘Doc’ Smith, authored the Lensman series, which covers a vast timescape from the start of the universe all the way to the future. It was the runner-up to Asimov’s Foundation series for the Best Series of All-time Nebula Award in 1966.

Although not from the Golden Era, no article about science fiction authors would be complete without more than a mention of Douglas Noel Adams, born 1952 and, alas, dead in 2001 at the young age of 49. Although Adams wrote in other genres, he is best known for his great set of five books, together named under the title of the first of the five, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. This is in fantasy mode and intended as light entertainment, not as prophecy or warning of future disaster. It began life as a proposal to the BBC for a short radio comedy series. It grew, topsy-like, into a book, then five books, a TV series which I recall watching, a film and a stage show. The third book in the series has produced a phrase that has entered our consciousness – ‘Life, The Universe and Everything’. Is there anyone in the English-speaking world who does not know that the answer to the question “What is the meaning of life, the universe and everything?” is the cryptic “42” given by the morose computer at the end of the universe.


If you read no other science fiction, do please read The Hitchhiker’s Guide series of books. At least once!

Readers may remark, if they bother to get this far, that I have dealt almost exclusively with male authors. Regrettably, because female minds might have contributed a very different view, female science fiction
writers are almost non-existent from the Golden Era. I have mentioned Ursula K Le Guin and Anne McCaffrey from this period. Margaret Atwood, who published The Handmaid’s Tale as recently as 1985, writes in a wide range of modes, including poetry. Her recent sequel, The Testaments, is also classed as science fiction. Both books describe the same grim, dystopian, religious extremist, male-dominated, dictatorial, future society, which grew from a disunited USA. How far is this from the
extreme religious states that have sprung up in parts of our globe?

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley(1) lived in the 19th century. Her mother was Mary Wollstonecraft, an author,
and an early campaigner for women’s rights. It was to our advantage that her father, also a writer, saw to it that she was broadly educated, which was by no means universal for females, even of the upper classes, in England then. She married the famed romantic poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, acted as his editor and promoted his work. Yet Mary Shelley is best known for what is a very early science fiction novel, Frankenstein, (alternatively titled The Modern Prometheus) published when she was only 20. The tale must be known to anyone reading this. The young scientist, Dr Victor Frankenstein,
brought to life a creature created by him from human body parts and problems ensued. Frankenstein has been the subject of numerous films, TV series and plays. I recall the hollow-cheeked, grim-looking, English actor Peter Cushing in the title part and the tall, gothic, Christopher Lee as his creation in an early Hammer Film, The Curse of Frankenstein (2). Its fame and interest in it are enduring. In our time we have seen fingers, hands, the major organs, even faces and the skin of heads successfully transplanted. This could never have been contemplated in Shelley’s time, yet Mary Shelley conceived of it and wrote so vividly of it. If H G Wells is sometimes called ‘The Father of Science Fiction’ then Mary Shelley has a good case for being its mother.

I started this essay because of my love for the golden era of English-language science fiction. I am sure many of those who read this far (if, indeed, any do), will have read as much SF as I or more than I have. If I have made errors, they are errors of enthusiasm. For that, I apologise. I also apologise to the many brilliant SF writers whose names and work deserve mention in any record of the period, but this is my recollection and the work of my memory.

If I have inspired in you a desire to venture into science fiction, I advise you could do worse than haunt your local charity shop’s bookshelves. Many books from the Golden Age find their way there.

Science Fiction has never been recognised as ‘serious literature’ and does not win major literature awards, probably because of the subject matter being seen as frivolous. Yet there are novels that would be worthy of respect as ‘literature’, being literate, well-constructed, well-written and grand in concept. The best are worth reading.

If I have inspired in you a desire to venture into science fiction, I advise you could do worse than haunt your local charity shop’s bookshelves. Many books from the Golden Age find their way there.
A visit to the Amazon website to seek out a copy of any of the science fiction short story and novella anthologies compiled by the indefatigable Groff Conklin is another good place to start. Edward Groff Conklin lived from 1904 to 1968, but he did not start serious reading of SF until he was forty, although he had had a brush with H G Wells’ work while at college. Already an editor of skill and experience by1944, he took to SF with enthusiasm and chalked up the compilation and editorship of forty SF anthologies. His early introduction to Wells may have led to Conklin’s anthology of Wells’ short stories, 28 Science Fiction Stories by H. G. Wells, published in 1952, but most of SF’s better authors are represented in Conklin’s collections.

The voyage is worth the effort. Happy reading!

Footnotes

(1) Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, in 1797, in London) and given a sound middle class education at her father’s instigation, not often the case for a woman in that period, has an unusual connection with Dundee, the hometown of many readers of this series, me included. In 1812, when fourteen, Mary was sent from London to Dundee by her father, for a period of recuperation after ill-health, to live with the family of her father’s businessman friend, the Dundee jute magnate William Thomas Baxter. The house was in South Baffin Street, then a rural area to the east of the city with views down to the river Tay and the eastern docks, where sailors from Dundee’s then large whaling fleet landed.

Later in life, she reflected on this period that “I lived principally in the country as a girl and passed a considerable time in Scotland. I made considerable visits to the more picturesque parts, but my habitual residence was on the blank and dreary northern shores of the Tay near Dundee. Blank and dreary on retrospection I call them – they were not so to me then. They were the eyry(sic) of freedom and the pleasant region where unheeded I could convene with the creatures of my fancy.” The young Mary Godwin’s eyes would have been exposed to many gruesome sights of the carcasses and parts of whales, polar bears, and seals as well as her nose to the stench of the processing of whale meat and oil during the fifteen months that she spent in her Dundee sojourn, often sitting, thinking, on the slopes above the Tay.

It is conjectured by later literary historians that the first shoots of Mary Shelley’s horror tale may have taken root in her brain at this time. Mary married Percy Bysshe Shelley at age eighteen, only four years after the Dundee stay. Frankenstein, written mostly on the placid shores of Lake Geneva, was published only two years later, at Mary’s remarkably young age of twenty.

Mary Shelley’s later life contains much of tragedy. Her great love, Percy Bysshe Shelley, died aged thirty, after only six years of marriage to Mary. Only the couple’s oldest child, Percy Florence Shelley, survived infancy. Mary, herself, died in 1851, only fifty-three years old.

This link may be of interest as a discussion of whether the Dundee stay was of influence on Mary Shelley’s writing of Frankenstein.

(2)Hammer Films was an English production company best known for its mostly 1950s horror films such as Baron Frankenstein, The Mummy and Count Dracula.
A Man Called Smith 2
Hugh McGrory
Previously I told the tale of a doctor named Smith, whom I had briefly encountered many years ago, and the sad death of baby Amber. That case was heard in 1991 – but Dr. Smith’s story didn’t end there… While his case load and his reputation grew, so did the rumblings of discontent regarding his expertise.

However, due to inaction on the part of those tasked with the overview of Smith’s work over the years, it wasn’t until 2002 that action was taken. He was reprimanded by the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons. The college said he was being "overly dogmatic" and had a "tendency towards overstatement."

In 2003, he was forbidden from performing further autopsies at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children. In 2005, he resigned from his position at the Hospital and moved to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. However, he failed to inform his new workplace of the issues arising from his previous position. When this was discovered after three months – he was fired, and later pled guilty to a charge of unprofessional conduct for his failure to disclose.

In 2005, the Chief Coroner for Ontario, Dr. Barry McLellan, undertook a ‘Coroner’s Review’ of the work of Dr. Smith in criminally suspicious cases and homicides in the 1990s. The inquiry looked at 44 autopsies conducted by Smith , 13 of which had resulted in criminal charges and convictions. The report on his indiscretions was released in 2007, indicating that there were substantial errors in twenty of those cases.

Resulting from this, the Ontario government set up an inquiry led by Ontario Court of Appeal Judge Stephen Goudge, examining pediatric forensic pathology in the Province. Goudge released his report in

Smith and his lawyers heading to the Goudge Inquiry

2008. It made 169 recommendations “necessary to restore and enhance public confidence in pediatric forensic pathology.” The judge stated that he found Smith to be arrogant, despite lacking basic knowledge about forensic pathology, provided erroneous opinions, and made false and misleading statements in court. He was equally scathing about Dr. Robert Young, Chief Coroner, and his deputy, Dr. Maureen Cairns for their failure to react to the many complaints about Smith. (By 2004 both had lost those positions).

In 2010, the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons entered into undertakings with former chief coroner Maureen Young and former deputy corner Jim Cairns, agreeing to drop investigations into them if they promised never to reapply to practise medicine again. Many of the victims of the miscarriages of justice were very upset with this deal, seen by many as controversial.

On February 1, 2011, the Smith was stripped of his license and never allowed to practice medicine again as a result of the errors he made, and the lives he destroyed. Smith was married with two children, but some time over this period his marriage broke down and led to divorce. He is believed to be living in British Columbia, re-married, and keeping an extremely low profile.

The bare facts as laid out above tell a sad tale of the rise and fall of a man, but they don't touch on the terrible damage that resulted for so many people. To fully understand the scope of this tragedy you need to know some of the details...

(To be continued…)

All Change for Dinner
Bill Kidd
I made a chicken curry for dinner the other day. It was served with supermarket bought naan bread and a couple of poppadums that came in a packet and were flash-cooked in the microwave and if I say so myself,

Some of Many Popular Forms of Poppadoms

it was delicious. Tomorrow I am thinking of cooking pasta with an anchovy sauce accompanied by garlic bread. Sorry, much as we would love to have you join us, I think it’s best that you cook your own!

How many words in the last paragraph would you have used as a young adult in the 1950s? I am sure that “chicken” would be familiar as a treat on high days and holidays, not yet the ubiquitous meat of everyday life that it has become. “Curry” was almost unknown as a dish and in most Scottish households it was confined to the tin of curry powder lurking at the back of the cupboard. How about “pasta”? It was not a word in many vocabularies although “spaghetti” was a familiar hasty tea-time dish soaked in tomato sauce and coming out of a tin. The Scots word for pasta was macaroni. Normally served with a cheddar-based cheese sauce it did make the occasional appearance with jam as a dessert at school dinners and in some adventurous households. I suspect that to most of us supermarket, microwave, anchovies, garlic, naan bread and poppadums” would also be strangers on our lips. Things have certainly changed in the Scottish diet department in the last seventy years’.

My memories of how we ate pre-1950s were of nutritious, if somewhat bland meals. Breakfast was porridge or some form of cereal with milk, toast and marmalade washed down with tea. On Sundays it would be a cooked breakfast of bacon and egg with fried bread. Lunch, usually known as dinner, was the main meal of the day served shortly after midday. While at primary school I would come home and join my parents. We started with soup followed by some form of meat and potato-based dish – this was followed by a dessert. All of this was prepared by my mother who cleared up after my father returned to work and I went back to school. The final meal of the day was tea. This consisted of a cooked starter followed by bread and teacakes with jam. Sometimes my mother would have baked scones or tea cakes and we would have these over the weekend.

It should be remembered that rationing was in force during the war years and through the rest of the 1940s, it was not until1954 that rationing completely ended. The major effect of food rationing was not to change how people ate but to force the housewife (because it was, she) to make use of the foodstuffs that were available, often substituting the ingredients used to produce the familiar meal. Dried egg was used to make an omelette to substitute for the fried egg that should be accompanying the piece of bacon for Sunday’s breakfast.
Who's for scrambled dried eggs washed down with a glass of dried milk?
(Actually I think the milk shown is the baby version – full cream!)

Kippers, herring, white fish, rabbits, mealy puddings, black puddings, sausages, corned beef, and Spam all played their part in maintaining the main course at dinner.

Almost forgotten is the importance of soup as the foundation of the nutritious Scottish diet. Scotch broth was based on the ability to find a mutton bone to make the stock, while pea soup was dependent on finding a ham bone. The use of pearl barley, red lentils and split peas combined with carrot, turnips, leeks, and potatoes made sure that any shortcomings of the main course were fully compensated for, and any leftover spaces would be filled by the dessert. The shortages of sugar and fats meant that desserts consisted mainly of Birds Custard, rice pudding, sago, semolina, and tapioca, all of them only too familiar from school dinners. However, on special days and weekends steamed pudding was often served. These could be anything from a syrup sponge to a jam roly-poly and at Christmas we had a Clootie Dumpling with charms and a sixpence in it.

Several factors caused the change from having our main meal at midday to having it in the early evening. The major one was the work pattern – fewer women were content to be housewives. Many women wanted some form of employment to supplement the family income, this led in turn to a better quality and a wider social life. The shortage of labour in the forties and fifties meant that restrictions on married women obtaining employment were disappearing and a woman’s career could be combined with family life. With greater mobility many men could no longer get home for a midday meal and for others there was no one at home to prepare it for him (Awwww!)

As incomes improved eating out and holidays abroad became more popular and during the mid-fifties restaurants serving all sorts of food began to spring up. I had my first Chinese meal in Reform Street around 1958 and couldn’t wait to go back for another dose of MSG! Indian, Italian, French etc. restaurants were big business and inevitably favourite recipes were tried at home. Spag-Bol, curries, noodles, chilli con carne and all sorts of other exotica were prepared, then refined at home. Soup was made from tomatoes, mushroom, and asparagus. Desserts were made from ice cream and merengue, and melons and strawberries were used in sundaes and sometimes weekdays too! Banoffee pie, pear crumble and sticky toffee pudding all made their appearance and thus our present-day diet was born.

I am reconsidering my pasta for tomorrow. Perhaps a pea and Parma ham sauce with the rigatoni….…?

A Man Called Smith
Hugh McGrory
In my previous story, I mentioned a fellow called Smith as being one of the more senior members of LOGIC, the Apple computer user group in Toronto in the ‘80s. Apart from being a computer geek, I knew he was a doctor, though I wasn’t aware that he was a pathologist. Based at the Hospital for Sick Children (Sick Kids as it’s known in Toronto), he specialised in pediatric pathology.

Although he didn’t have any formal training or certification in forensic pathology, towards the end of the ‘80s he began to take on pediatric cases that were the subject of criminal investigations. In 1992, he was appointed director of the newly established Ontario Pediatric Forensic Pathology Unit (OPFPU) at Sick Kids.

His star was on the rise and Dr. Charles Smith soon became the ‘go-to guy’ in pediatric forensic pathology in Ontario. He had the cachet of working at the best children's hospital in Canada. Few other pathologists had as much experience. Most of the cases he was involved in hinged on
the manner of death – was it natural or due to some criminal act.

Over the course of the 1990s, Dr. Smith's reputation grew – but public concerns about his professional competence did as well. As early as 1991, a 12-year-old babysitter, referred to as SM, was charged with manslaughter in the death of a 16 month-old girl, Amber, in Timmins, Ontario. The babysitter said that Amber had accidentally fallen down a flight of carpet-covered stairs. No autopsy was considered necessary, and the coroner ruled the death as accidental.

Doctor Smith and some colleagues disagreed, and permission was eventually given for an exhumation. Smith carried out the autopsy, though he had little formal education or experience in forensics. He reported that Amber had died of a head injury caused by severe shaking. Two days later, the police arrested and charged SM with manslaughter. SM’s father, referred to as DM, did not believe for a moment that his 12-year-old, straight-A, Grade 6 daughter, was guilty. He knew that there had to be something wrong with the evidence as presented. He was a chemist working for a mining company and he put his research skills to work for the next two years.

He read scientific journals on neuropathology and biomechanics, and studied papers on infant head injuries and Shaken Baby Syndrome. The family remortgaged their house twice, cashed in their RRSPs and finally sold the house. The money went to paying the expenses of specialists in the field, and later for the costs of mounting a legal defence. The family had to declare bankruptcy when their money ran out. SM had a hard time over this period, she felt stigmatised (everyone in the small northern town knew the story) – she became depressed and her school grades dropped.

In all, DM found nineteen experts from around the world whose research supported his daughter, and nine of those gave evidence at the trial which took almost two years to complete. The family covered the costs of all nine – including neuropathologists, biomechanics experts and pediatricians specializing in child abuse – to fly to Timmins for the trial. In addition, written opinions from others were provided to the court. The trial was heard before Justice Patrick Dunn of the Ontario Court (Provincial Division), and the star witness was Dr. Smith.

Justice Dunn duly delivered his verdict. He found the young babysitter not guilty, finding that her explanation that Amber had fallen down the stairs was credible and accepted the defence experts' evidence that small household falls could cause serious injury or death in a child as young as Amber. In giving his verdict he said, "When first presented, the Crown's case appeared quite plausible. But after the evidence of the defence experts, it is riddled with reasonable doubts."

He emphatically rejected Dr. Smith's evidence. In a detailed and trenchant review of Smith's forensic analysis and approach, Justice Dunn concluded that he lacked objectivity, failed to investigate thoroughly all relevant facts, and neglected to keep adequate records of his work and findings. He also determined that Dr. Smith lacked familiarity with the relevant scientific literature. The issues raised by the judge regarding the quality of Dr. Smith’s evidence and his lack of experience in the field were brought to the attention of his superiors, and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO).

No meaningful action resulted and Dr. Smith’s work on high-profile cases continued unabated.

(To be continued…)

My First Game
Gordon Findlay
The day of my first rugby game for the Depot 1st XV arrived. Getting to the game against REME – the Royal Electrical & Mechanical Engineers was simple – the whole Military Police team was loaded into a couple of 3-ton Army trucks with simple bench seats lined up on opposite sides under the canvas. Sheldrake, and a lieutenant who also played for Depot XV Military Police, rode in the passenger seat of the truck, up front, while we lowly recruits bumped around in the back.

I had a decent game against REME, but they stuck me in at the back row of the scrum – while I was used to playing as an inside or outside centre, where I could use my speed. Oh well. I blasted away from the scrum at every opportunity and managed to get involved in some of the passing plays with the backs, my normal position.

It wasn’t a particularly good game for either side since the field was sopping wet, but we did win, and everyone was in a good mood. We were hoping for a massive feed and piss-up after the game – but no such luck. REME did feed us, and it was somewhat better than the usual Army grub – but really just a good Irish stew with spuds, with plum duff to follow.

On the positive side, they did allow us each a couple of pints of beer before the food – but with typical Army idiocy, the beer was handed to us as we stood around outside the Mess Hall, so we had to quaff it standing around outside. The reason given was: “Can’t allow booze in the Mess Hall, lads. Army regulations, you know. And try not to let the other lads going in see what you’ve got.”

So, we had to stand outside the Mess Hall, hiding our bottles of Tennant’s Lager as best we could from the REME recruits walking past on their way in for dinner. Sgt. Sheldrake and the Lieutenant, of course, were comfortably installed in the Sergeant’s Mess and the Officers’ Club respectively, for their drinks and meal.

However, a week or so later, I heard that my name was posted on the bulletin board for the next game for Depot Military Police against RAMC – Royal Army Medical Corps. And if you think that a bunch of doctors and front-line medics and assistants would be a pushover – quite the opposite. They had an excellent team since many of the doctors were graduates of private schools and had played inter-school and Former Pupil rugby like me. But I was delighted to be chosen again.

British Army Cap Badges
REME Royal Military Police RAMC

By this time my dear parents (I'd kept them posted on my life in the Military Police) had mailed me my own rugby boots (Elmer Cotton “Fleets” for the record: a high-end solid leather pair of rugby boot with removable cleats, which were an innovation way back then). So, I didn’t have to depend on the cheap and crappy military-issue rugby boots from the company store. And, even better, when I went to check my name on the official team sheet, I saw that I was written in as an inside centre, paired up with Lieutenant Lennan, a dark-haired Welsh officer who had been a trialist for Cardiff, a team in the Welsh League, and was one of the bright lights of our side.

We didn’t win our game against RAMC but thanks to Lieut. Lennan I scored a try – the one and only try I managed to score in Army life. The good Lieutenant had great speed and midway through the second half took a pass from the stand-off (he’s like the quarterback in football) and burst away from his RAMC opposite number. Lennan then sprinted for the try-line (the “end zone” in football) and drew the fullback to him – slipped the ball to me – and all I had to do was run a few feet and touch down the ball for our score.

Funny how you remember things like that – the unselfish move of a fellow rugger player who makes a clean break, then sets you up for a score you simply cannot miss. The Lieutenant was unquestionably the class of our side and for me, it was a pleasure to play alongside him. Had we not been Lieutenant and Corporal – a huge gulf in Army terms – I think we could have been friends.

Acronymous Logic
Hugh McGrory
I like acronyms. I find the good ones make communication more efficient and more effective. As you probably know, there are two ways that acronyms are created:

The best are when the initial letters of each significant word create a pronounceable word. An example would be NASA, for "National Aeronautics and Space Administration". If the resulting word has some relationship to the subject, so much the better... for example, a leadership program – LEAD, for Leadership Education and Development.

Some of the worst are when the inventors have the word they want as the acronym, then come up with some tortured phrase to justify it. An example is an organisation that I was once a member of LOGIC, for "Loyal Ontario Group Interested in Computers". I mean LOGIC is good, but come on... (how about "Lots of Geeks In Computing?")

I first used computers in 1968 when working for the Glenrothes New Town Corporation in Fife, Scotland. These were large mainframe computers in London and Manchester which processed data that we had coded by hand on paper forms and sent off to them in the mail – that’s snail mail, not email... We got the results by snail mail too...

For me, this early experience with computers was frustrating, but also enlightening and exciting. It changed my life, and, though I didn’t realise it immediately, resulted in a career based on the use of computers as tools for engineering and business.

We emigrated to Toronto in 1966, and by the early to mid '70s microcomputers began to appear – small desktop-sized machines which were used initially for game-playing.

IBM 7090 Mainframe Room Apple II Plus Desktop

By the late '70s, Apple computers were on the scene and the Apple II Plus was becoming a useful tool for the business world. I persuaded my boss to allow me to buy one and use it at home while I figured out what it could do for us.

Such micros were so new that many people were struggling to learn how to use them and many user groups – such as LOGIC – were formed. As was typical, LOGIC began from a small number of early adopters who had casual contact with each other and shared ideas and assistance. They were an eclectic bunch – lawyers, engineers, doctors, taxi drivers, university students, drop-outs – all with a bit of the geek in them...

As more people became interested, they decided to organise, appointed a President, a Secretary and Treasurer, then organised monthly meetings. (Founded in the early '80s, I was amazed to learn, while researching this story that it was a going concern until 2017!)

I attended quite a few of the sessions in the early '80s – the meetings usually took the format of a presentation by one of the early adopters (who were a year or so ahead of most of us), a Q&A afterwards,
Typical Computer User Group 'Back in the Day'
then a lot of informal discussions over coffee. I found the meetings to be well worth attending – they often saved me from reinventing wheels...

One of those 'early adopters' was a fellow named Smith. I never actually knew him, but I listened to a couple of good presentations by him and had one brief conversation with him afterwards.

Over the following thirty years his name would become known all across Canada – which, come to think about it, is the story I actually set out to tell – ah well, next time...

A Ski Trip Down Memory Lane
Murray Hackney

Gordon Findlay’s recent story, ‘Skiing in Scotland’, reminded me of my last ski trip up Glenshee. I do remember the rope tow which would give the present day Health and Safety Police a heart attack. The secret was the 'Hookum' a very simple thing! The tow was simply an endless rope, pulleys at top and bottom of the hill, and your hookup was a handle with a 'u' shaped metal hook, a bit like a paint roller without the roller! As you can imagine, when you dropped it over the rope, your weight jammed it, and off you went, hanging on, skis on the snow all the way up.

Easy until you tried to get it off before it was pulled round the top pulley – the technique was to release the tension a wee bit and lift, and if you got it right you were free to go, but if timed wrongly, your hookum could be retrieved from the other side of the wheel. No sweat if it was handheld, but woe betide those who chose to tie it to a rope round the waist! Chances of nipped fingers or even worse were quite high.

But that's not what caused me to stop skiing ( even before I got any good at it). Getting up the hills by car towards Glas Maol (grey-green hill), Gulabin (a Lodge and Outdoor Centre) etc. was fraught with problems in those '50/'60s days. The roads were sometimes ploughed, but not too well, so often you were faced with a slippery and steep surface.
At the most difficult parts collective action came into force, which involved a combination of pushing and bouncing on the boot to gain some traction. Worked most times, but then along came the Mini. First front wheel drive car around here and not good at climbing icy slopes. So, the answer was to REVERSE up the difficult bits with two people sitting on the bonnet to give more weight on the driven wheels.

I don't know if you have ever tried this, but believe me, when you’re facing downhill on a slippery bonnet you really have to hang on. The wipers are no help, so the front door pillar was the favourite handhold-provided the crude sliding window was open...Unfortunately the driver’s door was still open when I grabbed the pillar and the driver (who shall be nameless) slammed the door over my four fingers and took off, obviously looking the wrong way through the rear window.

Now luckily the Mini had pretty floppy window frames so, even though it was the hinge side, i.e., maximum

leverage, my fingers were not actually chopped off. No amount of banging on the windscreen could get the attention of the driver- he was determined to get to the top and the engine was near max revs in reverse. My biggest worry then was, if I fall off will I get dragged along, or will my fingers come off? Neither scenario appealed to me, so I was mightily relieved when we stopped on the brow of the hill. A doctor in another car looked at my fingers and pronounced them very bruised and swollen, but no breaks and some aspirin was prescribed from the first aid kit. Didn't help much, but my distraught driver volunteered to take me home at once.

I never went skiing again....

A Faint Memory
Hugh McGrory
When I was young, up to the age of eight or so, I had an aversion to blood. Over that period, I blacked out several times. The sight of blood – particularly my own – would cause me to pass out. This is a reaction that was probably caused by vasovagal syncope – the term for a rapid drop in blood pressure and heart rate which can trigger fainting.

Apparently, it's not an uncommon problem – it’s estimated that 20% of all children will experience at least one episode of fainting before the end of adolescence, and the problem has a natural history of spontaneous resolution or improvement. I never saw a doctor and seemed to 'grow out of it' before reaching double-digits.

When my youngest daughter, Debbie, was around 11 or 12, in the late '70s, in Canada, I got a call at work saying that she had been in an accident and had been taken to hospital. It turned out that she and a girl friend had been sharing a bike, going down an incline, Sharon pedalling, and Debbie sitting on the handlebars and resting her bare feet on the ends of the front wheel axle…

Her left foot slipped off the axle and into the spokes – of course, the bike stopped instantly, and they cartwheeled over the front wheel onto the road. Fortunately, Sharon wasn’t badly hurt, but Debbie had a nasty wound to her foot. It was about two inches by one inch and went into the bone–and a spoke almost took her little toe off. She was taken to hospital by ambulance, treated, and sent home.

Apparently, according to her GP later, she received less than adequate treatment–in the days following, the wound began to swell and became more painful. She decided to try stepping on it without her crutch and the wound split open. Her mother took her to our GP who said she should take her to hospital – it would need surgical debridement to remove dying flesh and blood clots. I again got a call at work and headed for the hospital.

Debbie likes to tell people of that experience:

-------------------
“The nurse took us – me, mum, and dad – into a small examining room. I was asked to lie on the gurney (a wheeled stretcher) and, as my parents looked on, the nurse took off the bandage. The wound looked like liver, and she proceeded to clean it as best she could in preparation for the Doctor's examination – this included renoving some blood clots with forceps.

Suddenly she said to me, ”Debbie, will you please get up”, handed me my crutches then said, “Stand over there.” She then turned to my dad and said, “Will you please lie down”.

He looked puzzled and started to question her and she interrupted and said “Please – lie down now!” So he did…

She then said, “ You are looking very pale – I don’t want you blacking out and falling.”

So, for the next few minutes I, the patient, had to stand, while my father relaxed on the gurney with a pillow under his feet…”
-------------------

Oh, the ignominy…

Afterwards they told us that Debbie would have to have one more operation, plastic surgery to cover the
damaged area. They removed a patch of skin from high on the outside of her left thigh and used this to cover the damaged area.

Actually, my memory of the above event is that I didn’t really feel faint at the time which was why I was surprised at the nurse’s reaction. She excused herself from the room, I lay there for a few minutes then got up, and felt fine.

Having said that, she was obviously an experienced professional, and may have
seen the initial signs of syncope (blood pressure drop, reducing circulation to the brain causing paleness, and possible loss of consciousness) brought on by the sight of my daughter’s wound – so maybe I was about to faint... I haven't had another occurrence in the past forty odd years, thank goodness – it's not a pleasant experience!

My mother in her old age blacked out several times – until they gave her a pacemaker. She described it as "Feeling a black wave coming over me." She called it "Having a floopie". No idea why...

 The Golden Age of Science Fiction 4 
Brian Macdonald
Arthur C Clarke and Robert Heinlein

Isaac Asimov does not stand alone at the peak of science fiction. There are three names universally
acknowledged as ‘The Big Three’ of SF. The second name I gave as a major star of SF is Arthur C Clarke. Some rank him above Asimov. Clarke was born in 1917 in England. He was a popular science writer and broadcaster as well as a prolific author of science fiction, a host of TV documentary programs and a proponent of space travel. This is an outreaching still in its infancy in 2021 but has become not only the province of governments, but also increasingly of private enterprise, attracting the enthusiasm of such entrepreneurs as Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk. The rise to real global power and extreme wealth by private companies is another theme foreseen by SF authors many years before the term ‘billionaire’ was dreamed up.

Clarke co-wrote the screenplay, based on one of his own short stories, for
the landmark 1968 Stanley Kubrick film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, which tells of a space flight taken by a pilot with the help of a computer, HAL (Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer), which turns on its pilot, Dave, refusing to let him take essential safety action because to do so would endanger him, thus creating a paradox within Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics. How Dave deals with this problem is the major plot point of the film. The film was technically clunky. You can sometimes see the fine threads manipulating a spaceship. But it was hugely influential as an early film in this genre.

2001: A Space Odyssey – The Monolith in the Opening Sequence
The complete dialogue of this pivotal event and other quotes from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey can be read here.

Arthur C Clarke was also interested in undersea exploration. You could say his gaze and his mind turned both outward to space and inward to the heart of our own planet. He not only earned SF literary awards, but being British, was knighted in 1998. Four decades earlier, Clarke had emigrated to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), where he lived till his death at age 90 in 2008, to pursue his lifelong interest in underwater exploration. While diving, he discovered an ancient temple underwater in Ceylon’s seas. His ennoblement was for ‘services to British cultural interests’ in that country. Clarke’s science factual and fiction works were numerous and prophetic. Much of his fiction work described how mankind interacted with more advanced alien civilisations. Childhood’s End of 1953, regarded as his best novel, tells of the invasion of Earth by aliens who became benign dictators. It began as a short story, that genre popular with SF writers, for it suited magazine publication, a valuable income source. As with many of the best SF tales, Childhood’s End has been adapted into TV series and film.

Clarke’s whimsical short story, The Nine Billion Names of God, relates how a Tibetan monastery engages a computer and two western computer engineers to produce all the possible nine billion names of God, which the monastery will record. It is their belief that this is the purpose of the universe, and everything will come to an end on its completion. When the task is completed, the two engineers are already on their way to catch a plane home, having left prematurely, believing that nothing will happen, and the monks will blame them and their computer. The outcome of the project will surprise – and maybe amuse or shock – many readers. We can only hope that this science fiction prediction from Clarke’s inventive brain does not prove accurate!

Clarke’s Nebula- and Hugo-winning Rendezvous with Rama tells of a group of Earth explorers that boards an alien vessel, originally thought to be an asteroid because of its immense size. They intend to unlock its technologies and take them back to earth. While they learn much, they must eventually return to their own ship and Rama leaves, with its inhabitants still unrevealed and many questions still unanswered for earth’s citizens, as for the reader. As is sometimes the way with huge-selling writers later in their careers, the elderly and wheelchair-bound Clarke lent his name to a much younger SF author of the later 20th century, Bert Gentry Lee, who co-authored three sequels to the first of the Rama series, Gentry Lee doing most of the writing. The third sequel was published in 1993. As well as a fiction writer, Gentry Lee is a scientist and space engineer, who was chief engineer for the Planetary Flight Systems Directorate at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory based in California.

Robert Anson Heinlein was the third member of ‘The Big Three’ of hard SF English-language writers.
American, born in 1907, he qualified as an aeronautics engineer officer at the US Naval Academy at Annapolis and served some years in the US navy between WW1 and WW2. He wrote under several other pseudonyms but is known for his hard SF works in his own name, both short stories and novels. He was another of the many protégés of John W Campbell at ASF, but his SF work was also published in The Saturday Evening Post, a highly successful, popular magazine with many fiction stories and
cartoons as well as political and social items, that began in 1897 as a weekly and still exists as a bi-monthly. Hugely influential (I used to read it as a young army officer as our mess subscribed to it, even in England, in the 1950s), it helped to introduce science fiction to the main-stream public. For more than fifty years, the SEP carried the work of the artist Norman Rockwell, whose covers and cartoons were highly prized.

Heinlein was noted for a rigorous attitude to scientific accuracy. When the Science Fiction Writers Grand
Master award was established in the 1970s, Heinlein was the first recipient. He has been labelled ‘The Dean of Science Fiction Writers’ for his scientific rigour and prolific output. Heinlein’s best-known novel is Stranger in a Strange Land, which explores the impact of a Mars-born earthman who comes to Earth and has a large effect on Earth’s culture. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is about a penal colony on the moon which revolts against its Earth-bound rulers. (As an adoptive Australian I can relate to this theme.) It first appeared as a magazine serial in 1965/1966 and was consolidated into the full novel form. It was recognised by the 1967 Nebula Best Novel Award. Heinlein was always interested in the effects of science on society and the likely disintegration of Earth’s society. His books reflect this. Robert Heinlein died in 1980, writing to the end.

He is truly worthy to stand with Asimov and Clarke at the pinnacle of the Golden Age of Science Fiction.

To be continued

The Mean Streets...
Hugh McGrory
In a previous story, 'My Return to the Church...', I wrote of the visit my brother Mike and I made to Hamilton, Scotland to track down the font used to baptise our dad. While we were successful in that, we didn’t achieve much success in meeting our second objective of exploring the streets where our forebears lived.

They occupied various addresses in the Old Town, over more than 50 years – streets such as Castle, Quarry, Young, Postgate and Portwell, all a stone’s throw from the Catholic Church of St Mary’s. They had lots of children and I’m guessing they probably had to move to larger houses every few years.

Sadly, most of those streets shown above (as of 1865) no longer exist, either gone completely or buildings demolished and rebuilt many years ago. Sad, though of course, inevitable that history is wiped out in this way – and if you look at the two photos below of Young St, c. 1890, (that I stumbled upon in my

Young St. Looking South from Church St. Looking North from Campbell St.

research), you may well say good riddance… Note the filthy street gutter! Strange to think that it’s possible that one or more of the people in these photos might be ancestors of ours.

While we wandered up and down the new streets trying to get our bearings, a man standing at the door of a building asked if we needed some help. We began to chat, and to tell him what we were up to.


(This was the building – we actually entered from the back.)

He said that almost all of the buildings of that era were gone, but curiously, the one where he stood, now a woodworking business, was an exception. (Checking with Google Street View it too seems to be gone now.)

He invited us in and took us past various woodworking machines up to the floor above. He said that this was the local tavern back in the day, one of the oldest buildings in the area, and no doubt some of our ancestors would have frequented the pub. He showed us a fireplace (in the photo below) and said that it was original.

We looked at it with some wonder, thinking that some of our forebears may well have sat around that fire on chilly winter nights, drinking their ale, smoking their pipes and hacking into the flames. Many of the men were coal miners, and drinking was no doubt one of their few pleasures – apart from siring children.

Our family history shows that both drinking and making babies were high on their priority list (one of our grandmothers was pregnant seventeen times, the other not so much – only nine!)

It’s humbling to catch glimpses of the hard life our ancestors lived, to imagine how they struggled to survive, and to realise that the comfortable lives we’ve lived would not have happened without their resilience...

Sergeant Sheldrake
Gordon Findlay
Upon joining the Military Police I was in 188 Squad, under the firm grip of Sergeant Sheldrake – a trim and neat career soldier who was allowed a moustache because he was 'Staff'.

Sheldrake was a tough but fair man whose job was to turn 24 young men into efficient military police, knowledgeable in all areas of military law and discipline, competent in self-defense, and capable of subduing large and aggressive men in close confrontations – should the need arise. (Later on, as we were to find out once we were posted to our active service units, “military police” and “confrontation” go hand-in-hand. . . .)

Like everyone in the British military, we did our share of square-bashing as neophyte military policemen, but after we started the training process, it was minimal. We were immersed in what we had to learn to be efficient military policemen: Army discipline, common and military law, observation training, spotting troublemakers, how to break up fights, writing out charge reports, giving evidence, and so on.

Later on, we had courses on driving and on motor vehicle maintenance, since we all had to be able to drive a wide range of vehicles from motorcycles and jeeps to ½-ton trucks and passenger cars.

But again, the Findlay good luck struck. Midway through our training schedule, Sergeant Sheldrake came into our billet one evening and said: “Hoy! Any of you lot play rugby?” Naturally I said I played the game, and when he asked me where, I was able to tell him I had played for a Scottish public (i.e. private) school.

“Right,” he said. “Draw yourself a pair of rugby boots from the depot recreation store and show up this Saturday at the practice field. Eight a.m. sharp.”

Now, Saturday was a good time, since it was the day set aside for all recruits to clean the barracks: to scour the parade square for stray leaves or stones or bits of paper; to sweep, wash, dry and polish the floors; to empty and clean the stove, wash and polish all windows, clean all the debris from around the building . . . and on and on. This was why Colchester barracks was the cleanest in all southeast England.

However, because I had a “duty practice” to go to – I was excused from all that, so I gladly checked out a pair of boots, dug out my gym shorts, and found my way over to the practice field.

Most of the players there were officers, several of them were in their late 30s and a couple in their 40s, and only a handful were really any good. It wasn’t too difficult to make a good impression. I was 19, super fit, and just a few months ago I had been playing competitive club rugby in Eastern Scotland. I can remember having a pretty good game .

Didn’t think too much about it at the time, but later in the week, as I came out of the mess hall at lunch, Sgt. Sheldrake called me over and told me I was going to be playing for the Depot 1st XV the next Saturday – a game against R.E.M.E. – the Royal Electrical & Mechanical Engineers.

He also handed me a slip which authorized me to draw an official game jersey from company stores – a nice gaudy yellow and blue jersey carrying the badge of the Military Police. I had made the team. Can’t deny it – I was totally thrilled!

My Return to the Church...
Hugh McGrory
Coming from mainly Irish Catholic stock, it’s not surprising that I was baptised, in St. Mary's, Forebank,
Dundee, or to give it its Sunday name, St. Mary's, Our Lady of Victories Catholic Church. (My personal aversion to all religions may have come from the fact that, on that first visit, the priest soaked me with water…)

Nevertheless, I did try to revisit the church, about fifteen years ago, to see and photograph the baptismal font. When I arrived, I found that the main doors were chained and padlocked. I trotted round to a door in the wall surrounding the property thinking I might find someone in the priests’ quarters, but no one came to
the door. Maybe they knew it was me...

About twenty years ago, my brother, Mike, and I got interested in genealogy. We got into it simply to find out a little more about our roots but found it so interesting (a mix of detective work and puzzle-solving) that we kept at for quite a few years – until we got back as far as we could go...

We established that our lineage is three quarters Irish – Counties Donegal (McGrory), and Offaly (Ryan), and one eighth Scottish – County of Angus, around Dundee, (Lawson). The other eighth is a mystery because of an illegitimate birth, father unknown, but is probably also Scottish.

We didn’t really get very far for a number of reasons – the burning of the Irish Records office, in Dublin in 1922 at the beginning of the Civil War didn’t help, nor did the fact that most of our forebears seem to have been very poor (one great grandmother is buried in an unmarked, communal pauper’s grave in Hamilton, near Glasgow), and some were illiterate, signing documents with an 'X'. The furthest back we got, a Scottish line, was around 1813/14…

We had fun though, spent the whole day at the Scottish Registry Office in Edinburgh several times, visited the Mormon Church in Bingham Terrace, Dundee (very helpful), and tramped round many cemeteries in Scotland and Ireland (almost uniformly unhelpful).

We did make a trip to Hamilton a few years ago. We knew that our great grandfather Michael McRory (we came across several different spellings of our surname in official records), by his late teens, had left
Ireland around 1850, and was living in Bothwell (about 10 miles from Glasgow city centre), no doubt another victim of the potato famine.

We also knew that our father, born in 1910, was christened in St Mary’s Catholic Church, Hamilton, and we thought it would be interesting to see the church and to photograph the font that our dad was baptised in almost one hundred years before.

We found the church, it was open, and several women, parishioners no doubt, were dusting and polishing. We went in and stood for a moment, in silent contemplation, at the baptismal font.

One of the ladies joined us and we explained our mission, which she seemed to find interesting until another one of the women said, “But
that’s not it! That’s the new font – it's the old one you're looking for.”

“Oh, oh,” we said, to which she responded, “Don’t worry, the old one is outside. Follow me.”

We did, and she led us out to a small garden where we found the old, traditional eight-sided font acting as a flower planter in the middle of a small flowerbed! I was rather surprised, given that baptism is one of the foundational rituals of the Catholic Church. But what do I know – perhaps the font went through a ceremony of deconsecration or some such?

In any event, we achieved our objective of seeing the font in which our dad was baptised in 1910 (and his brother Barney before him). We also explored the surrounding area, the heart of the Old Town, where the family had lived at
various addresses for over 50 years…

(to be continued…)

Stargazing in Dundee
Bill Kidd
The death of King George VI in February 1952 ensured that the introduction of television to Scotland would
be in time for the coronation of his successor in June 1953. Although this target was met, few of her subjects watched the event in their own homes. Many of the larger local employers organised Coronation Parties in their canteen and provided a darkened area where interested employees and their families could watch flickering pictures of the great event on a hired TV set. Others contented themselves with joining the crowd gathered round Largs shop in Whitehall Street to watch on the demonstration set displayed in the window.

Within a couple of years, the novelty had worn off, and TV at home had become commonplace. One effect of this was that people who had attended live entertainment and the cinema were staying at home to watch TV so the live entertainment on offers gradually petered out. How many of us remember the world-famous stars who appeared at the packed-out Caird Hall? Well, here are just a few that I can recall.

Burl Ives was a very popular singer and movie actor who made the mistake of coming to Dundee in Students’ Charity Week in April 1952. Towards the end of his performance, he was kidnapped from on-stage and hustled to the Student’s Union in Park Place where he was ransomed by giving a couple of songs to those attending that evening’s Charity Ball. It was reported that Mr Ives enjoyed the fun. As for the paying Caird Hall audience who had their entertainment cut short, decency prevents me from reporting their comments!

A few months later Danny Kaye performed at the Caird Hall, part of a UK tour to promote his latest film Hans Christian Andersen. At the time Kaye had a series of very popular films behind him, probably The Secret Life of Walter Mitty being the best known. Once again, his appearance was a sell-out.


In September Bob Hope was another full house and at a top price of 15/- why wouldn’t it be? During the interval Hope nipped along the street to a packed Greens Playhouse for a ten-minute appearance to promote Son of Paleface which was to be screened there the following week. Many of the cinemagoers that evening were clearly anticipating his appearance and considered the 2/3 cinema ticket a real bargain!

Gracie Fields, who was at one time the most popular and highest paid film star in the UK and despite a
waning of her popularity, filled the Caird Hall in November 1952. Her fall from Grace (no pun intended) was the result of her marriage to an Italian and going to live in Capri. This certainly didn’t discourage her Dundee admirers who happily paid around 7/6 for the privilege of seeing her.

Whether it was the effect of the recent introduction of TV or a decrease in popularity Frank Sinatra only attracted an audience of around 1,100, half
the Caird Hall capacity, despite the ticket prices ranging from 5/- to 15/-. As I recall it, the price of tickets for his farewell appearance in Glasgow went up to three figures!

There were many other attractions to leave home of an evening for. How about Syncopating Sandy who
Tea time for Sandy Premierland - sadly derelict in 1963

chased the world record for playing the piano non-stop. This was held in Premierland in William Street, and over the week that he took to break the record of 180 hours, over 10,000 people went to see, if not to hear, him, the adults paying 1/- per head for the privilege. Sandy completed his marathon on 4th November 1952 and returned to his hometown of Bolton praising the people of Dundee for his great reception.

Sometimes mass entertainment in Dundee was free. One such event was the hysteria that resulted in thousands of Dundonians gathering at the Coffin Mill located at the junction of Polepark and Milnbank Roads. There they anticipated the appearance of the White Lady, the ghost of a mill worker killed in an accident at the end of the 19th century. As far as I know she failed to appear but as there had been no charge for attendance the spectators left without too much grumbling!

Over the years top line performers continue to appear in Dundee but they are mainly pop groups and singers. Film stars no longer do nation-wide publicity tours but rely on TV and social media to publicise their films. Huge venues in major cities currently seem to be the places to go for stellar entertainment with tickets costing tens or even hundreds of pounds each.

I can’t help thinking that the Caird Hall in 1952 was great value as well as great fun.



Just Hangin’ Around...
Hugh McGrory
Most of us will have had the experience of being introduced to a tiny new baby, a few weeks or a month or two old, reaching out to touch its little hand with our finger and being thrilled when it was grasped and held tightly. It may have felt like you were bonding, but in fact this is simply the ‘grasp reflex’ that all healthy babies are born with. It’s known as the palmar grasp reflex – first the fingers close, then they cling, and the literature says that a baby could actually support its own weight in this way.

Up to about four months old, babies can’t reach for things – they aren’t able to control their muscles well enough. The grasp reflex is an involuntary response, the baby isn’t controlling it, but between four and six months the child will start reaching for things like rattles, your glasses, or your earrings. It’s thought that the purpose of the reflex is to fire neurons to build neural pathways that lay the foundation for voluntary movements later on.

In 1962, I was working for Perth County, and we were living in the village of Longforgan in a rented council house. Longforgan, while in Perthshire, is just five miles from Dundee.

Our first child, Gillian was a newborn – a few weeks old and we decided (OK, I decided) to experiment to see whether this grasp reflex worked as billed...

We took her out to the backyard – those were the days when most houses had a drying green with poles
strung with clothes lines for drying newly-washed clothes. I maneuvered her until her hands touched the rope, she grasped it and held on tightly, supporting her whole weight.

Then we went in for a cuppa and left her hanging – she was still there ten minutes later… (No – of course we didn’t – she hung for only about ten seconds, just to prove the hypothesis, and my hands were never more than an inch away from her bottom and her shoulders/neck area to support her head.) The fact is that, when babies tire,
they’ll suddenly let go and fall back – so you have to be very careful. See it here.

Here's another method:

Come to think of it now, that might have been a better approach to use for my experiment...

Berlin
Tom Burt
After Germany was defeated in World War 2, the country was divided into American, British, French and

Partitioning of Germany Sectoring of Berlin

Soviet zones of occupation. The city of Berlin, wholly within the Soviet zone, was also split, with the Soviets taking the eastern part of the city.

Berlin became a gateway to the west for many East Germans, and a high percentage of those were professionals. By 1961, this brain-drain had become a major problem for East Germany – the preponderance of the people who left were professionals – and by 1961 East German Chairman Ulbricht persuaded President Khrushchev that a 91-mile wall should be built around West Berlin, 27 miles of which separated the east and west zones of the city.

The Wall at the Brandenburg Gate Growing up with The Wall

With this as background, the recent anecdote from Gordon Finlay reminded me of my old school friend
David Wilkie. Dave was also an M.P. during his two years of national service, and, towards the end of his service, he, along with others, patrolled the Berlin wall for three to four months.

Such patrols were conducted in jeeps with crews of two or four, and sometimes with members of the other allied forces and West Germen border guards or police. From time to time they had encounters, usually friendly, with Russian troops and with East German Border Guards or police.

It was a great experience for Dave and he thoroughly enjoyed his time there. Sadly, he died several years ago.

In general discussion with him he once commented that, over those four months he found the Russians to be the most reliable and trustworthy to deal with. I thought this an interesting observation. Personally I don't think there is much wrong with the average Russian – as in so many other countries, it's just their leadership.

The Thornton Bullet
Hugh McGrory
When World War 2 began, and Germany had completed its successful invasion of Poland it turned its attention to France and Britain. At first there was a period known as “The Phoney War’ which lasted from September 1939 to May 1940. It’s a little-known fact that, during this period, and although officially at war, diplomatic meetings were taking place between Britain and Germany to try to avoid outright war – rather like two kids dancing round each other in the school playground, neither really hitting the other in case they got them really mad.

During this time, while the sea war was in deadly earnest, the air war was quite gentlemanly, and German pilots were under orders not to kill any British civilians – only attacking military targets. When the diplomatic efforts failed, Germany launched its major strategy – to avoid having to cross the Channel, the High Command believed that by attacking the civilian population from the air, Britain could be worn down into submission.

One aspect of this strategy was that there were many attacks on Scotland for strategic reasons, from Norway primarily, but also from Denmark and Holland. Attacks on military targets lacked well-planned strategies, but this didn’t seem to matter too much as long as the bombing and shelling terrorised the general public.

This telling photograph shows the aftermath of an attack on Peterhead in the north of Scotland, October
2nd, 1940 – a rescue worker handing over the body of a baby to a senior police officer. (Peterhead suffered more bombing raids than any other town or city in Scotland.)

By 1943 though, the tide had turned – the German’s had under-estimated the grit of the British public – and the last air attacks on Scotland occurred in April of that year. In a previous story I spoke of Dundee’s experience with the Luftwaffe (check it out here if you’re interested) and I told of a lone German aircraft strafing Dundee – this was in April 1943, and bullets showered the streets from Coldside, through the Top of Hilltown, Caldrum Street, and Victoria Road.

The path that aircraft took that day passed about quarter of a mile from Fairbairn Street, where I lived, and where, most days, we neighbourhood kids gathered to play in the street.

In October 2019, Denis Thornton known to many of you (two years behind me at school, and a fine field hockey player) wrote to me:

-------------------
“I thought you may be interested in the attached photo I took of a wee bit of genuine Dundee WW2 memorabilia that I have been holding onto for over 75 years.
It's the cannon projectile fired from a German aircraft that my father and I found on the pavement near the local Fire Station, the morning after a night raid. I don't remember the date but think it was either 1943 or 44 & I could not find any record of the strafing.

I was brought up in Kingsway Place which is just a few hundred yards away, between Fairmuir Park and the Kingsway.

It is 80mm long & 20mm calibre & was possibly fired from an MGFF or FF/M cannon. The 20mm cannon

Dornier 217 Heinkel 111 Dornier 17
was fitted to Dornier 217, Junkers 88, Heinkel 111, & Dornier 17 bombers, among others, to replace smaller calibre machine guns & cannons. (MGFF stood for machine gun wing fixed). The MGFF was itself replaced, from 1941 onwards, with MG15/20 Mauser cannons but made a comeback in 1943 on the Messerschmitt Bf110 & other night fighters.

Junkers 88 MGFF in Heinkel 111 Messerschmitt 110

Between 1943 & 45 they were fitted on Ju. 88, Do. 217, & Me.110 night fighter aircraft as Schrage Musik Guns, meaning upward firing auto cannons – this allowed them to approach allied bombers from below & fire into their undersides undetected. So the enemy aircraft that fired it's cannons over the North of Dundee could have been any one of these…”

-------------------
Denis was a great fan of our anecdote collection – sadly, he died in July, 2021.

I wish I had written this story earlier…

 The Golden Age of Science Fiction 3 
Brian Macdonald
Isaac Asimov

The most famous name in the pantheon of English-language, science-based science fiction must be that of Isaac Asimov. Asimov is the true giant of the Golden Age. Born in very poor circumstances in a Jewish
family in 1920 in Russia and surviving a grave illness as an infant, he emigrated, with his family, to America in 1923 and grew up in Brooklyn, NY.

Of superior intellect, he transcended his humble background and earned a doctorate in chemistry from Columbia University. He pursued an academic career at Boston University after his WW2 military service, achieving the position of professor of biochemistry. A prolific writer of both scientific papers and textbooks, he had turned his hand to science fiction early in his career and this became his primary work although he never stopped working as a science educator.

Asimov defined science fiction as follows, “Science fiction can be defined as that branch of literature which deals with the reaction of human beings to changes in science and technology.” Over his life, Asimov is reported to have written more than 500 books and papers.

It is difficult to decide which of Asimov’s three major themes of SF was the best-known or important. I go with the Robot series. The word ‘robot’ was not his. It was invented by a Czech writer from a Czech word. But Asimov used his scientific knowledge to write a series of novels about the development of the science of robotics. He did invent the Three Laws of Robotics. Asimov's Three Laws are designed to govern the development of robots and the whole science of robotics with the protection of humans and how humans should retain control over robots as guiding principles. They became the guiding principles of robot science fiction and retain some value although they are not without flaw in real life. The laws are, in order of priority:

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Asimov invented US Robots and Mechanical Men, a company which designed and built robots. His chief protagonist was a Dr Susan Calvin, the head robopsychologist of US Robots. (In inventing this word, Asimov was foreseeing the future development of robots to the point of their developing to a level of self-awareness and almost human thinking capacity.) Calvin appears in the novel I, Robot, and a number of short stories on this theme. Those who have not read the book but have seen a film of the same name, very loosely based on Asimov’s stories, and starring Will Smith and Bridget Moynahan, will not know that Asimov’s Calvin was not a beautiful young woman, as portrayed by Moynahan in the film but rather an older,
Bridget Moynahan, Sonny, and Will Smith
grumpier, dedicated, and desiccated scientist. The film’s plot line concerns a conflict between the Three Laws and a robot which had developed a will of its own and gone rogue.

Asimov foresaw the development of robots that re-designed and improved themselves, generation by generation, becoming more and more intelligent and self-aware, until they surpassed humans and realised they were superior to humans both physically and mentally and did not need us, nor were inferior or necessarily subservient to humankind. This is an aspect of robotics which is very much a matter of concern with the development of Artificial Intelligence today. Robots are also stronger than humans and capable of tireless, endless, repetitive movements on a production line, and this is what they were originally designed to do. They are not yet as mobile or manoeuvrable as humans, nor are they capable of intellectual leaps, but humans can abandon the process of thinking in logical steps and make such intuitive leaps. Already, prosthetics exist which have self-governed, near-human delicacy and accuracy of movement and a great range of movement, sometimes controlled by the movement of human muscles and nerve impulses and now, in theory, by the electrical impulses of mere human thought.

We have reached a time when robots now design themselves, evolving their consciousness and abilities generation by generation until they will eventually be near-human in many respects. Asimov’s 1976 Nebula and Hugo award-winning short novel, The Bicentennial Man, tells of a robot owned by a family, a robot which stayed with the family as a faithful retainer, over several generations, receiving upgrades and being treated more and more as a family member until the robot, played with sensitivity in the film by Robin Williams, decides it wants to be a man as it approaches 200 years of age. In order to be recognised as such,
Robin Williams as Andrew, the robot
by rule of world government, the robot must discard robotic immortality. The final scene shows the now bicentennial man, with his beloved, aged mistress, in an emotional climax to the film that may surprise many. Asimov wrote the story for a competition, but his tale was the only entry. No award was given but the story lives on.

We are not finished with Asimov, most prolific and spellbinding of SF writers. While continuing with academic work and authorship, he wrote his magnificent Foundation series. As a scientist, Asimov was well aware of the inevitability of entropy. Like so many SF tales, this began as a short story in 1942 but grew into a novel which posits a galactic empire and a mathematician, Hari Seldon, who compiles a mathematical theory of the decline of that empire. He went on to write several sequels and then prequels, well into the 1980s. The Foundation series is acknowledged as ‘the best all-time series’, being awarded a unique Nebula Award for this in 1966, even before the later additions.

The third famed Asimov series is a trilogy known as the Empire series. These three books are not as closely tied together as the Foundation set but all three series, Robot, Foundation and Empire have links with one


another which make it clear to the reader that they exist in a common universe grown from the brain of Asimov. Such a breadth of concept by an author is not unique but it is amazing. Among concepts that Asimov (and others) dreamed up were the uncannily accurate prediction of the rapidly evolving development of robotics, portable devices you could carry in your pocket which would calculate, communicate, find information from a variety of sources and store data without connecting cables, face to face, instantaneous, long-distance communication devices and more. To me and to many, he is the giant of science fiction. To Tim Berners Lee (acknowledged as the inventor of the World Wide Web), he may have been an inspiration. Isaac Asimov died in 1992 in the Brooklyn in which he grew up.

To be continued

PS
One can't help but wonder what Asimov would think of the current state of the science of robotics.

When it Comes to the Crunch...
Hugh McGrory
Recently my stories seem to have been about surveying or my body parts. This story features both (aren’t you lucky…?)

In the fifties and sixties, Britain was building many dams and generating stations for producing hydroelectric energy. While some of these were in England and Wales, most, by far, were in Scotland (for obvious reasons of geology).

This meant that many large road-transport vehicle trips would need to be made on Scottish roads to deliver

Cruachan Dam – about 40 miles from Killin Typical Hydroelectric Turbines

the large turbines and other equipment needed at the various sites. Many of these Highland roads were not fit for purpose, too narrow, too twisty, built on peaty substrate and unable to take the heavy loads.

Many of the roads were in Perth County, and in the early ‘60s I was working for the County as Resident Engineer for a number of road/bridge-improvement projects in Perthshire, on roads such as the A84 and A85. I was living in the village of Killin and had an office in the village (total staff was five).

One day I was out with my rodman doing some surveying near Ledcharrie farm about halfway between Killin and Crianlarich. He and I were wading through knee-high heather (very tiring after a short time), and I found that I couldn’t see over a slight rise in front of us. Fortunately (or so I thought in the moment) there was a large boulder sticking up out of the vegetation about four or five feet high and about six feet across (presumably a remnant of the last Ice Age). I clambered up on top and was able to establish our next line of sight.

I agilely jumped down into the heather – and landed on my face with a searing pain in my ankle. My helper picked me up and I realised that I was done for the day – I couldn’t put any weight on my foot and thought I might have broken my ankle. The rodman said that the nearest emergency department was at Stirling Royal Infirmary, about forty miles away, so he took my car keys, helped get me to my car, loaded me in, and then drove me to Stirling.

I was x-rayed, then saw the doctor on duty. He said that there were no broken bones,but that I had torn
ligaments in my ankle. He then said that he’d never seen such an injury before!

“You’ve never seen a torn ankle ligament before,” I asked?

"Let me explain,” he said. “When someone turns an ankle, they usually go over to the outside and damage the ligament, it's known as an inversion – the opposite is an eversion, on the inside of the ankle which is much less common. You managed to do both at the same time – most unusual.”

He said he didn't think surgery would be needed and told me how to treat it – the well-known RICE: Rest, Ice, Compression (taping, bracing, or wrapping with an elastic bandage), and Elevation.

He also said that I should use crutches or a cane at first but try to walk on it as soon as possible.)

I took a day off work, then was back (in the office only) the next day. My biggest regret was that it put a hole in my field hockey season – it didn’t keep me out for very long – it took quite a few weeks, but I was surprised and pleased at how quickly I recovered.

For the first few days, one of our neighbours lent me a crutch, but they only had one, which I found a bit awkward, so I had the idea to use my field hockey stick as a cane (it was almost the right length – about an inch too long) and that worked quite well.

My daughter, Gill, was about three at the time, and she was heard explaining to one of her friends: “My daddy hurt himself and he can’t walk right. He has to use a
nockey stick,
and
a crunch."


I Join the Military Police
Gordon Findlay
On being 'called up' for army service I was told to report to begin traning as an MP at Colchester Barracks, which, at that time, was Headquarters Depot for the Royal Military Police in Great Britain. Most of the
other trainees were fairly tall and well built, all with at least a high school education. A few were the sons of policemen and wanted to do their National Service as military police officers.

Colchester itself is a fairly small East coast town, famous for its oysters, and the barracks themselves were neat and comfortable. They were also incredibly clean: as if they had been freshly washed and swept, with every tiny scrap of paper or leaf tidied away.

Which, in fact, was the case, and the recruits were the ones who made all this possible, scrubbing and polishing every square inch of the place until it gleamed like a new penny.

The training of a Military Police officer is long by conventional Army standards: 16 weeks. Normal training for infantry soldiers is 8 to 10 weeks, and, as befits an establishment dedicated to turning out young advocates of military law, discipline was strict and rigorously maintained.

Typical MP of the 1950s.

If at any time during the day, an MP recruit had to cross the parade square, he did it “at the double. That meant, even if you were simply crossing one small segment of the main square on your way to the Mess
Hall, you went into full parade style . . . arms pumping up to mid-chest height, spine straight, and marching at double-time. If you were caught trying to sneak across without going full bore (and there were many vigilant eyes watching that damn square) it was an immediate charge, a screaming bollocking from a staff sergeant, and a minimum of 7 days on kitchen or toilet-cleaning duty.

At the start of our training process, we were thoroughly indoctrinated into the impressive tradition of the Military Police. We were reminded of our “critical” and “vital” role during active combat, when redcaps had to direct the chaotic flow of trucks, jeeps, armoured personnel carriers, troops, and tanks pouring off beaches and into battle. . . as shells and bullets flew everywhere.

We were reminded of one famous Military Policeman during WW2, in Normandy who took over a crucial intersection which controlled all the motorized columns trying to escape the landing beaches during the Allied landings in France. The position was terribly exposed. There was no cover, and it was both targeted and well-bracketed by the Germans, but this MP sergeant stood and directed traffic while shells rained down and exploded nearby. German snipers, firing from a church steeple several hundred yards away shot steadily and tried to take him out. He was wounded first in the leg, then in the arm and shoulder, but stood at that crossroad for three and a half hours, bleeding, but continuing to direct the flow of vehicles and troops...

It was only when he finally collapsed from loss of blood that he relinquished his post. At the field hospital, doctors extracted five bullets and several pieces of shrapnel from him. He survived and won a Military Medal.

An Earie Story 2
Hugh McGrory
I did warn you that you hadn’t heard the last from my right ear…

Some years after my cyst was removed, I began to lose hearing in that ear. I was pretty sure that it was just earwax, went to the doc. and he said, “No problem”, and proceeded to irrigate my earhole – the standard ‘skoosh pressurised water in the ear’ job. The water did clear most of the wax (before descending onto my collar and shoulder – very uncomfortable going home afterwards).

However, in the next day or two I realised something was wrong – my ear seemed ‘squelchy’, as if it were
wet (which it wasn’t). Back to the doc. who says, “You’ve got a punctured eardrum, sorry about that, but it happens sometimes – it should heal fine in the next week or so.” Which it did, with no seeming ill effects.

A couple of years later I go through the exact same scenario – deaf, skooshing, squelching, puncture, heals okay… The doc says that the operation I had may have narrowed the earhole somewhat, contrbuting to the recurring build up.

My doctor retires, and I get a new GP, my ear clogs up again, my new guy listens to my tale of woe and says he’ll be careful, and I’ll be damned if I don’t go through the exact same rigmarole again (I hear you – you’re right – I do seem to be a slow learner!)

So when, a year or two down the road (and doctor number three -
number two having given up his practice to concentrate on surgery) my ear fills up again, the new guy
suggests that, instead of the water torture he’ll try using a curette (a surgical instrument designed for scraping biological tissue). I find this an unpleasant procedure, a bit painful, and it created a peculiar feeling in my throat which made me want to cough. He assured me that he’s nowhere near the eardrum as he poked around, and he did get a fair amount of wax out.

Another couple of years pass by, and I tell him I want to see a specialist for my next wax job. He agrees and sets up the appointment. I go see the new guy, tell him the story, he sits me down, and uses a long thin tube attached to a vacuum cleaner to perform a ‘micro-suction ear cleaning’ procedure on both ears, then sends me on my way. I was in there about seven minutes. Perfect…! For the next ten years or so I had this done very successfully
every few years by various practitioners.

Lately though, with Covid screwing things up, I’ve been putting a few drops of vegetable oil in my earhole every few weeks (the stuff my wife uses for cooking), and occasionally a few drops of hydrogen peroxide. (The medical term for earwax is cerumen, and hydrogen peroxide is, apparently, a cerumenolytic, which means that it can soften, break down, and dissolve earwax. When you put it in you can hear a gentle crackling or bubbling for a few minutes while it does its work.)

This regimen seems to soften the wax enough to allow the natural cleansing process of the ear to function – I haven’t had a problem so far. Actually, most of the ear guys I’ve seen over the years told me to do this, but I never got around to it…

We did establish earlier that I’m a slow learner, didn’t we…?

PS
For those interested, I found these videos showing the three methods: water, curette, and suction.

Lost Occupations
Bill Kidd
When we were children, or even adolescents, people who earned their living as Computer Programmers, Astronauts or Television Repair Engineers were thin on the ground! What we had, among others, were now long-gone occupations, such as Coalmen, Fishwives and Tram Conductors. I cannot help feeling that with
the disappearance of many of these occupations we have lost some of the people that added colour to our lives at a time that it was often needed.

I remember the fishwives dressed in their traditional aprons and striped dresses carrying a basket-woven creel in front of them and sometimes another at their back. I believe that you could tell by the pattern of their dress where they came from. I know from the Smokies that we had for our tea that ‘our’ fishwife came from Arbroath and that Smokies were unavailable from the Pitenweem fishwife who called at our grandmother. These were strong, hard-working women who often did not get the recognition they deserved for the service they provided. Now we have an occasional fish van with a loud horn that calls when it feels like it.

How often have we been stuck behind a bus while passengers buy their tickets from the driver? When this
happens to me my thoughts turn to that now extinct species, the Tram or Bus Conductor. From my earliest days I have a clear memory of being on the tramcar and of a wee man festooned with a big-ticket printing machine and a money bag. He (and it was a ‘he’ in those days) always seemed cheerful as he issued tickets to the passengers. As I grew older, I realised that only two things really upset him. The first was when someone offered to pay for a penny ha’penny ticket with a half crown eliciting the plea “D'ye no hae nothing smaller?” The second cardinal sin was to argue that there was still room upstairs when the conductor had already said that there wasn’t!

Some tram conductors used to show off to the school kids by jumping from the last step of the tram stairs, grabbing the pole that split the entry platform and swinging round it!

As WW2 progressed only the older tram and bus conductors remained, and their younger colleagues were replaced by female ‘Clippies’. Anyone who considered that the Clippies were a soft touch were quickly disabused of this as they found themselves watching the receding tram that they had so recently been aboard. We now have driver/conductors who are all too familiar with giving a small amount of change from a ten-pound note. Times have certainly changed.

Another almost extinct species is the Coalman. He had a very important function in a city that teemed with

tenements. Inside most tenement flats was a coal bunker. This was often placed at a window in such a way as to provide a not very comfortable window seat. The bunker was basically a box with a hinged lid that contained around 2 hundredweights (2 cwt for our younger readers). The remarkable thing about the bunker in the kitchen of a top floor flat was that it ever got filled at all! Can you imagine the effort needed to carry a Half-Mett (¾ cwt or 84 lbs) sack of coal up three flights of stairs? Well, this was how a coal man earned his daily bread.

First of all, he had to bag the coal then physically load his vehicle, whether motorised or horse drawn, then deliver it to his customers. Apart from a face blackened by coal dust the coal man could be recognised by the heavily studded back protector that he wore. These were strong men who not only delivered the coal but stood up to all the housewifely complaints about there being stones or too much dross in the delivery. The few coal merchants that I have seen around recently have lorries and little mechanical aids to help them in their daily toil. As far as I know they no longer deliver to top floor flats in tenements thanks to gas central heating!

Now we come to a truly extinct species, the man who emptied the money from the gas meter. When I was very small, I can recall that there was a blue mug that held pennies for the gas meter. Our house depended
on gas for lighting as well as cooking so if we ran out of pennies it was a major problem necessitating going round neighbours seeking change for a sixpence. During WW2 inflation meant that our gas meter developed an insatiable appetite for pennies, and this required frequent visits from the meter man to empty the meter. I was always pleased to see him because there were always a few more pennies in the meter than that needed to cover our gas bill. This greatly pleased my mother to the extent that I was given one or two of the surplus pennies. On the face of it emptying gas meters was not a physically taxing job but I suspect that spending a day carrying a canvas bag full of pennies would be rather tiring. Today those of us who use prepayment meters use prepaid cards that don’t need to be emptied. Now, measured in pounds, the meter
is just as voracious by means of electronic technology and I no longer have the pleasure of the little bonus that I got when the meter man arrived.

My favourite lost occupation is perhaps my favourite. Prevalent before WW2 then making a re-appearance from 1946 onwards was the Onion Johnnie. Dressed exactly as anyone who read comic books expected a

Frenchman to appear, beret, white collarless shirt horizontally striped with blue. Pushing his bike, festooned with strings of onions he was an exotic addition to the Dundee street scene. In my childish mind I believed that Johnnie had got up in France one morning, covered his bike with as many onions as it would carry, kissed his wife goodbye, and cycled of to a port with a ship that would take him to Dundee. It was only many years later that I realised that the economics of onion selling meant that Johnnie and his Breton farming mates had rented an empty barn and filled it with strings of onions that they had grown. Every morning during the season, with replenished bikes, our intrepid onion magnates set off to cover yet another part of their territory only returning to their barn, or perhaps a supply van, to replenish their stocks. I never did learn the secrets of their operation or where they spent their off-duty time, but I did learn to like the French and their onion soup!
An Earie Story
Hugh McGrory
Regular readers will know that my eyes are not my best feature – neither are my ears – although that’s unfair to my left ear which has always been fit for purpose. My right ear's the problem…

When I was 10 or so, I got what I thought was a pimple in my right ear, not very far in, just at the beginning of the ear canal or, as you probably refer to it, the external auditory meatus (mee-ate-us).

It got bigger and hurt more, and my mother decided we had to go see our doctor. At that time our family practice was Nelson, Simpson, and Langlands, in Garland Place, across the road from DRI (Dundee Royal Ifirmary). The two junior partners were OK, but I always thought Dr. Nelson was a crabbit auld bugger – and, of course, our appointment was with Nelson.

He had me sit with my head turned to the window and told me he wanted to examine it – he didn’t mention that he had picked up a scalpel as I was getting into position… He held my head tightly then I felt this searing pain in my ear as he sliced the lump open and then proceeded to squeeze the pus out. Meanwhile I was seeing stars and blacking out. He gave me a couple of minutes to recover then sent us on our way.

A year or two later it returned, and I was treated with an antibiotic which dealt with the problem.

Fast forward a few years and I’m working in London, England, when I have a recurrence. I go to see a doctor and he says that it’s an infected sebaceous cyst (Like the photo, though mine was a bit smaller) and
the long term solution is to remove it surgically. I get word that I have an appointment to have the operation in about three weeks time. It would be done under a local anaesthetic.

At the appointed hour on a Saturday, morning I turn up at the hospital and get ushered right into a small operating theatre. Nobody's around, so I sit on the operating table and wait for the surgeon. She duly appears and confirms why I’m there.

“I’ll take a look she says…” and does. Then she asks, “Is this the right ear?’ I confirm that it is.

“Is it painful?

“No,” I say, “hasn’t been for the past week or so.”

“Strange – I can’t see any sign of it. You haven’t taken any antibiotics recently, have you?”

And I say, “As a matter of fact I had a bad throat recently and my GP put me on a course for it.”

“Ah, that might account for it.”

She then explained that an infected cyst is a collection of pus surrounded by a lining which creates a little bag, and when she operates it’s important that she get the whole thing out – if any of the lining is left the cyst will most likely recur. Then she uttered these wonderful words:

“ I really can’t see anything, and there’s a limit to the poking around I can do under a local anesthetic, so I think you should go home – not have the operation today.”

“Fine by me,” I said, jumping off the table and scarpering. Sometimes you win one…

The cyst returned, and about three years later I was in DRI having the operation done under a general anesthetic. (Talk about going round in circles, the operating theatre was 100 yards from the GP’s surgery where Nelson used his scalpel on me some fifteen years before.)

To be continued…

The Golden Age of Science Fiction 2
Brian Macdonald
Orwell, John W Campbell, and Astounding Science Fiction

Eric Arthur Blair wrote socially-motivated novels under the pen-name of George Orwell. A man with a varied and colourful albeit too short life, he had been a policeman in Burma and fought as a volunteer
on the socialist side in the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s, as many committed British socialists did. Always motivated by social inequality, his novel Animal Farm was published in 1945, an allegory of revolution and dictatorship. His dictum from that book, that “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” has become part of our lexicon and may, to some, have the ring of something that might be thought by the ruler of a present-day totalitarian state.

It was in 1949 that Orwell’s best-known work, 1984, hit the bookshops. This is genuine hard science fiction, depicting, as it does, a dystopian, future, totalitarian state where the English language is twisted into ‘Newspeak’, to mean what the rulers say it means, when ordinary people exist in servitude in a constantly-monitored and controlled life under the heel of secret police, when a spontaneous romance is illegal, when food is rationed and of poor quality, when the huge TV set strategically hung on the wall can see and hear what is happening in your home as well as spout out endless propaganda and when everyone must be careful to speak and think only positively about the state. Its ruler is the allegedly benevolent ‘Big Brother’.

Orwell’s Room 101 in the Ministry of Love is to be feared, a chamber where terrifying inquisitions take place, reminiscent of the real-world reports of events that took place at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and of tales of waterboarding as an interrogation technique. Establishments exist in Orwell’s world like the American gaol for unconvicted Islamic prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. If any of these aspects of a grim, harsh existence sounds familiar in 2021, it confirms Orwell’s gift of accurate prophecy. Sadly, Eric Blair died of tuberculosis in 1950 and we were denied further gems from his pen.

John Wyndham was a British science fiction writer of the fantasy mode. Born earlier than most of the great names and with no academic background, his best-known work, by no means his first, is his 1951 The Day of the Triffids,


which features a six-foot-tall plant that can move about the countryside, breeds in great numbers and blinds and kills people with a whip-like extrusion. The Midwich Cuckoos are a group of identical and sinister children with special powers, born in an English village to unsuspecting and innocent women after a meteor shower. The Kraken Wakes is about monsters from outer space that arrive and land in deep seas. The title word comes from Scandinavian mythology. Wyndham’s catalogue of mostly science fiction short stories and novels is extensive. Another of his best-known, full-length books is The Chrysalids of 1955 which treats on eugenics and a land where mental or physical difference from the norm is dangerous, frowned on and stamped out. There may have been inspiration for this book from the appalling Third Reich of not many years earlier.

The Quatermass Experiment was not a book but ran to a number of sequels and re-makes as a British TV series, the most recent being in 2005. The first series caused a sensation on British TV, as a new type of
drama, when it played in 1953, the year of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation and the year Colonel Hunt’s expedition sent Edmund Hillary and Tensing Norgay to the summit of Everest, the first climbers to achieve this feat. Quatermass was a scientist who sent a team into space. On their return, two of the crew were missing and one who returned morphed slowly into an alien which had taken his body over.

I recall well, as a 15-year-old, watching agog the final episode on the TV we had acquired just before the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, as the professor desperately tried to communicate with what was left of the original space crew member’s sentience within the alien form. Wonderful fantasy science fiction! The screenwriter was the Englishman Nigel Kneale, a product of the same era, born in 1922 but not well known to SF readers as his career was mostly in screenwriting, not published work.

John W (Wood) Campbell was an early 20th century writer of SF short stories with a growing reputation and, in 1937, aged only 27, became that editor of ASF who was later hounded by ‘the Feds’, an editor who fostered the careers of many great science fiction authors of his generation. Founded in 1930 as Astounding Stories of Super-Science, the name evolved to become Astounding Science Fiction, changed again, in 1960 by Campbell, to Analog Science Fiction & Fact, to get rid of the word ‘Astounding’. His reign was long and successful. Campbell died at a young 61 years in 1971 after 33 years in the editor’s green eyeshade.

ASF was, during the golden era, the science fiction magazine of choice, publishing most of the great SF writers first, but over time other journals entered the field and its popularity waned. The edition of July 1939, is considered to mark the beginning of the Golden Age of SF. This issue marked the first stories from Isaac Asimov and A E van Vogt, another who went on to be a notable SF author.

The editor who followed Campbell, Ben Bova, a humanities-educated, prolific author throughout his life,

John W Campbell Astounding Science Fiction July, 1939 Ben Bova
had a more open view of acceptable content than the strait-laced Campbell, publishing material Campbell had rejected as too risqué, and had a period of award-winning success, taking the Hugo Award for Best Professional Editor six times. (The Hugo Editor’s Award is for editors of magazines, novels, anthologies, or of other science fiction or fantasy works published or translated into English during the year.) The magazine is still published but is no longer the influential organ it once was.

Many of the stars of the scientifically-oriented SF literature of the golden age had a science education and background. Inevitably their authorship started as their moonlight job but later took over their lives. Some managed to balance both streams successfully – John W Campbell, had a physics degree and had also studied at MIT. (The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is one of the most prestigious scientific research colleges in the world.) Put simplistically, hard SF is based on current science projected into the future with outcomes that could and might happen. In many cases the – in their time thought ridiculous – predicted future events have not only come to pass in the decades since but have been surpassed, eclipsing the imaginations of these great writers. It is this science-based branch of SF that has been my preference over fantasy and it is my next topic.

To be continued

Sibbald Point
Hugh McGrory
Given my background as a civil engineer, several of my stories in this collection have dealt with surveying – basically, sighting on targets and taking various readings. I’m reminded of an occasion when I put those skills to personal use – in an elementary way…

When we came to Toronto in 1966, we found that in summer, those with cottages would take off from the city every chance they could. Those who couldn’t afford a cottage still had many parks they could visit national, provincial, and local, and many did so at weekends and holidays. So, ‘When in Rome’…

One particular week we decided that we would takes the kids to Sibbald Point Provincial Park. This park is

only about twenty miles north of us as the crow flies (Toronto City Centre is about twenty five miles south).

On the shore of Lake Simcoe, you can see from the plan that it has a lot to offer – swimming, sunbathing, boating, fishing, hiking, camping…


At work, the previous week, I happened to be on a project with one of the partners of our town planning group and mentioned our plans for the weekend. He said that he had a small Zodiac inflatable boat (very like
the one in the photograph) if we’d like to borrow it. So, we did...

Bright and early on the Saturday morning we picked up the (deflated) boat with the promise to bring it back in the evening, in one piece. The photograph is pretty much how it looked, once inflated. Not big, but it could handle two adults and two kids, and it had a small outboard motor which allowed for trolling around and saved having to row everywhere.

When we got there the kids swam in the roped-off, lifeguarded area – I inflated the boat and got it organised.



Then I took the life-jacketed kids for a ride – their mother's opinion of the boat’s seaworthiness (or perhaps my seaworthiness…) was such that she stayed ashore with the food and fixins.

We had to skirt the swimming area – no boats allowed, of course – and basically followed the shoreline. We got closer to the shore at one point (the kids wanted to try fishing) and I switched off the motor and tilted it out of the water in case we got too shallow and damaged the prop.

This was achieved by pulling out a split pin, tilting the motor and replacing the pin. Simple process, but obviously too complicated for me, since I managed to drop the pin. I can’t remember exactly what it looked like, but it was probably a stainless steel, hairpin cotter like the drawing. I’m immediately thinking “I’ll never find it – I’ll have to tell my boss’s boss that I lost the pin, like an idiot.” Not difficult for me to replace of course, but still...”

We weren’t in deep water (seriously – it was about three feet) and I slipped over the side doing my best to keep the boat in the same place and ducked under the water to see if I could spot the pin. The bottom was
sandy with small rocks here and there and water plants swaying to and fro. I couldn’t see very well (fortunately we had underwater goggles – unfortunately, they were back with the food).

So, Plan B… I scanned the shoreline for prominent markers – trees, bushes, buildings, boulders etc. When I found one near the shore (Point A) I lined it up with another in the distance (B). I then turned through about 120 degrees and looking back along the beach found another two, (C) and (D). Once I was sure I had both lines-of-sight memorised, we set out back to our base, my daughter ran up the beach and got the goggles and we set out back to the scene of the crime.

When we got close, I got out of the boat again and lined up (A) and (B), I then pulled the boat along that line keeping them lined up and watched (C) and (D) until they were coincident. I then put on the goggles to start the arduous task of finding this little pin – good luck with that, eh!

I ducked my head in the water – and the pin was about two feet away… I picked it up, stuck it back in position and told the kids to get ready to fish.

I know, a little common sense and a whole lot of luck – but sometimes the universe lets you win one…

Chinese Puzzle
Michael Marks
You can wait for an hour for a bus and then two come at once, or so it is said. Here is my next bus!

Once again, it is not quite a reminiscence or at least only partly so, but it shows something about the Morgan which it seems is lacking these days.

In 1984 I was working in Beijing and got talking to a British colleague who was also working there. The

Street scenes – Beijing 1984.
population of China was at that time about one billion. Almost all foreigners had to work out of Beijing and the total number of British was about a hundred, half of this number included diplomats and their families, so one could say without exaggerating that we few non-diplomats were somewhat of a rarity.

Imagine our surprise when my colleague and I realized that we had both been at the Morgan at the same time, although not in the same class.

Here is the amazing bit though. In talking about this coincidence with another of we band of the few it transpired that there was another British resident in Beijing who had also been at the Morgan at the same time!

Three of us out of a hundred and fifty out of a billion. I leave the statisticians to work out the odds

Monarch of all I Survey
Hugh McGrory
When I sat down to write this little story my mind digressed for a moment: I taught computer courses at Ryerson Polytechnic Institute (later Ryerson University) in Toronto for some twenty-odd years – not my day job, but in the evenings (or weekends). Sometimes, when a student wasn’t doing well, I would talk to him/her to see what the problem was. I would ask, for example, if they had been attending the computer lab sessions to work through the set exercises. I found it amusing that sometimes they would say, “No sir, I don’t need to – I’m repeating this course.” My answer would, of course, be some version of: “but you failed... Duh!”

Jumping back in time to the mid ‘50s, I was a civil engineering undergrad at Queen’s College, St. Andrews University. One of our required courses was Surveying, and we had to attend a week of field work – literally, since it took place in what was then Menzieshill Farm (pr. Meeng'iss hill not Men'zays hill) but is now a huge housing area.
We were to work in teams of three, and, by the end of the week, we each had to hand in a large plan of that part of the farm, drawn to scale, and accurately showing the access road, fences, gates, barns etc.)

On this particular day one team was tasked with climbing the small hill on the farm and setting up a theodolite on top of a trig point to take various angular measurements. (I described the theodolite in a previous story – if you need a refresher, see it here. The instructor told them to head up the ridge to the location and he would be right behind to get them started.

One of them said ”No need to rush, Sir; I know what to do. I’m repeating this course...” (Oh, oh...) and he became the leader of the group.

At this point I need to explain ‘trig point’. Around 1747, just after the Bonnie Prince Charlie failed rebellion, the English government decided that they needed better military maps of Scotland and its coastline – in case the Scots decided to rebel again. This was the beginning of the Ordnance Survey agency, which produced some excellent maps of Scotland (for that time). Some forty years later fears of the French Revolution spreading across the channel led to work to create better maps of the southern coastline.

Based on these efforts, various maps were produced in rather piecemeal fashion until in the ‘30s, a major new effort to triangulate the British Isles was undertaken. It began by setting out a baseline in the south of England (it actually runs across part of what is now Heathrow Airport) – measured with extreme accuracy and five miles long. They then set up a target on a nearby hill and measured the two angles from each end of the line to the third point. Each of the three corners of the triangle are triangulation points or trig points.

By using each of the sides of the first triangle, three new triangles were set up to three new targets or trig points, and by repeating this process, the UK was eventually (by the mid ‘60s) covered by a network of trig points (some 6,500) and these are the basis from which all of the features shown on the famous Ordnance Survey maps were located.

Trig points or trig pillars were constructed at each corner of every triangle – see below:

Trig Pillar Trig Point on Dundee Law Theodolite Mount on Top

The plate shown in the rightmost photograph is a three-point kinematic mount (sometimes referred to as a spider) and it's used as in this old photograph below – as you can see, the pillar acts as the tripod, and the theodolite can be set so that it is exactly over the centre of the trig point.


And so, back to our story:

Some time after the three-man team had headed off to the Menzies Hill Trig Point the Instructor set off to see how they were getting on under the leadership of the student who had spoken up earlier.

When he got there, he was astonished at what he found... I suspect his reaction was something like "Good God! The Three Stooges." While they had understood that the theodolite had to be centered above the trig point centre, they had made one mistake:

Remember that the top of the trig pillar is four feet above the ground and the top is roughly a one foot square. They had the theodolite and attached tripod perched on this tiny square and the fearless leader was standing on it as well – his two hapless mates were trying to hold him in place – one holding his feet in position the other supporting his butt

(For obvious reasons I couldn’t find a photograph to do this situation justice, so I’ve tried to draw it – as you will also see, drawing is not one of my skills…) See it here. To get a another impresssion of this scene, add another person on the ground, and a theodolite and tripod on top of the pillar in this photo.

'The team leader later said "You make one little mistake, and you never live it down – all I did was forget to take the theodolite off the tripod..."

"Duh..."

Trig points are now obsolete. Some have been removed (but some 5,500 still exist). The surveying process I was taught is now history, replaced by the use of GPS and GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) signals via receiver and antenna. A quote from the Ordnance Survey: "Today the receivers that make up the OS Network are coordinated to an accuracy of just 3 mm over the entire length of Great Britain. (What this means is that a modern surveyor with this equipment can stand on any spot in Britain and know their location to an accuracy of 3mm...)

The Menzieshill pillar is gone – its former location is shown by the red 'X' in the photo:



D.C. Thomson
Gordon Findlay
When I was growing up, Dundee was known as the city of three “J.s” – jute, jam, and journalism. The city was the centre of the U.K.’s jute trade: processing the raw jute from India into the sacking, heavy duty covers and the backing for linoleum. Keiller’s, the well-known marmalade and jam maker was headquartered in Dundee, sent its products all over the world, and was a major employer.

And the city was the home of D.C. Thomson, an independent printer and publisher of several newspapers both daily and weekly, plus an impressive array of boys’ papers, family-oriented weekly papers and the renowned Scots magazine, a glossy monthly publication all about Scottish affairs, personalities, and scenery.

I just knew that was where I was going to work since I had decided pretty early on that my future lay in the printed word. I had already decided that I was going to do my National Service in the armed forces first, rather than tackle university.

With this in mind, but knowing that I had a few months after graduating from Morgan Academy before I was going to be called up, I applied at D.C. Thomson’s, was interviewed, and hired on the spot, with the understanding that as soon as my military service was over I would return to D.C. Thomson’s and continue my journalism career with them. That suited me just fine, so I duly showed up at Meadowside (head office of D.C. Thomson’s in Dundee).

I really didn’t know what to expect for my foray into the world of journalism, but I certainly wasn’t expecting to be told to report to the second floor, to Ralph Duncan, the editor of the “Adventure” – a boys’ paper, one of four boys’ papers D.C. Thomson published weekly (The Adventure, the Wizard, the Hotspur and the Rover), and which were gobbled up by thousands of youngsters across Great Britain. But – BOYS’ Papers!

I was stunned, and upset, and it probably showed when I walked into the offices of “The Adventure” and a warm welcome from editor Ralph Duncan – a hearty, thick-set man of 40-ish with a cheerful mien and an energetic nature.

I think Ralph realized that I had had my sights set a bit higher than starting as a lowly sub-editor on a boys’ magazine, so he took me aside and gently pointed out that I was a total unknown quantity at this point, and that it was up to me to prove that I could edit copy quickly and accurately – even if it was the derring-do copy destined to be read by youngsters of 12, 14 or 15. And, of course, I was due to leave for my Army service in a few short months, so this would be useful experience for me to learn how things were within the walls of D.C. Thomson Ltd.

Ralph introduced me to his second-in-command: a tall, lanky young man called Wally Mann. In turn, Wally handed me a small stack of recent submissions to “The Adventure.” These were freelance contributions from unknown writers hoping to break into the world of boys’ magazine journalism.

Once I sat down and opened up the first manuscript, I found myself immersed in a world of brave Indian-fighters, clever teenage detectives, amazing young soccer players and incredibly brave under-age soldiers fighting in foreign lands for Her Majesty. Some of the writing was appallingly bad, every sentence riddled with dramatic adjectives and a forest of exclamation ! marks, and I quietly groaned to myself as I waded through it.

Anyway, four months rolled by, my “Notice To Report” papers arrived from the War Office in the mail, and I was instructed to show up at Catterick in northern England in early October to begin my basic training in the British Army, bringing with me: no more than one suitcase, shaving kit, any necessary medications, personal identification, and no more than 10 pounds in money (in today’s
money, around $50).

I said my goodbyes to Ralph Duncan and Wally Mann and the other friends I had made at D.C.’s and walked out of the Meadowside offices to start another episode in my young life – as a British soldier.

The Eyes Have It...
Hugh McGrory
These Eyes 3 – third and last part of my sorry tale...

Fuchs Dystrophy

This is an inherited genetic disease, and though a person is born with the condition, it isn’t detectable or
symptomatic until middle age or later. (My Aunt Roseanne Adamson (née McGrory) lived to 93, spending her last few years in a nursing home in Cupar, Fife. I remember her as a little stout woman with very thick glasses, and I know that she went blind in her old age. I wonder now if she also had the Fuch's gene mutation...). To understand it you need to know a little about the structure of the eye...

If you were to take a finger and touch your eyeball in the middle, you’d be touching the cornea. The white of the eye around the cornea is called the sclera which, in fact, encapsulates the whole eye – the cornea is see-through and is a window which permits rays of light to enter the eye, pass through the pupil and the lens to be focused on the retina at the back of the eye, allowing us to see.

The cornea consists of several layers, the innermost of which is the endothelium. This consists of a single layer of cells which allow nutrients to flow into the cornea and water to flow out. Fuch’s causes these cell pumps to begin to die. As they do, the ones that remain spread out across the endothelium to compensate. Gradually the cells that are left are not able to fulfil their purpose, the cornea can become cloudy because of excess water, ulcers may also form, and the end result can be blindness.

In the early stages treatment is minimal and consists of drops of a sodium chloride solution several times each day (salt, being hydrophilic, helps to draw water from the cornea). This is temporary, and at a certain point surgery will be the only remedy:

There are two approaches:

Corneal Transplant – a circular cut is made through the entire thickness of the cornea to remove a small button-sized disk of tissue. A corresponding cut is made to the eye of a cadaver and the graft so removed is sutured into the diseased eye. Success rate is around 60% after 10 years.

DMEK (Descemet’s Membrane Endothelial Keratoplasty) – the latest approach. It's a minimally invasive cell transplant technique performed through a 3mm small incision. Only the innermost layers of the cornea, the Descemet membrane and the endothelium are involved. A round window is excised and replaced with the corresponding section from a cadaver. This newer approach seems to provide better end results than corneal transplants. The main benefit of DMEK is a very low rejection risk.

(I feel compelled at this point to express my admiration for eye surgeons who can operate on layers of tissue a few cells thick...!)

I began this sorry tale by saying that my eyes are not my best feature – I rest my case...

However – The Good News:

I get my eyes checked once a year, and last time my optometrist said that I had 20/20 vision corrected, (i.e with prescribed glasses). I do have four prescribed pairs: two for driving (one daytime, one night), one for watching TV and one for the computer screen. I also use the lowest strength cheap magnifiers for reading, but don't need to wear glasses for 'walking around'. So, all in all, I can't complain...

The doctor always checks the progress of the Fuch’s, and reported that it seems to be progressing quite slowly.

“So I’m not likely to need the operation then?”

“No”, he said, “I’d say that, given your age, you’ll be dead before it gets to that stage.”

That’s good – right...?

Horses
Bill Kidd
Nowadays to see a horse on the street of any Scottish town or city is something to be remarked upon but it is only seventy years since such a sighting was commonplace in and around Dundee. My own close contact with horses was the result of our family's involvement with agriculture. I spent many Easter, Summer and October holidays on some farm or other where I was able to spend some time with the enormous horses that were the tractors of their.

When I was around ten, I was even allowed to take one of them to the local smiddy (blacksmith) to be shod, a round trip of a couple of miles. When I say that "I took", I really mean that the great gentle beast took me!
A Clydesdale, a Scottish breed of draught horse. Pulling a Plough
The relationship between the horse and the ploughman that had charge of it was very close and to undertake a particular task needed only a few words and the occasional clicking of the tongue to ensure that it was properly carried out. The farm horses were very versatile. In addition to ploughing and harrowing in late Summer they pulled the implements that cut and raked hay. At the grain harvest they pulled the reaper-binder that produced ready bound sheaves of wheat, oats, or barley. At the potato harvest they not only pulled the potato digger they powered the cart that brought the crop home. No matter how wet the weather or how muddy the field the horse could cope.

Until the 1950s seeing a horse drawn vehicle in Dundee was unremarkable. Some of the steeper cobbled streets even had red stone cart tracks laid in the granite sets to ease the horse's burden. The most common use for a horse drawn flat-bed cart in Dundee was to transport bales of jute from the docks to the various jute mills dotted around the city. Another function was to bring in the reels of newsprint needed to deal with the insatiable appetite for the Courier, the 'Tele and the Dandy and Beano. Ballingal's Brewery maintained a fine team of horses, supplying Dundee's pubs with barrels of the precious liquid. The horses used for the delivery of these heavy loads were probably Clydesdales chosen for their strength and endurance, they were certainly magnificent animals.

Hauling Jute Delivering Milk Every Morning

In addition to the heavy horses there was employment for their smaller relatives. Milk floats were often pulled by one of these intelligent animals. Being a daily round, the horse knew where to stop so that the milkman could drop off his bottles. By and large it was only the smaller, family run, dairy that still used a horse drawn float. By the 1940s the big dairies, such as the Dundee Pasteurised Milk Co (the DPM) had started to make use of battery driven electric milk floats. My own family ran a dairy farm on the outskirts of Forfar and delivered milk around the town from a two wheeled milk float pulled by a pony. The unpasteurised milk was in large milk churns, and it was delivered from a large jug to customers who had their own smaller flagons. Sometimes the filled flagon would be left on the windowsill or even the doorstep. Hygiene 1940s style!

Two other horse-drawn enterprises come to mind, both of them making use of a pony. The first was the Rag and Bone man who toured the streets of Dundee calling "Rags, bottles and bones" to attract custom. Basically, he was after anything that he could persuade his clients to part with. I don't think bones played a big part of his business but rags, jam jars and any scrap metal certainly did. He offered balloons to the children who were able to persuade their mother to give them something that would earn them a balloon. There were bigger transactions too when a few pence would change hands for some item or other.

Pulling the Rag and Bone Man Towing the Knife Grinder's Wagon

The second and possibly more interesting enterprise was also the longest lived, the Knife Grinder who was still around in the 60s. The arrival of the Knife man was an occasion that got the local children quite excited, not that carrying knives was a feature of our childhood, the excitement was because of the sparks that emanated from his grinding wheels! This worthy travelled throughout the city in the little green caravan that contained his equipment. for a small sum he would use his foot pedalled grinding and polishing machine to sharpen domestic carving knives, other cutlery, tools, scissors, and garden shears. The sight of a stream of sparks and the scream coming from the grinding wheel was fascinating. While all this was going on the pony would be contentedly munching from his nosebag. I am not sure that that the Knifeman's efforts to sharpen scissors or garden shears were very effective as we inherited examples of these where the cutting surfaces are worn away!

It is a long time since I have seen a horse and cart on a city street, perhaps climate change will see them brought back? One thing is certain, the gardening enthusiasts who emerged with shovel and bucket immediately after a horse drawn vehicle had passed certainly miss the contribution that all horses make!

These Eyes 2
Hugh McGrory
In a previous story I said that my eyes aren’t my best feature and gave you some reasons why. This is to give you another eyeful…

Chalazion (kuh-LAY-zee-on or chaw-LAY-zee-on)

Chalazia are rather like styes, but are not infected; usually on the underside of the eyelid rather than on the edge; larger than styes; and often don’t hurt. They form when an oil gland in the eyelid becomes blocked. I mentioned that I had styes as a youngster, and I’ve had a chalazion twice in the past five years – not painful but the lumps took many weeks to disperse.

Cataracts

Cataracts, as you know, are cloudy areas in the lens of the eye, age-related and very common. By the age of 80, almost everyone has cataracts or has had eye surgery to remove them.

My optometrist told me for a number of years that I had cataracts but said that I should wait before having them done until I felt the need. When, a couple of years later, that time came, he examined my eyes, took somewhat longer than usual, then said “Houston, we have a problem. You look ready for cataract surgery, but I’m afraid there’s a complication, I see signs of corneal dystrophy.”

I imagine I said something like “Oh, what now…?”

He explained that there are a number of corneal dystrophies (dystrophy = tissue degeneration), and that I had
early-stage Fuch’s Dystrophy. Apparently, the innermost layer of my cornea, the endothelium looks like orange peel, with little bumps (guttata) caused by cells that are dying (see example in photo).

He advised that I put off the idea of cataract surgery until I really needed it. As it turns out, cataracts and Fuch’s have symptoms in common – halos around streetlights and star bursts from opposing car’s headlights. This combined effect brought me back to him a couple of years later.

He recommended a surgeon at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto, who, he said, had “soft hands” and was experienced with Fuch’s. I went to see him, – a Dr. Chew (he turned out to have graduated in engineering before switching to medicine). We discussed the issues around the dystrophy, and he said that he modified his cataract removal technique to avoid any potential exacerbation of the damage to the endothelial layer. I was impressed by him and decided to go ahead.

He said that cataract surgery on the second eye could be done one week after the first but in my case he would wait for three weeks to be sure that
the first eye was doing well.

The cataract surgery, as many of you will know, is a very safe procedure, done through an almost ‘assembly line’ process and quite painless.

My biggest problems were:

Sleeping with the protective, domed eye-patch ( I sleep in the prone position – I know that’s not good ergonomically, but I can’t break the habit).

Managing the eyedrops – I had three different types over a two-week period different numbers of drops, different frequencies, and one had to be tapered-off over a number of days – I actually had to draw up a spreadsheet to keep track of the ‘what/when’…

All went well with the first eye and the second proceeded on schedule. The surgeon said he had put one stitch in the cornea this time, and I’d have to see him in a week’s time to get it taken out.

I saw him in his office, where he put in some anesthetic, told me to look at the door and keep still, then began to remove the stitch. After a moment he said “It doesn’t want to come out,” and changed instruments. Just as he began again I move slightly (stupid thing to have done) and he said, “Oh!"

Not to be outdone I said, “Oh, oh!” with thoughts that I might have ruined the whole catarcat removal procedure…

“When you moved I made a little scratch on the cornea,” he said, “but don’t worry. I’ll put in some antibiotic drops – it may feel a little scratchy for a couple of days but it will heal just fine” – and it did.

I suspect that, by now, I've bored most readers to tears. Sadly, I need one more story to complete my tale.

Next time...

The Golden Age of Science Fiction
Brian Macdonald
An introduction to Science Fiction: The Two Streams

Not long ago, a balmy breeze signalling the end of winter triggered a burst of spring cleaning and the urge to de-clutter. As I scanned my bookshelves for contributions to the local charity shop, sighing at the books bought with good intentions and never read, my eye rested on two names on thick spines, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C Clarke.
Clarke, on the left, and Asimov.
Although these anthologies were fairly recent purchases (within the last twenty years) they are not among the unread and I reckon that in my younger years I had read most of what was written by these two luminaries of their genre. They are still worth a quiet hour to cherry-pick and re-read.

Growing up in the 1950s and with a voracious appetite for reading, it was probably inevitable that I found science fiction. ‘SF’, as it was called then and not ‘Sci-fi’, a term scorned by us lifetime aficionados, was a literary genre that had been increasing in popularity with both authors and readers since the 1920s. For this was a period of rapid scientific advances, of early nuclear research that would lead to nuclear fission, of the increasing sophistication of multi-passenger commercial aeroplanes, of the start of cheap inter-continental telephone communication, of rudimentary television networks, of advancements in the technology of the internal combustion engine, of progress in medicines. So, it is no wonder that inventive minds found the era fruitful ground for storytelling with a scientific basis.

By 1950, when I was twelve, SF was in full flower. There are two distinct and separate streams. One is really pure fantasy, with aliens, wondrous planets, fantastic creatures, and with maybe a little science in the mix.

The Dune series, kicked off by Frank Herbert’s novel in 1965, with its planet of sand and fabulous giant worms that travelled the dunes and were ridden by men, was a standout example of the fantasy type. Herbert was born in 1920 and died in 1986, having written five sequels to Dune. It was common in the fantasy genre that a novel became a series. One book was not enough to lay out the spread of invention in an author’s mind. The cynic may say that this is an authorial ploy to retain an audience and increase income. Often, sequels consisted of more of the same, minimally repainted. Dune was made into a film in 1984 and there was a recent remake.

L Ron Hubbard was a hugely prolific writer, working not only in the fantasy science fiction field but in many
other genres. He churned out material and was very popular as a science fantasy writer. Around 1950, Hubbard invented what he called Dianetics and soon abandoned fiction writing. Dianetics soon evolved into Scientology and Hubbard departed the SF scene. Some may think he never gave up fantasy.


Frank Herbert L Ron Hubbard

Another notable author of the fantasy stream is Anne McCaffrey, born in 1926 and best-known for her fantasy series The Dragonriders of Pern. The very title gives an indication of the plotline of this famous
set of stories, about a corps of dedicated riders of domesticated dragons trained to combat, with their fiery breath, periodic epidemics of toxic threads that fell from the sky. I must admit I hoovered up McCaffrey’s tales as avidly as I did those of Isaac Asimov, the giant of the scientific stream.

Another star of the fantasy genre is Ursula K Le Guin, born 1929 and referred to by us

Anne McCaffrey Ursula K Le Guin

fans as UKLG, or just Le Guin. She wrote mostly in the fantasy mode, with many tales set in her fictional land of Orsinia and a series set in a fictional Hainish universe, but there was more science and societal awareness in her stories than in McCaffrey’s. In 2005, Anne McCaffrey was awarded the long-standing Nebula award, which recognises the best works of science fiction or fantasy published annually in the United States.

Among notable early authors the reader may not think of for science fiction are Arthur Conan Doyle, (The Great Keinplatz Experiment, to do with Mesmerism), and Edgar Allan Poe, known for horror stories, but who wrote tales that hinged on the scientific enthusiasms of his era, the mid-19th century, exploring galvanism, time travel and resurrection. J K Rowling’s wildly successful Harry Potter series, J R R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series and C S Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia can be considered science fiction, although clearly of the fantasy mode. The previous three series of books have all been made into very successful films. In our 21st century, the fantasy genre has become, to my disappointment, the major thread, probably because, in our real world, science has caught up with and zoomed a long way past the mid-twentieth century science fiction authors’ uncannily accurate predictions made seventy or more years ago. We may conjecture that modern life arouses a wish for escapism and this feeds on the fantasy story.

The second strand of science fiction consists of works which take existing science and extrapolate it into the future in a more believable and logical manner. No dragons and dungeons here. This style is sometimes called ‘hard science fiction’, not a term I like. This genre always had a strong scientific base and plotline and many of the scenarios projected by SF authors who wrote in it proved frighteningly prophetic as time rolled on. Indeed, there is a well-known, true story of the office of the editor of the most illustrious SF magazine, Astounding Science Fiction, being raided by the FBI in 1944, the invaders demanding to know where he had got information in a story in his magazine. He had difficulty in convincing his interrogators that it was a figment of the imagination of one of his contributors, (Cleve Cartmill, Deadline, published March 1944) so close was the writer’s fictional depiction to what turned out to be then current, most secret USA government research, the Manhattan Project, which was developing the atom bomb in a deadly race with the USSR. Cartmill was asked by the FBI to refrain from publishing any further stories about nuclear research until the war ended. It is reported that editor Campbell, who had noted that a number of his contributors, mostly scientists, had moved to the Los Alamos area of the USA state of New Mexico, had, himself, surmised that some sort of scientific research was going on there.

The name of the English writer of the late 19th and early 20th century, H G Wells, is familiar for his most famous work, The War of the Worlds, published as early as 1898. This novel explores an invasion of Earth

by aliens from Mars with their huge, robotic war machines – the denouement incorporated both the fantasy and scientific aspects of science fiction. The book was set in southern England and the Hollywood film of 1953 in California, but a 2019 TV series had a French setting. Wells also wrote The Invisible Man, which first appeared as a magazine serial in England in 1897 and has been the basis of several films and TV series. His ‘The Time Machine’ of 1895 was also made into a film in 1960, starring the Australian film star Rod Taylor as the time traveller, and again in 2002, with the Australian film and TV actor Guy Pearce as the traveller. The chilling plot tells how a time traveller goes far into the future and discovers humans subjugated by a master race known as Morlocks. Wells is sometimes labelled ‘The Father of Science Fiction’.

To be continued

Two Michaels
Hugh McGrory
In 1967, the year after we arrived in Toronto, my son Michael needed to have a minor operation. It would be carried out in Toronto East General Hospital in the East York district of Toronto. They told us that it would be in the late afternoon and that he would be kept in overnight.

We duly took him to the hospital and waited with him until it was his turn to go to the theatre. We sat in the waiting room, and surprisingly soon we were told that it was all over, and he was fine. We got to see him briefly – he was asleep – and they said that he’d probably be out for an hour or two. They suggested we head home and return during visiting hours that evening.

We returned to the hospital at the appropriate time and went to the ward. It was quite a small room; I think it had six beds (might have been four). The door was closed, but it had a small inset window, and we looked in. He was in the bed by the door, some eight feet from us. He was sitting on top of the covers facing diagonally away from us, rather like the child in the photo and so didn’t see us (our Michael was quite a bit younger, and the bed was a cot with bars on the sides).
He didn’t seem upset, but was very solemn, and looking around at the other children and parents. This was a great relief to us, and we stood and watched him for a few minutes. We wondered what was going through his young mind – wondering why his parent had left him, who the other kids were, the doctors the nurses, would he be there for ever? We were so tempted to rush in and hug him…

Before we did, we looked at each other and said, “If we go in, he’ll be so happy and assume we’re there to take him home. He’ll be devastated when he finds out that we’re leaving him. He’ll feel abandoned all over again.”

What to do – what to do? After swithering for several more minutes, we made a decision, turned tail and left. It was really hard to do…

The next morning, we were at the hospital at the appointed time and arrived again at the door to the ward. Strangely he was sitting in almost the same position as the night before, still solemn still watchful.

We pushed open the door and the noise made him look round. He saw his mother, held out both his arms towards her and burst into tears. It was sad and joyful at the same time – his reaction assuaged the guilt we’d been feeling for our decision the night before and confirmed our belief that we made the right choice.

Postscript

I discovered another Michael today while writing this little story: Toronto East General is now known as
the Michael Garron Hospital. Son of Myron and Berna Garron, Michael, was born in East General Hospital some five years before our son’s visit. Sadly, he developed a rare form of soft tissue cancer at the age of six.

Despite all efforts, Michael died at the age of thirteen. The Garrons, originally from Nova Scotia moved to Ontario and built a very successful automotive manufacturing business. They wanted to ensure that the memory of their son did not fade away.

To thank the hospital that had looked after him for so many years they recently donated $50,000,000 dollars, and the hospital ensured that
young Michael Garron’s name will not be forgotten.

Not Another Step Further
Clive Yates

As far as I can remember, it must have been late summer in 1955 – possibly September-ish, when a group


of Morgan senior pupils decided they would go camping up Glen Clova. However, two of us (Ian F. and myself) already had jobs or other pursuits which determined that we could not leave directly after Friday afternoon school finished at 16-00hrs. We arranged quite separately to meet about 17-30 at the Kingsway and Forfar Road junction and to cycle on together after the main party.

At least this part of the trip worked out, and off we set on our bicycles peddling as fast as we could to try to
catch up the deficit in time and miles. It was a hard job in a warm evening as we toiled up Powrie Brae, over the top and on to the downward run through the Tealing straight heading for Todd Hills junction. Then the next anticipated obstacle faced us; – the winding uphill section on towards Lumley Den. Nothing daunted, on we went, over the top of the Sidlaws with the luxury of a down-hill ride towards Glamis junction. This next portion of the route was easier going and we arrived at the outskirts of Kirriemuir township. ‘Thrums’ Brae definitely slowed us to an uphill push!

After that, we succumbed to a rest (in a Pub !) as we recovered our strength for the next session of exertion past the Cortachy Arms Hotel and into Clova glen proper. Perhaps that Hotel no longer exists near Dykehead – it does not appear on Google Maps! It was just ‘round the corner’ from Cortachy Castle. Cortachy – one of the four 'Houses' in our day at Morgan Academy – often mentioned but rarely successful, and to which I contributed ‘zilch’ house points

The problems really started at that Kirriemuir Pub when we took a rest AND decided to assuage our thirst with a small nip-sized bottle of Gaymer’s (or was it Bulmer’s) Cider. It still reminds me of the lines from ‘Tam O’Shanter’ by Rabbie Burns:
    "Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely,
    Wi' reaming swats, that drank divinely"
Like our hero Tam, we too felt the need to indulge in a further little bottle. After all, what harm could it possibly do? So, after two bottles apiece, we decided that it was ‘onwards and upwards.’ Again, like our hero Tam, we re-discovered again the fact that there are some ultimate, enduring truths:

"But pleasures are like poppies spread;
You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snow falls in the river,
A moment white – then melts for ever;
Or like the Borealis race,
That flit ere you can point their place;
Or like the Rainbow's lovely form
Evanishing amid the storm.
Nae man can tether Time nor Tide,
The hour approaches Tam maun ride;"

We cycled out of Kirrie and past the Golf Course and the Cortachy Arms Hotel proceeding onwards on to the Clova Road passing the Airlie Monument on the hillside to the left at the head of Glen Prosen. It was about
this point where the road began to show us evidence of having been cut though the glacial moraines of the glen. These little hills and bumps were no problem for motor vehicles, but for two, rapidly-tiring youths, by now beginning to feel the full effects of their energetic efforts AND their liquid repast – they were like Everest or K2. We began to collide with one another. We really struggled to maintain our balance, and we were more often off our cycles pushing rather than pedalling. We struggled on past the Rottal Lodge turn as darkness began to close in rapidly. We had struggled onwards but the darkness added to the difficulties forcing us to eventually agree – like Elijah, that “We had had enough!” and to decide that at the next dwelling we came across, we would stop and obtain permission to pitch our tent for the night in some convenient field.

So it came to pass that we failed to catch up with the main group. We blundered about in a field in total darkness pitching our tent, tripping over
the main guy ropes and generally falling about. The countryside is amazingly dark without the glow of city lights!!! Eventually, we did get the tent erected successfully and leaving our bikes where they lay, we settled down quietly – and thankfully, for a good night’s rest.

Next morning, we thanked the farmer for allowing us to stop overnight. To our surprise, the farmer’s wife gave us a simple breakfast for which we were additionally thankful. In the course of the conversation, it transpired that there were others in his fields that had also camped overnight. As we left after breakfast, being ‘nosey’, we peered over the high wall between the fields and behold, there was the other party still in their tents. It transpired that they were afraid and frightened by all the noise that we had created – possibly a few mouthfuls of displeasure at our own incompetence and so they had remained in fearful silence for their own safety from these loud-mouthed louts making all that noise in the next field.

The remainder of the weekend was spent together as a group. We all continued up to Braedownie and Glen


Doll Lodge and enjoyed splashing about in the River South Esk there. On Sunday the whole team cycled back to Dundee at a more deliberate pace without further incident or mishap. We avoided the stop at the Hostelry in Kirrie.

In all, it taught me a very useful lesson – BEWARE of CIDER and BYCYCLES!!!!

These Eyes
Hugh McGrory
My eyes are not my best feature. Actually, my wife says that I don’t have a best feature – and by that, I believe she means that I have so many good features that she can’t choose just one... But, be that as it may, my eyes are not my best feature...

Blepharitis (blef-uh-RYE-tis)

I have had this condition for as long as I can remember – the chronic rather than the acute version. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this disease, blepharitis is inflammation of the eyelids. It usually affects both
eyes along the edges of the eyelids, upper and lower. It occurs when tiny oil glands near the base of the eyelashes become clogged, causing irritation and redness.

It's often a chronic condition, difficult to treat, and can be uncomfort- able and unsightly. It usually doesn't cause permanent damage to eyesight, and isn't contagious. Signs and symptoms are typically worse
in the morning. They include red-rimmed eyes, gritty sensation in the eyes, eyelids that appear greasy, itchy eyelids, and flaking of the skin around the eyes – all of which I suffered from to some degree.

The flaking of the skin was my biggest bugbear – I didn’t appreciate the ‘scabby eyes’ look, and remember in my mid-teens, before heading for the local dancehall, I used to take one of my mother’s darning needles and pick flaky skin off my eyelids (very carefully, of course – I never stuck the needle in my eye, but an errant blink at the wrong moment would now and again draw a spot of blood from an eyelid…)

Not until mid-life did I discover that cleaning the eyelids daily with Johnson’s Baby Shampoo markedly reduces the effects of the condition.

Styes

One of the complications of blepharitis is little abscesses on the eyelids, known as styes – something that I was prone to as a child, but which seemed to subside around puberty.

Demodex

About five years ago, my optometrist told me that I was suffering from mites. Demodex, by name, they are microscopic parasites that live on eyelids in the hair follicles or the sebaceous glands. Demodex folliculorum, buries itself face down near the of eyelashes and uses a seven-clawed organ (a “palpus”) to
grab hold of cells lining the follicle. Then it feasts on the sebum — the waxy oil your face excretes to keep hydrated. Demodex sleep by day, but at night, when you're asleep, they crawl onto the surface of your skin to mate.

Interstingly, Demodex does not have an anus and therefore cannot get rid of its feces – their abdomen just gets bigger and bigger, and when they die and decompose (lifespan is about two weeks) they release their feces all at once.

Symptoms may include itchiness; scaly, rough patches of skin; redness around the eyes and a burning sensation in the eyes. Fortunately, there is a treatment – tea tree oil wipes – using these once a week reduces the number of mites and greatly improves the symptoms.

At this point some of you are wondering how I could live with these mites crawling over my eyelids and not be aware... so let me share some statistics with you from a recent scientific paper published by the American Academy of Ophthalmology

“Demodex is acquired shortly after birth and their numbers increase during puberty as sebaceous glands proliferate. The prevalence continues to increase with age, with

13% of 3-15 year olds infested,
69% of 31-50 year olds,
84% by age 60, and
100% after 70 years of age.”

So, say hello to one of your fellow travellers here.

If this tale hasn’t already brought tears to your eyes, stay tuned for Part 2…

The Morgan Effect?
Michael Marks
Some of your readers who attended Morgan Academy will perhaps recall the presence of a foreigner in the school. That foreigner was an English boy – which might or might not bring back memories….

Born in London, I emigrated to Scotland in 1946 at the age of nine. (My father was assigned by NCR as a 'key worker' to help employ and train staff as part of government efforts to rejuvenate employment in Dundee following WW2. NCR went on to be one of the biggest employers in the city.)

I want to share a little story with you – not an anecdote in the sense of reminiscences but an up-to-date conundrum:

Some background – on arriving in Dundee we first lived just off the Perth Road, so I started primary school at the Harris Academy. However, I was fortunate enough to live closer to the Morgan when I was eleven years old, hence the change of school for my secondary education. I obviously had an English accent, which I kept, by and large, until I left school in 1954.

Following National Service, I started a career in sales and marketing, working mainly in the pharmaceutical industry in South-East England with frequent trips to the Continent. Thereafter I worked in Manila, and in Beijing, before returning to the UK in 1995. I acquired a small franchising company which I developed and finally sold in 1998 when we retired to South-West France where we still live. The peace and quiet, fabulous scenery, wine, food, sunshine and lack of traffic add up to make it the Perfect Place!

My wife Sheila (née Beaton) was born in Alyth and attended Blairgowrie High School, followed by Dundee teachers’ training college. She spent many years teaching in England. We have two daughters, and travel to Dundee has been regular over the years, but much less since my mother died. She had been in Dundee and Invergowrie for some 64 years, still retaining a little of her original South African accent!

Fast forward now to June, 2021, when I was hospitalized and had an operation under a general anesthetic. Sheila phoned me soon after the operation to enquire how it went and we chatted for a while. It came as a total surprise to me later when she informed me that I had spoken to her with, what she described as, a pure Morgan Academy accent...

Any explanation, anyone?

What's Up Doc? – 2
Hugh McGrory
About twelve years ago, again just before Christmas, I wakened with some discomfort in my chest. Since I had previously been diagnosed with a sliding hiatus hernia, I put it down to acid reflux, which I got, in a minor way, from time to time. Usually the feeling didn’t last long, but on this occasion it persisted. Some neighbours invited us in for a pre-dinner drink later that day. I happened to mention my little problem, and they said – if I can paraphrase – “Are you an idiot? That could be angina or worse. You need to get down to Emergency right now and get it checked out”. My mind switched gears and I realised that this was good advice – what was I thinking….

To cut a long story short, I get to Emergency , get triaged, and pretty quickly I’m sitting with a male nurse and he’s asking why I’m there. I tell him and he said, “So, why did you wait so long to come in?”

“Oh”, I said, “I know that one... Because I’m an idiot?” I remember he wasn’t particularly amused by my scintillating wit…

I had ECG and ultrasound examinations, and they eventually decided that it was probably acid reflux, so I toddled off home and relaxed – until the next day when I get a call from the hospital. They said that they’d like me to come in for a CT scan. I asked why and they said ‘the Doctor’ wanted to follow up on something from the ultrasound examination. Did I mention that this was just before Christmas…?

So, I went back to the hospital and had the CT scan – they wouldn’t tell me anything of course and said I’d hear from my GP. I called him – it was now December 29th, and he said that he’d just received a faxed report which stated the reason for the CT scan as being:

“To compare to the recent abdominal ultrasound from December 21 which noted a 3.3 x 2.0 cm mildly complex cystic focus in the left lobe of the liver, with focal areas of increased echogenicity in segments 6 and 7 of the right lobe.”

My GP said he’d try to get hold of the Doctor at the hospital and discuss this with him and in the meantime, I should try not to worry. We hung up, which, of course, allowed me to start worrying... I turned on my computer to research liver cancer, metastases etc. etc.

He called me back the next day – it was now close to Hogmanay – and said that he’d spoken to the doctor at the hospital and that I shouldn’t worry. I said, “That’s easy for you to say, Harry.”

He said “Seriously, there’s no need to worry.” “ I checked through your medical record…”

(At this point I should explain that when I arrived in Canada in 1966, I signed up with a GP who served me well for almost thirty years before he retired. Harry had been my GP for the past couple of years or so, and he had burrowed through the records that had been transferred to his office.)

“Do you remember having an ultrasound done of your right kidney?”
“No”, I said.
“It was about nine years ago?”
Still nothing…
”At Thorncliffe Diagnostics?”

And I remembered – I had been playing squash with my regular partner of many years and he had – accidentally, of course, elbowed me in the kidney. A day or two later I had a vague discomfort in that area – I remembered that I told my then GP, when I saw him for it, that it felt ‘like an organ pain’, to distinguish it from muscular. He had sent me for an ultrasound which revealed a “tiny, poorly resolved, fluid collection inferior to the right kidney…” – presumably a reaction to the blow. My GP said that it would clear up in a few days and to forget about it.

Harry said “Well that report identified the same two cysts in your liver – they’re clearly benign and, as I said, don’t worry about it.” So I had dodged another bullet...

I was so happy to thank him for his diligence – the New Year, about to begin, was looking much better than it had a few minutes before…

A Memorable Sight
Gordon Findlay
My only other memory of Dundee Ski Club is clear in my mind for a different reason – but again, a very good one. It happened this way.

I invited Jimmy Fitzpatrick to come up with me one Sunday when there had been another big snowfall over the whole of northeast Scotland. Jimmy wasn’t much of a skier, but he came, partly because being a professional photographer, he was always on the lookout for distinctive Scottish scenes which could be captured on his camera, then turned into one of the hundreds of Valentine’s coloured postcards of “Winter In Scotland”. The drive up to Glenshee was dicey with so much snow on the road, but we eventually made it, and we both made a few runs down the Elementary hill.

But then, Jimmy had an idea. “We have our sealskin covers with us,” he said. “Why don’t we ride the tow up to the top of the hill, then put on our skins and go higher up the mountain. Should be a great view.”

He had brought his hand-held Hasselblad (wonderful Swedish-made camera) with him, so up the hill we rode on the tow, slipped on our skins, and went padding further and further up the mountain. Every so often, Jim would stop, get out his Hasselblad and take a shot of the snow-covered mountain and trees.


We tromped on, and eventually, we saw what appeared to be the rim of large col, or saddle (like a valley between the peaks of surrounding hills) up ahead. Up we went, reached the edge, and peered over.

What a sight! There, below us, was a huge mass of red deer, sheltering in the shallow valley. We could hear the soft thumping as they used their hoofs to beat away the snow to get at the soft grass underneath, and where they were milling around the ground was dark.

Steam was rising from the heat of their bodies, and the smell of them was thick in the air We could make out the males with their full sets of antlers on the outside, females and young in the protected centre. But soon, as one of them saw or smelled us, all the heads slowly came up and looked at us.

Jim could hardly get his camera out fast enough, and for the next couple of minutes I watched him shoot, wind, shoot, wind and shoot again. The deer did nothing for a few minutes, but slowly as we watched them and led by a pair of large stags, the herd began to move toward the far side of the valley and up the opposite


side away from us, steam rising like a soft cloud all around them.

Within ten minutes they had vanished from the col, leaving behind a well-tramped area where the herd had obviously spent the night. I can’t remember if Jim ever got his perfect photograph of a Scottish scene – but we both got a unique glimpse of our country’s wildlife in winter.

I was to see Jim Fitzpatrick again much later on, after I had emigrated to Canada, married and become the father of four. We undertook “The Big Trip” back to Scotland, flew to London, saw the sights, then picked up our rental Volkswagen 6-seater touring van (had to contend with a stuck gear lever in downtown London!!) and slowly drove north, stopping at bed-and-breakfasts along the way . . . a fun way to travel.

We eventually made it to Dyce – a suburb of Aberdeen, where Jim and Sheena, his wife, lived on their farm keeping company with 200 pigs at various stages of growth. I don’t think Jim’s heart was really into pig farming, but he’d made a success of commercial photography, and after leaving Valentine’s in Dundee, he’d gone into business for himself– just as the Forties oil fields off Aberdeen began gush those oceans of pure black gold

He accepted an assignment to photograph an offshore oil rig for an American resource company, found he was good at hanging out of a helicopter snapping pictures, and made a good living doing just that.


Probably a lot more fun than feeding (and cleaning up around) a couple of hundred pigs.

My kids thought it was pretty neat seeing all those pigs up close but we all agreed that the stink in the main barn was over-powering. They might be clean animals, but they do create one helluva smell.

What's Up Doc?
Hugh McGrory
Often over the years, when I've had a medical issue, and said to myself “Maybe I should check with my GP”, I've somehow managed to put it off for a day or two, so its often Friday before I decide to do anything – and then I wait until Monday to call the doctor’s office... It also seems that when I get a major issue that needs investigation it seems to happen around Christmas time – when, of course, nobody‘s around…

Men are very unlikely to get breast cancer – about 1 in 800 versus about 1 in 8 for women, so for every 100 cases only 1 will be male. I didn’t find this out until after I had a shower one day about twenty five years ago and realised that I felt a lump in my right breast. So, after my usual procrastination, I decided to do my due diligence and put in a call to my doc to get an appointment.

The first thing he asked, when I told him, was, ”Is it underneath the nipple?” I told him that it wasn’t – it was actually in the lower-right outside quadrant. He felt for it and said “There is something there. The chances are that it’s nothing to worry about, but we should check it out – we’ll make an appointment for you with a specialist.”

This was the week before Christmas, so it was about two weeks before I could see him. I don’t remember being too apprehensive about it, but it was certainly at the back of my mind all through the waiting period. When I finally saw him, the first thing he asked, when I told him, was, ”Is it underneath the nipple?” When I said “No”, he said “That’s good.” He examined me, then said, “I’ll perform a small operation to remove it and we’ll see what we’re dealing with.”

Another wait for a week or so and I was on the table. The operation, under local anesthetic, was quite painless, and when it was over, he said, “We’ll send this off for testing, but I’m sure that it’s not cancer – it fell apart when I excised it.” In due course the results confirmed this – it was a lipoma, a fatty cyst.

I was fortunate, but a good friend of mine wasn’t so lucky. In his 70s, he went through the same experience, but the lump was under the nipple, a cancerous tumour was found, and he had to have the breast removed. This was followed by radiation – the oncologist decided against chemotherapy which is often given as well.

Some four years later my buddy told me that they had found a lump in his remaining breast. It again turned out to be a cancerous tumour, less advanced than the first one. He then had to go through the same procedure as before (but was glad that he didn’t need radiation this time).

The medical term for having two cancers in this manner is metachronous bilateral breast cancer. The odds of this occurring in a man are between 1 and 2 percent – so 1 in 5 to 10,000 breast cancers – such bad luck! I’m happy to say that he has been well since then.

He and I both found a lump – I had a minor operation and he lost both breasts. One more example of the roll of the die that is the human condition…

Nearly Emigrants
Bill Kidd
Over the years I have enjoyed reading the anecdotes emanating from the Morgan 1954 Diaspora. I think Antarctica is about the only place that hasn't yet had a mention. Before our marriage Muriel and I like many others of our generation had considered emigration without making any decision about it. Since returning from National Service I had been working in Lancashire for the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and we had decided that we would set up home there after we married in December 1959. However, all our plans went awry when, six weeks before the wedding, I was offered and accepted (after a hasty telephone consultation with Muriel) a promoted post at Dounreay. Working at Dounreay meant that we would be living in Thurso, the most Northerly town in Scotland, it was emigration without getting our feet wet! The die was cast, and I took up my new post on 1st December 1959 only 26 days before our wedding.

Until the advent of Dounreay and the ensuing influx of "Atomics" Thurso was a small market town of around 8,000 souls. By the time we arrived it was bulging at the seams with a population of around 18,000 supported by an infrastructure struggling to keep up with the rapidly expanding population. We knew that we would be allocated one of the houses being built by the UKAEA. This would not become available for at least another six months, so my first priority was to find somewhere for us to live. Whilst I was trying to find us a home Muriel was seeking a teaching post with Caithness County Council. As it turned out both proved to be Herculean tasks.

Although there was a shortage of teachers in the area there was also a shortage of schools and until a new school was opened in Thurso there was no prospect of a teaching job in the town. However, there was a temporary post available in a two-teacher school in a village about ten miles from Thurso. It was Hobson's choice! Knowing where Muriel would be working enabled me to focus my hunt for accommodation on the village of Castletown a mere five miles from Muriel's new workplace, Bower School, and only fifteen miles away from mine at Dounreay.

After a great deal of hitch-hiking and walking (we didn't have a car) I found a double room in the upstairs of a council house at a weekly rent that swallowed up half of my salary. After a great deal of persuasion, the landlady agreed to allow me to install a 5amp two pin socket into the room before I took possession the week before Christmas.

The marriage went to plan, and we set off for our new life in Caithness. After a seemingly interminable railway and bus journey we arrived at our temporary Castletown home on the afternoon of 29th December. Being so far north we completed the last Thurso to Castletown leg of our trek by bus and in darkness. Pending the arrival of our carefully packed tea chests, sent as "advanced" luggage, our only possessions were contained in the two suitcases that we travelled with.

Over the next six months we settled into our new life together and with the help of colleagues explored just about everything that Caithness had to offer. Unlike most newly arrived "Atomics" we were fortunate that Muriel's rural school activities meant that we met and socialised with the local population to our great benefit. Not having a car was a considerable handicap and when there was no bus available we became adept at hitch-hiking. The acquisition of household items meant that toward the end of our stay in our Castletown digs we could hardly move in our only room! The five-amp socket that I had installed supported, with the aid of several adaptors, our electric kettle, TV and radio and an electric fire. I still have pangs of conscience when I think of how I kept increasing the size of the relevant fuse wire! I can report that the building was still standing when we last visited the area!

In mid July the great day came, we were offered a three-bedroom terraced house in Thurso and within a few days we said goodbye to our room in Castletown and prepared for the next stage of our adventure. Our new house was in the middle of an estate built to a high standard by the UKAEA to house its employees. There was only one shop on the estate. This was run on "Pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap" supermarket lines. Unfortunately, only the "Pile 'em high" part had arrived in Caithness so any benefit of subsidised housing was swallowed up by the cost of everyday items. We quickly discovered that this applied to all shops in Thurso and that an occasional forty-mile round trip to Wick for some items paid off.

The next few months were hectic as we established our home and expanded our circle of friends. On the retirement of the headmaster, Muriel became the head (only) teacher with a class of 27 children ranging in age between five and twelve. The use of buses and hitch-hiking was no longer a viable transport arrangement, so we became the proud owners of a ten-year-old Morris Minor. Having a car enabled us to widen our horizons and explore the beautiful Northern coastline. Sometimes we would take off for a beach only to find two or three other people already there. This resulted in a change of plan and off we went to find another, less crowded beach!

By the end of September it was beginning to get dark early, winter was creeping up on us and indoor activities beckoned. Being very fond of music, we joined the Thurso Choral Society and ploughed through Handel's Messiah and through this met lifelong friends. We also played badminton and participated in a Caithness-wide league which meant that we visited virtually every village hall in the county. Facilities were not always top-notch; in one venue I sought the location of the Gents and was told that it was out the back. A thorough search failed to reveal the whereabouts of the facility and on further inquiry I was escorted out of the back door and shown endless moorland and told, "There it is!".

We quickly learned that Thurso was a thriving place and if you were interested in something and there was no facility available for it you just looked around for someone who shared your interest and organised something! So, the years went by. Muriel moved from her rural school to a newly built school in Thurso. Our professional and social lives prospered. We spent a lot of time walking our Labrador in all sorts of weather. In 1962 we, along with some friends, decided that there was a need for regular professional music performances in Thurso and set up Thurso Live Music Association as a subscription membership organisation offering four professional concerts a season. Within three years we had promoted a sell-out concert given by the Scottish National Orchestra under Sir Alexander Gibson and we still have great satisfaction in knowing that TLMA celebrated its fiftieth birthday in 2012.

The variety of opportunities that we enjoyed came home to me, when in the course of a business visit to Preston, I found myself in a hotel lounge talking to a London based salesman. During the course of conversation he asked what we found to do in a "Godforsaken" place like Thurso. In response I asked what he had done the previous evening and got the reply that he had watched television. On enquiring what he had done for the rest of the week he said that he had watched TV or gone to the pub. I enjoyed telling him that in Thurso as well as watching TV and going to the pub we had theatre, a cinema, music, and various sporting activities, not to mention beautiful countryside and coastline.

All good things come to an end and our near emigration experience ended in mid-1966 when I transferred to Harwell. We purchased a house in Didcot and Muriel taught in a local school. Things were different in Didcot and a lot less fun. It is strange that although we were only an hour from London and a few miles from Oxford we saw fewer plays and listened to less music than was the case when we lived in Thurso and emigrated without getting our feet wet!

Brian's Story…
Hugh McGrory
You open your morning paper or listen to the morning show and suddenly your world changes...

Have you ever had that experience – you read or hear something that, out of the blue, hits you like the proverbial ton of bricks? I don't mean something world shattering, like 9–11, but rather at a personal level.

For three-and-a-bit years, in the late ‘70s, I was attending the University of Toronto School of Management, in the evenings, studying for an MBA. I worked during the day, which sometimes resulted in my missing class. In one subject it was several classes, so I missed a fair bit of the lectures – I had a textbook, but exams often, of course, contained in-class material, and I was a bit worried about the upcoming final…

There was a young man who sat near me (funny how we all tend to sit in the same seat for a whole
semester…), his name was Brian – had a Polish or perhaps Ukrainian surname, and though we’d never spoken, he seemed a pleasant lad. I had noticed that he took copious notes, so, with the ‘cheek of the devil’ I approached him at the end of one class, told him of my attendance problems and asked if I could borrow his notes and copy them.

He was probably taken aback, but, too nice to refuse, he said “OK”. I copied the notes then duly returned them to him the following week and thanked him profusely. (I hope I had the grace to give him a bottle of wine too, but I really can’t remember.)

We had to take 20 courses to graduate, and being evening school, it wasn’t unusual to take a class with someone one semester, then never see them again, so I never shared another class with him.

About a year later, January 1977, I opened my morning newspaper to see the following:

I remember thinking – as one does – "Isn't that awful", then a moment or two later, when it suddenly dawned on me that this was 'Brian from night school', the shock, followed by a feeling of ineffable sadness and rage that such a fine young man, not long graduated, in his first job with a major bank, working hard to improve his knowledge through his MBA studies, his whole life in front of him, should be so callously murdered.

In the following week, more information came out. It transpired that Brian Latocki was gay, and had met someone the previous evening at the St. Charles Tavern, a well-known 'gay bar' on Toronto's Yonge Street. Apparently, Brian had accepted the offer of a ride home from this person.

My MBA studies covered the period from 1976 to 1979, and over those three and a half years there were fourteen murders of gay men in Toronto – eight were solved. Brian's murder was one of the remaining six, still listed as unsolved.

Flash-forward

On Jan 18th, 2018, the Toronto police were surveilling the home of a man named Bruce McArthur as part of a major on-going investigation. They saw him come home with a man referred to as 'John'. The police raided the home and found John (how lucky was he?) tied to a bed – he told them that McArthur had been trying to tape his mouth shut.

McArthur was arrested and subsequently admitted to the murders of eight gay men between 2010 and 2017. He pled guilty at trial, and was sentenced to 25 years – he will be eligible to apply for parole when he is 91 years old.

In the late '70s, McArthur was in Toronto, and Toronto police are looking again at the six unsolved killings from that period to see whether they can find a connection.

Poor Brian – I still have his notes – came across them a few years ago while looking for something else. I hope that the Toronto police are successful, and that his story may yet have a more appropriate ending...

Dundee Worthies
Brian Macdonald
The other day I took down, for a browse, from my special bookshelf, the one where I keep my Len Deighton Cookbook (from his Observer columns), a few tomes about old motorbikes and some venerable dictionaries
in several languages, a tattered and broken-spined paperback book that I treasure. Its title is Dundee Worthies: Reminiscences, Games, Amusements. It is a compilation of short biographies of Dundee ‘characters’ who roamed the streets of the city in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The author is George M Martin, FSA (Scot)(1).

Dundee Worthies was published in 1934 by David Winter and Son, a well-established printing and publishing business, at that time situated on the corner of Shore Terrace, where many will remember the bus terminus was located. A printing and publishing firm of that name still exists but is now located near Dundee’s venerable loop road, the Kingsway.

George M Martin was a Dundee businessman who owned a warehouse in North Lindsay Street and later established a ballroom. He was certainly an observer of humanity and was a freemason. The honorific suggests he had academic interests. There are other anthologies compiled by Martin to be found.

Among his warehouse employees was one Doupie Small(2), who certainly qualified as a ‘worthy’. This man may have provided the spark to Martin to undertake his compilation.

In his short introduction to Dundee Worthies, Martin says “With a view to preserve (sic) details of the strange lives of the Worthies who eked out an existence on the streets of Dundee I have compiled the following pages”. The two hundred pages contain short biographical sketches of some of the unfortunates who lived a fringe existence on Dundee’s streets, existing from charity or by offering some entertainment or service for donations, many with physical or mental quirks caused by intellectual disability, which gave them a degree of notability. Some of those featured were just eccentrics. Some items were about municipal notables. There are also anecdotes, children’s games and poems.

Fifty pages are devoted to William McGonagall(3), including his first person account of his unsuccessful trip, on foot to Balmoral to present himself to Queen Victoria. We read of his horror when, having been the subject of a spoof installation as a ‘Knight Of The Order Of The White Elephant Of Burma’, he learned that a live white elephant was being sent to him and he would be responsible for its housing and upkeep. Fortunately his tricksters took pity on him eventually and he was advised that his pleas had been answered and the elephant’s progress to him had been halted.

A bonus of the book is the many advertisements, scattered through the book, for Dundee businesses, most now long gone, that will evoke images in older Dundonians’ minds. The one that means most to me is Frank Russell, Bookseller (New & Second-hand) of Barrack Street, Dundee, for, as a teenager, I bought many a book there, most second-hand, from Frank Russell, whose advice and patience I recall with gratitude. Another page touts the New Palais de Danse, a Dundee ballroom known widely as ‘The Pally’, where many of us indulged in the terpsichorean art in our young adulthood.

Below is a sample of the Dundee Worthies described by George M Martin:

Blind Hughie (Hugh Lennox) was tall, erect and portly but by no means pretentious. He had the faculty of picking up the music of a song from a single hearing, then learned the lyrics and loved to sing from his extensive repertoire for the public. He had a good sense of humour and enjoyed singing humorous songs in broad Scots.

Queen Anne lived in an inner-town street called The Nethergait(4). She had a fondness for decorating her clothes and person with brightly coloured silk ribbons, trinkets and bits of tinsel. She would adopt a pose, then walk off, saying “I’m Queen Anne.”

Pie Jock was a street vendor who sold hot pies, baked by a local baker, from a tray heated by a small stove, slung from his shoulders, for all the world like a cinema ice-cream girl, for tuppence a pie. Saturday night in the city centre was his beat, as many people were about then and had cash to spend. When competition bit into his trade, he took up the selling of a weekly journal which reported that week’s court cases, a matter of interest to many. When this paper folded (with apologies for the pun), he took to stocking small household items. As Saturday night was entertainment night and Dundee was very much a working class, industrial city, he often had to endure verbal harassment by gangs of small boys as he cried his wares.

Tommy Dodds stood forty-nine inches tall. His mind and wit were not stunted and he was quick of tongue, with a reputation for winning battles of repartee. He was a fan of the police, carried a police whistle and often used it to subdue a bit of potential trouble on the street. He once had a fight in the street with another short person, who had looked at Tommy in a way he did not like. The fight went on for some time and was enjoyed as a spectacle by a good crowd, before the police, who were enjoying it too, eventually called a halt. Ever after, Tommy maintained he had won the fight.

The Iron Horse was a young woman of great strength. She held down a man’s job in a rope mill. One day at a local market, this Amazon reprimanded some young toughs who were harassing stallholders, threatening to put them on their backs if they did not desist. The warning not being heeded, she was obliged to carry out her promise, which she did, with despatch.

Indigo Blue sold blue dye for a living and always appeared blue in hue, both in person and in attire, most likely due to his product. His sales cry was “I’m Inde. I’m Inde. I’m Indigo Blue”.

Tea-Pot Tam walked the streets, imitating a teapot, by placing one arm out in front of him in the shape of a spout and the other with hand held to his back to form a handle. He wore an oversize Tam O’Shanter(5) with a red toorie. Tam would hold his teapot pose until his Tam O’Shanter was removed or knocked off his head and would then walk a bit further and strike his pose again.

Among the children’s games described in the book (and such active games were enthusiastically played outdoors into the long, northern, Scottish summer evenings in the days before radio, TV, computers, video games and mobile phones) are Bools (Marbles), Hackey Duck(6) (sic), Tig (also known as ‘Touch’ or ‘It’) and more.

One anecdote in the book describes how a milkman found he was short of milk for a delivery to a clergyman’s house, so he topped up his delivery from a barrel on the front porch of the house. Unfortunately for the milkman, the barrel contained salt sea water, kept for the express purpose of medicinal bathing and his ruse was discovered.

Dundee Worthies: Reminiscences, Games, Amusements is available in reprint from several suppliers via an internet search. It is an amusing and valuable source of social history of Dundee in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. We may reflect that, in today’s sophisticated, high-tech, high-speed and impatient world, such eccentric characters as Martin portrays are not now treated with the tolerance and good humour that comes through in his anthology. More’s the pity!

Footnotes

(1) Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

(2) A doup (pron.’dowp’) in Dundee dialect is a discarded cigarette end, often collected by indigents to be consolidated into cigarettes for consumption or selling. A more general meaning of the word is the bottom end of something.

(3) William Topaz McGonagall (the subject of an article by Hugh McGrory in this collection) was a Dundee factory worker of Irish descent, sometimes referred to as ‘The World’s Best Bad Poet’, or less charitably, ‘The World’s Worst Poet’, his name known to many throughout the English-speaking world for his bad verse, bereft of scan or rhyme. His most well-known work may be his epic poem on the Tay Bridge Disaster of 1879. He also performed professionally on stage and even played Hamlet and Macbeth. There is a plaque memorialising McGonagall at Greyfriars Church in Edinburgh, where he is buried.

(4)Old Dundee, like many towns, had streets named for their original purpose. ‘The Nethergait’ is ‘the lower street’. The Westport, now just a street, was once the arched western gate of the town and is mentioned in the song “Up wi’ the bonnets o’ Bonnie Dundee’ based on a poem by Sir Walter Scott, in the line ‘Unhook the Westport and let us gang free’ (there are several versions of the words). In this context ‘Bonnie Dundee’ was the name given by his supporters to the handsome John Graham of Claverhouse, First Viscount Dundee, a Jacobite leader, and not a compliment to our fair city. To those of a different persuasion, ‘Clavers’ was known as ‘Bloody Claverhouse’ for his ruthlessness as a military commander.

(5)A Tam O’Shanter is a large flat beret of wool, traditional Scottish male headgear from as early as the 16th century and widely worn until near the 20th century. There is usually a decorative woollen bobble in the centre, often red in colour, called a toorie. As Robert Burns wrote the eponymous epic poem in 1790, it is likely the Scottish ‘bunnet’ (bonnet) was the inspiration for his boozy Scots farmer’s name. It is also possible that the whisky ‘Cutty Sark’, found its name in Burns’ poem, for that is the Scots way of saying ‘short shirt’ and Burns used it to describe the garment worn by the pretty young witch who caught Tam’s eye as he rode drunkenly home from market. Alternatively, the whisky, first marketed in the 1920s, may have found its name from the same name given to a handsome 19th century tea clipper and its image is on the label of the whisky bottle.

(6)Hackey Duck is a rough boys’ game known by variants of this spelling and by other names in many places. One team of boys forms a ‘horse’ by bending their backs and holding on to the boy in front, in a line. The boy at the front, usually with his back to a wall, faces the second boy and supports his head with cupped hands. The other team leaps on to the horse, one at a time, from a run-up, and attempts to collapse it. Sometimes the team riding the horse makes a rhythmic bouncing to assist this effort and chants the words “Hackey Duck”.

Cousin Jim 2
Hugh McGrory
In writing my previous story about my cousin, I remembered another little tale:

One day, in my early twenties, I was walking home when a garbage truck stopped beside me and Jim, who
Dundee 'Scaffie's Larrie' ca 1956.
was driving, stuck his head out. We chatted a bit, then I stupidly asked if he wanted me, to show him, how to drive the big truck. Jim, being Jim, called my bluff, opened the driver’s door, said “Get in.” and slid over into the passenger seat.

I should have backed down – I didn't have the required licence, had never driven a truck, and in truth, didn't have much driving experience on four wheels at all – and Jim, no doubt, would have lost his licence and his livelihood if his bosses had found out.

But Jim being Jim, and me being me, a couple of minutes later, Dumb and Dumber were trundling along the street with me at the wheel. Jim told me to go faster, which I did, just as we neared the end of the street – a tee intersection. I completely misjudged the distance, not realising how much inertia there is in a full garbage truck, and ended up having to brake really hard to avoid sailing straight ahead into a garden. I overran the end of the street and stopped just short of the far kerb... Fortunately there was no cross traffic at that moment!

I hoped that there were no spectators, but almost immediately we were surrounded by local kids shouting things like “Can ye no drev, mister?” and “Ur ye jist a lerner?”

Jim and I decided, at that moment, that switching seats probably made sense, and he invited me to stay in the co-pilot's seat while he took the truck to the dump site and back, so I did.

All in all, an interesting couple of hours – and another little vignette to add to my book of life...

Skiing in Scotland
Gordon Findlay
I was never a wildly-keen skier, it was just something different to do in winter when the snow came, the ground froze, and all the rugby pitches were unplayable. But older brother Morris loved the sport, did it extremely well, and tootled off to Zermatt or Val-d’Isere most winters

He was a member of the Dundee Ski Club and encouraged me to come along with him to Glenshee to see what it was all about. So I scrounged a pair of second-hand skis, a pair of second-hand Norwegian climbing skins, and went along.

Back in those 1950s days it was all pretty basic and simple. The club chartered a bus which left from downtown Dundee city centre on Saturday and Sunday at 6.30 a.m. for the hour-and-a-half drive up to Glenshee.

Today, the Glenshee resort has grown massively to become the largest winter resort in Great Britain
stretching over some 2,000 acres and featuring 30-plus ski runs from beginners to expert. But back in 1953 we trundled up the highway, then crawled higher and higher up the snow-packed road, around the hairpin bend called the Spittal, and we had reached the ski hill.

At that point everyone piled out, and the volunteers carried a large length of rope which they hooked on to the large flywheel outside the motor shed. They then snow-shoed up the mountain to the top where they hooked the other end of the rope around a similar flywheel there.

Inside the shed at the foot of the ski run sat a reconditioned Ford V-8 engine which, on a good morning, started after a dozen tries and finally belched blue smoke. The rope started to move steadily around the two flywheels from the bottom of the hill to the top . . . and our ski tow was ready to use.

I didn’t see much of Morris after we arrived. I was Beginners ski hill material and Morris was definitely in the Expert class. Skis were fairly basic items back then– mostly wood with metal inserts for the running surfaces, and cable bindings.

Many of the skis were Norwegian-made (mine certainly were) and most of us invested in a pair of seal skin covers. They were just called “skins.” These were pulled over the skis and snapped tight in place; the seal fur ran “against the grain” of the snow and allowed you to “walk” up the snow-covered hillside.

That’s Show Business...
Hugh McGrory
In a previous story. I told of how my old friend and mentor, Bob Kenngott, and I spent a memorable evening (especially for him) seeing Marlene Dietrich in cabaret. The venue was the famed Blue Room in the Fairmont Hotel in New Orleans, the date 1974.

It was a magical evening, seeing this legend up close, and we wondered how a woman in her 70s could look so delectable in her famous ’nude’ dress. This was capital S, capital B, Show Business – something we’ll come back to…

Marie Magdalene Dietrich (Marlene is a portmanteau of Marie and Magdalene) was one of the greats, one of a kind – she was Madonna long before Madonna had two names, long, long, before Gaga became a Lady…

An American citizen, she was born in Berlin on Dec. 27, 1901, the daughter of a German cavalry officer, later a police lieutenant (who, sadly, died when she was only six) and grew up in a home with a Prussian
military ambience – no one could have guessed that she would become the international legend she did.

As a child, she studied violin, and in her teens became interested in poetry and theatre – she even, for a brief time, played violin in a pit orchestra for silent films in a Berlin theatre. She first appeared on stage as a chorus girl in vaudeville, which led to small parts in theatre productions and then in movies.

Her big break came in 1929 when she won the role of Lola Lola in The Blue Angel, the first feature-length, German, full-talkie film – in so doing met up with Josef Von Sternberg, the Director. He convinced her to work with him in the , where they made some six films together and made her a major star.

In one of those films, Morocco, with Gary Cooper, she played a cabaret singer, and in one sequence was dressed in a man's white tie and tails and kisses another woman. This created quite a stir at the time, and the film went on to earn Dietrich her only Academy Award nomination. Later in her career, in her one-woman cabaret shows she often played a first set in her 'nude" dress and the second in top hat, white-tie, and tails -
this allowed her to appeal to the varied tastes of the audience and to sing different songs – some written originally for a male singer.

Dietrich was approached by Hitler to return to Germany, but she refused, and in the late 1930s,with the film director, Billy Wilder, and other German exiles she created a fund to help Jews and dissidents escape from Germany. She donated her salary from one of her movies to a fund helping refugees. In 1939, she became an American citizen and renounced her German citizenship. After the U.S. entered World War II, in 1941, Dietrich became one of the first public figures to help sell war bonds. She toured the U.S. from January 1942 to September 1943 and was reported to have sold more war bonds than any other star.

Marlene recorded a song, Lili Marleen in English, and German – it became a favourite of both Allied and German soldiers. In 1944 and ‘45, she performed for Allied troops in Algeria, Italy, the UK, France, and the Netherlands then entered Germany with Generals Gavin and Patton. She received the Medal of Freedom in November 1947, for her "extraordinary record entertaining troops overseas during the war". She was also awarded the Legion d’honneur by the French government for her wartime work.

Dietrich married assistant director Rudolf Sieber, in 1923. Despite the fact that she knew that he had a long-time mistress, and he knew that she, openly bisexual, had many liaisons, they remained married until his death in 1976, and had an only child, Maria Riva. Among her lovers, apparently, were:

Burt Bacharach, Delores Del Rio, Douglas Fairbanks, Edith Piaf, Edward R. Murrow, Erich Maria Remarque, Errol Flynn, Frank Sinatra, Gary Cooper, General George Patton, George Bernard Shaw, Greta Garbo, Maureen Stewart, Jean Gabin, Joan Crawford, John F Kennedy, and it’s said, also his father Joseph Kennedy, John Gilbert, John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Mercedes de Acosta, Michael Todd, Michael Wilding, Yul Brynner.

After the war, she appeared in a number of movies, but began to concentrate more on her one-woman show on the cabaret, supper club, and theatre circuits. Her break-through appearance was in 1953 at the Sahara Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip.

Her shows were always quite short, consisting of only a few songs associated with her, but this one became a
worldwide sensation because of the daringly sheer 'nude' dress she wore (she said that the only thing she wore under it was a garter belt to keep her stockings up). It came in several versions designed to give the illusion of transparency, but to flash cameras it was more than an illusion… It created huge publicity for her and led to many international gigs which continued until the mid-seventies.

Which brings us back to capital ‘S’ capital ‘B’ Show Business and Bob and I watching her perform in her nude dress. By 1974, Marlene’s health was failing. A long-time smoker, she was a cervical cancer survivor, and suffered from poor circulation in her legs. In 1972 she had a fall on stage in Maryland, damaged her left thigh, and delayed treatment to the point that she needed skin grafts to help the wound to heal. She was a trouper, though, and she needed a sizable income, so she kept working.

By the time Bob and I sat in awe watching her she was 72 years old and the ’nude dress’ was definitely an illusion – it was anything but nude. In fact, before she put it on, she donned a flesh-colored bodysuit in nylon fabric which the
designer had created to pinch, squeeze augment and mold to give her a perfect body. The colour was exactly matched to her skin tone, so the tantalising ‘nude’ effect was still believable.

The body suit was so artful as to be invisible, and we didn’t realise that when she disappeared briefly behind the backdrop between numbers that she might have been taking a hit of oxygen to sustain her. Nor did we suspect her use of nonsurgical temporary facelifts (using tape), expert makeup and wigs, all of which combined with careful stage lighting to create the illusion that enabled her to preserve her glamorous image as she grew older. Show Business, eh! It certainly fooled Bob and me...

--------------------
After we saw her in New Orleans, Marlene appeared on stage 40 more times over the next year and a half, 20 of these were in various US cities, the other 20 covered Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, England, Holland, Japan, and Venezuela. Sadly, her show business career largely ended on 29 September 1975, when she fell on stage and broke a thigh bone during a performance in Sydney, Australia. The following year, her husband, Rudolf Sieber, died of cancer on 24 June 1976.

Dietrich withdrew to her apartment at 12 Avenue Montaigne in Paris an became almost a recluse. An alcoholic dependent on painkillers, she spent the final 11 years of her life mostly bedridden. She allowed only a select few, family and employees, to enter the apartment. She was though, a prolific letter-writer and phone-caller, and wrote her autobiography, Nehmt nur mein Leben (Take Just My Life), published in 1979.

On 6 May 1992, Dietrich died of renal failure at her flat in Paris at age 90. Her funeral ceremony was conducted at La Madeleine in Paris, a Roman Catholic church, on 14 May 1992. The funeral service was attended by approximately 1,500 mourners in the church itself — including several ambassadors, from Germany, Russia, the US, the UK and other countries — with thousands more outside.

Her closed coffin rested beneath the altar draped in the French flag and adorned with a simple bouquet of white wildflowers and roses from the French President, François Mitterrand. Three medals, including the Legion d’honneur and the US Medal of Freedom, were displayed at the foot of the coffin, military style, for a ceremony symbolising the sense of duty Dietrich embodied in her career as an actress, and in her personal fight against Nazism. The officiating priest remarked: "Everyone knew her life as an artist of film and song, and everyone knew her tough stands... She lived like a soldier and would like to be buried like a soldier".

By a stroke of serendipity that would have delighted Marlene, the Cannes Film Festival had chosen a photograph of her as the poster that year, and so, when her funeral took place, her image was pasted up all over Paris.

By the Book
Bill Kidd
Lockdown and the strictures it places on our social lives gives plenty of time to reflect on days gone by. In my own case this was triggered by finding that I was running out of reading material and bemoaning the fact that the local library was inoperative. This in turn got me thinking about what I read as a child. Before television took such a firm hold on society the three main sources of entertainment for many were the cinema, the radio and reading and I must admit that as a child in the late forties and early fifties I was addicted to all three.

There were few cowboy and wartime adventure films of the Errol Flynn and John Wayne genre that I did not see. As for the radio I could recite the weekly programme schedule from memory. I particularly enjoyed comedy shows such as Take it from Here, Much Binding in the Marsh, and Ray's a Laugh, in addition to my daily ration of Dick Barton, Special Agent, and Children's Hour.

I read voraciously, I always had a book on the go, and I believe that I may have been the best customer of Dundee Libraries. My visits there were almost daily because, as a juvenile, I could only borrow one book at a time. This problem was slightly alleviated by my stopping off at the reference department and reading some extracts from
'Arthur Mee's Children's Encyclopedia'.
Even now, I can still recall the story of the Holy Grail and the annoyance I felt if someone else had the temerity to be using the volume that had the next segment of the story.

I remember many of the books I read during that time. Most of them were adventure stories about brave heroes defending the Empire against villains that ranged from Napoleon to Hitler using ships under sail,WW1 biplanes, flint-lock muskets, and machine guns. I read authors of books that few now remember. R M Ballantyne's
'The Coral Island',
Capt. Marryat's
'Mr Midshipman Easy',
'The Children of The New Forest',
and
'Masterman Ready'.


W. E. Johns was responsible for a great deal of boys running around with outstretched arms mouthing de de de de de at another boy designated to be a Messerschmitt. Yes, he wrote the
'Biggles'
books, masses of them! In recent years I have dipped into these books and was horrified to find how racist and jingoistic they were.

I am pleased to say that I did have a more mellow, less bloodthirsty taste to my choice of books. Among my favourites was the Arthur Ransome series, with their various sailing adventures. I was also heavily into Richmal Crompton and her
'Just William'
books. I am not quite sure why I particularly enjoyed the stories about William and his friends, Ginger and Violet Elizabeth Bott and his enemy Hubert Lane. Perhaps it was because of the weekly radio version that I listened to.

Although I read a great deal, I must confess that I never enjoyed the books that were chosen for me as school home readers. I hated
'Ivanhoe'
, and
'Oliver Twist'
and must confess that I did not get past the first few chapters of either of them. A visit to the reference library for their synopsis provided enough information to enable me to scrape through the year end examination! I can honestly say that I have not read a word of Dickens or Scott since. Is it too late to make amends?

Cousin Jim
Hugh McGrory
My mum had a cousin, Jim – actually he was a first cousin once removed, about ten years younger than her. His mother was referred to in the family as Auntie Nell – she was actually my first cousin once removed and Jim was my second cousin (children of cousins are second cousins).

Jim would drop in on us now and again for a cup of tea and was always welcome – he was gallus, as we Lowland Scots would say (gallus means bold, extroverted, cheeky – apparently derived from Middle English, from gallows, in the sense of 'fit to be hanged'), and he always brightened our day. Jim had a hard life when young and I always believed, from family lore, that he spent time on the Mars Training Ship anchored in the River Tay. (In researching this story however, I've concluded that Jim, twelve years older than me, would have been too young to have been on the Mars since it ceased operations in 1929).

Jim was, variously, a tramcar conductor, then driver, and a bus conductor. He told me that as a tram driver,

one of the bugbears was the careless car driver who would park too close to the tracks and cause traffic jams. He said that one day he got so fed up that he just drove on and ripped the mirror off the car.

My Aunt Evelyn, my mother’s sister, and the mother of my cousins Mike, and Frank, whom some of you
know, liked to tell of one early morning when she was heading to work down Dens Road from Arklay Street, heading for a bus to take her downtown. She realised that she had forgotten her purse and had no money for bus fare.

Deciding that she’d have to walk, she set off. Just then, her bus pulled into the stop she’d just left, paused briefly then set off again. As it gained speed and passed her, she realised that the conductor standing on the rear platform was Jim and he was looking at her.

She called out “Jim, I’ve no money” and signalled with her hands out… Jim to his credit caught on immediately, reached into his cash bag, gathered a handful of coins, grabbed the safety post, leaned out of the bus, and pitched them into the gutter. Auntie Ev. gathered them up, walked to the next stop and caught the following bus.

Cousin Jim was quite a character – so was Auntie Ev., come to think of it...

The School Army Cadets
Brian Macdonald
Not being the athletic type, I was not in any sports teams and a slug on sports afternoons and in the gym. The only regular exercise I took for years, apart from turning the pages of books and comics, was the daily pushbike ride to school along the Clepington Road and delivering groceries from my mum’s shop on my bike. I had a passion for skating, so I went to the ice rink on Saturday afternoons with my pal Bruce Henderson to zoom round the rink in our ‘tube’ skates.


But, possibly driven by an urge to be part of some school group activity, I joined the school’s Army Cadet Corps as soon as I was old enough. The officers were the lofty Ernie Landsman, the steel spring, ex-Chindit Tom Hermiston, Doc Taylor, the sardonic history teacher and the affable Bill Dow, all with WW2 service behind them. Senior cadets won non-commissioned rank from lance-corporal up to sergeant-major. The rest of us were cannon-fodder and often not the smartest turned-out.

We were issued surplus, or maybe ‘pre-loved’ khaki army uniforms of thick, coarse, blanket-like texture,
Cadet Gilchrist and Officer Dow, in civvies, and cadet Maclay in uniform and beret.
shirts (Where did they get these shirts with separate collar that had to be attached with collar studs?), and berets, that were worn hanging rakishly off the side of the head, and long-suffering parents had to buy boots that we learnt to ‘bull’ – spit and polish the toecaps and heel areas with lashings of black boot polish until they gleamed like glass. Some lads must have had better quality spit, for their boots outshone the others by a huge margin. The broad, thick, woven army belt with brass buckle and slides, the gaiters and the small pack had to be evenly coated with khaki blanco (a block of paste to which you added water and applied with a nail brush) and all the brass bits highly polished with Brasso or Duraglit. One interesting piece of equipment was a voluminous waterproof poncho that opened up to double as a ground sheet. It was really good rainwear, but the turtleneck-like neck hole made it uncomfortable to lie on when opened up.

Every Friday we turned up at school in our uniforms instead of the Morgan blazer and grey trousers, for
parade at 4 o’clock. We formed up into squads, marched around the concrete playground with a satisfying, boot-stamping rhythm, did rifle drill, learned how to strip down, clean and reassemble in quick time rifles and Bren guns and carried out sundry other military activities.

The unit’s HQ was a small brick building in a corner of the girls’ playground. It had a tiny office and an armoury, where a small arsenal of Lee Enfield .303 rifles (possibly of Boer War vintage) and a few WW2 Bren machine guns was kept chained and locked away. The outside door was steel. These were the days of IRA (Irish Republican Army) raids on armouries around Britain
Lee Enfield .303 Rifle Bren Gun... 1930s – 1990s
and I doubt ours would have offered much resistance.and I doubt ours would have offered much resistance. A highlight of cadet activity was the periodic field day. This took place on a Saturday on the dunes at the Barry Buddon army training area, about 10 miles from Dundee, near Carnoustie, and was our chance to run

Barry Buddon Training Area

around like real soldiers. A full-dress turn-out with all the officers present, a few genuine army sergeants to oversee things, and one elderly major with an artificial leg, whom we called ‘Corky’, but not to his face. There was much crawling about in the long grass and running around with rifles, simulating attack, a session of shooting at targets with live ammo, under strict supervision, which included a stint in the butts pasting little pieces of paper over the holes made by those who could shoot accurately and some classroom work, such as map-reading. We had to bring our own packed lunch, a couple of sandwiches, cheese and an apple. I do not remember it ever raining on a field day but I suppose it did.

Rose-tinted memories! We enjoyed our days running around on the dunes and went home dirty, tired and happy. The throw-away Australian expression for the Citizens’ Military Force (the equivalent of the Territorial Army) is ‘cut-lunch commandos’ and that was us, in our own eyes.

On one such field day, being now the proud owner of my BSA motorbike, I travelled to the event on my bike rather than in the organised coach. Kenneth George Will, a sixth year lad, was then the sergeant-major, the highest ranking cadet, smart and soldierly of bearing. As such, he had a supervisory role and I was his transport and despatch rider, thus getting some hugely-enjoyed rough country riding.

We were heading somewhere, two-up, Ken on the pillion hanging on for dear life as we bounced along on the rough, tussocky dunes. Suddenly he bellowed at me to stop. I’d been enjoying myself too much to pay proper attention to where we were going. I stopped dead and found we were on the crest of a small dune, with nothing but space a few feet in front of us. Had we kept on at warp speed, there was a high probability of a wrecked bike and two broken necks. But the disaster was avoided. No damage and a bit more circumspection after that.

I stuck to the cadets till I left school at age 18, but I never made sergeant-major, although I was the most
senior cadet by then. I understood and accepted the reason although nothing was ever said. Carrying the nickname of ‘Tubby’ all my school career, I did not cut the proper, trim, military figure that was essential to front the massed ranks of the cadets on parade. A clever solution was found by our officers and I was appointed quarter-master sergeant and put in charge of the armoury and other logistical matters. A sixth year classmate, Stan Bowen, got the sergeant-major’s crown on his sleeve and cut the proper military figure.

Bent on a military career, Ken Will went on to be accepted at the prestigious Sandhurst Military College as an officer cadet. I joined the army a couple of
years later, finding my way to Mons Officer Cadet School in Aldershot, and spending five years in uniform.

So the time spent in the Morgan Academy Army Cadet Corps under the tutelage of those enthusiastic volunteer officers reaped some fruit. I remember them all and my time as a Morgan cadet with affection and gratitude.

An Abridged Story...
Hugh McGrory
... one last short story about a bridge...

When I was writing my previous story about railway underbridge surveying, I searched the Web for a photograph of a bridge that was similar to the one we had worked on, to use as an illustration. I was concentrating on the type of beam used, and the bridge I finally found was very similar – I show it again below. (Actually there are three bridges side by side along this road – you can see the bottom of the girders of the two further bridges.)

At first, I didn't pay much attention to the people in the road underneath, and it was some time later that I took a closer look. My first thought was that it was a bunch of 'leeries', but then I realised that something quite serendipitous had occurred:

To set the scene, I've added some letters to the photo:

  •    'U,W,L' defines an actual beam. 'U' and 'L' are the upper and lower flanges and 'W' is the web.

  •    To the left of the 'M' you'll see the rather ghostly outline of a man. I copied him from the street below and pasted him into that position to give a sense of scale (I apologise for the quality of the 'man' – I don't have very sophisticated photo manipulation software – you'll see it a little better if you click to the larger photo). It looks like the beam is about 5 feet deep or a little more.

  •    The 'P' is a parapet to keep workmen from falling off the safety walkway which runs along the top of the beam (similar to the one circled in red on the photo below). Some bridges had these to allow railway workers to cross safely while trains passed by. (The bridge we surveyed didn’t have a walkway.)

The reason I wanted to re-visit this photo is because – purely by chance – I had managed to stumble on a
photograph of an actual underbridge survey being carried out – sometime in the 1930s by the look of it.

The DEMEC gauges we used were only developed and put on the market in the early 1950s, so a different method was required before then. The group of men were positioned at strategic points beneath the bridge to measure the downward deflection of the beams as the locomotive travelled across – from these measurements engineers would be able to assess the condition of the structure.

As you can see, they are armed with long poles. I imagine these must have consisted of two sections, spring-loaded, one part telescoping into the other, and would have had a gauge to measure the movement. They would have set up their poles vertically underneath the bottom flange, then moved the sliding part up until the tip was firmly against the beam, then zeroed the gauge. The train would have travelled across, the beams would have sagged slightly under the load, and the gauges would have registered the downward deflections – these readings would then have been recorded for later analysis.

So, I ask you, what are the odds against my accidentally stumbling upon a photo of an underbridge survey in progress, while searching for a photograph to illustrate a story about an underbridge survey...?

Hill Walking
Gordon Findlay
While I was working at D.C. Thomson as a lowly sub-editor one of my best friends was Jim Fitzpatrick. He was a staff photographer for Valentine’s of Dundee – at the time Scotland’s leading source of scenic postcards and professional photography. Jim was also a keen hill walker, and got me interested (he got lots of practice since his job usually involved hiking across open moorland to set up his large, tripod camera to photograph a particular scene when the light or natural conditions were just right).

Scotland is crisscrossed with a network of trails across open country and throughout all of the country’s national parks. One of the biggest and best of these is the Cairngorms National Park, the largest in Britain at over 1,700 square miles. When we were hill walking, of course, there was no national park (the area didn’t become a National Park until 2003). It was just a gloriously open and beautiful stretch of rough farming and semi-wilderness with lots of wildlife, mostly hares, rabbits, deer, and red foxes.

A favourite walk on weekends was the trail through Glen Prosen. We would drive up to the village of Kirriemuir, about 30 km northeast from Dundee and park in a farmer’s yard there – with his permission.

Then it was on with our hiking boots: high-top waterproof leather well soaked in dubbin and studded with hob nails, on with the sweater and the waterproof anorak jacket, on with the backpack containing our trail mix and sandwiches, topographical map, and bottle of water, on with the waterproofed hat (essential in Scottish weather). Then we grabbed our walking poles or walking sticks , checked our compass for North plus the bearing we needed, and we were off.

In those days there was a tiny youth hostel near Adenaich and all we had to do was keep on a compass bearing of, say, 274 degrees and we’d hit it. It’s easy to get disorientated when you’re hill-walking, especially if a low mist starts to drift in, as very often happened in Scotland when lower warm air collided with the cooler air in the hills.

When there are no distinguishing objects like houses or hydro poles or roads, every hill and valley look the same; hill fog can get very thick very quickly, especially if the wind dies away. You find yourself surrounded by a grey, swirling nothingness. You must have a map, a compass and a good small flashlight and know how to orientate yourself.

Once you got away from the village of Kirriemuir, (‘way back then, anyway) the fields dropped away and you found yourself climbing up towards Glen Quharity: open country with lots of springy short grass and heather, little burns trickling down the hillsides where the going was spongy and wet (that’s where those waterproof boots were essential). If the weather was fair and warm we’d quickly doff our anoraks and tie them around our waists (the origin of “Skirt Man”!).

Then it was a long upward hike past Glen Quharity towards Corwharm – a small mountain that dominated the area and had a lot of jumbled rock that could make the going slow. Hares seemed to be the largest wildlife population and they’d spring up ahead of us as we approached and go racing off across the moor in every direction.

Then, when they’d gone a hundred yards or so, they’d stop, turn around and stretch up to stare back at us as if to say: “Well, you’re obviously not chasing us and you are an interesting-looking pair.”

One of the great pleasures came on days when it was sunny and warm. We’d pick a nice spot to eat our lunch, doff our back packs and flop down. Complete and utter silence except for the soft rush of wind across the hill; the delicate scent of peat and heather in the air and the sun on your face.

I’m sure there wasn’t another soul for miles around us. It was a deep and satisfying pleasure to burrow deep into the heather and look up at the clouds drifting across the sky, smell Jimmy’s pipe smoke, and feel at peace with the world.

We did do an overnight near Adenaich once at the small youth hostel which in those days was only approachable by foot across the hills. We found ourselves sharing the place with one supervisor, a couple of Germans, I think, and a pair of Aussies (naturally!).

Supper was a always group affair. Everyone contributed what was in their back packs . . . packets of soup and dehydrated beef, a length of Polish sausage, a bag of macaroni or uncooked spaghetti perhaps. Wrapped wedges of butter or cheese, crackers or cookies. The net effect was a sort of international feast, usually a stew cooked on the shared stove and using the youth hostel pots and metal plates (you had to provide your own knife-fork-spoon combo.)

If you were lucky the supervisor had a bag of potatoes or a couple of turnips in his storehouse (too heavy to carry) and he (it was always a “he” in those days…) would contribute these for the communal pot. No beer or whisky-fueled drinking songs after supper . . . no alcohol of any kind was the rule at the youth hostels, and that was a good rule, I think. It made evening meals move along more naturally and free of any pointless arguments.

For the small fee, the hostel provided fresh water, a wire frame bed and a sleeping bag or blankets– your choice. After a long 7 or 8 hours hiking across the hills and a pleasantly full stomach, sleep came pretty swiftly – and it was deep!

A Bridge Not Far Enough...
Hugh McGrory
In a previous story I told of working on railway underbridge surveys. Sometimes, though rarely, the 'powers that be' would decide that we needed to go one step further – run tests on a given bridge. One day in 1959, my boss tells four of us that we are the test crew for the coming weekend. We were to meet at around 10:00 pm on Sunday and drive to the bridge in question.

Needless to say, my erstwhile cavalier attitude in wandering onto a main line wouldn’t work this time... Given that we intended to take over the line and run a steam locomotive back and forward over the bridge (fortunately we didn't have to bring our own engine) we had to follow very strict procedures laid down by the railway authority beginning with submitting a ‘Request for Track Possession'.

2.6.1 Requirement for a Track Possession .

A track possession is a formal procedure to stop rail traffic over a defined area of track and to hand the track over to a contractor or other staff for the purpose of carrying out works safely. The need for a possession shall be determined by the railway operating manager after considering the type of work to be carried out along with method statement, risk assessment, location, access, traffic, and other factors. Each possession is defined by precise location on the track, and by time limits, and the information is presented on a certificate signed by both the railway operating manager and the person in charge of possession (PICOP) at the start and end of each possession.

To try to explain what we were doing, I need to start with 'stress and strain' which are often confused. In a nutshell, stress occurs when an object has a load applied to it. Strain occurs if the shape of the object changes because of that stress, e.g., if you stood on a block of granite, you'd have stress but no strain (since the granite would be much too strong to change shape). If, instead, it had been a block of soft rubber, you'd have both...)

I just rooted around in my desk and found an eraser. I wrote on one side, then held it while my long-suffering wife took several photos – these are the results:


On the left is the start position; the middle photo shows my thumbs pressing upwards and my index fingers down and you can see that the letters on the top have moved apart while the ones below are squishing together; the third shows the opposite indicating that the material at the top is compressing while the material below is in tension and stretching like an elastic band. So, my fingers applied stress, and the eraser reacted by showing strain – part getting longer, part shorter.

Now imagine that the eraser in the third photo is actually a steel I-beam (see photo on the left). The photo on the right shows such beams in a house carrying wooden joists that will support the floor above ). The
vertical steel column supporting the beam is like my thumb pressing up, and the wooden joists are like my fingers pressing down. The flanges at the top and bottom of the I-beam will stretch and compress just like the eraser.

When larger I-beams are required, as for rail bridges and often referred to as girders, they are made by welding or riveting steel plates together, and this was the case in the bridge we were to test – very like the bridge shown below (see the riveted plates).

Our job was to measure the bending, stretching, and compressing that
was going on as the locomotive moved over the bridge, and use these measurements to calculate whether or not the bridge was fit for purpose, or needed repair or replacement.

Very similar to 'our' bridge. (Photo actually shows three bridges close together for multiple tracks.)
I think we probably had ‘Possession' for about two hours ending around 4:00 am. When we arrived, we put on our hard hats with attached headlights and set about preparing for the arrival of the engine. We used ‘DEMECs' (demountable mechanical strain gauges). These were developed at the Cement and Concrete Association to enable strain measurements to be made at different parts of a structure using a single instrument.

The DEMEC consisted of a dial gauge attached to a bar made of Invar (a nickel-iron alloy that barely expands or contracts under temperature changes). A fixed conical point is mounted at one end of the bar, and a moving conical point is mounted on a knife edge pivot at the opposite end eight inches apart . The pivoting movement of this second conical point is measured by the dial gauge.

To prepare for the test, we first used a metallic glue to stick pairs of little location discs (provided by the DEMEC manufacturer) eight inches apart at the chosen locations on the structure. These stainless steel discs (the size of shirt buttons) were pre-drilled with a depression in the centre in which the pivot points rested.

DEMECs – 8" between points. Discs – about ¼ inch diam.
Each time a reading had to be taken we inserted the two conical points into the holes in the discs and adjusted the reading on the dial gauge to zero. Then the engine dirver would be signalled and the locomotive would travel slowly across the bridge. This load caused various parts of the beam to stretch or compress slightly, the discs to move very slightly towards or away from each other, and the gauge to move – we read and recorded the maximum value. Most of my test locations were on the edge of the upper flanges of the beams.

My memories of that night:

  •    I remember quite enjoying working through the night. I wouldn't like to do it full time, but there's something special about working when most regular people are tucked up in bed, a feeling of superiority, something along the lines of "Sleep well people in your comfy beds, knowing that we're here, working through the night to keep you safe..."

  •    Though I had studied stress and strain in the classroom, I hadn’t really internalised the fact that these huge metal beams would actually stretch or compress, until the first pass of the engine occurred, and I saw the gauge move. That was a moment of engineering insight for me.

  •    And then there was my panic attack... It happened on the fourth pass of the engine. I was standing facing away from the track attending to the gauge and about to take a reading on the top flange. When the engine got to within a few feet of me – as in the photo below – my right brain suddenly shouted in my ear “You're going to get crushed!” My instinctive reaction was to duck down under the flange and press myself against the web. (Fortunately, I kept my grasp on the DEMEC, and my hands, now straight up in the air, kept it in position.)

Of course, as soon as I got down there my left brain said “What are you, an idiot? You've done this three
times already – you know you can't get crushed.” So, as the engine reached me and slowly passed, I sprang up with a sort of Inspector Clouseau (“Zere is nossing to see 'ere.”) nonchalance – and then snuck glances all around to see if anybody had noticed. It was dark – no one had.

The whole incident was over in less than 30 seconds, so maybe it wasn't a classic panic attack (never happened before or since), but it was certainly something weird – sure scared the bejabers out of me at the time!

Now in my own defence, I don't think most people understand just how big, how powerful, these magnificent steam locomotives are. The larger behemoths rise more than 13 ft above the rails, and the rails are about 18 inches above the ground, so add another foot and a half.

Standing a foot away from the big driving wheels, taller than you, of a very slow-moving locomotive listening to the sounds, the puffing and wheezing, and the groaning of hot metal, smelling the steam, the smoke, the hot oil – now that's a sensual experience you don't get standing on the platform of a train station, some 4½ft above track ground level...

Memory
Bill Kidd
Having reached an age that the retention of information becomes ever more important, something happened to give me cause to reflect on what I do remember and what I don't. Don't ask me what happened to trigger that thought, I can't remember! It is annoying to go into a room to collect something only to find that when you get there you no longer have any idea of what it was that you were meant to collect.

Putting names to places is another minefield to negotiate with care. If it is someone that I don't see too often I can employ the technique used by an American presidential candidate (I can't remember who it was) who found himself in the same position. When greeting someone that he felt that he should know, he simply bit the bullet, held out his hand and said, "Great to see you again but I'm sorry I can't quite recall your name." If the answer was a forename the candidate would say, "Bill ... Bill, I know that as well as my own name, it's your surname that I can't recall!". If the answer given was his surname.... well, you can guess the rest!

Care needs to be taken when using similar techniques. A colleague of mine spent several hours interviewing a politician and at the conclusion of the interview he couldn't recall the interviewee's name. In a moment of inspiration he looked up from his notes and said, "Finally, can I just check how you spell your name?". "S-M-I-T-H", came the reply.

It would seem logical that one would remember the important things in life and discard memories of little importance. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be the case. I have had a fondness for quizzes for most of my life. I suspect that this was kicked off by the weekly quiz in the Sunday Post and fed by an avid diet of Ripley Believe it or Not! books. The result is my retention of a mishmash of unrelated, largely useless facts.

Now that I only watch quizzes on TV these facts become a useful tool for the irritation of others as I claim to know the answer to some question or other. When I say "claim" I mean that I do know but can't recall it in time to prove it. This can be a source of great frustration, particularly when the answer comes to mind when I awaken in the middle of the night. Perhaps some of the process of ageing is being able to file away memories in good order but at the same time forgetting where one has hidden the key!

There seems to be some facts that are embedded in memory and remain there no matter how irrelevant they become. Without any mechanism for eradicating them, recall remains instant and automatic. If only people could ask me the cost of a dozen items each priced at 1/3, I feel sure that they would be impressed when I snap out the answer "15/-". I could then go on to further impress by demonstrating with instant recall that there were eight half crowns in a pound and that you could buy six items each costing 3/4 for a pound. The sad thing is that the only word that anyone under the age of fifty would recognise is "pound".

As for Rods, Poles and Perches I could well be speaking in Klingon. For some reason when I purchase something, such as an apple, for fifteen pence I still think, "That's three shillings" and reflect on when you could have an evening in the cinema, a tub of ice cream and have a poke of chips on the way home for that! But enough of my jet-setting early life!

Memory is a funny thing that can be triggered by many things. The aroma of roasting coffee takes me back to Dundee's Castle Street, and the smell of a new jute shopping bag in Tesco can transport me back to the crowds of Jute workers returning home from work. The clang of a tramcar warning bell on TV can set me off on a fantasy trip of penny transfer journeys to school or the exhilarating return from Dens Park after yet another Dundee victory. Did I say that some memories exist only in fantasy?

Ah Yes, I Remember it Well!
Hugh McGrory
You know how, sometimes, you have the experience of enjoying time spent with family or friends and realising afterwards that much of the pleasure came from seeing your companions' enjoyment as much as the event itself.

For example, I remember:
  •    an outing to a petting zoo and being entranced watching the kids as much as the animals, as they interacted.

  •     my wife and me taking my mother to visit Verdant Works, an industrial textile museum set in a beautifully refurbished mill building in Dundee. Mum, as a young girl had worked in a jute mill as a cop winder, and we got to see her reaction to seeing (and hearing) a cop winding machine in action some seventy years later.
For a time, late 1960s to early 1980s I made many trips to the USA furthering my (and my employer's) interest in the application of computers in engineering. On one particular occasion – my records are sketchy, but I believe it was April 1974 – I was in the Fairmont Hotel in New Orleans attending meetings with a small group of fellow professionals. We were working on a project for the US National Science Foundation.

One of those colleagues, Bob Kenngott, was a generation older, and someone I looked up to as a wise and experienced practitioner. Once in casual conversation he had mentioned that he had a favourite entertainer, someone he had admired for ever...

When I checked in to the hotel (The Fairmont), I saw a billboard – that very same entertainer was appearing there in the famous Blue Room! I was thrilled to tell Bob, and we reserved a table for a meal and the show.

Here are some clues to the entertainer that evening – can you figure out who it was?
  1.    Famous
  2.    A headliner
  3.    An international entertainer
  4.    Actor, singer
  5.    Starred in films, in the theatre and in cabaret
  6.    Spoke English, French and German
  7.    Wrote poetry
  8.    Died at the age of 90
Know who it was? Check your guess here.

It was a memorable evening for me – a pleasure, of course, to see such a legend perform – but made especially memorable by my friend Bob's entrancement at seeing his lifelong idol live, and up close...

Former Pupils' Rugby
Gordon Findlay
I left Morgan, clutching my Higher Leaving Certificate, and I thought I had left rugby behind me. I had enjoyed my time on Morgan's 1st XV during the 1949 – 1950 season and didn't really think much about the game for a while.

And then I got a phone call. Would I be interested in turning out for a practice with the Former Pupils team?

I dug out my shorts and boots and stockings and made my way down Forfar Road on the appointed day. But when I walked into the dressing room my first thought was: "Omigod! These are big men. Older men. With major muscles. With moustaches. Most of them have wives! What am I doing here?"

Then, as I cautiously undressed and got my gear on, I noticed something else. A few of these men sported ugly healing cuts on their legs and arms – plus purple bruises the size of small plates. Moreover, one or two of them donned large and impressive knee braces. Another wrapped one of his arms in layer after layer of pink tensor bandage before pulling on his jersey

I was really sure I was in over my head. How am I going to stand up against full-grown men? How can I compete with all those experienced senior players?

Just when I was building myself up into a huge blue funk, I spotted a somewhat different visual clue. A couple of those FPs sported rather thick midriffs. One hulking fellow had to wrestle his shorts on over a significant beer belly.

Hmmmm. Surely he can't be totally fit with a gut like that! Maybe there was hope after all.

When we got out on to the field, we did the usual rugby drills: wind sprints, practice lineouts, loose scrums, passing. There was nothing new, but all the bodies seemed to be larger, everything seemed to happen a little faster, and once we chose up sides for a short game, I found the tackling a lot harder, the bodies more solid than I had been used to playing against in school rugby.

But, being a practice, there was a lot of cheerful ribbing and laughter when things broke down or passes went astray. And although I was as nervous as a new bride, I mostly kept a low profile, tried not to drop the ball or do anything stupid.

After an hour and a half somebody called it quits. The practice was over. I was still in one piece and I still had some energy left.

And that's when I discovered the somewhat different world of F.P. rugby. We walked off the field and clattered back inside the club house. And there – sitting solidly in the middle of the dressing room floor – were two cases of McEwan's Strong Ale.

They were obviously supposed to be there. Everyone casually reached over and opened one. Then they sat back on the bench, tipped back their bottles and sighed gratefully. Good-natured insults began to fly around the room. Tales from previous games were told and jokes exchanged. There was lots of laughter.

Sitting quietly in the corner of the room with my own bottle I said to myself: "I think I'm going to like this."
Third from left...

A Bridge Too Far...
Hugh McGrory
My first job after university was in London, working for a consulting engineering company, Mott, Hay and Anderson. Mott, Hay was a large well-respected firm (it no longer exists as such – it merged with Sir M MacDonald and Partners in 1989, to form Mott MacDonald, now one of the largest employee-owned companies in the world).

The company had a contract to survey underbridges for the Southern Region, British Railways. (An underbridge is the term used for a bridge that carries rail tracks over a road, river, or other obstruction.)

There were approximately 5000 bridges throughout the Region constructed of masonry, cast-iron, wrought

Three of the Five Thousand
iron, steel, or concrete – some of these were more than 100 years old. This was a multi-year contract for Mott, Hay the purpose being to find those bridges that could not be relied upon to carry the increasing loads of modern trains.

What We Were Trying to Prevent
We obtained plans for each bridge, if available, using the information from these to analyse the carrying capacity. Sometimes, if no plans were available, we had to go out to the field to establish the dimensions etc.

On one particular occasion I was with two other young engineers, Mike and Avi – see photo taken June
1959. I was the senior, given that I had joined the firm the previous year and they were new hires – what this meant was that I got to drive the van (a Bedford CA type which some of you may remember as being the base for the famous Dormobile camper van).

We had completed our mission for that day, and could have headed back to the office, but I was eyeing the bridge behind the van in the photo. We were parked in Southwark Street, just west of the bridge carrying traffic across the Thames to Cannon Street Station.

I knew that we needed a few measurements from that specific bridge to complete its analysis, and that in due
course we would get the requisite permission from the railway authority and would come back then to meet up with a railway 'minder'.

So we should have headed for the office – but as a contrarian, and a believer in the homily 'it's much easier to apologize than to get permission', I told my 'crew' that we were going to get those measurements there and then. They were not too impressed with the idea – but I had the keys to the van...

The recent photo shows the location today. Access to the track was from the corner of the bridge abutment –
where some repairs seem to be under way now. The red temporary fence in the photograph was a wooden fence sixty years ago with a locked gate at the corner of the bridge.

I used a screwdriver to jimmy the lock (without damaging it, of course) which gave us access to stairs within the abutment that led up to the track. There didn't seem to be any railway workers, or trains, around – perfect. I told the guys we wanted to be in and out fast – and we were –
ten minutes tops. Then we scarpered and headed back to the office.

I was quite pleased with myself over the fine 'get the job done' leadership I had shown to the newbies. That lasted until I got to the office where I was told the boss wanted to see me...

I got a large strip torn of my back... They had had a complaint about "idiots breaking the rules, trespassing on the tracks, endangering themselves and others, and on and on..." Apparently we'd been spotted by a signalman in a signal box nearby (remember manned signal boxes) that I hadn't really noticed.
Very few signal boxes are still in operation
I had hoped that my 'break the rules a little to get the job done efficiently' would have been appreciated – as it turned out, by my bosses... not so much!
Top of Top of the Form
1952

Brian Macdonald
Top of the Form was a half-hour quiz programme which first ran on radio, on the BBC Light Programme (and later on BBC 2 and BBC 4) and also on BBC TV for much of its life. The show took the form of a knock-out, general knowledge, quiz tournament between schools throughout Britain, with a number of rounds leading to a grand final and the crowning of one school as that year's champion. It was run as an outside broadcast event, with each team on a stage at its own school in front of an enthusiastic audience of teachers and students, and a quizmaster at one of the two locations, which were linked by phone line. The quizmaster was a radio current affairs or documentary personality.

Top of the Form was a long-lived and popular show, running on radio from 1948 until 1986. The TV version ended in 1975 because it was costly to produce, needing a full outside broadcast crew at two locations simultaneously. The radio version was cheaper and easier to run, especially as communications technology
improved. There were a number of forays overseas during the life of the show, with one match between a team from Paris and one from London.

There was also an England v Germany match, years before the famous fitba' World Cup final of 1966. England won both of those matches. There was a very long-distance series between UK and my own adopted country, Australia. Although it was a quiz show with school pupils as the competitors, Top of the Form was popular with adult listeners as well as youngsters. One of its TV show directors set up the successful, adult Mastermind programme which
started in 1975 and lasted 25 years.

Radio quiz programmes were not new when Top of the Form began. An earlier one that appealed to me was
The Brains Trust, which started during WW2 and continued into the 1950s. That was more a collegial round table than a contest with several professional 'brains', chosen for their wide range of knowledge and lofty intellect, answering questions submitted by listeners, on topics ranging from the frivolous 'How does a fly land on a ceiling?' to serious moral issues, literary questions and cryptic crossword conundrums.

Even after my family got a TV set for the coronation of the present queen in 1953, I still often went back to The Brains Trust on radio and am sure it broadened my knowledge. A favourite participant on that program was C. E. M. Joad, a Baliol-educated (Oxford University) philosopher, a stolid, pipe-smoking man, who often
began his answers with "It all depends on what you mean by..." and then went on to prove his erudition by an extensive and entertaining answer.

But I digress.

Top of the Form, in its early days, was dominated by schools like the Morgan Academy was back then – a high school whose history was as a fee-paying institution – and 'public' schools (to use the English terminology) although this changed over time and state schools such as the Morgan proved themselves competitive. Two other Dundee schools featured in the program's list of successes. A team of two girls and two boys from Kirkton High School, founded as recently as 1960, won the tournament in 1967 and a boys' team from Harris Academy, which dates from 1885, was runner-up in 1971.

Top of the Form came to the Morgan in 1951. Someone at the school must have been quick off the mark to be granted a place only three years into the life of the show. I recall that the rounds were not held in the spacious school hall, likely for reasons of acoustics, but in a large assembly room several floors higher. Our team consisted of four boys, although the Morgan had both male and female students. Teams from girls' schools and mixed teams also participated.

The second-youngest member of the Morgan team was Derek S Ruxton, the intellectual superstar in my own year. Ruxton picked up many academic honours as he sailed through his education years and became an international lawyer and tax planner. The next man up was the year older Euan G Wilson, known to his pals as 'Egg'. I am told that the captain, Atholl Hill, was Head of Design at Dundee Art College at the time of the Morgan Centenary in1989 and the youngest was Derek McLeod. A smiling, round face and red hair come to mind. More than a year's age difference was a geological era and a social gulf at school in those days.

(Information about any of the team's later careers is welcomed.)

Minor team changes occurred from round to round for various reasons. The chosen four sat at a long table, with headphones clamped on and microphones with trailing cables set before them, ready to answer questions addressed specifically to each contestant. Points were awarded for correct answers. The opposing team was just a set of disembodied voices. The audience was always packed and was, of course, fiercely partisan. Applause at the end of a round of questions was powerful.

As the rounds wore on through the autumn and into winter of 1951, it became clear that the Morgan team was a serious contender and was not only winning its rounds, but making big scores. Finally, in January 1952, the Morgan quartet made it to the final.

The opposition was St. Dominic's High School for Girls, Belfast, founded in 1870 as a Roman Catholic Church
school. So it was about the same age as the Morgan Academy, which first took pupils in 1866. Good as St Dominic's girls were, they were no match for the brain power of the all-conquering Morgan squad and we won with a huge points tally. I recall that the quizmaster on this occasion, although Wynford Vaughan Thomas was the regular host, was Franklin Engelmann, a heavy-featured man, with a small moustache and usually a pipe, and the rich, sonorous voice of a seasoned radio performer. He was best known, later, for hosting the popular radio travel programme, Down Your Way.

I remember that evening well, for the headmaster, the formidable Peter Robertson, seeing me immediately after
the end of the broadcast and knowing my name (for reasons which shall remain private), commanded me to show Franklin Engelmann the way downstairs and out to his car. As a great fan of the show and a proud Morgan lad, I asked Mr Engelmann, as we descended the broad stone staircase, if the score was a record for the programme. I was pretty sure it was. But he gave a noncommittal answer. Probably didn't know. Adults can be like that.

But there it was. The Morgan Academy had won Top of the Form. What a triumph for the school and plaudits for the team members. To celebrate, the whole school got free ice cream, probably from Hector
Gibb's dairy across the Forfar Road entrance, and there was a set of encyclopaedias for the library. The team received bicycles for their monumental effort – but we all basked in the glory.

With thanks to my friend Dorothy Alexander, whose memory is better than mine, and to Wikipedia for some facts.

--------------------
Some contemporary clippings for those who're interested. (Click each to enlarge.)


Baking Bad
Hugh McGrory
Making bread is very easy – and extremely complex. It's easy if you have a good recipe and follow it to the letter. It's especially easy if you have a breadmaking machine and follow the instructions to the letter.

It's very complex if you delve into the chemistry...

Breadmaking 101

The process of making bread can be broken down to a few simple steps:
  •  Mixing the ingredients - basically, flour, water, yeast, and salt. Combine these to make a dough. Wheat is the most commonly used flour (buy 'strong flour', the one labelled 'For Breadmaking'). Wheat contains two proteins which, when combined with water, form gluten.

  •  Kneading the dough – that is 'work it', which uncoils the gluten proteins and gives it strength - then leave it to rise.

  •  Rising is caused by thousands of bubbles of carbon dioxide. Yeast is a live, single-celled fungus containing enzymes that are able to break down starch in the flour into sugar (actually glucose). This in turn acts as food for the yeast, which produces carbon dioxide and ethanol (alcohol) - the ethanol isn't important, but it's why bread sometimes, during the process, gives off a smell like beer...

    The sugar produced by this process isn't all metabolised by the yeast, however, and it adds flavour to the bread and helps to form the brown crust.

  •  Applying heat to bake, by placing in an oven or using a bread machine. One thing about homemade bread - it has no preservatives and other chemicals, as store-bought bread does. This means that it will go stale rather quickly. Damping and re-heating can temporarily revive it – or you can halve the loaf and freeze one of the halves for future use. (Don't store your bread in the fridge – it will go stale much faster.)
Many years ago, Sheila and I bought a Panasonic breadmaking machine. Since then, we've worn it out and replaced it with a second (Pansonic SD-YD250). It came with precise instructions and many recipes.


So basically, we put the ingredients into the baking pan/bucket (the yeast goes in the lid for time-release later), press a couple of buttons for the settings we want, set the timer, and Bob's your uncle... So, Sheila and I live happily together with our bread maker and enjoy perfect bread every time we want it? Well, not exactly...

There's one aspect not mentioned in recipe books – the human element. There are a number of errors that can be made throughout the process – we've managed to make almost every one over the years... Interestingly, breadmaking being so precise, the effects are all different:

Ingredients

The ingredients for the simple recipe that we use are the four above, flour, water, yeast, and salt, plus sugar, butter and milk powder.

The only item that we have not forgotten over the years is the flour – it sort of stands out in the baking pan, too obvious for even us to forget...

If you forget:

Water – you get a stodgy, singed, solid mess.

Yeast – the dough doesn't rise, of course, and you get a loaf that's a quarter of the expected size and really dense – just right for throwing out.

Salt/Sugar/Butter/Milk powder/ - missing any one of these produces a loaf that's edible but doesn't taste or look quite right...
  • Salt is subtle, but it brings out flavours in the wheat flour – you notice the lack if they're absent. It also acts as an inhibitor to the yeast, slowing the rising process, or fermentation, and allowing the gluten to strengthen giving a better feel to the bread and a better crust.

  • Sugar increases the activity of the yeast and helps it to rise faster, it changes the taste subtly and helps to produce a golden crust.

  • Butter results in a higher rise, a crisper crust, and a longer shelf life.

  • Milk powder makes a softer loaf, adds flavour, and enhances the browning of the crust.
Process

There are only a few selector buttons on the machine, but it turns out that it's easy to select the wrong setting if you're preoccupied...
  •  Selecting the wrong Size button can give a small dense loaf to a large fluffier one – sometimes pushing up the lid and making a sticky mess of it...

  •  The 'Crust' button may give you light, when you expected dark. or vice versa...

  •  The Timer may be set for 4 to 13 hours ahead – if you set it wrongly it can mean an overcooked dried-out loaf when you get home, or, on the other hand, a long wait...

The Kneading blade/Paddle should be the first thing placed in the baking pan – turns out, if you forget to put it in place, the spindle turns but kneading, of course, doesn't happen, and you get a really dense lump of overcooked 'stuff' sitting on the bottom of the pan.

Now, your must remember that, while we did indeed make all of the above errors at one time or another, it was over almost 30 years. Most of the time it worked just the way it should.


There's nothing better than coming home expectantly, in the evening, to a home that smells of freshly baked bread, and taking a golden loaf from the machine...
and there's nothing worse than realising that you forgot to press the Start button that morning when you left for work...

Visiting Time
Bill Kidd
The arrangements for hospital visiting have gradually been eased over the last forty years to such an extent that many hospitals now publish the times that visiting is not permitted. The Coronavirus pandemic is now giving rise to many complaints about the understandable restrictions imposed on hospital visiting. Impassioned debates continue over the right to visit friends and relatives who are incarcerated under medical care and that denying this an infringement of one's human rights. Being a cynical sod and grumpy with it when feeling ill I mutter about nobody speaks about the patient's human right not to have visitors!

Things were very different at DRI (Dundee Royal Infirmary) in our younger days. The visiting times were
specified, from memory they were from 6.30 - 7.30 pm and 2.00 - 3.00 pm Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday, and limited to two visitors to a bed. Admission was strictly controlled by a system of cards that had to be collected from a porter's lodge at the infirmary entrance. There were two cards made out with name and location for each patient. Nobody gained entry into the ward without first producing the appropriate card. I vaguely recall that there were different coloured cards to indicate the condition of the patient and whether extended or reduced visiting was appropriate. I do recall that there were hushed tones when a particular card was taken to mean another form of exit was imminent.

In the mid-20th century visiting a friend or relative in the DRI was something of an adventure. Intending visitors arrived at least ten minutes before the designated visiting time and gathered in the courtyard inside
Visiting Hour - Infirmary Brae Entrance
the infirmary gates. Small groups coalesced as friends and acquaintances greeted each other and confirmed that they were there to visit the same person. Usually at this stage a pecking order for the order of visiting was established. Top of the list would be parents or spouse, children or boy/girlfriend, aunts, uncles, and cousins, and finally friends. At this stage, dependent on the numbers involved, it would become clear if there would be time for an actual visit. Some at the end of a long list would seek out someone at the top of the list and ask to be remembered to the patient, make their apologies, and leave. Those remaining would discuss their strategy for who would be first to pick up the cards and establish an order of visit to make as much of the visiting time as possible.

Those chosen for the first attack would leave the group and get in the queue at the porter's lodge and wait for the bell that sounded for the beginning of visiting time. As soon as the bell sounded a frenzy of activity began with two of the infirmary staff handing out the requested admittance cards. Clutching the cards, the recipients raced along the corridors to the appropriate ward.


DRI Ward

At the door of the ward the guardian nurse sat behind a table. On entry each visitor handed over his or her card which was placed on the table Pelmanism style. Once relieved of their cards visitors were free to attend their friend's bedside.

After a few minutes chatter and in accordance with the pre-arranged schedule the lower ranked visitor would say his/her goodbyes and retrieve his/her card and rush back to the porter's lodge to hand over the admittance card to the next aspiring visitor who would then make with all haste to the appropriate ward. This relay, with an admission card acting as the baton, would continue until the bell indicating the end of visiting sounded. On leaving the visitors picked up their cards and wended their way back to the porter's lodge to return them so that they would be available for the next time. The visitors would then re-assemble for a final discussion on their friend's diagnosis and likely prognosis before dispersing until the next visiting time.

In 1952 I got the opportunity to observe visiting arrangements from the patient's viewpoint. I learned that the


Nursing Staff - late '50s

(Morganites may recognise the bonnie lass 2nd from the left, back row...)

nursing staff did not enjoy visiting times as it meant a great deal of preparation work. Each patient, however ambulant, had to be in bed and the bed itself had to be precisely made up and aligned in accordance with regulation. The tops of lockers had to be cleared, water jugs and glasses gleaming and freshly refilled. Ashtrays (yes ashtrays!) emptied and washed, and no smoking permitted fifteen minutes before and during visiting hour.

Truth to tell, because of the disruption to one's routine and the frenetic changeovers many of the patients weren't too keen on visiting time either!

Andrew Carnegie
Hugh McGrory
In a previous story I spoke of Andrew Carnegie. He was of course, the billionaire (in today's money), Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist, born in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland in 1835.

The family lived in a little cottage shown in the photograph as it looks today.

Carnegie's father, William Carnegie, was a handloom weaver, and, like McGonagall, saw no future for his skills because of industrialisation via the power loom. This
caused the family to emigrate to the United States when Andrew was 12, and they settled in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh).

Andrew had had little formal education, and began work at age 12 as a bobbin boy in a cotton factory. He quickly became 'Americanised', and educated himself by reading books and attending night school. To cut a long story short, Carnegie became a bond salesman, and invested his money in railroad stocks. He then became convinced that steel was the future, formed Carnegie Steel, and eventually sold it to JP Morgan in 1901 for $13 billion US (today's money). The company went on to become the giant US Steel Corporation.

Carnegie had the same philosophy as today's Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, insofar as inheritance goes – leave your family comfortably well off, but don't pass down to them huge fortunes – rather use this money to 'do good' in the world. He wrote "A man who dies rich dies disgraced."

He had certain areas of interest – amongst them world peace, education, and scientific research – but he is probably best known for the more than 3500 local libraries that he helped fund around the world. Which brings me to his Dundee libraries - Arthurstone, Blackness, Blackscroft, Broughty Ferry and Coldside substantial edifices as may be seen below:


The first and last above are the two that mean most to me. My parents bought me a bike when I was around
12 years old, and I would ride down to the Arthurstone Terrace branch once a week and take out four books – two on my library card, and two on my father's – then we'd both read three or four of these in time for the following week's trip. I guess we must have had similar tastes in books, since I don't remember him ever complaining about my choices. (The plaque on the left has graced the entranceway at Arthurstone for more than a hundred years - I must have passed it dozens of times and never stopped once to read it...) When, a year or two later, we moved house, I switched my allegiance to the Coldside branch.

I kept this up for most of my secondary school life, but I can only remember one of those many books - Ian Fleming's first James Bond novel,
Casino Royale
, which I enjoyed when it was published in 1952. The reason that I remember it is that a few years later, when the further Bond books and movies became such a hit, I didn't make the connection. I bought each
paperback as they came out, until the last, Octopussy, in 1966. Many years after that, I got it into my mind that I hadn't read the first James Bond book, and was all excited to buy Casino Royale. I was a few pages into the book before it dawned on me, "Oh,wait a minute..."

Don't you just hate that, when you buy a book that you've already read?

When my dad retired in 1975, my parents lived quite close to Coldside Library, and my mother said that he would make the ten-minute walk each morning and spend time in the Reading Room, reading the daily papers, and chatting to the bunch of regulars...

Sadly he died less than three years later, but I've always found it comforting that the institution that gave him, and me, so much pleasure when I was a teenager, was still doing the same for him at the end of his life, more than 50 years later.

A Fantastic Sight
Gordon Findlay
After my crash, we drove carefully down past Nice, then headed inland towards the heart of France's famous flower fields outside Grasse: the supply centre for the country's perfume factories. (See video.)

It was gathering dusk when we found a quiet country road, and then a farmer's field which commanded a wonderful view down past acres of terraced flower fields towards the sea in the far distance. We pitched our tent, hacked up the rest of a baguette and added slices of farmer's sausage and tomato, and sat looking down the hillside as the shadows grew long.

It was very restful. There was no wind, not even the faintest of breezes. Darkness slowly rolled in over the fields, and as it did, we became aware of the scented air. Many of the plants and flowers growing around us only bloomed in the evening, some at night, and their perfume enclosed us like an invisible blanket. And that's when it happened.

First, we noticed a bright twinkle in the warm darkness around us. Then another, and another. Now there was a myriad of darting lights rising and falling above and around us, flashing on and off. Like some hidden magician waving a wand around the dark fields, the night came alive with thousands upon thousands of winking, dancing lights, hovering and drifting in shimmering clouds.

It was a massive bonfire of light that foamed up and spread out; clouds of bright sparks shooting up into the darkness, pinpoints of hot light in red, orange and yellow, washing and swirling around us like some terrestrial show staged for an audience of two. It was breath-taking and beautiful and wonderful all at once.

They were fireflies, of course, gathering to mate, and their appearance is one of the wonders of that part of the world, where night-blooming flowers attract the insects by the millions.(See video.)

Ken and I were transfixed. We watched this incandescent light show weave and waver around us for perhaps half-an-hour, then almost as suddenly as it began it was over. The tiny lights winked out and the fields settled once more into darkness. But what a sight it had been.

From there we headed back up north, past Avignon, Lyon, Bourges, by-passing Paris to head more west towards the coast. Then back towards St. Malo, Rouen and thence back to Boulogne to catch our ferry back to England. Ken veered off to visit with his aunt again, but I headed my BSA back to Scotland.

My only clear recollection of the drive home was riding up the main highway into the teeth of solid, driving rain. Very cold rain. Fortunately, my windshield was still in place and the rain just hammered against it and went streaking past on either side in spinning plumes. But not all the rain flew past. A lot of it still rattled against my suit and inevitably the drops began to form a small pool in my lap.

And, naturally, this small puddle began to leak past the central zip-fastener of my flight suit. I found myself whirling up the highway with private parts which slowly but inexorably became colder and wetter . . . .

Welcome back to Britain.

Reading
Hugh McGrory
I've always believed that I was fortunate to have lived in Scotland during my formative years (1940s/50s). The country had a reputation for its educational system, and the excellent schooling I got at Dens Road Primary School and then Morgan Academy bore this out.

I was also fortunate to have lived in Dundee, for two further reasons – the DC Thomson Publishing Company, and the Dundee Public Library System (I was a voracious reader, which greatly complemented my schooling).

At primary school I read DC Thomson's comic books, first The Dandy and The Beano (comic magazines with lots of drawings not too much text); then The Adventure, The Hotspur, The Rover, and The Wizard, (story papers with few illustrations, mostly text).

Then at high school, the vast treasure house that was the Dundee Public Library. The origins of this institution lie in two historical fortuities:
  •    As described by Paul Kaufman in his paper 'The Rise of Community Libraries in Scotland', Dundee Burgh Library began as a collection of manuscripts at the Franciscan monastery of Dundee in the thirteenth century. Not many decades elapsed before the tranquil life of the monks was rudely broken by several violent military assaults upon their establishment, and they were forced to find refuge about 1350 in the church of St. Mary, where in the vestry of the south aisle in the choir they resettled their library.

    Then, barely a century later, because of failure in the source of their funds, they transferred all their tangible possessions to the "Burgesses, Common Council, and Community of Dundee." In 1442, long before the formation of a library in any Scottish university, Dundee Burgh thus came into possession and control of a collection of manuscripts, and, by a series of declarations, confirmed secular control (as opposed to religious).

    Dundee went on to become the earliest burgh library in Scotland. Further, it's notable as the oldest community lending library in Britain, and for boldly setting the precedent for lending books to the citizenry.

  •    In 1901, Dundee Town Council approached philanthropist Andrew Carnegie's advisors about funding libraries throughout the city. After examining the proposals, Carnegie promised £37,000 for the building of five branch libraries in the city.

    Dundee was one of the first places in Scotland to provide its citizens with a free library, when in 1869 the Dundee Free Public Library opened in the city's Albert Memorial Institute, now The McManus Art Gallery & Museum.

    Before its Carnegie libraries Dundee had a two-tier system of borrowers. New books were reserved for middle class subscribers who paid an annual subscription, while working class readers who could not afford the fees had to wait a year for the books to become available. Thereafter, books were available to borrow, free, by all citizens.

    The demand for books proved so great among the general population that the council became keen to provide more libraries – today there are fourteen free libraries across the city.
Throughout my early teenage years I must have read hundreds of books borrowed from the DPL.

Fond memories...

Glenesk
Brian Macdonald
Mention of Edzell and its splendid Dalhousie Arch in one of Hugh's stories awoke in me my memories of Glenesk, one of the Five Glens of Angus (west to east these are Isla, Prosen, Clova, Lethnot and Esk). Edzell


is the gateway to Glenesk. Having ridden the 31 miles from Dundee (in my case, by motorbike but by pushbike by my pal Bruce Henderson) and through the arch and the town, you turn left just outside Edzell, off the road over the hills to Deeside and Aberdeen, to take the winding road that follows the North Esk river to Tarfside, the only centre of habitation, twelve miles up the glen, on the North Esk and where the road ends.

Views of Glenesk
Glenesk was part of the extensive estates of the Earl of Dalhousie, whose main residence was in the bigger town of Brechin, between Edzell and Dundee. There are farms on the way and a magnificent mansion which was turned into a local museum.

Tarfside is described in Wikipedia as a 'hamlet', a word not usually used of Scottish villages, but it describes Tarfside, with its small population, perfectly. In those days – the 1950s – a tiny village with a modest shop and a village hall, where the major social event was a dance held every Friday night. Naturally, it was almost entirely Scottish country dancing, and much fun was had, and much sweat produced. As the dance was tee-total, there was a constant flow of men out of the hall for a 'breather'.

I came to know and love the glen and Tarfside because the family of my best pal, Bruce Henderson, had a cottage in the village and invited me to join them during the summer holidays one year. All the property

Cottages in Tarfside
in the glen was owned by the estate and houses could only be leased or rented. The Hendersons had the end one, a basic two-roomed stone cottage in a row of three, with a grassy frontage that sloped down to the river, where there was a rock pool just right for summer swimming. I had put in a stint helping Mr Henderson, an engineer, to lug big stones that were put in a trench he had dug all round the outside of his cottage to improve the drainage and eliminate dampness and been there a number of times.

The holiday party consisted of Bruce, his two older sisters, Isla and Hazel and Hazel's pal, Frances Downie, whose father was, at that time busily engaged in developing Downie Park, a housing estate off Old Glamis Road in Dundee. We were all Morgan pupils. As I recall, the Henderson parents, Robert and Meg, were there only at the weekend if at all and there was much trick-playing and apple-pie bed making. We revelled in the swimming and fun and had a great, innocent holiday. At the end of my time there I gave Frances Downie a pillion on my faithful BSA bike back to Dundee, where I met her father, but not for the first time. A few years before, he had chased me and a pal off his building site at Downie Park. He did not recognise me, but I brashly reminded him of the incident, which caused him to give me the cold stare.
Bruce and I got jobs as grouse beaters on the estate one year. The red grouse shooting season begins on 12th August (still referred to as 'The Glorious Twelfth' by aficionados), after the permanent staff of gamekeepers, all clad in the estate's own unique pattern Dalhousie tweed, have worked assiduously to ensure the specially bred game birds have flourished.

The shooters, wealthy, upper class men for the most part, came up from the south for the 'sport'. The head keeper, Hugh Ferrier, had the bristling moustache of the cartoon character Bristow, but not the benign countenance. His stern face and manner will
remain indelibly in my memory. Mr Ferrier was a man of stature in the glen and ruled his staff of keepers rigidly. His word was absolute law.

Beaters were the low men on the scale (for there were no women then although one popular young local woman sometimes joined the line). We slept in bothies (rude stone huts with few facilities and minimal comfort), a bit rough but we were young and didn't mind. Not far below our bothy was the floor of the valley with Loch Lee, fed by the North Esk. At dusk the red deer, which roamed the highlands, would filter down to the loch to drink
and graze on the sweeter grass that grew on the valley floor and for night shelter, for it got cold and damp up on the hills.

Loch Lee looking North-east Red Deer - Stag with Hinds

Breakfast and dinner were taken en masse, in a large dining room near the keeper's house, with Mrs Ferrier presiding. Hugh Ferrier would sit down at the appointed time, whereupon we all sat down, grace would be said by him and only when Hugh Ferrier lifted his spoon to sup his porridge would we begin to eat. He was served cream in a separate jug and ceremonially dipped each spoonful into it rather than pour it on to his porridge. We lived a healthy life for a few weeks, eating porridge (no sugar!) for breakfast and maybe salmon straight out of Loch Lee or a rich, venison stew from a freshly butchered red deer for dinner, spending the day walking, come rain, come shine, miles up and down the hills and across the moors, stopping for a lunch of a sandwich and an apple provided by the tireless Mrs Ferrier. The shooters, who paid dearly for their expedition, lunched and dined on much grander fare well away from us and slept in much finer accommodation. There was no alcohol, but a party was put on one weekend with ample booze, to thank the beaters. 'The Ball of Kirriemuir' was sung with relish at that event as the evening progressed and I learned a few new verses of that bawdy ballad.

The beaters' job was to walk in a straight line, marshalled by the gamekeepers, at a steady pace, though the heather and the peat bog, rousing the grouse from the heather and driving the startled birds away from us, over the heads of the shooters (known as 'guns') in their hides so that they fired – if they did it accurately (over our heads) and shot down a grouse. These were gathered up as we walked, held by the neck between two fingers and loaded into huge sacks slung over the keepers' shoulders. Occasionally an inept gun would get it wrong and a pellet or two would sting or get lodged in the hide of a keeper or a beater.

On the first day of the season there was competition between the estates to see which could kill and despatch grouse to the London restaurants first, much as is done with the new Beaujolais wine. Apart from those chosen to be despatched post haste to London, the ignominious fate of the slaughtered birds was to be hung, literally by their necks, in a special shed, for several days before they were packed and despatched. The job of hanging the birds was done at the end of the day. Occasionally a bird would be unearthed from the pile that had survived and it would take off with a great beating of wings, startling any beaters who were about, to the great amusement of the keepers, who were used to this and enjoyed our discomfiture.

That holiday and the summer of the grouse beating are among my wonderful memories of Tarfside and Glenesk but are not my only or my best memories. Some years later, Ann and I had our honeymoon in the Hendersons' cottage, by then more improved but still the same two-roomed cottage, and still the same village and glen, with those memories for me. We rode horses on the hills above the loch and saw, in the distance, a herd of red deer walking in single file, led by a magnificent stag. By then I knew a few locals, so we felt at home there. The return to the English city of Stafford after that, to everyday work and traffic was quite a comedown but our store of memories had been added to.

And all this triggered by a glimpse of a mention of the Dalhousie Arch in Edzell!


A Contrarian
Hugh McGrory
Scottish mother to her friend as they watch their sons march off to war:
"Oh look. A' the sojers are oot o' step except oor Jock!'

(With a shout-out to Irving Berlin...)


If you look up the word 'contrarian' you get results like:
"disagreed with by most people, or liking to express opinions that most people disagree with'
"an investor who does the opposite of what most other investors are doing'
"opposing or rejecting popular opinion; going against current practice'
"someone who often has the opposite opinion to most other people:

Looking back on my life (writing these stories demands it), I've concluded that I am a 'situational contrarian', (I thought I'd invented that phrase, but Google turns up a few previous uses). What I mean is that, in a given situation, where everyone is doing 'A' I seem to have, on occasion, a tolerance for doing 'B' – it has usually worked to my advantage (though not always...).
  •    Have you ever driven into a high-rise parking structure then wound your way up floor after floor looking for a space, sometimes ending up on the roof with no cover, so your car would be snowed on, or be too hot to sit in when you got back?

    Try this next time when you get to say the fourth floor, switch to the down ramp – I can almost guarantee that you'll find spots to choose from on the way down. I find this particularly useful on those occasions when I go to the airport to pick someone up.

  •    When I was studying for an MBA at the University of Toronto, I would drive down to Bloor Street twice a week after work. Parking was an issue – circle around trying to find a curbside space – good luck with that – or pay the exorbitant parking fees.

    The building was next door to OISE (The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education) and there was a small staff parking area between the buildings – held about 30 cars. Staff entered using a security card reader and left via the same single lane, the wooden bar lifting automatically.

    I noticed that, each evening, the lot never had more than half a dozen cars – what a waste... One day I tried an experiment – I drove into the entrance and slowly moved my car forward. I wanted to get my nose in far enough to trigger the induction coil buried in the roadway. I held my breath as my windshield got closer and closer to the wooden barrier, then, just as I thought the experiment had failed, the gate rose. I had scored free parking...

  •    I have been a member of several professional groups throughout my working life. I always find that most of the members are content to attend periodic events, but only a few are willing to serve on the committees that are necessary to make things happen. My attitude was always to pick a committee and volunteer. In two of these groups (in the field of computer applications in business and engineering) I eventually ended up in the President's chair.

    Not only did this enable me to move the organisations in the direction I wanted, but it gave me many useful professional and business contacts within and without the group, not to mention long-lasting friendships.

  •    Here's a recent example: The area in which we live announced that those 80 and older could now receive their Covid vaccination, and opened a website to allow us to book a time in the next two weeks. Apparently there are some 40,000 80+ oldies in our area and they only had 20,000 shots available. As soon as it opened at 8 am, I signed on and checked day 1, day 2, day 3 – no spaces, no spaces, no spaces...

    My wife, Sheila, said "Lets go to the end", which we did and found '4 spaces available' of which I got one. (Apparently all available spots were gone within two hours...)

So, I guess I'm saying that there's a value to being comfortable as a contrarian – and by that, I mean when faced with an issue or an opportunity, not reacting too quickly and charting a course of action by instinct or gut feel, or because "it seems obvious", or "everyone else is doing it".

You may find 'the road less travelled' a better choice...

Alcatraz
Jim Howie
My wife, Moira, and I spent a week in San Francisco in 1992. Recently, I re-read a book about Alcatraz, bought from the author on a visit to The Rock, and it brought to mind the incident related below:



Davie Wilson, another Morgan FP, recommended we stay, as he had done, in Hotel David conveniently located near Union Square, cable cars, shops etc.
Former Hotel David, now The Touchstone.
We enjoyed a very good breakfast, then set off sightseeing and riding the cable cars, returning to the hotel late afternoon.

In the morning we were told that our luggage would be moved to our 'new' room, but we were not given the room number, nor did I surrender the key to the original room.

As there was no receptionist when we arrived back, we returned to our original room. On opening the door, I was confronted by a couple in bed, oblivious of San Francisco's attractions and more interested in each other's... I mumbled "Sorry to disturb" shut the door and left them to it.

Our new room was ready, and our luggage was there. Had the receptionist been at the front desk you would not be reading this now...

McGonagall
Hugh McGrory
I regret, as I venture to say many people do, that I never sat down with my Grandparents and asked them about their lives. It wasn't until I became interested in genealogy, late in life, that I realised how much I'd missed – and by then it was too late. All I have is little snippets of memory...

For example, my Gran Ryan, who was born and brought up in Dundee mentioned to me a couple of times that, as a youngster, she remembered seeing William McGonagall walking around downtown. She was
probably around 10 or 12 at the time, having been born in 1881, while McGonagall left Dundee for Edinburgh in 1894.

Most Dundonians are familiar with the name McGonagall, bestowing on Dundee, as it does, the title of 'Hometown of The World's Worst Poet ' (try Googling 'World's Worst Poet') – Dundonians actually prefer the more accurate 'Hometown of The World's Best Bad Poet'. I suspect though, that most locals don't know very much more than that, apart maybe from a line or two of doggerel – as an example, many will be able to quote the immortal lines referring to the majestic River Tay:

"The Tay, the Tay, the Silvery Tay,
That flows from Perth to Bonnie Dundee, every day".


McGonagall seems to have grasped the concept of rhyme, but everything else about poetry – like scansion, simile, metaphor, and appropriate imagery seem to have escaped him throughout his life as a poet. To be fair, while the lines above sound very 'McGonagallish', they seem to be merely parody, and there is no evidence that he, himself, ever penned them.)

He did however appreciate beauty, writing things like the following:

"Beautiful silvery Tay,
With your landscapes, so lovely and gay,
Along each side of your waters, to Perth all the way;
No other river in the world has got scenery more fine,
Only I am told the beautiful Rhine..."



He was also a man before his time, as witness the following on the subject of women's suffrage:

"Fellow men! why should the lords try to despise
And prohibit women from having the benefit of the parliamentary Franchise?
When they pay the same taxes as you and me,
I consider they ought to have the same liberty."


The memory of my Gran saying that she had actually seen McGonagall in the streets of Dundee got me interested in taking a closer look:

William Topaz McGonagall was born around 1825 in either Ireland (Donegal) where his parents lived, or Edinburgh to where they emigrated. Not much is known of his schooling. By 1840 the family had moved to Dundee (settling in 'Hawkshill') where he joined his father as a handloom weaver. He married a woman named Jean King, also of Irish blood, and they had 6 sons and 2 daughters. They lived in Mid Wynd, Step Row, and Paton's Lane.

It seems that he always had a yearning for the arts, and, when it was clear that industrialisation would make hand weaving obsolete, he began to act, making several appearances on the stage of Dundee's Theatre Royal. He often took on Shakespearean roles, sometimes funding the cost of production himself.

Here are two illustrative incidents from McGonagall's life:

Macbeth

McGonagall came to poetry late in life, his original passion being acting, and he became infamous for his performances at the Theatre Royal in Dundee.

He made several appearances there, one of the most memorable being his portrayal of Shakespeare's Macbeth in 1858.

The scene is supposed to end with Macbeth and Macduff exiting the stage while still duelling. However, as the star, McGonagall became convinced that the actor playing Macduff was trying to upstage him and so he refused to follow the stage directions.
Instead of the intended short but powerful scene, the audience was treated to long minutes of Macbeth swashbuckling around the stage being vainly pursued by Macduff.

The audience thought this was great fun and McGonagall, in his autobiography, claimed that he received a standing ovation.

Queen Victoria

To become known as a poet, he decided he needed a patron and so he went right to the top by asking the
Queen, by means of a letter, for her patronage. He received a 'rejection slip' from the office of the Queen thanking him for his interest. (McGonagall took this to be thanks for his poetry...)

In summer 1878, knowing that the Queen was at Balmoral Castle (the traditional 'holiday home' of the Royal
Family) he decided that she might appreciate a personal performance of his works.

He had penned a number of works about Her Majesty – an example:

"Oh! It was a most gorgeous sight to be seen,
Numerous foreign magnates were there for to see the Queen;
And to the vast multitude there of women and men,
Her Majesty for two hours showed herself to them."


He decided he would walk to the castle from Dundee via Alyth, through the Grampian Mountains - and he did. It took him three days at about 20 miles each day, soaked to the skin by several thunderstorms, before presenting himself at the gate as the Queen's Poet. The guard told him that Alfred, Lord Tennyson (the then Poet Laureate) was the Queen's Poet, and saw him off. He then walked back to Dundee, through the mountains and the thunderstorms arriving in Dundee, via Blairgowrie, three days later. He did manage to get a few mentions in local papers for his efforts.

He was apparently well-known as a local worthy and often mocked by children as he passed by. His acting was often the subject of insults from audiences up to and including the throwing of vegetables etc, and his poetry often harshly criticised.

There seem to be two opinions as to why he persevered:

1. He was oblivious, completely self-unaware, believed his view if himself to be the correct one and everyone else simply wrong.

2. He was a canny Scot who was simply performing - his shtick provided him, over the years, with a better and more comfortable living than working as a weaver in the linen, flax or jute mills.

With no real evidence I lean towards the former (though it may have been a bit of both), since he left Dundee in 1894 went first to Perth then to Edinburgh. He penned this by means of explanation:

"Welcome! thrice welcome! to the year 1893,
For it is the year I intend to leave Dundee,
Owing to the treatment I receive,
Which does my heart sadly grieve.
Every morning when I go out
The ignorant rabble they do shout
'There goes Mad McGonagall'
In derisive shouts as loud as they can bawl,
And lifts stones and snowballs, throws them at me;
And such actions are shameful to be heard in the city of Dundee.
And I'm ashamed, kind Christians, to confess
That from the Magistrates I can get no redress.
Therefore I have made up my mind in the year of 1893
To leave the ancient City of Dundee,
Because the citizens and me cannot agree.
The reason why? -- because they disrespect me,
Which makes me feel rather discontent.
Therefore to leave them I am bent;
And I will make my arrangements without delay,
And leave Dundee some early day."

When my Gran spoke of seeing him, she remembered a large black hat and a long black coat or cloak – a look captured in the portrait of him below.

William Topaz McGonagall died in Edinburgh in 1902 and was buried in an unmarked grave in Greyfriars Kirkyard. He was honoured later by a memorial plaque with an inscription - which makes ironic use of a quote from the bard himself...)



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Collected Works

Autobiography

My First Day at College...
Clive Yates

I was a (very, very) late starter! I left the Morgan before sitting my Highers to work (for money). So, it was October 1977 (aged some 39 years) before I turned up to matriculate at St Mary's College, St Andrews University, as a Graduate entrant from the Open University having completed my first degree in History and Philosophy. I went to St Mary's because (at that time) it had some of the world's most distinguished scholars in Theology, and my degree in Philosophy seemed a useful adjunct.

St. Mary's College had a Student Common Room at the top of the stairs at the tower entrance behind the Queen Mary's thorn-tree which featured in Hugh's 'College Quads' article.
The Tower entrance to the Student Common Room beside Queen Mary's Thorn Tree.
This Common Room served as a 'Coffee Room' and student/staff meeting area. So there I stood on the first morning of term - near the door, on my own, with my mug of coffee in my hand, minding my own business as well as reflecting on all the seemingly very young students making friends with each other and impressing each other with their impressive lists of A-levels and School achievements. I must confess to feeling somewhat overwhelmed by 'how gifted they all seemed!' Meanwhile, I was beginning to identify other members of Staff and Lecturers by face as they took their places for morning coffee.

One of the staff scholars at that time was the Principal of the College, Professor Matthew Black. He was renowned internationally for his work on 'The Gospel in Aramaic'. As far as I was concerned, he lived in a realm of academic existence above and beyond all the others, and me in particular - a lowly first year! Suddenly, there was flurry of newly arrived activity at the doorway beside me. Three strangers appeared and one, with an American drawl addressed the older one in the middle, saying, "Professor Black; How many students do you have here?"

In a flash, he had identified 'my hero' for me. I watched the facial reactions and noted a wild look of absolute bewilderment upon 'my hero's' face. The jaw seemed to move up and down once or twice, but no sound emerged. He looked at me, as I clutched my coffee mug -- desperately trying to appear that I was not eavesdropping on this non-conversation... He was still looking at me directly, so I spoke up in the ensuing silence:

"We have 153 undergraduate students and 44 Post Graduate Research Students this year, Sir."

He immediately repeated these exact numbers to his Visitor, and without more ado, they all moved off elsewhere. I knew that the figures were approximately correct because I had heard them somewhere else in another context.

The sequel to this brief interlude was a few days later when the same, said scholar sidled up to me yet again but this time, he asked me how did I know these figures? Now I was caught, so I decided honesty was the best policy and smartly replied; "I knew that your Visitor did not know, and you clearly did not know for sure, so I repeated what I had heard elsewhere, Sir!"

With that, my hero thanked me, turned, and went on his way. However, the net outcome was that I was always invited to various 'do's' in the Senior Common Room as a 'student representative' because of this throughout the rest of my 7 years studies at St Mary's.

Leeries
Hugh McGrory
'Leerie', as many of you know, is the Scots word for Lamplighter.

The earliest public streetlamps, using fish oil and wicks, were installed in the 18th century. The illumination from them was extremely poor – one comment at the time was "Standing directly underneath, one might as well be in the dark." It wasn't until the early 1800s that coal-gas-fueled streetlights came into use - London's Pall Mall became the first place lit by gaslight in 1807. Thereafter, millions of gas lamps gradually went up across London and in cities around the world. Not only were these a boon to the populace, but they created a new job category, The Lamplighter - needed to ignite the gas at sunset and quench it again at dawn.

Lamplighters would traverse the city streets, using long poles to spark the gas. Gas lamps could be temperamental, so lamplighters also needed to clean and mend the lantern glass, which attracted dust and soot, and could crack.

To talk about mantles for a moment... When I was a wee lad, around two or three, my grandparents (on my mother's side) lived in a rather large house at 4, Wilkie's Lane off Hawkhill. I can't imagine that they owned it, so they were probably renting. I remember that the house was lit by coal gas, and those oh so fragile mantles - my grandfather took great care when he turned on the gas...

I was Granda's favourite at that age. The photo shows me on my Triang three-wheeler bike in front of the coal fire in the living room - the bright reflection in the mirror behind me is from the gaslight.

On one occasion I asked if I could light it and I remember being warned to be careful not to touch the mantle, then my granda lifting me up with a lit match in my little hand - I immediately stuck it into the mantle breaking a chunk off. I'm sure my granda had a few choice Irish curses for me (and for himself – I mean what was he thinking...?)

The mantle is a mesh bag of fabric (see the photo), and I never understood why it was so fragile in use - it's certainly not so fragile when first bought... However, it all became clear when I researched some details for this story.
It seems that the fabric is impregnated with a solution of nitrates of cerium and one or more of the following metals: thorium, beryllium, aluminium, or magnesium. The mantle is fixed in position over the orifice emitting the gas, and when the gas ignites, the fabric burns away, leaving a very brittle residual lattice of metal oxides. Light is produced when this lattice is heated to a glowing white by the gas combustion, although the lattice itself does not burn.

The final stanza in Robert Louis Stevenson's short poem, The Lamplighter, goes as follows:

"For we are very lucky, with a lamp before the door,
And Leerie stops to light it as he lights so many more;
And O! before you hurry by with ladder and with light,
O Leerie, see a little child and nod to him tonight!"

I can relate to that poem. Gas lights in Dundee weren't phased out until the late '50s, so we grew up in a world of gaslit streets and were well used to seeing the local leerie.


We had a lamppost outside our flat in the tenement in Fairbairn St. I took a look at Google Street View to refresh my memory. The photo on the left below shows 'our' building - the 'X' was our home, the double


window to the right of the 'X' was our living room, the window to the left is the room in which I was born, and after dark it was lit by the gentle gaslight shining in from outside (the home itself did have electricity).

The photo looks wrong to me for two reasons:
First, the building was recently externally insulated and looks quite different from the natural stone-faced building I grew up in... (The photo below of a nearby street shows how dramatically the look of the building changes.)

Secondly, the lamp standard is all wrong - it's electric, too tall, and should be at the front edge of the sidewalk. So, I went looking again and came across the second photograph (black and white above) which shows Fairbairn St looking from the opposite end of the street. It shows the line of gas-lit streetlamps that our leerie turned on for us every evening and off every morning, and to the right, the original stone-faced buildings.

That photograph of the old Fairbairn Street brings back pleasant memories, for me, of days of auld lang syne...

All is in Order
Bill Kidd
School stories often centred around the expectation that the arrival of a ten-shilling postal order would provide the hero, or villain, with the necessary funds to repay, or lend, the cash necessary to ensure the desired outcome of whatever wheeze was in the offing. The alleged theft of a five-shilling postal order was the centrepiece of a sensational legal battle in 1910(1) and a fictionalised version became the plot for Terrence Rattigan's 1946 play "The Winslow Boy".
The Stolen Postal Order
The postal order was part of everyday life for much of the 20th century, it even became legal tender during WW2 in order to save paper! Like many other once common things, the postal order has all but disappeared from everyday use.

I have already admitted to my interest in collecting stamps, but I think that the time has come that I should admit to having a rapacious childhood interest in collecting postal orders! Actually, any postal order that came into my possession was retained for only the shortest possible time Many years have passed since I last thought about postal orders and it came as a great surprise to me to learn that they are still available for purchase from a Post Office, but I understand that in today's more sophisticated financial climate that there is little call for them.

As a child birthdays and Christmas were the times that various family friends, far away aunts and uncles would tuck a five bob or half-crown postal order into the appropriate piece of correspondence. I remember various visits to the local post office to convert my precious pieces of paper into cash and how I sometimes had to write my name in the space provided before the clerk would batter it with her rubber stamp and hand over the coins.

Sometimes I would actually purchase a postal order to pay for items of fascination such as the Seebackascope that was advertised in some comic or other. At other times I earned a few pence by purchasing a postal order on behalf of a neighbour to send off with his football pools. Once I got a ten-shilling note from his winnings for bringing him luck!

In the days following the end of WW2 very few people had any form of current account, so the postal order was the method of choice for transferring money by post. As it was a case of Hobson's choice for most people, little thought was given to the cost that the Post Office added to the face value of a postal order, in fact, the smaller the value of the order the more expensive it was. On average the poundage added to the face value was around 10%. By far the biggest use that was made of postal orders was for football pool entries. When the National Lottery was introduced in 1994 the use of postal orders rapidly declined. However, the rise of internet trading has seen a resurgence in their use. Sites such as eBay prefer, or even demand, settlement by postal order because they can be readily cashed at any post office or through a bank account and they do not bounce!

I still fondly remember the nicely designed blue postal orders printed on crinkly paper that could have stamps stuck to them to bring their value up to the desired amount. Alas, no more, they have gone the way of the beautiful Bank of England £5 note! I understand that since 2016 a postal order is now printed on demand at the post office for any sum between 50p and £250 in return for a minimum fee ranging from 50p to a maximum of £12.50. I don't expect to revert to using postal orders any time soon, would you?

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(1)
See The Postal Order Theft Trial

McGrory MacGyvering
Hugh McGrory
The TV show MacGyver (the version which ran from 1985-'92 with Richard Dean Anderson in the leading
role) was a favourite of mine. The theme appealed to me – using scientific and engineering principles to get out of sticky situations.

Most of the solutions seemed well-based in science, though the effects were exaggerated here and there... It was a popular show around the world, and the word MacGyvering has crept into the language to mean "coming up with a solution to a problem in an improvised or inventive way, making use of whatever items are at hand."

Most people have a bit of MacGyver in them – when something in the home breaks down and they head for their 'everything drawer' to see if there's a bit of wire, a tube or perhaps a non-standard screw or nut that just might do the trick.

Take our microwave... Sheila was heading off to work one morning and said "The microwave isn't working, will you look at it please?" The unit
came with the house, sat above the oven in a fitted cabinet (and there's one of the problems). There's a circuit which allows the unit to check if the door is locked before it turns on and I guessed that it may have failed. I figured that it was possibly the fuse, and I had one - but there was the fitted cabinet to consider... The unit would have to be taken out completely to get at it.

Although the unit was quite heavy, I knew I could lift it – just – but it was mounted at chin height, above our oven, and I figured that was probably a disaster waiting to happen... The smart thing would've been to put in a call for service, or, Plan B, wait until my son had time to come over and help me... but who said I was smart? I looked at the appliance and thought, "I can do this myself. OK then – Plan C."

In full MacGyvering mode I decided I needed a shelf in front of the unit that I could slide the appliance onto, so I'd
need a scaffold of some sort to hold up the shelf. I went out to the workshop and found a piece of wood about 5 ft by 3, and 1 inch thick – perfect for the shelf. I also had two step ladders...

The ladders would sit either side of the unit and support the shelf at the end closest to the unit, but would need support underneath spanning between the ladders. I took another look around and found pieces of purple-painted wood that had been part of my granddaughters' bunk beds when they were pre-teens.

I also needed a support at the other end. There was a central island in the kitchen facing the microwave, and another MacGyver scan of the workshop led me to one of the
blue boxes
we use for recycling – sitting on top of the island, this should be close to the right height.

It turned out, of course, that the steps weren't at the same height, so I went into my office and looked through the bookshelves – I've always been a great believer in turning to reference books when I have an issue – and sure enough, I found a
French dictionary
that was just right...

Once I had taken the trim kit off the unit, so I could get at the innards, I began to pull the unit out onto the shelf – part way through the shelf slipped forward and fell downwards. This could have been a major disaster, but I got lucky, it landed on the bezel of the stove below which just happened to stick out about half an inch, about an inch below the level of the base of the microwave – more on that in a minute. I found another piece of shelving and stuck it down into the recycling box and that prevented the shelf from slipping further...

I pulled the unit out far enough to be able to work on it, found the fuse, replaced it, and voila! – we were back in business. I put the cover back on and all that remained was to shove the unit back into position – easy-peasy, except – you remember the shelf had sagged about an inch – it was so near and yet so far...

I got underneath the shelf, and found that by pushing up with my shoulders I could lift it to the right height, but I couldn't get my arms up and out far enough to push the unit into place – had each arm been about 2 feet longer I could have done it. Back to the drawing board...

I needed something to lift the shelf and hold it in that position so that I could then slide the appliance back into its home in the cabinet – something to jack it up – oh! – something like a car jack...

I went out to my car and got the jack and began to try to get it into the right position. It didn't fit too well – used like it would be to lift a car, the handle didn't have room to turn - but turning it upside down solved that problem (along with another book,
'The Railway Navvies').
It was plain sailing after that – the whole job took about two hours.

It occurs to me that the words above, without illustration, may not be sufficient for you all to fully appreciate the elegance of this artfully MacGyvered solution? So:


When Sheila came home, the appliance (and the kitchen) looked just as they had when she left, and she asked "Did you remember to look at the microwave?" I told her that it was working again.

"Great", she said. "What was wrong with it?"

I said "Oh, nothing really - I just had to change a fuse."

Monaco – and Near Disaster
Gordon Findlay
Ken and I had decided we should zip through Monaco, if only to say we'd seen the principality, so we continued along the coast and made our way into that little pipsqueak slice of Europe. It didn't take long. We simply puttered up past the ornate Casino, looped around a couple of roads, and got into the Monaco customs post ready to re-enter France. The day was winding down as we lined up, and I remember the fussy customs man took forever looking over our dusty bikes.

When we finally got our passports stamped, we were both impatient to get on the road and towards Nice. We thought we'd head up into the hills above the city, near Grasse, to find a likely spot to pitch our tent. Anyway, we emerged from the customs post to see a stretch of dead straight road ahead.

It was a perfect sunny afternoon. A lovely dry road. Nice and smooth. Great! I led the way and gunned my BSA down the road to put some distance between us and Monaco. Big mistake.

I was whirling down the road when I realized too late that this short stretch ended in a sudden – and completely un-posted –hairpin bend. I guess I was doing 50 m.p.h. when I saw to my horror that the road ahead simply bent double... and I was going far too fast to do anything about it. I had maybe a second to make up my mind. Did I go straight over the fence – or did I lie my bike down and try to skid along the road into the ditch?

Recalling that I had installed crash bars on the bike, I yanked back on the throttle and pulled the bike sideways and down on to the left crash bar. I only remember the sudden shriek of the crash bar hitting the road, then I was off the bike and whirling down the road on my backside.

Gord's bike was like the one on the left. It was fitted with crash bars similar to those on the right.

Thump! I hit the grass verge and thudded into a dry ditch full of weeds, winded and sore, but alive. My BSA slithered down the road and came to rest in a pile of loose stuff which burst out of my panniers and scattered across the road. Ken had managed to stop in time and came running over to see how I was.

It was only when I got up rather shakily and painfully that I checked my crash helmet, still strapped to my head. There was one massive gouge down the back where it had whacked into the road. Score one for crash helmets. Apart from one badly bent crash bar, my BSA was also OK.

It was the only time I was ever to come off my motorcycle at speed and I had survived with only a bruised bum and some scrapes. I was lucky. Oddly enough, it was to be that same evening when Ken and I were to experience one of those shining and unforgettable moments that linger in memory. Over sixty years later I can still remember it.

Quads
Hugh McGrory
Sometimes I think that I would have enjoyed a career as a university professor. I really liked the 20 plus years I taught, in the evenings/weekends, at Ryerson University, after my day job in Toronto.

I found that I really enjoyed teaching – the academic atmosphere, the ambience – I've always loved the feeling of the classic university quadrangle. Of the few that I've actually visited, Ryerson has its Kerr Hall Quad, Queen's College (now Dundee University) its Geddes Quad (where I studied as an undergrad), St. Andrews its St. Salvator's, and Yale its Davenport College Quad (where George Dubya studied).

Kerr Hall Quad, Ryerson University Geddes Quad, Dundee University
Sallys Quad, University of St Andrews Davenport College Quad, Yale University

My favourite though, has to be St Mary's College Quadrangle of St. Andrews University – I try to visit it any
time I'm in the town. This Quad contains a hawthorn tree said to have been planted by Mary, Queen of Scots, around 1563, during one of her many visits to St Andrews (you can just see it at the left hand edge of the photo).

That thorn tree is still there, showing many signs of age but still flowering annually. Although all that remains of the original tree is a badly disintegrating stump, three relatively young stems rise up from the base to form a full and healthy crown. One would imagine that the shelter from the wind that quadrangles inherently provide, has played some part in preserving the tree.

About 10 years ago, on a visit, I noticed that one of the older limbs was not doing well, and a wooden crutch
had been added as a support. On closer examination, I realised that the crutch, which was taped to the tree, wasn't actually touching the limb it was supposed to be supporting. My keen engineering mind immediately deduced that the support it was providing – wasn't...

When I got back to Dundee, I sent an email to the university explaining the issue. I sent it to the School of Divinity (it occupies much of the space around the Quad), and it found its way to the Estates Department and then to the Grounds Maintenance staff. I asked them to let me know the result. They didn't, and a follow-up email to them didn't get a reply...

However, later, I did find a photo showing that the limb had been provided with a second prop – both, I presume, still actually touching the tree.

Given the annus horribilis we've all just experienced, with
the loss of so many loved ones and friends, isn't it somehow reassuring to know that this tree has been growing and flowering every spring for some 450 years...

Italians to the Rescue
Gordon Findlay
Given the problem with the spokes in Ken's front wheeel, we decided I would ride on into Nami and try to find a mechanic with a truck who could come out and bring Ken's bike into his workshop. Off I set, but by
the time I chugged up the road and into Nami – which was set on a hillside – it was high noon... the village was as quiet as a tomb in the hot sun. Not a soul on the narrow main streets.

Then I realized – of course! – it was lunch time, and the locals would all be sitting down to plates of pasta and wine. I rode slowly around the town until I found what I was looking for: an unprepossessing little store with a sign which declared Meccanico del Motore, or motor mechanic.

The store was surrounded by a high brick wall and the garage entrance door was firmly closed. So I wandered over to a door set in the brick wall and gently pushed it open, hoping to find someone from the mechanic's store who could help us.

As the door opened, I found myself looking into a lovely garden where a group of people were sitting together at a table covered with plates and glasses. As one, they looked up from their lunch to see who this grimy and
somewhat dust-covered stranger was. I summoned up my most apologetic smile and assisted by my Italian phrase book, tried out my rudimentary Italian:

"Mi scusi. Abbioano un problema con il ciclo de motore. Poteto aiutare?"

"Excuse me. We have a problem with our motorcycle. Can you help?"

The response was immediate. They rose to their feet, smiling and all talking at once, very rapidly, in heavy rural Italian accents. They pulled me towards the table and sat me down, laughing and smiling. Someone rushed up with plate of pasta swimming in sauce. Utensils clattered down. A glass of red wine was set down in front of me. A basket of sliced Italian bread was pushed towards me. Everyone motioned for me to "Eat! Eat!" And they smilingly held up their own glasses of wine and encouraged me to "Bere! Bere!" "Drink! Drink!"

I had found the mechanic, and his family, and it was lunch time. And I was now part of their lunchtime ritual. With a slight guilt pang – thinking of Ken quietly baking in the sun 10 miles outside town – I helped myself to bread, shoveled into the pasta and tasted the ripe red wine. Totally delicious!

As I ate and drank I was able to outline the problem we had with the spokes on Ken's bike. The mechanic
nodded and waved his hands in the air in the universal signal of "No problem." And sure enough, once the relaxed lunch-in-the-sunshine was over, he led me to his workshop, opened up the main door, climbed into a van, and we were off. Ken was delighted to see us, and once we got back to his shop, the mechanic and his father set to work on the wheel while his wife insisted on serving Ken a plate of her tasty pasta and sauce.

In an hour they were done. Ken's wheel was a thing of beauty, filled with a bristling array of shiny new spokes. And they smilingly refused to charge us for their time: only for the new spokes.

I've forgotten how much it was, but it was less than a decent restaurant meal – and they had provided each of us with a hearty lunch, plus a glass of the local wine. And to think our fathers had been fighting these warm and
friendly people just a few years before!

We rode away that afternoon in very good spirits.

Gym Class 2
Hugh McGrory
Murray Hackney, in his story about gym class at Morgan mentioned 'thug ball', being a treat for the class when the basic exercises had been completed. In our year, the equivalent was 'Pirates'.

The school hall at Morgan in the 1950s was impressive. It served many purposes – for school assemblies,
choir practices, stage productions, as well as being the school gym. The photo is the only one I could find from that era – from the gym perspective it shows the wall bars which covered three sides of the back half of the hall, the climbing ropes mentioned by Murray, and the beam system which had two beams that could be raised and lowered on two columns, one of which was pulled out from the wall by means of a pulley system, and locked to the floor.

I think the teacher was Mr. Hermiston (who died in April 2020 at the age of 103), and on the day in question
he decided we could have a game of 'Pirates'. We all pitched in to set up the scene – we moved the column/beam system into position, we let loose the climbing ropes hanging from the roof, we laid out the tumbling mats, brought out several of the vaulting horses, and laid out some of the little benches, about 12 feet long and about 18 inches high . These were positioned with some trial and error so that we could traverse the gym via multiple paths.

The rules of the game were simple. One kid was the Pirate, and the rest were prey, able to move anywhere as long as neither prey nor pursuer touched the naked floor with any part of their body. The game was over if the Pirate touched the floor, or
when he managed to touch any one of the prey - that kid then took over the role.

When he asked for a volunteer to be the first Pirate, I was first to stick up my hand. I figured with so many to pick from I could drive them into a corner and pick one off, 'nae bother', as they all got in each other's way trying to escape. The game began, and I soon found out that it wasn't that easy – the bottlenecks didn't happen, and since I couldn't move any faster than most of the kids, I just couldn't catch anybody.

I was a total failure, and after about five frustrating minutes I gave up and suggested someone else should have a go.

Oh, the ignominy...

A German Farm
Gordon Findlay
In my previous story we had come upon a couple of young German fellows riding along on an old BMW motor cycle. They signaled us to stop at a farm and it turned out that they were the sons of a local farmer – we were taken in to be introduced. It was late afternoon, and the father-farmer invited us to bed down in their barn, half-filled with bales of hay but neat and clean. In the meantime, the two young lads were fascinated by our motor cycles.

They were also very proud of their ancient German-made BMW, with the two opposing cylinders sticking
out at each side. They begged us to let them try our bikes, so we unloaded all our kit and soon they chugged off down the farm road on our bikes, while Ken and I each had a turn of their BMW.

It was a decent bike, quite smooth with the two cylinders, but age had caught up with it, and it smoked a lot and was slow to accelerate. They were impressed with my BSA, particularly the front teledraulics (oil-damped telescopic forks) which were fairly new at the time and really cushioned the shock of uneven pavement. And they liked Ken's Villiers which ran on a petroil mixture and also had two cylinders.

Their English wasn't bad, about the same fluency as my German, so we got on quite well with a mixture of the two. When we bedded down for the night the farmer brought us a massive wedge of cheese, butter and a
A newer bike, but it shows the 'flat-twin' opposing cylinder design.
whole loaf of dark rye bread. Before we set off the next morning the farmer's wife insisted we take a huge link of German sausage, and they were all there to wave us off. So much for any lingering thoughts of animosity from the war, which was still in the recent past.

We journeyed on into Switzerland, going up through one of the mountain passes where we paused to take our photograph (that snap is still in my old briefcase).

Interestingly enough, as we slowly climbed up the Alps, we ran into one stage of the Tour de France bicycle race – which neither of us knew anything about at the time. We came towards one small town to find it completely decked out in the flags of every European country. There were crowds of people gathering, lots of booths and tables selling merchandise, and motorcycle police trying to keep order.

We discovered that the Tour would be whipping through this little place in a couple of hours, so Ken and I parked our bikes, walked to a vantage point and sat in the sun to wait for the arrival of the peloton.
1945 Tour de France
When it did come, there really wasn't much time to enjoy it. First came the advance Tour motor cycles with hooters on, warning of the cyclists right behind them. A minute or so later came the riders, packed in a thick group of colour and frantic energy. The crowds cheered, whistled and waved – and in 30 seconds they all went blasting through, and it was all over. Obviously the high point of the year for that little spot.

I recall that we went past Lucerne, then down into Italy via Lugano and on to Bologna. We both loved Italy immediately because it was warm, the countryside was beautiful, and the people were friendly. When we went past people walking on the roads or working in the fields, almost always they would smile and wave to us, something that rarely happened in Switzerland or Germany. We had decided to head for the centre of Italy, towards Umbria, and it was while we were on this route that our happiest Italian experience came about.

First, a little background:
Ken's bike was a good one – but it had one unfortunate flaw. It had spoked wheels, of course, but the designers had fitted it with very thin and delicate spokes (perhaps to keep the weight down) and they just weren't up to the pounding we took on some of the rougher continental roads. It wasn't long before Ken's wheels were shedding broken spokes every day. He was quickly running the risk of having one, or both, of the wheels of his motor cycle collapsing.

He was able to get one wheel fixed in Germany, but as we rode towards central Italy and hit some rudimentary country roads the problem became acute. And, outside the town of Nami – which we knew was the geographic dead-centre of Italy – we had to stop. Ken's front wheel was down to a few spokes, was starting to wobble badly, and was in immediate danger of collapsing altogether.

Gym Class
Hugh McGrory

Some time ago, Murray Hackney wrote an anecdote for us in which he spoke about gym class (can't remember what we called it – Gym, PE, PT...)

I loved to play field hockey, but I was certainly no athlete – I hated training and practice sessions. Like Murray, though, I enjoyed gym class – got us out of the classroom and a chance to expend some energy for an hour. I too remember climbing the ropes in the gym, the feeling of accomplishment when you got to the top (and holding on like a limpet when you got there).

I remember one occasion: The teacher was either Mr. Sorbie or Mr. Brough – probably the latter, though I
tend to confuse them. I remember both as little guys, held themselves very upright, always walked with purpose, and yet seemed light on their feet (reminded me of bantam cocks).

So, we were vaulting, lengthwise, over a wooden horse (the type used in the escape from Stalag Luft III, the WW2 prison camp in Poland), lining up one after the other to run at full speed, throwing ourselves through the air, landing as far up the horse as we could,
making contact with our hands on straight arms, then with wide open legs, thrusting our bottom halves through the air so we could land on the far side without hitting the horse.

Mr. B. then decided to up the ante. He had a couple of the lads get one of the smaller horses (the type that
stood on four legs) and place it at the far end of the wooden horse and said we were going to try to clear both.

He looked around to decide who should go first, and, for some reason that I don't understand to this day, chose me. While some of the kids could do things like cartwheels and handsprings, I wasn't one of them – had
always been too chicken to try and visions of breaking my neck precluded any such attempt. I suspect he confused me with someone else...

I could hear some of the kids whispering what I was saying to myself – "No Way!" I mean the bloody combination made it half as long again!

So, Mr. B. positioned himself at the far end and I took off. I ran as fast as I could and threw myself at the horse (I may have closed my eyes), pushed off with my arms and stretched myself out as close to horizontal as I could, did a backward summersault and landed on my feet with my arms akimbo to cheers from the whole class.

OK, you know I'm lying, right? In truth though, I almost did it – by arching my back I managed to get my feet clear, but my ass hit the far edge of the second horse, and I would have landed on my butt if Mr. B. hadn't grabbed me.

I did a number on my back though – I think I had him worried for a moment (hell, I had me worried...) and he had me touching my toes to try to ease the pain. There was no lasting damage though, and he did say "good effort."

Can't remember how the rest of the class did.

Dutch Treat
Gordon Findlay
Our very short visit into the Netherlands was memorable for one reason: there was nowhere we could find a nice, isolated farmer's field to pitch our tent. Every damn square inch was neatly cultivated and all of it in clear view: no hills or nice little forests where we could get off the beaten track.

We finally rolled up to one farmhouse and explained our need. Did they have a corner of a field we could use? Or perhaps a hay shed we might occupy for one night?

As soon as we mentioned where we were from – the magic word 'Scotland' – the farmer and his wife beamed, shouted to each other in excitement, and nearly pulled us off our bikes to bring us into their farmhouse.

In a mixture of German and fractured English they told us that a Scottish regiment – it might have been the Highland Light Infantry or the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders – had been one of the regiments which had fought hard and which had eventually routed the Germans from that area in 1944-45, and that they would be forever grateful.

These kind people fed us an enormous meal and insisted we spread our sleeping bags in front of the fireplace on the flagstone floor of their living room. Which we duly did. And in the morning, they tip-toed around us as they went out to work their fields, then the lady of the house sat us down at their table for a huge farm breakfast.

As we rode off after thanking that kind farming family, Ken and I were reminded that the Dutch were never likely to forget the sacrifice of Allied troops in freeing them from German occupation.

We didn't stay long in the Netherlands, and made our way in a southeast direction, cut through a small section of Belgium where I remember we met some quite unfriendly farming types. They simply shook their heads and turned away when we asked for a spot to pitch our tent, so we roared on through that slice of the country in one day and rattled on towards Frankfurt, then Freiburg.

I wish I'd kept a diary of our trip so I could recall more of it, but I do remember it was somewhere in the Freiburg region where we met a couple of young Germans riding along on a fairly ancient BMW motor cycle. They waved at us, chugged alongside us and signaled us to stop at a farm.

(more next time)

Troopers 3
Hugh McGrory
In my previous story I said I wanted to tell you more about 9 Carlton House Terrace and its history: There are actually two terraces east and west of the Duke of York Steps, each consisting of nine sumptuous houses
backing on to the Mall, planned by John Nash (1752-1835) and completed in 1832. Former residents have included three prime ministers and more than a hundred members of the British and European nobility, and it's presently home to several important institutions, notably the Royal Society and the Institute of Contemporary Arts. I'm sure that each of these houses could tell some fascinating stories of the past, almost two hundred, years.

The house at 9 Carlton Terrace was the home of the Prussian Embassy and became known as Prussia House until the beginning of the 1914-18 war. In 1920, however, the ambassadors representing Germany's new Weimar Republic returned to Prussia House The Republic's final Chargé D'affaires was 51-year-old Dr. Leopold von Hoesch (1881-1936), an old-fashioned diplomat who had been the much-admired German ambassador in Paris after stints in Peking and Madrid. Von Hoesch did much to improve Anglo-German relations throughout the early 1930s and won the admiration of both of the British foreign secretaries he worked alongside, Sir Anthony Eden and John Simon.

Von Hoesch worked hard to improve relations between Britain and Germany, however, a year after he took up his post in London, the Weimar Republic was no more. In 1933, entirely by proxy rather than choice, von Hoesch became a representative of the Third Reich. He spoke beautiful English in soft, modulated tones, and the theme of all his speeches was the cultivation of better Anglo-German relations.

Though a bachelor, von Hoesch entertained hospitably at the Embassy, and with his sincerity and personal charm made many friends among English statesmen. He had a distinguished bearing and was always particularly well dressed. Sadly, two years later, von Hoesch died in the bedroom of the house from a stroke. He was only 55, but had been under great stress trying to maintain Anglo-German relations that were being routinely and savagely tested by the new National Socialist ruling party under Hitler.

The British Government, in accordance with international diplomatic protocol, effectively gave him a state funeral on his way to the Dover-bound train from Victoria Station. The cortege was led by Grenadier Guards, British government ministers formed part of the funeral procession, and von Hoesch received a 19-gun salute in St. James's Park bidding him farewell.

As the casket, draped in a swastika, was carried down the Duke of York Steps to the waiting gun carriage for the trip up The Mall towards Buckingham Palace, German Embassy staff gave the Nazi salute from the Terrace behind No 9. The coffin was taken to Germany on the British destroyer HMS Scout. After the
Nazis on the terrace behind 9 Carlton House Terrace.
triumphant display in London, not a single representative of the Nazi Party attended von Hoesch's funeral in Berlin.

The next German ambassador couldn't have been more different from the soft-spoken, charming von


Hoesch. Joachim von Ribbentrop was a key member of the Nazi regime (and someone whom Dr Hoesch had found particularly distasteful). Upon his return to Germany at the end of WW1, Ribbentrop worked as a sparkling wine salesman until his marriage in 1920 to the daughter of a wealthy wine producer made him financially independent. To give some insight into the man, he then persuaded a distant ennobled relative to adopt him so that he could affix 'von' to his name, and appear to be descended from nobility.

While his time in London was short (he was back in Germany within a year), some of the more intriguing stories associated with his stay have proved difficult to confirm or deny:
  • He would summon tailors from the best British firms, make them wait for hours and then send them away without seeing him but with instructions to return the next day, only to repeat the process. That did immense damage to his reputation in British high society, as London's tailors retaliated by telling all their well-off clients that Ribbentrop was impossible to deal with.

  • In February 1937, he committed a notable social gaffe when greeting King George VI. Apparently, the King was reaching forward to shake hands, when von Ribbentrop unexpectedly gave the stiff-armed Nazi salute, the gesture nearly knocking over the King.

  • Ribbentrop further compounded the damage to his image and caused a minor crisis in Anglo-German relations by insisting that henceforward all German diplomats were to greet heads of state by giving the fascist salute, and that the heads of state should respond with the same gesture. Apparently, Hitler himself killed that idea, noting that there was no way that King George would ever comply.

  • In addition, Ribbentrop chose to spend as little time as possible in London to stay close to Hitler, which irritated the British Foreign Office immensely, as his frequent absences prevented the handling of many routine diplomatic matters.

  • In an interview, Ribbentrop's secretary Reinhard Spitzy stated, "He behaved very stupidly and very pompously, and the British don't like pompous people". He also called him "pompous, conceited and not too intelligent" and stated he was an "utterly insufferable man to work for".
In his brief time in London, Ribbentrop was under orders from Hitler to negotiate an Anglo-German alliance. He completely failed, of course, showing no understanding of the workings of British politics and the monarchy, and wrongly believing King Edward VIII could dictate foreign policy.

He returned to Germany in 1938, and served as the Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany from 1938 and throughout World War II. After the defeat of Germany, he was tried on four charges of crimes against peace and humanity at the International Military Tribunal in Nürenberg, found guilty on all counts, and hanged.

Sic transit gloria mundi.
I wish I had known of the history of 9 Carlton House Terrace when I was there. On my cursory tour, I may well have stood in von Ribbentrop's former bedroom, without having the slightest inkling...

The Dundee Law
Brian Macdonald
Dundee may not be unique but there can't be many cities with a volcanic sill(1) bang in the middle of them. The Law is what is left of the solidified magma, well worn down over millennia, slap in the middle of the city. Its slopes form the Hilltown. It gave its name to a school too. It commands the city from its height of over 500 feet, not Munro-height(2), but high enough to overlook the surrounding, fairly flat country of Dundee and Angus.

From the Fife side of the Tay, it is the Law that draws the eye when looking towards Dundee from Newport.
The Law dominates - the road bridge was designed to aim directly at the war memorial on top.
Kinghorne Road and Law Crescent, streets lined with houses, gird the hill and there are paths used by dog-walkers and joggers but its main interest is the war memorial and viewing area on the summit.

The Law and its smaller sister, the more park-like Balgay Hill, a good walk to the west, across Lochee Road,
gaze on each other, the two highest points of the city. Balgay Hill is open and grassy with an observatory and has Victoria Park on one side and Lochee Park on the other, both adjoining it. The Law is not parkland. It is mostly rough grass and fairly dense trees. The keen-eyed reader will have noticed by now that I do not append 'Hill' to 'the Law'. I used to when young, until I learned that 'law' means 'hill' and pedantry forbids me the crime of tautology. Many Dundee folk still do refer to 'the Law Hill'. Strange then, that the same rule does not seem to apply to the Sidlaw Hills, a range of low hills inland, to the north-west of Dundee, but there we are.

The Law's big drawcard is the panoramic views to all points of the compass from the war memorial on the
summit. That memorial area, with its car park and telecom mast, is reached by following Law Road as it kinks left and winds uphill to the viewing area. Google Earth shows the road runs through a heavily wooded area. If the unwary driver continues straight ahead, instead of taking that left turn near the start of Law Road, he will find himself on Law Crescent and then on Kinghorne Road, heading down to the Hilltown clock, scratching his head after doing a complete circuit of the Law but not accessing it. I know all this because I often did the tough pedal up to the top of the Law as a lad and learned the hard way.

It was as a young teenager that I fell in love with the Law. I don't know how or when it happened, but I found myself wanting to go 'up the Law' and did so often. Until that epiphany, like most Dundonians, I just took the Law for granted. In later life, as an expatriate in Australia, whenever I was back in Dundee, a drive up the Law was a must. It was always a spiritual experience that I never tired of. The 360° panorama from the top is astounding. Below you, central Dundee runs down to the Tay, with the new V & A building standing beside Scott's Discovery on the shoreline.


You can see further southward, away across the Tay to Newport, with both bridges in view and ruminate on Thomas Bouch's 1879 disaster, with the stumps of the piers of the failed bridge still showing, and smile at William McGonagall's famed bad epic poem on the event. Looking west, the broad, 'silvery' Tay runs tidally towards Perth, some twenty miles away, with splendid riverscapes.

Swinging east, you look to Dundee's satellite, Broughty Ferry, and the North Sea. Turning north, you


overlook the sprawl of outer Dundee, where it expands beyond the Kingsway, the bypass road, that, in my youth was just beginning to be overrun as the physical limit of the city, with Fintry and St Mary's just beginning to develop. Downfield existed beyond the Kingsway as a middle-class enclave and the then country village of Trottick. Beyond that, the modest Sidlaws stood. Drawing your gaze closer to the Law you can distinguish the major roads and maybe see your own home. Our Morgan Academy is visible too but takes a keen eye to find. Before Google Earth this was as good a streetscape view of Dundee as you could get, unless you were in a plane.

On a fine summer day, all was bathed in sunlight, bright and cheerful and warm, and you could clearly see a good distance. In vile weather, swaddled in a waterproof parka, or in the pushbike days, with the voluminous, yellow, oilskin cape on, it was a dramatic (if cold, wet and uncomfortable!) experience to see the stormy skies, the Tay now dark, roiling cloud and dim light. If you were lucky, the weather would lift and you got a shaft of sunlight and landscapes to delight a Turner. But to me, the most magical of all was to be on the Law at dusk, just as the light was going and the streetlamps were coming on. Then you got a wonderful, illuminated roadmap, with street detail invisible but all the streets drawn in strings of lights and the flow of traffic painted in flows of moving light, like a magic river.

Now, with my days of international travel behind me, I have my memories of the many marvellous things I have seen. High among my memories is the Dundee Law in all its moods. If you live in Dundee and have not given the Law much thought, take a drive up it one day. If, like me, you live elsewhere across the globe, why not give the Law a visit on your next trip home. You will not regret it, I assure you. It is an experience to treasure.

--------------------
(1)
See Dundee Law

(2) See Munros

Troopers 2
Hugh McGrory
It was June, 1959, in London, England, and a friend asks "Hey, you want to see the Trooping The Colour parade this Saturday?"
I say, "You have tickets for the parade ground?"
He responds, "No, but I work in the Foreign Office."
I say "Oh", to hide the fact that I have no idea where that was, nor why it was significant...
"So," he says, "I can get you in and we'll watch the cavalcade on The Mall, going and coming back."

The 'X' on the map shows the location, 9 Carlton House Terrace, which backs on to The Mall and was occupied by the British Foreign Office from 1939 to 1965. The dots show where the crowds stand to watch the parade, several rows deep under the trees lining The Mall.


So around 9:30 am, June 13, 1959, I was standing waiting for him at the top of the Duke of York Steps at
the base of the 'Grand Old Duke of York's column. My buddy appears and says, "It's #9 on the end, right there", and in we go. I was surprised that it was very casual – I expected a receptionist or a concierge, but I don't remember any security – of course this was 1959...

It turned out that several other staff members had had the same idea and there were 10 or 20 people in the building to see the parade. We had a look around while we waited – to be honest, I don't remember much detail, but my overall impression was of a grand old building that had 'gone to seed', and was now furnished with old government office furniture. I had no idea, then, of its interesting history...

We made our way upstairs and chose an end window which gave us a view down Horse Guards Road towards the parade ground where troops were beginning to form up – we really couldn't see much of the actual parade area, and so wouldn't be able to see the actual ceremony.

The whole affair is timed to the minute, and we knew the Queen would leave the palace at 10:45 to arrive on the parade ground at exactly 11:00, and would be leading the parade from The Mall onto Horse Guards Road just below us so we would see the whole cavalcade as it made the turn.

And we did, a grand spectacle – the massed bands followed by the Queen, in uniform as Colonel in Chief, Coldstream Guards, on a beautiful light brown horse followed by Prince Philip, Colonel, Welsh Guards, on a
white steed, and the Duke of Gloucester, Colonel, Scots Guards, on a black – the Duke was the Queen's uncle. The Queen's party was followed by the cavalry, then the soldier's of foot of the 1st Battalion, Coldstream Guards.

The photograph on the left shows our location, the one on the right is a clip from a British Pathé newsreel (remember those) showing the Queen at the same spot on that day. So at that moment in time, we were


behind and above the Queen's right shoulder.

After the parade passed our spot, they assembled on Horse Guards Parade for the ceremony. We couldn't see this from our window, and the following conversation ensued:

"So what do we do now?"
"If we want to, we can wait and see the procession returning to the palace."
"How long does the Trooping take?"
"I think about 90 minutes".

We looked at each other.
"Pub?"
"Pub!"

So we left. I regret that now – wish we had taken the chance to look around the building a bit more, to the extent that we could, especially later, after I read up on it. Next time I want to tell you more about #9, Carlton House Terrace and its history.

Funny how memory works... When I think of that weekend, I remember the next day, Sunday, sitting down for dinner in my Beckenham, Kent digs, with our landlady, her two daughters, Gillian and Susan, and three fellow boarders, two of my work colleagues, David and John, and a religious fellow, Peter – not sure what he was exactly, maybe a curate?

I was telling them about the ceremony, and mentioned something about Admiralty Arch, which is at the opposite end of The Mall from Buckingham Palace close to our observation point.

After I stopped talking, Peter said to me "Why do you pronounce it that way?"
I asked "Pronounce what?"
He said "The name of the Arch."
I thought for a moment and repeated "Admir-ahl-itay".
"Why?"
"What do you mean", I asked.
"Well, how do you pronounce the position."
"Eh, Admiral"
"Now, add 'ty' to it"
I thought for a moment... "Admiralty"

He said "Right, not 'Admir-ahl-itay'" – and I realised that I'd been mispronouncing the word for ever. I was grateful that he told me.

I guess I misread the word when I was a kid, before I heard it pronounced, and mizzled myself...

What the H**l!
Gordon Findlay
Even after all these years I can still remember waking up in our tent after our first night on French soil. We hadn't come very far after getting off the Boulogne ferry, but we were a bit tired and anxious to test our camping expertise – and all our equipment. As soon as we could we veered off the main road onto a country by-road, spotted a small wood, and bumped up a cart track close to it. Got out the tent, erected it, wolfed down a meal, and crawled into our sleeping bags. Sleep came easily and quickly.

I don't know exactly what it was that wakened me early the next morning. Perhaps it was Ken's movement in the tent. But I came to sleepily and glanced over – to see him just about to inject something in a long hypodermic needle into his bare backside!

I was gob-smacked into stunned silence. What the h**l was going on here? Then Ken noticed me looking and said in a very matter-of-fact way: "Oh, I guess I never told you I'm a diabetic. Have to inject insulin into my bum every morning. Not a very pretty sight, eh? Sorry."

We had never talked about that. The topic of his illness had never come up. Or maybe he assumed I knew. But anyway, the mystery of the early-morning-jab-in-the-bum was solved, and in future mornings I knew to give him a few moments in the tent to take care of his medication. It was never a problem.

A Memory of Lawrie
Hugh McGrory
Many of you knew Lawrie Mitchell, more properly Dr. Lawrence Mitchell, MBE. Sadly, Lawrie died October 15, 2020, at the age of 84. He was one year ahead of me at school, so I didn't really get to know him until about 20 years ago – but at school, I was with him on an occasion that changed his life for ever (as he told me many years later)...

In sixth year at Morgan, Lawrie was captain of Mains House, and he also played rugby for the school 1st XV (I believe he captained the team). As part of his duties as Mains Captain, he had to organise the house rugby team to play matches against the other three houses (Airlie, Cortachy and Glamis – see the badges at the top of the page). He, of course, selected the rugby players in the House, but still had half a dozen or so places to fill. I was one of the 'fill-ins' for the game against Airlie – a hockey player having only played in a few games of rugby, and not even totally clear on the rules.

I suspect I was one of the centre three-quarters, no doubt selected for the position wherein Lawrie thought I could do least damage... At one point early in the game I found myself behind our goal line with the ball running loose near me. I dived for it and stuck my arm out to ground the ball. Wasn't sure that it was the right thing to do, but in fact it was – a touch-down instead of a try for the other team, had they got to the ball first, and I guess a kick-out for us from our goal line. (Is that correct, you rugby players out there?)

I remember, as I lay there, Lawrie appeared and said, "Well done, but next time don't stick your arm way out like that – it could easily get broken – gather the ball into your body instead." Good advice.

Later in the game, there was a stoppage on the far side of the pitch. It was obviously serious since the game didn't restart, and I wandered over to check things out. Someone said "It's Lawrie – they think he's broken his collar bone."

In fact, it was a fracture dislocation of his shoulder. What transpired from there, as Lawrie explained to me many years later, was that the experience of being taken to hospital and having treatment for his injury, made him decide to become a doctor.

This career change was a major decision for Lawrie, since he hadn't taken much science at school, leaning towards languages instead. He said that this made the first year or two at med. school a struggle; but he persevered, and graduated into the profession which provided him with a lifetime of experiences all over the world.

Read about Lawrie's adventurous life and world travels, in his own words, here...

See Lawrie's obituary here.

Also here....

Another Motorbike Mishap
Brian Macdonald
Gordon Findlay's story about his motorbike crash on wet cassies sparked my memory of a similar incident that happened to me. Like Gordon, my first bike was a BSA B31, but a later model than Gordon's, and very similar to the one in the photo below. Burgundy red with deeply valanced mudguards, plunger rear
suspension (his had a solid rear and a sprung single saddle), a dual saddle set on the frame, a toolbox on one side to match the oil tank on the other and metal strap frames holding capacious rexine panniers over the back wheel.

It was a very handsome beast in my opinion then, and still in my memory today. My love of motorbikes is still hot, and I continue to ride, although the modern motorbike has all the technology that a 21st century car has, thank goodness.

They say you never forget your first love and so it is with motorbike enthusiasts. Till I got it I had done the daily race from Fairmuir Park, up Old Glamis Road and along Clepington Road to school, on my (also) BSA pushbike. Once I had the powered steed, I rode it to school, in fifth and sixth year. You could get a motorbike licence then in Scotland at age 16.

At first I parked it where the teachers parked their cars, on the hard standing in front of the rector's office, across from the wall where fifth year boys lounged, above the green sward that swept down to Stobswell. That seemed sensible to me. But a message came down from the gods, ejecting me from the teachers' parking and after that it got parked in Maryfield Terrace, across the Forfar Road from the school, with Hector Gibb's dairy on one corner. As with Gordon, it was never interfered with.

Over the next years, I rode that bike all over eastern Scotland and to and from London a few times, clad in an ex-WW2 sheepskin flying jacket, which provided not only the warmth of the fleece for an east coast winter but also shock absorption and skin protection for the occasional dive on to the road surface, inevitable if you ride a motorbike and especially in black ice conditions. Like Gordon, I fell victim to Dundee's cassies, in my case on the Hilltown, about Kinghorne Road, at a cautious speed in the rain. As the front wheel went sideways and I fell and sprawled inelegantly on the wet cobblestones, I heard a wifie remark, "He wusnae gaein' fast aither".

It has always interested me that, when you come off a motorbike, the reaction of witnesses at first is one of interested spectators, not horror and willingness to aid the injured rider. Happily uninjured, apart from my dignity, I hauled myself and bike upright and went on my way. Bikes then had cast iron footpegs that acted as fenders when the bike toppled and no damage was done, not a scratch, unlike Gordon's experience.

Nowadays tyre and suspension technology and the 'think for you' electronics are such that a competent motorcyclist is unlikely to come unstuck on a wet road, there are much grippier road surface materials than shiny, rounded, granite cobbles that could double as curling stanes and motorcycle clothing is an expensive suit of armour with high-tech protection against abrasion and impact. But you can still fall off and we do, but fortunately very rarely.

Troopers
Hugh McGrory
In 1959 I was working in London, England, and on one particular Saturday in June, was in town when the Capital was putting on its impressive annual display of pageantry (I'll tell you how I managed to get one of the 'best seats in the house' to view the cavalcade...).

Trooping the Colour is a practice steeped in history. In battles, centuries ago, communication with and
amongst troops was very hit or miss. It was often necessary to gather men together to re-group, and this was done around the regimental flag ('rally round the flag, boys'). Such flags were referred to as 'Colours' in the British Army since they displayed the uniform colours and insignia worn by the soldiers of different regiments.

It was crucial that the men instantly recognised the form and colours of their regimental insignia, so recruits were exposed to these regularly. The troops would be lined up on parade, and junior officers would march between the ranks with the Colours held high – the origin of the term
'Trooping'. (This is exactly what happens in the Trooping the Colour ceremony each year. The photo shows the Queen's Colour 1st Battalion Scots Guards.)

On completion of the Trooping the parade takes the same route back to the Palace. The spectacle involves some 1400 parading soldiers, 200 horses and 400 musicians who come together each June in a great display
of military precision, horsemanship and fanfare.

Until 1987, The Queeen, in uniform, rode in the parade – since then, she and Prince Philip travelled in a
carriage. Some of the younger Royals still ride, line-abreast, behind the carriage. The streets are lined with crowds waving flags, many rows deep, and people line up for hours before, to get a prime spot – not something that I was prepared to do.

The tradition is that, as the parade passes along the Mall on the way back, the crowds 'break ranks', fill up
the avenue behind them, and move towards the palace to view the extended Royal Family come out onto the balcony to wave to the crowd and to see the RAF fly-past.

I have little interest in the monarchy – but the Brits do know how to put on a spectacular show - well worth seeing... I would have missed the spectacle if not for a friend who worked in the Foreign Office. I was going to tell you the story, but I've gone on long enough for today ... (to be continued)

PS
If you're interested in seeing more of the Trooping the Colour ceremony, see this video
A Warm Reception
Gordon Findlay
Last time, Ken, I, and our motorbikes had finally set off on our Grand Tour, first stop to be his aunt's place in London. When we arrived, she was a delight, and with her husband welcomed us to their home. We stashed our motorcycles in their garden shed, and they showed us where we could sleep in their spare room in our sleeping bags. He was especially helpful because he was a handyman and mechanically inclined.

He noticed that a few of our panniers were loose. He soon reattached some of the struts and carefully tightened all the bolts. For our part, we each slept like logs in that room; his aunt served us a huge breakfast in the morning, then we were off to Dover to catch the ferry to Boulogne (no Chunnel in those days).

I've forgotten the precise details of the route we mapped out in Europe. I do remember that, in the time we had available, from 6 to 8 weeks, we knew we'd have to keep our tour to France – Holland – Belgium – Germany – Switzerland – Italy – Monaco – France again, then home. Basically, one big loop, and trying to stay away from most of the big cities where we were unlikely to find a farmer's field to pitch our tent.

I do recall that we completely wore out at least two maps of central Europe by constantly opening them up, checking where we were, and closing them up again. They got greasy, they were rained on, they were dropped on wet roads; finally, they just quietly fell apart at the seams and had to be replaced.

And, I'm afraid, much of our journey through Europe has faded from my memory. I'm left with individual memories, small cameos of a few experiences during our trip which stuck in my mind down through the years. There are a few stories that I can remember...

(... to be continued)

No Good Deed Goes...
Hugh McGrory
Almost 60 years ago, I had driven 'doon the toon' in Dundee in my first car, the one that I introduced you
to in an earlier story – the one that was the same age as me – my 1937 Morris 8 – just like the green one in the photo.

I found a place to park in Whitehall Crescent – the exact spot shown in the Google Street Map photo below.
My car would have been the one in the right front corner. When I came back from wherever, I found that the car in front of me (where the white one is) had pulled out and been replaced by another. It was parked quite close to my car, and when I looked behind mine I saw that the car behind me was also very close.

I didn't want to spend ages waiting for one or other of the drivers to return, so I decided to try to get my car out. You may remember from the previous story that I hadn't had my driving licence for very long...

I began the process of moving forward and back, turning the wheel each time so that I inched towards freedom. I finally was clear and pulled out - then it became clear, from the scraping noise, that I clearly wasn't clear enough...

I reversed and took one more cut which enabled me to escape, parked alongside the other car and got out to take a look. My bumper had scraped his and left some marks – this was when cars actually had real bumpers...

Then I consulted my conscience – what to do, what to do – should I just take off or should I 'do the right thing'. Pros and cons... I might well have gotten away with it – or maybe one of the interested bystanders might have noted my licence plate – or maybe the owner had seen me from his office window... And how would I feel if the roles were reversed?

I decided to write a note and leave it under his windshield wiper. I found a piece of paper and a pen and wrote "I'm afraid I damaged your car. I'm writing this to make bystanders think I'm leaving my details. I'm not. Sorry."

All right, I lied – I didn't write that at all. I was part way through writing down my contact info. when I sensed someone at my elbow... The owner of the car had appeared from nowhere! He identified himself as such.

I said "I was just writing you a note. I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I've damaged your car".

He asked "Where?" I looked at him as if he was daft and said "Whitehall Crescent..."

Ok, I'm lying again – I made that up too. Actually, I pointed out the marks on his bumper. He then said, bra' lad that he was, "Those wee scratches? That's what bumpers are for... Just forget about it".

What a nice guy... I thanked him profusely – and took off before he could change his mind.

Who says 'Good deeds have to be punished'?

PS
The building on the right is where I used to go, as a pre-teen, for piano lesson – at my mother's behest... I still remember the name of the old lady who taught me – Miss Violet Burroughs, 6, Whitehall Crescent, I think... My attempt to become a concert pianist lasted a few weeks. Miss Violet said, at the end of a lesson, "Have you ever considered taking up voice lessons?" My mother got the message...

PPS

I just found the Dundee Directory for 1920/21 online, with an entry: 'Burrows, Miss Violet C, soprano vocalist, music teacher, 30 Whitehall St.' Has to be the same lady – she must have moved just round the corner at some point.
Wheels
Bill Kidd
About ten years ago in a fit of environmental conscience we bought a Hybrid car. This was a revelation to us as on a long journey we could achieve in excess of sixty miles to the gallon. For almost half a year the economy of my driving was carefully monitored, and I enjoyed the thrill of watching the dial that showed when the electric assist motor kicked in and out. I slavishly checked my fuel consumption and bored everyone who could stay awake with my driving statistics. Gradually, to the relief of everybody, my enthusiasm waned.

I am currently sitting at home cursing that very same car because it is suffering from a flat battery! On reflection, this has been the story of our car owning life. Every car that we bought started its life with us as the apple of our eyes, but at some point, it always transmogrified into a major burden to be borne and used as an excuse to acquire a newer model.

Our first car was a black 1951 801cc Morris Minor with some 50,000 miles on the clock. We loved that car even though it did not have a heater, radio, or windscreen washer. The semaphore direction indicators could not be relied on to extend full without a little help that involved winding down the window, not a great inconvenience in the summer but in a Caithness winter it became a different problem! For two years we drove at 30 mpg up, down and around Scotland at a cost of 5/- per gallon.

We accepted as normal having to service the twenty or so greasing points every 1,000 miles and change the oil every 3,000 miles. However there came a realisation that having to carry a hot water bottle for warmth, a squeezy bottle to clean the windscreen and an interminable game of 'I Spy' was not the best way to undertake the quarterly 250 mile Thurso to Dundee expedition. Morris Minor OOL131 had to go.

Our next car was a black and silver 1960 Vauxhall Victor. This was luxury. It had a bench seat in front, it had a steering column gear shift lever, it had winking traffic indicators, it had a radio, it had windscreen washers and most blessed of all it had a heater. OK, so we only got 25 mpg out of it and it still need regular greasing and oil change, but it was a dream to drive and we loved it for nearly three years.

However, the local Vauxhall dealer had other ideas and introduced us to the new shape Victor in the form of the VX4/90. He had just taken delivery of a used 1963
model in white with red flashes. Would we like a test drive just to see what it was like?

It had re upholstery and moulded front seats with seat belts, walnut dashboard, and a vanity mirror. During the test drive its powerful engine and twin carburettors exercised a form of seduction, it was wonderful, so much better than that tin can which had you sliding across the front seat every time you turned a corner. Of course, we had to have it, it was predestined! Our state of euphoria lasted for all of two years during which time we moved to Berkshire and Muriel decided that she should learn to drive. After a couple of goes on the VX4/90 it was clear that it was unsuitable for a learner driver, and as it was needing some expensive mechanical work, we swapped it for an Austin Mini.

We loved our C registered grey Mini. For the first three months that it was in our possession Muriel practised her driving around Didcot in an Oxford passing her driving test at her first attempt. Because it was only a short distance for me to get to work, I bought a moped and Muriel used the car during the day. For the next two years we travelled the length and breadth of the UK in the Mini. It never seemed small to us until Muriel became pregnant and we decided that an Austin Cambridge would suit us better.

Shortly after the birth of our son I changed jobs and went to work in London, commuting from Didcot each day, usually by rail. This brought about another change to our circumstances resulting in moving house to Leighton Buzzard, followed by another move to Congleton in Cheshire, then on to Cumbernauld. Each of these moves changed our requirements for transport. This usually meant running two cars as I needed one for work every day.

We became the more or less proud owners of various Vauxhall Vivas, Triumph Dolomites, Morris Mini-van, Ford Escorts, Volvos of various sizes and most recently, Honda Civics and the current Jazz Hybrid which still needs a new battery.

Over the years our annual mileage has varied between the high point of 35,000 and the current 3,000 with an average of around 10,000. We have had around fifteen vehicles and I shudder to think of the costs that we have incurred over the years.

Our cars were a convenience as well as a conveyance and they opened us up to many opportunities over the years. Logic tells us that continuing to run a car is daft and when you take the standing costs and depreciation into account the cost per mile is far greater than using a taxi. I have now put away my calculator, taken out my wallet and handed over £70.00 for my new battery. Who knows, it may last another ten years!

Lampies
Hugh McGrory
When I was growing up in Dundee, it was the practice, in common with many Scottish cities and towns, to
recognise the home of the Provost by erecting two lamp posts (lampies to us when we were kids) on either side of the entrance to the property.

Provosts are heads of the local authority (like mayors), and, for the four largest cities, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and Dundee, are referred to as Lord Provosts. They are elected by the city council, serve as chair of that body, and as Lord Lieutenant of the city. The list of incumbents for Dundee goes back to 1482 in an unbroken line.

I imagine that in earlier days, the incumbents probably came from the 'upper classes', and lived in substantial homes, perhaps with a porticoed frontage, or a long(ish), tree-lined driveway, which, as such, would have provided an imposing setting for the two 'lamp posts of honour'.

However, in modern times, as the position became more egalitarian, such domiciles became less and less impressive, the porticos disappeared and the driveways got shorter and shorter.

Some examples:


Perhaps the ultimate example of this progression came close to home for me – literally...

When I was a teenager, the Lord Provost was Maurice McManus. Mr. McManus was a socialist member of
the city council, an ex-miner, and an employee of the local Hydro-Electric Board (the local power company). I believe he served with distinction and was one of the longest-serving Lord Provosts.

He was married to Lillian, and they had five children, Maurice, Frank, Michael, Maureen, and Olga. True to his roots, they lived in a Corporation housing scheme (houses for rent built by the city). The address was 44 Clement Park Road – my parents' home was 50 Clement Park Road, and my mother and Lillian (whom I remember, vaguely, as a very sweet person) were friendly – used to take turns at providing mid-morning coffee.
The McManus home – the one with the double chimney further up was the McGrory home.
When Mr. McManus became Lord Provost the two ceremonial lamp posts eventually appeared and were
installed about six feet apart at either side of the gate. The photo on the right shows the location – imagine the old fellow with a lamp post either side of him. (At that time, the area to the left of the house was just garden, there was no driveway, and the area was enclosed with railings.)

In due course, on his retiral from the position, as was the tradition, one of the lamp posts was removed – the other no doubt remained until he either moved to a new house or died.

I think the old tradition of the Lord Provosts Lamp Posts
has largely died out now, though there are still examples of single Provost's Lamps dotted around Scotland.

I remember I used to smile rather superciliously to myself every time I walked by – while I appreciated the tradition, the lamp standards just seemed out of scale in front of that little council house.

Maybe I was just jealous...

Off to Europe by Motorcycle
Gordon Findlay
In an earlier story 'Potato Rogues' I mentioned that the money I made for my summer's work enabled me to buy a motorbike.

My buddy and fellow roguer, Ken MacGregor, and I were pretty compatible. I had bought myself a B.S.A. 350 motor cycle and Kenny was about to buy himself a Villiers (a lighter type of motor cycle powered by a two-stroke engine). We decided, then and there, that the pair of us would put the rest of our money aside for a trip of a lifetime – we would tour Europe on our motorcycles. It was now early July, and I didn't have to report for military service until October. Lots of time...

He had an aunt who lived in London, England, so we'd run down the country to her place. That would give us a chance for a good 'shake-down' run on our bikes to get any bugs out and to check on how all our gear (tent, sleeping bags, cooking kit, etc.) worked out. Then we'd cross from Dover to Boulogne and head our bikes into Europe with a general route in mind, but open to diversions as the mood (or the weather) struck us.

We picked a date for setting out, then turned our attention to all the other preparations. Bought a 2-man tent, sleeping bags, a small Primus cooking stove, metal plates, knife-fork-spoon sets , and put some thought into the clothes we'd need for a couple of months. I bought myself a 'Skid-Lid', one of the new head protectors which were just coming on to the market at that time (remember – this is 'way back in 1954, the dark ages of personal protection and safety gear).

I wasn't too anxious to trick up my nice B.S.A. with extra equipment, but after some thought I decided to add a pair of crash bars: short, curved stainless steel bars which bolted on in front of my legs and would protect me if I happened to fall with the bike. (These simple bars were to prove absolutely crucial later on).

I also added a pair of bolt-on panniers on the back wheel to carry my share of the camping kit and other supplies. Then, a supply of bungee cords, plus a reel of nylon cord, and a small First Aid kit.

Lastly, I invested a few quid in an ex-Royal Air Force flight suit: a toe-to-neck suit made of heavy-duty twill which zipped right up the front. This turned out to be one of my better purchases since it held in my body heat and seemed to have been treated with some form of water-repellant which did a fine job of keeping rain drops from percolating as they were driven against the suit. We each bought ourselves a good waterproof case to hold our passports and money, since water has a nasty habit of leaking into everything as you're riding along in a rainstorm.

Ken and I left Dundee one morning in early June and made good time down into England. Rather than unpack all our stuff, we got a bed at a trucker's stop just off the main road. You got a bunk bed, and wrote the time you wanted to be wakened on a notepad attached to the bed. Somebody came down the ranks of beds, read the wake-up times, and prodded the appropriate individuals at the right time. They served a hot breakfast, and you were on your way.

Recycling
Hugh McGrory
It was 1962, and, as background to this little story, I had just joined the Dundee City Engineer's Department. The City Engineer then was John Armour, whom many of you will remember – he later became Master of Works & City Engineer of Glasgow. (Though I don't think I ever spoke to the man in my rather short time with Dundee...)

On this particular day, my task was to do some surveying on that stretch of Dudhope St. which ran west from the bottom of Hilltown to Constitution Rd. (see photo – it doesn't seem to have changed much in 60 years).
I can't remember why exactly, but, looking back, I'm pretty sure that it had to do with the proposed inner ring-road which eventually would cut across the east end of Dudhope St. (In the recent plan (below), 'A'is the stretch we were working on, and 'B' shows how Dudhope St, at the east end, was cut off from Hilltown to
allow the A991 ring-road to tunnel under Hilltown at that spot, 'C'.)

Surveying is part of the education of civil engineers, but land surveyors are the professionals. Essentially, they create representations of the surface of the earth by measuring multiple points on the ground and establishing their location in three dimensions, e.g. latitude, longitude and elevation above sea level.

Civil engineers sometimes do some of that to, but are more likely to be identifying and marking points on the ground to indicate features of interest for upcoming engineering works such as roads and highways, residential subdivisions or large structures.

The basic principles of surveying and civil engineering have been around for several thousand years – think of Stonehenge or the Pyramids – and the survey instruments have become more and more sophisticated. We were using a theodolite, an instrument that surveyors and engineers had been using for the previous 180 years or so.

A theodolite looks complicated, but it isn't really. They are made by taking some simple components and
mounting them together as a unit: a telescope for sighting the target of interest; two simple spirit levels – mounted at right angles to each other and used to ensure that the instrument, when set up, is absolutely level; two graduated discs (zero to 360 degrees) to allow for the measurement of horizontal and vertical angles. All these are mounted on a base made of two metal plates joined together by graduated screws to allow for levelling. This whole assembly is then mounted on a tripod.

So, on that particular day I was accompanied by a young(er) apprentice – he was my rodman – held the surveying rod over various targets so I could take readings. He also carried the equipment – the big box containing the instrument in padded safety, the tripod and the rod.

I set up the instrument each time we moved it, took the various readings, and recorded them in my notebook to be used later back in the office for various calculations.

We completed our measurements, did a final walk over the area to check a few things on Constitution Rd.,
then began to head for our vehicle. I picked up the rod, and he the tripod. I asked him where the theodolite was. He said he'd left it round the corner on Dudhope Street (it was quite heavy).

We turn the corner and walk towards our car and I say, "Where's the box?" He's looking confused and rather pale... He stammers, "I left it by the kerb (curb) outside that building!"

There's clearly no box in sight, and I get the sinking feeling that I was going to have to go back to the office and tell my (fairly new) boss that I'd managed to let someone steal our theodolite...

So we went through the "Are you sure this is where you left it?" "Yes" Did you see anybody?" "No" "Did you see a car stop, maybe?" "No". I'm thinking "Why would anybody steal a theodolite? It's not really very marketable..."

"You're sure you didn't see anybody?"

"I'm sure – just the scaffies' lorry (garbage truck)... At that point, the dark cloud that was over my head began to be break up just a little.

"Where did you leave it again?" I asked and he said, "On the kerb beside the dust bins (garbage cans)."

"So, in other words, you put our theodolite in the garbage..?"

We jumped in the car and headed for the scaffies' yard which, as I remember, was somewhere in the Blackscroft/Foundry Lane area. I drove in, parked, and walked over to the office. Several men were there and, before I opened my mouth, one of them, I presume the foreman, said, "Is that what you're looking for?" and there on a side table was the box with our theodolite...

After I gave them my heartfelt thanks and headed back to the car, I could hear them laughing... My guess is that the scaffies saw the box, realised that it wasn't garbage, saw us in the distance and decided it would be fun to scare the hell out of us...

Ah well – "All's well that..."

Final Word

The above happened about 60 years ago. Surveying has changed a lot since those days. Surveyors use modern advances, GPS, microwaves, computers ... What is called a 'total station' will allow one man to do in about an hour what it would have taken two of us a day...

A total station theodolite is an electronic transit theodolite integrated with electronic distance measurement. It can measure both vertical and horizontal angles and the slope distance from the instrument to a particular point, collect the data on an on-board computer and perform all the necessary calculations.

Motorized total stations allow the operator to control the instrument from a distance via remote control. This eliminates the need for a 'rodman' as the operator holds the reflector rod over the target spot and controls the total station from there. For those interested, this video shows how this is done.

One More Coincidence...
Jim Howie
In the late 1960's a Yorkshireman named Carl joined the company I was working with and we became good
friends. After some time Carl left and I lost track of him. Years later, I received a phone call from him saying he was in Edinburgh.

He was driving Jumbulances carrying pilgrims from Scotland to Lourdes, we met and had a reminisce about times gone by, then he was gone, never to be seen or heard of again, until...

Each January in the 1990's, I attended, on behalf of my employers, a Trade Show in Harrogate which lasted 4 days. On one of the days I had to use a park and ride facility at the opposite end of Harrogate from the Show, making my way back to the car park on a replica vintage bus (rather like the one in the lower photo). I was surprised (and so was he) when the driver hailed me as I made my way towards the exit, it was my friend from the late 60's, Carl!

What are the chances..?

He had a contract with the Trade Show organisers, and for the rest of that week and in subsequent years he would be at the entrance to the Trade Show halls with his bus and off we
would go for lunch (parking the bus was easier than finding a car parking space in Harrogate).

Breaking Bad
A Lesson Learned

Hugh McGrory
Another 'Mr. Cool' tale, I'm afraid...

I noted in a previous story, that my dad had TB in the early '50s and was in Ashludie Hospital for over two years. At the time, we, that is my mother, wee brother and I, lived in Lochee in Clement Park, a post WW2
housing scheme (as they were called).

I was about 15 or so, and, in my dad's absence 'the man of the house'. The duties of the position were few, since my mum was a very self-reliant woman, and I managed to dodge most of these by delaying, forgetting, whining etc. I didn't mind the jobs that I thought of as interesting, repairing small appliances perhaps, but digging the back garden to plant potatoes was too much like work... Which brings me to my story.

My mother wanted a vegetable garden in the backyard. The house we lived in – see photo – had been built just a few years before. Half of the backyard had been seeded with grass and was the drying green with four poles and a washing line where mum would hang out the clothes to dry and 'air' (we had a washing machine but no dryer).

The other half was virgin i.e. in the typical state left by builders of that era. So, I was charged with digging and clearing this area and planting vegetables – it was about 16 by 16 ft. With school during the week and sports on Saturday, that left Sunday, so, after completing my paper delivery route in the morning I would go out in the afternoon and dig contiguous trenches about a foot deep and a spade wide.

The soil wasn't the best, and had been compacted by the construction activities, so it was pick and shovel work. I was continually turning up stones, bricks, tiles etc. I finally came across what I thought was a stone a couple of inches below the surface and tried to dig it out.

The more I dug, the more of the stone I uncovered, and it became apparent that it was really a humungous boulder. Digging it out would have taken for ever (and I would have had to get rid of the bloody thing thereafter). I got my mother out and we had a confab about the problem, and we agreed that the thing to do was to break off the top foot or so and leave the rest in place. I just needed to find a sledgehammer...

Our home was a semi-detached, and the family next door consisted of dad, mum, and daughter Elspeth. He was an engineer of some kind (probably mechanical) and worked for NCR. Elspeth was a little older than me and heading for nursing school. I don't know whether I asked him, or he just offered the use of his sledgehammer. In any event, he went and got it, and I headed back to the rock... My mother and our three neighbours gathered by the common fence to watch me in action – I was very conscious of Elspeth being there...

What I should have done was start off by positioning the head on the target spot, then taken small swings increasing in length and force until I could swing it fully and rhythmically – so much for that... I wanted
to make an impression (on Eslpeth?) and my machismo took over – I was going to pulverise that boulder... I swung the heavy sledge – The Hammer of Thor – above my head and brought it down with all the force I could muster.

If I had only been two inches further away from that bloody boulder it might well have broken asunder... In fact, it was the shaft of the sledgehammer that broke, just at the eye. I certainly made an impression on Elspeth, not to mention the owner of the sledge, his wife, and my mortified mother!

For a moment or two I just stood and stared at the two pieces where before, there had been but one... I could feel my face going bright red, and trying desperately to think of something to say – make a joke, grovel, offer to buy a new one, burst into tears? Then our neighbour, the owner of that sadly mistreated tool, showed me what grace means – how to be mature, and kind... He said, "Oh dear." Then, "Do you know what whipping is, son? I
could only think of one meaning – which I didn't want to dwell on – so I said "Err..."

"Come on over to my workshop", he said, "and I'll show you how to fix that in no time". So, I grabbed those
two sorry pieces and dragged my sorry arse next door.

Fortunately, the break wasn't across the shaft, but along it, just below the eye – rather like the photo. He used some glue to attach the shaft and, after letting it set, he showed me how to use twine to bind the two parts together and strengthen the weak point by whipping.

Basically you make a loop with the twine with a short end long enough to extend a couple of inches longer than the length you
want to 'whip', then start winding the twine, tightly, from the open end towards the loop. You then feed the twine through the loop and pull on the other end. This pulls the twine into and under the wrap, you cut off
the ends and 'Bob's you uncle'. (If you're not familiar with the technique, which is often used by sailors, mountaineers etc. to stop the end of cut ropes from fraying, or for repairing the hosel of old golf clubs. You can see an example in the axe photo, and here.)

Once done he said "There. Good as new...", and I headed back to tackle the boulder again (successfully this time). It wasn't until years later that I fully realised how much I learned that Sunday afternoon in 1952 from from that kind and wise neighbour – I think his name was Alan McLeod.

Obviously, new skills:
  • The proper way to use a sledgehammer.
  • How to repair wood and 'whip' it into shape.
But more than that:
  • When approaching a project, think about your approach first before rushing in – especially if it's something you haven't done before.
  • Concentrate on the job in hand and don't be distracted by spectators – don't 'play to the gallery'.
  • When things go wrong, and someone makes a mistake, keep calm, be kind, and try to use the incident as a teaching moment.
And, oh yes:
  • You don't always get the girl...
A Missed Call
Bill Kidd
A throw-away remark by a teenager about a telephone box shown on a television programme set me thinking. The youngster said that he had never used one and wouldn't know how if he had to! Long before I had reached my teens the use of a telephone box was very familiar. You entered the red painted box, lifted the receiver, listened for the purr of the dialling tone, put two pennies in the appropriate slot, dialled the
number that you wanted and then, and only then, when the sound of a greeting came through the earpiece you pressed button "A" and gave your message. If after listening to the ringing tone for a minute or so without reply you pressed button "B" and your two pennies were returned to you. A simple but important procedure for a child to learn. But why was it important?

During the years of my childhood home telephones were rare and for most people to make a telephone call was a matter of some importance and more than
likely to be a matter of some urgency. In my own case it was because we had a seriously ill grandparent living with us and I had to learn to use the phone box so that I could pass a message to the doctor summoning him to attend my grandfather.

On a happier note I also had to pass on messages to an aunt who lived next door to Tealing Post Office. This involved telephoning the Post Office and asking the person who answered to go next door to fetch my aunt to the telephone. After a few minutes my aunt would come to the telephone and listen to the message that I was passing on from my grandmother. On reflection, I cannot believe that any modern shopkeeper would have the patience to act as intermediary for such a transaction!

In addition to the doctor and the Tealing Post Office there were a few other telephone numbers that were in regular use Those were usually the means of contacting various family members and friends whose neighbours had a telephone. Their patience was severely tried by responding to requests to fetch someone to the 'phone and some made their feelings known!

By the early 1950s an increasing number of homes had a telephone installed but because of post-war shortages it became common to have a shared line. This was not a major problem for a family with only a moderate use for the instrument but if you shared a line with someone whose contacts included a courting couple.........? At that time and well into the sixties there was no time limit on local calls and they sometimes went on for hours. Many neighbourhood disputes resulted from one partner of a shared line hogging the telephone.

Although local calls were cheap long-distance calls were expensive and consideration had to be given to investing in one. During my time in the RAF I always telephoned Muriel on a Thursday (pay day) at 7.00 pm, or as near to this as the queue for the 'phone box would allow. The cost for three minutes was 1/9 (around 8p), not very much but in the context of a postage stamp at 2½d. It cost 8.5 times more for a three-minute call than to send a letter! It was only in the 1970s that long distance calls, particularly in the evening, started to become economically acceptable.

Until the mid-1960s the GPO (General Post Office) had a monopoly in the UK for the provision of
telephones. You could have the only model available in black, but it was only available as a rental. This was swept aside by new legislation that allowed different, modern and colourful models access to the public network but only if they were approved by the GPO.

This was the time when tremendous changes in technology were sweeping the world – but not in the UK. The GPO, afraid for its monopoly, and the trade unions, afraid of redundancies, blocked every move to modernise the system and in doing so sealed their own fates. The first major change was that the GPO was split into the Post Office and British Telecomm. This
prepared our telephone system for the biggest change of all in 1984, privatisation and the end of monopoly.

The result of all this politicking was a free for all Wild West for a few years. As things settled, along came the mobile phone which became the smart phone leading on to a teenager being unable to use a phone box and everyone and his wife using their telephones without ever giving it a second thought!

Brief Encounter
Hugh McGrory
At the beginning of World War II, the newly renamed Ministry of Labour and National Service in Britain had, amongst its responsibilities, "Civilian war work, training and labour supply". This included the power to direct labour to wherever it was needed throughout Britain.

In a previous story, I spoke of how my father, a bricklayer, was told that instead of being called up to the armed forces, he, along with quite a number of his workmates, was to head north to the Scottish Highlands, specifically eastern Ross-shire. They were tasked with working on the conversion of RAF Fearn, then a Fleet Air Arm base, aka HMS Owl, to RNAS Fearn (Royal Naval Air Station).

Dad found 'digs' for my mother and me, walking distance from the airfield, and we moved up, to provide a home for Dad, and to avoid the bombs that, we were told, might soon be raining on Dundee ...

Meanwhile, my 20-year-old uncle, Frank Ryan, my mother's younger brother joined the RAF as an artificer (a skilled aircraft mechanic). Frankie, as he was known, was the youngest of nine, the baby, and the family favourite.

Somehow (by letter or telegram), Mum learned that Frank was soon to be on a troop train heading north on the Far North Line. The train would stop briefly at the station in nearby Tain, before, presumably, heading for Wick or Thurso at the most northerly point of Scotland.

I have, in the past, thought that I remembered this story, but I'm sure now that I only really remember what I've been told.

On the appointed day, my mother took me to Tain and waited for the train to appear. I would've been three,
probably, so no doubt I walked some and got carried some...

Apparently, everything went well - the train arrived, Frank got off for a few minutes and visited with Mum and me. I'm sure he would have picked me up and held me - I have a photograph of him doing just that some time before. (I can't find that photo, but I will - if Covid will allow me to get back to Dundee at some point...)

Mum, who died in 2007, had fond memories of that brief encounter. It was the last time that any of the family saw their Frankie.

He died, at the age of 21, in an RAF aircraft crash in Iceland. He is buried in the Commonwealth Section of Fossvogur Cemetery in Reykjavik.

My Dumb Decision
Gordon Findlay
I thought it would be fine if, on leaving school, I went to St. Andrews University in Fife (where many years later Prince William got his final education) – but I had by that time, also received my official notification from the U.K. Department of Defence, that, unless I was enrolled in an approved British university, I was eligible for 'National Service' in Her Majesty's Armed Forces for a period of 18 months.

It was at this point that I was quite stupid. My immature brain figured it out this way. I could talk my parents into paying most of my university education at St. Andrews (I had already enrolled for a course in 'Potato Rogueing' put on by the Scottish Dep't. of Agriculture which would help defray the cost of my university education).

OR, I reasoned, I could go off and do a year and a half of soldiering (which I loved!) and then come back and continue my education.

My simple mind reasoned that I could have it both ways: a year and a half bravely showing the flag for Britain in some sun-drenched part of the world, then a return to get on with university and a degree of some sort. I had always loved soldiering (dead keen Army cadet at school) and Army life, so why not take advantage of the opportunity to see the world as a British soldier, then return to civvy life and get on with things.

Definitely not the smartest decision I've made in my life . . . but off I went, into the welcoming arms of the British Armed Forces.

I have always regretted that I never did attend university in Scotland, and made up my mind that, if I ever had children, then – come hell or high water – if they had the talent, they would ALL get a university education.

Out of the Mouths of Babes - 2
Hugh McGrory
My brother has four children, David, Euan, Paula and Ana. Paula has a daughter Alicia. David likes to tell this little story.

Many years ago the whole family were out somewhere, and Alicia being quite young began to flag on the way home. David picked up his niece and she snuggled into his shoulder.

As they neared home she looked up at him with her big, sleepy brown eyes and said "Know who my favourite uncle is?"

David smiled down at her and said "Who, darling?"

Alicia said, "Uncle Euan..."

Ouch!

Can Eh Gae Oot t' Play?
Bill Kidd
My Primary Education spanned almost all of the 1940s, the decade that was cut in to two quite distinct parts, the war years, and the post-war years of austerity... Looking back on those times nearly eighty years later and attempting to compare life then and now is much more complex than expected and making value judgements, I find, impossible.

From a purely economic perspective the general standard of living has improved far beyond what could have been imagined in my childhood. From a social viewpoint the quality of life seems to have deteriorated, particularly the work/life balance that is so important for a happy family life.

Perhaps I am looking at the 1940s through rose-coloured spectacles that miraculously filter out anything that might create a bad memory. As a child of the 1940s I recognise that I was lucky because all of our immediate family were virtually untouched by the war and those who were in the armed services returned home unscarred, sadly, not a situation enjoyed by some of my contemporaries. Would I want to go back to a 1940s lifestyle? I'm not sure, perhaps there is a need to set out how I would spend a typical 1940s week.

One of the major differences that anyone going back to 1940s Dundee would notice is that the major routes through the city had a lot of pedestrians on the pavements and very few vehicles on the road. Most of the road traffic consisted of tramcars or buses, lorries, vans, cyclists, a few cars, the occasional police car, ambulance and fire engine along with some horse drawn carts.

Typical cargo on the flatbed trucks whether motorised or horse drawn, was bales of jute, sacks of potatoes, newsprint and engineering items produced in the factories dotted around town. The vans were distinctly painted and mainly owned by larger, often national, organisations.

Brook Bond Tea vans were particularly distinctive as were those of the Post Office, red for mail and green

for telephones. Local chain bakers such as Andrew G Kidd, the DPM, and Nicoll & Smibert, also had their distinctive fleet of vans.
A popular Dundee restaurant for many years at 2-4 Nethergate.
Small local firms such as printers, electricians, builders, and joiners usually made do with a handcart often pushed by a fourteen-year-old pre-apprenticeship boy. Milk was delivered door to door from a horse drawn or electric milk float. When groceries were delivered a message boy on a bike came to the fore. A uniformed boy on a red bike was the standard method of delivering telegrams. Motor cars were largely the province of the police, doctors and the well-to-do. The difficulty of obtaining petrol ensured that very few cars appeared to disrupt our play.

How did the 1940s secondary routes and side streets differ from those of the present day? Much depended on whether there were significant workplaces, shops or schools located on them. If there were there would be four major movements of people each weekday and two on a Saturday when at around 7.30 a.m. a mass of people would stream out of tenements and make their way to work. If the destination was to be a jute mill, then most of them would be female. If the destination was an engineering or craftsman-based establishment then the majority would be male. At 12.00 noon the exodus would be reversed as a large proportion of the workers returned home for dinner only to repeat the exercise by returning to work for 1.00 p.m. until finally being released at 5.30 p.m.

On Saturdays most people only worked the forenoon until 12.00 noon. School children followed the same pattern as their elders between 9.00 a.m. and 4.00 p.m. Monday to Friday. Except for the activities set out above, all but the major routes were very quiet indeed with only a few pedestrians going about their business. The only traffic was usually connected with whatever workplaces were located in the area. In the side streets the arrival of a vehicle was a matter of great interest. It could mean a doctor visiting someone down the street or the horse drawn knife sharpening man or a furniture van handling a flitting or even an undertaker going about his business. Any of these events would be a matter for speculation and later gossip in shop or washhouse.

During the evening hours before darkness fell and and all day during school holidays a transformation took place in the side streets. Suddenly they were taken over by children, hordes of them. Family size was not much greater than now but children were more visible then, they were denizens of the streets, not the
inhabitants of bedrooms.

Monday to Saturday during daylight hours the side streets, their closes and back greens were the playground of choice. There were no parked cars or over-anxious parents to deter them. There was no siren call of TVs, computers or games consoles to divert their attention from going out to play with their friends.

The roadway was the boys pitch for football, kick the can and various chase and capture games.

The pavements were chalked for various hopscotch type games that were played by both girls and boys.
Girls played all kinds of skipping games, sometimes individually or in groups accompanied by singing or chanting as each ritualistic variation was performed. Complex ball games were also popular with girls. These games sometimes used the adjoining tenement wall to bounce the ball against while others involved various throw and catching routines. I can still remember the "Capey Clappy" chant as I stood in admiration at the high degree of skill involved for the more complex routines. Of course, my 1940s self would never have admitted that!

Pavement games were suspended to allow any adult to pass and the roadway cleared if any vehicle came along. The other, more boisterous (and enjoyable) games were a different matter.

Many of these such as hide and seek could be played by both sexes and hiding places could be in the closes or around the back greens. By and large none of the above games engendered any adult interference or objection.

The boys also played cowboys and indians, British soldiers fought Germans and Japanese in enactments of whatever film was popular at the time. These games were noisy and not particularly approved of by adults, particularly those who were shift workers trying to sleep. Some adults were just anti-us-enjoying-ourselves and I can now admit that they may have had some vengeful 'chap at the door and run' incidents!

Now Sunday was a different story! On Sundays, rain or shine, the streets were virtually deserted as children
were forbidden to play outside that day. In the forenoon the only traffic consisted of some individuals making for the newsagent to pick up their Sunday papers along with well-dressed individuals and family groups making for church or Sunday school.

Because of the requirement of Life Boys, Brownies etc to attend Sunday school there was a greater number of children attending Sunday school than adult churchgoers. Sunday afternoons were often used for visiting within the family. Groups consisting of Mum, Dad and their well-scrubbed offspring would go visiting their relatives, living or dead... On a fine day, a walk en famille to the local park or cemetery was a frequent way of passing the time. I cannot recall how the adults felt about this activity but as a child I hated it and resented the good play time that I lost. On returning home for high tea and an evening spent reading or listening to the radio prepared us for the week ahead. Sundays today are just another day. Football and dancing practise have replaced Sunday school. Instead of family visits there are football matches and cinemas to attend. The family evening spent together has largely been replaced by individuals retreating to their own space and doing their own thing.

I feel sorry for present day children, they no longer enjoy the freedom to play in the street and roam around their area. I regret that on Sundays they may be missing quality time with their family and friends. They do not have the fun of running around with the other children in the neighbourhood. Parked cars and constant traffic through virtually all of our streets make it impossible to use them as safe playground. I can't help feeling that because there are comparatively so few children on the streets that they have become less safe for those that do venture out alone. I know that the child friendly 1940s cannot return but I do hope that the 2020 children will find a way to get out more.

Braking Bad - 2
Hugh McGrory
In the early '60s I was working in Scotland for a small engineering contractor. One of our projects was a water pipeline near Edzell, part of the Loch Lee Water Scheme supplying water to the North Esk area. Loch

Lee is in the Cairngorms National Park, and the North Esk river carries the outflow southeast, passing to the north of Edzell to reach the North Sea coast a few miles north of Montrose.

Our job was a small part of the overall project – the red circle on the map shows the location. We were digging a trench about eight to ten feet deep and some four miles long, and laying three feet diameter concrete pipe, under the direction of Crouch and Hogg the consulting engineers for the project. The pipeline, when complete, would divert some of the water from the river for use as drinking water for the North Esk area.

This was quite straightforward stuff, though we did have to excavate across the West Water river – which passes to the south of Edzell – and brings me to my tale – another Mr. Cool episode, I'm afraid...

It began one afternoon when my boss arrived with the Resident Engineer from the consulting firm for an inspection. I drove one of the company's Land Rovers at the time, just like the one in the photo – and so I took them, along with the job foreman, cross country along the line of the trench.

When we were done, we were close to the West Water, and the foreman said he knew of a spot where we could ford the river. I didn't have a car of my
own at that time, and had only passed my driving test a few months before – I wasn't exactly an accom- plished driver... I mentally gulped, but figured "What could go wrong...?"

We came to the edge of the river which had a gravelly bed with some small boulders – the water seemed to be about a foot deep. I stopped on the edge, picked my route across, engaged four-wheel drive, and set off slowly. My boss said, "Take it nice and slow – and remember your brakes will be wet after we cross."

It only took about a minute and a half to get to the other side and we had no problem climbing the low bank on to dry ground. (Hands up all of you who thought that I was going to mess up, strand us mid-stream, and force us all to walk out with water up to our knees. Oh, ye of little faith...)

There was quite a slope facing us, since the river was quite a bit lower than the road we were heading for, so I climbed up at an angle and got to the top without problem. There was an open gate in the roadside fence, and I was able to drive onto the road just after the crew's bus (a bit like the one in the photo) passed – it was end of shift.

I set out after the bus and we began to catch up to it as the four of us continued discussing some project issues. It was a rather narrow road,
downhill, and opportunities to pass safely would be few, so I was content to follow the bus all the way 'home'.

As I got closer, I braked to keep a reasonable distance between us – at least that was my intent – fate had a different idea – I had absolutely no braking power... In about five minutes I had managed to forget my bosses warning about wet brakes. Idiot! In a split second, I went from being perfectly in control and having a relaxed discussion with colleagues about the project, to a state of panic.

I went over the choices in my head:

1. Gear down to get some engine breaking, which I did – not enough – the bus was still getting closer.

2. Pull on the handbrake? Dismissed that – not a separate brake, just another method of applying the same compromised brakes.

3. Simply run into the rear of the bus. The speed differential wouldn't be too bad, so damage probably wouldn't be great.

4. Overtake the bus.

At that point, at the last moment, I made what, in retrospect, was the wrong choice i.e. the riskier one – I decided to overtake. Why did I make that decision? Being honest, I think two reasons:

1. I didn't want to hit the bus and look like the incompetent I was, to my boss and the other two.

2. I wasn't quite sure which road I was on and thought that it was probably a service road for a few farms and so, lightly travelled.

I pulled out and began to pass – take a look at the photograph of the actual road. (The trees on the left show

the location of the river below the road.) Picture the bus and the Land Rover, side by side, travelling at around 35 to 40 mph. My heart was in my mouth. My side mirror was inches from the bus, and my driver's side wheels were on the grass.

I was hoping against hope that the bus driver would somehow figure out what was going on and slow down – of course there was no hope of that – he just kept barrelling on, no doubt thinking of his supper and that pint of beer he was looking forward to. It felt like we were drag racing...

I didn't say anything to the other occupants, and they didn't comment either, but you could have heard a pin drop... I wanted desperately to be able to slow down, but instead, counter-instinctively, I sped up as much as I dared and finally got beyond the bus. I then applied gentle pressure to the brake pedal all the way down, to heat the drums and dry off the water, and managed to get them back into action by the time we had to stop.

Afterwards, no one said a word about it – though I'm sure they were all thinking what a terrible driver I was.

I realised later, that the road, which, in the moment, I thought probably served only to connect a few local farms, was the Lethnot Road which connects the two villages, but also serves Edzell Castle and so carried more traffic than I imagined.

I could easily have had a head on crash – it could have been a family car taking the kids home from school! Take another look at the photo above and imagine those two vehicles side by side from the perspective of a driver coming in the opposite direction...

I was luckier than I deserved to be. My stupid inattention could so easily have cost, or at best, damaged the lives of several people.

Life is such a crapshoot, isn't it...?

I make House Captain – woo hoo...
Gordon Findlay
In my last year at Morgan, 1949-50, my name was put forward as a candidate for Airlie House Captain. House Captains were supposed to be all-rounders – boys, or girls, who did reasonably well academically and on the sports field. They were supposed to be 'leader' types since the position came with some responsibilities.

A House Captain had to put together the rugby team which would represent the House in inter-House contests (or in the case of the Girls' House Captain – the Airlie field hockey team). He, or she was expected to be on hand to greet visiting teams from outside. House Captains were also charged with making sure that students from your House on the 'late list' (i.e. students who had been caught coming late into school in the morning) reported to the Duty Teacher of the week.

Pupils at Morgan Academy did not 'run for office' or put their own names forward as prospective House captains. The system worked this way: a pupil had to be proposed by at least one teacher, preferably two.

D.B. Stewart was the History teacher at Morgan and a neighbor of ours on Shamrock Street. 'Cheesie' as he was universally known, was a gentle and sweet man who never raised his voice above a low rumble but was a solid classics teacher. He knew my parents well, and advised them prior to election, that he had put my name forward for House Captain of Airlie. (I only found that out much later, from my Dad).

Mr. Elder, the French teacher, asked me to stay behind after one French class, and I had half-prepared myself for a minor chewing out over something... but instead in his laid-back, laconic manner, Mr. Elder simply looked at me and said: "Findlay, I've put your name forward as a candidate for Airlie House Captain. Don't let me down. That's all."

The names of prospective House Captains were posted on the school bulletin board and all pupils in the secondary grades were obliged to vote on slips which were passed out at class on 'voting day' then collected by all the teachers on that day. Once counted, the boy, or girl, with most votes was quietly informed, then officially announced at school morning assembly later in the week. Each of the newly-minted House Captains then made the walk up to the front, past the assembled students, to receive our House Captain's badge and the congratulations of the Rector (or headmaster) at that time, Dr. Peter Robertson.

We each had to wear our House captain's badge (different color and design for each House) at all times, on our school blazers, and I must say, it did have its elements of coolness about it. I wish to heck that I had managed to hang on to both those bits of my school life , blazer and House Captain's badge, but like many bits of one's young life, they got away from me after I left school and became part of the adult world. Rats!

If any of you are interested to see Airlie's record over the years as House Champions, together with the list of House Captains, you may see it here.

Below are all the 'Very Important People' at Morgan 1949-50. As you'll see, I'm front row, far left – unfortunately, they misspelled my name. Oh well, nothing's perfect...
Out of the Mouths of Babes
Hugh McGrory
When their kids were young, my son, Mike, his wife, Sue, and their girls, Sarah and Katie, shared a house with Sue's parents. They all lived happily together, and the kids got very used to having both parents and grandparents looking after them (talk about being well looked after...). They lived some distance from us,
so we didn't see them frequently.

On this particular occasion we were visiting, and while we awaited the call to eat, the children's other Granddad, John, and I were sitting having a drink, while Katie played happily on her own in the next room. (On our side of the family we used the term Granda for grandfather – the Irish influence – but they used Papa.)

So Katie, about two years old at the time, decided she wanted some help, and shouted, "Papa!"

I was nearest the door, so I got up and went through. I said, "What can I do for you, Katie?"

She looked up at me and said "No, I don't want you; I want my real Papa..."

Ouch!

Foundations
Bill Kidd
Whilst seeking more innovative ways of passing the long hours of lockdown I began to watch television programmes made for children who were stuck at home because of the school closures occasioned by Coronavirus. These programmes covered all stages from pre-school to Highers. I felt quite pleased with myself when I realised that I still had a grasp of the fundamentals of most subjects but reluctantly had to accept that this was because of the clarity with which the subjects were explained. Inevitably my 1930s model brain turned to reminiscing on how I came to learn how to read, write and count without the aid of TV, computers, or photocopied exercises.

My primary school was built in 1888 and was one of a dozen or so of similar design scattered around Dundee. The building itself stood proudly in the middle of a concreted playground clearly divided into "Girls" and "Boys". The area in the front of the school building was for the exclusive use of "Infants", as first and second stage classes were then known. The larger playground areas at the back of the school were for the rest of the pupils. The infrastructure contained a shelter with a drinking fountain and the open air, rather smelly, toilets. At the side of the school there was access to the basement that contained the Janitor's flat and the adjoining boiler house.

The interior rooms of the school were on four floors. The Infant department was located at ground level with successive stages being located further up the building until the senior classes arrived at the top floor. Each morning and afternoon we would be lined up in the appropriate playground with a teacher acting as drill sergeant and marched to our classroom. No talking was allowed, and the boys were expected to march in step. On entering the classroom, we had to stand at our desks, in silence, until we responded to our teacher wishing us good morning or afternoon and giving us her permission to sit.

School staffing consisted of a male headteacher, a male deputy head and a female infant mistress who together supervised the female class teachers. Virtually all of the class teachers were unmarried, I suspect many of them had lost their potential husbands in The Great War twenty years before. I can only recall one married female teacher during my primary schooldays. The permanent staff were complemented by an itinerant gym teacher, Miss Wallace and a music teacher, Miss Robertson. I later learned that male teachers in primary schools were graduates and that they were paid considerably more than their female colleagues. Equality was not a major feature of 1940s education!

That first day at school remains a blur consisting of a huge building where everything was painted green or cream. My teacher, Miss Findlay, grey haired and dressed in a green smock was nice. There were a lot of boys and girls that I had never seen before and I was sat next to a boy called Brian. We were each given a slate and a slate pencil. The teacher wrote letters on the blackboard and we had to copy them on the slate. After each letter the teacher would come round and look at our slate. If it was neat, we were told to leave it in front of us. If she didn't like it, she took a damp cloth and wiped it out so that the offender could try to copy it again. That is how I learned to write "a", "e", "i", "o" and "u" on my first morning at school. For the next few weeks we only had to attend school in the morning, and by the time we started to attend for a full day we thought we owned the place.

The next weeks passed fairly quickly as we grittily formed our letters in a sand tray and wrote short words on our now personalised slates. Most of us had persuaded our father or a compliant adult to use the kitchen scissors to score evenly spaced lines on our slates and only needed a little less persuasion to get our mothers to provide a small bottle of water and a tobacco tin with a damp sponge in it so that we could correct our mistakes without reference to the teacher. Other features of our education at this time was learning to read from "Radiant Way book 1" and to add numbers by watching the teacher give virtuoso demonstrations on the abacus.

My favourite time in the infant department was Friday afternoons when the teacher read us a story and we were allowed to draw pictures on sugar paper using crayons. In this way we gradually progressed through our first two years of education, becoming familiar with using a pencil to write little stories in our lined jotters and to do addition and subtraction sums in our squared arithmetic jotters. We also had a special jotter with sets of three lines in which to practise our writing. We were allowed to take home our reading books and slates. The reading book had to be returned covered with suitable paper. Wallpaper was the favourite choice for this task.

By the time we moved out of the infant department we could read and count competently and write fairly intelligible short sentences. We were ready for what was then known as Primary 1 (now P3). At this stage we began to learn new skills, how to write in longhand, how to use pen and ink and by learning tables by rote how to solve simple problems. We were also introduced to Sol-Fa scales and tunes using an instrument of torture known as the Modulator.(1)

As if this was not sufficiently cruel, we also became familiar with the red and blue music books and the name Sloggie. By this time our jotters were displaying on the back cover such gems as multiplication tables, weights & measures, length & area and pounds and pence. All of this along with the information that the jotter had been produced by David Winter Printers & Publishers, Dundee.

Eventually 1947 and the "Quali" arrived. By that time we had a good grasp of history and geography, arithmetic and its uses, English grammar to a level that we knew the parts of speech and could parse a sentence and apply all of these, in ink, to compositions and examination answers. At the end of the 1947 summer term from a class of over thirty only three of us moved on to a senior secondary school. The truly sad thing about that was that another five or six of my classmates had the opportunity to go on to a senior secondary but through economic circumstances, or even reverse snobbery, turned down the opportunity.

It is difficult to compare my early education with that of my grandchildren. I think that they know less than I did at a comparable age, but I do think that they have a greater understanding of what they have learned. What they definitely don't know is that the sixteenth of a pound is 1/3d or that a dozen @ 1/3d is 15/-. These facts, drilled into me on pain of being belted, are now about as much use to anyone as a free pass to the JM Ballroom!

--------------------
(1)
From the Editor

For those of you who, like me, had never heard of the Modulator:

This was invented in the mid-19th century by a lady named Sarah Glover - shown here with what she referred to as The Ladder. This was used for many, many years as a tool to introduce young children to music using the tonic sol-fa method of sight-singing.

It was the inspiration for the later pedagogies developed by the Englishman, John Curwen (who changed the name from 'Ladder' to 'Modulator'), and, in the twentieth century, by Zoltán Kodály of Hungary.

Braking Bad...
Hugh McGrory
This story is set in Scarborough, Ontario, which is one of the Boroughs that make up Metropolitan Toronto, and where I used to live and work. Specifically, it's the intersection of McCowan Road and Progress Avenue
(the red circle in the photo). McCowan, in this location, is a major, divided north/south artery, while Progress carries traffic to and from Scarborough Town Centre with its government offices and large shopping mall.

Fairly often I would travel south on McCowan from Hwy 401 to the Progress intersection where I would pull over into the left-turn lane, wait until the red changed to green, and, when there was a gap in the northbound traffic, turn left into Progress. The two aerial photos set the scene - Figure 1 shows the intersection in 1983 when it was at grade and controlled by traffic lights. Figure 2. is a modern photo which shows a grade separation with Progress being carried over McCowan on a bridge – this happened some time in the mid eighties.


To digress for a moment, I wanted to say that all of the stories that I've written for this collection are true. Some of the trivial details may have been guessed at when I simply can't remember – the exact year it happened; which car I was driving then; was it Billy or I who thought that it was a good idea to...; but the essential facts are all true. I felt the need to say that, as an introduction to this story, since, looking back, I can't believe that it actually happened. But it did...

The incident I'm about to describe took place during the construction of the overpass. This meant that there were frequent changes to the roadways, lanes opening and closing to suit construction needs, and of course the roadway surfaces were often wet and muddy.

On this occasion I wasn't coming from the north, but from the west along Progress Avenue and approaching the intersection. As you can see from the plan, this meant that I approached from the north then went round a ninety degree left turn to the traffic lights. As I approached the bend , I glanced across to the lights, saw a green, and put my foot down to try to get through before the lights changed. When I was halfway through the bend, I realised that the light wasn't green but a solid red! (Not sure how I made this mistake – perhaps I saw the green and as soon as I looked away it cycled to red, or maybe I what I saw was the green for the north/south traffic on McCowan?)

I slammed on my brakes, but at that speed, and turning on a slippery road surface, my rear wheels broke away to my right and the car began to turn. I slid through the red light into the southbound lanes. My nose which began pointing east along Progress rotated through north (up McCowan) then west (back the way I had come) and finally a further ninety degrees until I was pointing south and came to a halt. So, I actually did a 270 degree turn, or threequarters of a doughnut.

(You've probably seen stunt drivers doing doughnuts, where they 'burn rubber' around a pylon in a parking lot. I, of course, wasn't doing it around a pylon, and as I began it driving east at speed, so the car continued moving east as it turned.)

Here's what still amazes me to this day...

1. McCowan was a busy three-lane artery, but I managed to sail through a large gap in the southbound traffic. I don't actually remember any car even close...

2. I didn't end up in the through lanes where I might well have been hit by cars going south, but ended up unscathed and sheltered in the turning lane for traffic coming south on McCowan and turning left into Progress.

The photo shows a crude approximation of my path:


In fact, there were two or three cars in that lane waiting for the lights to change so they could make their turn. Believe it or not, I ended up right in front of the lead car, as if I had been the first car to come down McCowan to turn left. I fantasize that the driver of the car behind me at that point who had pulled into the left turn lane first, may have looked away for a moment then looked out again and found a car in front of him – a "where the bloody hell did he come from" moment...

I sat there for a few seconds, then the north/south green cycled to red, and I toddled off along Progress, leading my little platoon of left-turners.

I'm reminded of a time some twenty or thirty years ago sitting in a living room in Dundee, Scotland, with two of my oldest friends, Arthur Danskin and Angus Hill. Arthur was describing how he was driving to Perth from Dundee one winter morning, hit a patch of black ice at fairly high speed and found his car heading for the verge. As he described it, twisting and turning his hands in demonstration, his superlative driving skills enabled him to control the car, avoid fence posts and guide it between trees to come to rest in a farmer's field, unhurt.

Angus was sitting slightly behind Arthur and so not in his direct line of sight. As Arthur was telling his tale of derring-do, Angus shook his head slowly at me, then began to mime... He stuck his legs straight out in front of him, did the same with his hands, white-knuckled as he grasped an imaginary steering wheel, opened his eyes wide, and his mouth in a silent scream...

I'd like to tell you of my skillful driving that day on Progress Avenue, but I suspect that Angus probably nailed both Arthur and me with his mime that day!

So, as things turned out, what could have been a huge pile-up was just another minor incident in the lottery that is life...

--------------------
A Final Word

In researching this story I came across the latest Scarborough Centre Transportation Master Plan. It proposes that the McCowan/Progress intersection be re-designed – the flyover to be demolished and replaced by an at-grade intersection!

Plus ça change...

Putting on a Uniform
Gordon Findlay
As an island nation with a long history of sending armies abroad to help expand 'The Empire' the British school system was an avid supporter of Army Cadet programs.

Morgan Academy was no exception. Our school raised and encouraged its young males (very sexist – no female equivalent) to belong to the juvenile version of the country's military machine.

Just like us, but sadly, not our bunch.
For me, it was a given. My grandfather had had an exemplary military career in the British Army, and I guess the genes transferred smoothly to me. I enjoyed everything about military life: the discipline, the order, the tradition, the uniform, the weapons and the training. Fortunately, I took to it like a duck to water. Starting as a lowly private, I climbed up through lance corporal, full corporal to sergeant, and gained the badges of prestige: field craft, orientation, map-reading and marksmanship (especially marksmanship, because both my grandfather and my father had been crack shots).

I even enjoyed those long, hot hours we spent marching and counter-marching across the school playground, listening to the shouted commands, making the turns at exactly the right time, then – on the screamed command – coming to that crashing halt.

In my mind, of course, we weren't the cadet corps of Morgan Academy. Why, we were the 1st Battalion of the Scots Guards, on parade at Buckingham Palace with thousands of spectators crowding around the gates, admiring every step we took...

A Real Pain in the Arse...
Hugh McGrory

In 2011, my brother's family and I had the pleasure of meeting two of my half first cousins once removed, Helen and Mary, from Western Australia.

(Fast genealogical explanation for those interested: As you know, if your parents had siblings, then their children are your first cousins. The children of first cousins are second cousins to each other. Helen and Mary are children of my first cousin, Jim, so they are a generation younger than me, hence 'once removed'.

So where does the half come in? That's where you share one grandparent but not both. In my case, my Gran, Lizzie, was married twice. Sadly, her first husband, Thomas, died very young, of appendicitis – he was only 25, and left Lizzie with three children. Gran got married again, to Frank, and had six more children (although twin girls died at birth). Helen and Mary are descended from Thomas, I, from Frank – hence the half...)

So as I was saying before I interrupted myself, I first met up with them about ten years ago, in Edinburgh, and since then I've met Mary, sometimes with her husband Jim, some four more times (they're typical Aussies, always going walkabout...), in Scotland and Canada.

Most recently they had dinner at our home, in January 2020, and that evening, Jim and I had an interesting conversation about my arse...

The subject arose because I was telling him that I had bought a rig to allow me to use my road bike as an exercise bike in the basement through the long Toronto winter. I told him that it wasn't a great success because the saddle of my bike, which I haven't used for about ten years really hurts by butt. Jim, who has done a lot of cycling gave me a lesson in human anatomy and how to get the right saddle:

Think about sitting down in a dining room chair. Some 80 to 90 percent of your body weight is transferred to the seat mainly through two points of contact – your sit bones or ischial tuberosity, pointing down from your

Ischial Tuberosity when seated Viewed from the front Pressure Pattern on Seat
pelvis (see photos). The distance between those two bones is important when picking a bicycle seat – who knew?

There are ways to measure that distance – Jim said find some crushable cardboard, sit on it, then measure the distance between the two depressions, centres of the red areas above – add 20 mms and that will be the minimum width for your bike seat (some people prefer a little wider). There are other ways to measure it – using a coffee table or the front step to sit on orthotic impression foam, aluminium foil over a towel, floral foam, typing-paper over a wet towel, or even some flour spread over the surface.

After Jim's explanation, I decided I'd try to get a proper seat for my bike – it just had the generic seat that was on it when I bought it. I mentioned it to my wife who likes to exercise, and she had a suggestion. She said,
"When I signed up for spin classes, I found it really hurt by butt, and I bought a pair of bike shorts. I tried them but they didn't fit properly, and in any event, after a while I got used to the bike saddles. Maybe you could use them."

So, I tried them and found that I could get one butt-cheek in, or the other, but not both at the same time. I gave up on that idea. A little later, I dug them out again and had another look. There were pads for the two sit bones and the perineum – which gave me an idea.

I turned them inside-out and tied them to my bike seat (see photo). Worked like a charm...

Lockdown
Bill Kidd
In common with the rest of our generation Muriel and I are currently undergoing the Coronavirus Lockdown. Now, after a few TV saturated days and navel gazing my thoughts have turned to times in my life when I underwent other forms of imprisonment, none of them in one of Her Majesty's penal establishments! Not surprisingly most of them were during my RAF service.

I have little recall of my first incarceration, which was in Dundee Kings Cross Fever Hospital. I was three years old and suffering from diphtheria, a common, often fatal disease, that has been largely eradicated through childhood inoculation. I believe that I was in isolation for some weeks attended only by medical staff.

My only memory of that time was that I could see my mother through the glass window of the isolation ward. It was only some years later I learned that my father was in another isolation ward at the same time. He did not have the disease but was identified as being a "carrier" of it who could transmit the disease to others without having any symptoms himself. This meant he was isolated until his body was clear of the pathogen. Happily, neither of us suffered any lasting effects of our ordeals.

The second time I was locked away was because of IRA activity! This happened at RAF Kinloss when I was given the duty of being part of the Armoury Guard. This consisted of a corporal and two airmen. We reported to the Guardroom where we were briefed by the Orderly Officer. Our duties were simple. We were to be locked in the station armoury for twenty four hours. We were to be responsible for several hundred assorted rifles, pistols, sten guns and bren guns. So that we could defend this treasure trove we each had access to a pickaxe handle. Our principal duty was to remain alert and to telephone the guardroom every half hour, in addition we would receive random telephone calls from the orderly officer.

To sustain us we were each provided with 24 hour rations and the assurance that there was the means of making tea available. Having been pre warned of the ordeal before us we each had a plentiful supply of cigarettes and sweets. For our entertainment there was a radio and a dart board with the necessary accoutrements. RAF efficiency meant that we also had access to a toilet and wash basin. There was a single bed furnished only with a bare mattress.

Between 08.00 hours when we arrived at the armoury and 07.59 when we were relieved the following morning we participated in about 200 games of darts, drank around ten gallons of tea, ate several loaves of bread, a couple of pounds of cheese and smoked innumerable cigarettes. I might be exaggerating a little but you will get the flavour of a boring twenty-four hour guard duty locked up in an armoury full of firearms that were devoid of ammunition!

My other two experiences of being in enforced captivity came about as a result of making badly timed decisions about whether, when or how to travel! The most annoying instance of this took place during an overnight journey that involved a change of trains at Crewe. It may seem strange to experience even a minor lockdown in a railway carriage but that is what happened one Saturday night in October.

That Saturday, or more correctly, Sunday morning, happened to be when British Rail dealt with the end of British Summer Time. We were approaching Crewe Station at about two a.m. when the train stopped. We could see the station platform a few hundred yards ahead of us with its lights, waiting rooms and welcoming buffet. Just the job, a nice warm cup of tea with a sandwich perhaps? It was not to be.

Our train was due to arrive at 2.00 am and would have to sit within sight of that railway oasis for a full hour while 3.00 am BST became 2.00 am GMT. Before this journey I had not realised that the whole UK rail system came to a shuddering halt until the clock matched its timetable, incarcerating its unfortunate hungry and thirsty passengers for a full hour. I remain too frightened to find out what happens when the clocks are sprung forward in March each year. Perhaps a DeLorean car hired from Marty McFly becomes involved?

My scariest lockdown came during my RAF service. RAF Kinloss was within reasonable travel distance of Dundee and as we had an informal agreement with the Soviet Union not to go to war on a Saturday or Sunday I was able to return home by train most weekends.

One Friday evening in January 1958 I was delayed by a minor panic at work and missed the only train that would get me to Dundee that night. Nothing daunted I decided that I would hitch-hike via Aberdeen. In those days servicemen in uniform would usually be able to get a lift without difficulty so I set out dressed in full uniform including my greatcoat.

Within a few hundred yards I had obtained a lift that took me the 25 miles to Keith. During the journey I noticed that snow was beginning to fall but with the optimism of youth I was not at all concerned. By the time I had walked a mile or so out of Keith along the deserted A96 the snow had begun to lie and the wind became a gale.

I quickly came to the realisation that late Friday night in a snowstorm was not exactly ideal for hitch-hiking! My spirits rose when I heard the sound of an engine in the distance then fell again when I realised that it came from a motorbike. Despite being terrified of them I have nothing against motorbikes or the people who ride them. They do not terrify me as much as being found dead in a snowdrift, so I used my thumb in the best hitch-hiker fashion and the motorcyclist stopped and offered me a lift.

During the brief conversation that ensued I learned that he was on his way home to a farm and that he could drop me off at Huntly. Less encouraging was that he also mentioned that he had just bought the motorbike and was taking it home for the first time. With some trepidation I adjusted the chinstrap of my RAF cap (what is a crash helmet?), straddled the pillion and off we went through the snow for the dozen or so miles to Huntly.

When we arrived after an hour of slithering about in the snow I was practically frozen to the bike. I was numb with cold and a very unhappy bunny. With great consideration my chauffeur dropped me off at the police station which was still open for business.

I went inside to the blessed warmth and over a hospitable cup of tea I explained my situation to the friendly policeman on duty. He was sympathetic to my plight and said that if only the holding cell had not already been occupied he could have let me sleep in it. He did suggest that I should go to the nearby railway station for shelter and offered to radio his colleagues and let the driver of any likely vehicle know my location and that I was looking for a lift.

On arrival at the railway station I found that the waiting room was locked but that shelter could be had in the cubicle of the Gents WC. There I remained, chilled to the bone. At around 4.00 am I was alerted by the sound of a large van stopping at the station. I ran out and was offered a lift to Dundee. It transpired that the van was on its regular Friday run collecting and dropping off films at the cinemas on its route. I also learned that the van's last port of call before picking me up was at the Astra Cinema in RAF Kinloss!!!

My eventual arrival in Dundee City Centre was at 10.00 am on Saturday and I swore that for me there would be no more hitch-hiking or motorbike rides and there never has been!

Our current lockdown stretches ahead for weeks, possibly months. The burning question is, after sixty years of happy marriage will my little habits finally bring Muriel to her senses and if so, should I start on the tunnel now?

Bu'er on Both Sides, Eh?
Hugh McGrory

My wife, Sheila, has a few favourite stories about me that she likes to tell after dinner when we have friends over. She says she does this with love, but I think she just enjoys making me look like a numpty... One story has to do with my lifelong love affair with bu'er (butter to those of you who don't use the glottal stop...)

She's right about that, I've always loved butter – perhaps this came from growing up in Scotland during WW2. We were, of course, subject to rationing – two oz. butter and 4 oz. margarine each week. My mother coddled me by giving me her butter ration while she ate the 'marg.', but the butter didn't last long – and I grew to hate margarine!

Modern margarine is, as you know, a highly processed food product made from vegetable oils, while butter is basically concentrated dairy fat. It seems that every few years the pendulum of 'which is better for you' swings from one to the other – regardless, I stick with butter.

Two requirements: one, it has to be salted – unsalted has no taste; and two, it has to be kept in the fridge – it tastes better and feels less greasy in the mouth...

Sheila introduces her story by saying that I like to spread the butter thickly – she's right – and during the process I usually take a chunk of the butter and stick it in my mouth – right again.

She also tells people that some-
times I like to spread the butter on both sides of the bread – wrong – and I want to put the real story on the table – as it were!

This calumny springs from an incident some twenty years ago – here's what happened:

I was having tea and toast, while reading the morning paper. I spread butter on the slice, then cut it in two and ate the first half. I then reached for the second half and found that it wasn't buttered, so being in cruise control and more interested in the 'paper, I spread butter on it, then took a bite. I then realised that there was something funny about the slice and found that I had in fact buttered it on both sides. I pointed it out to my wife, and we had a laugh about it.

I then explained to her how it happened: when I cut the slice in two, I didn't quite cut it cleanly, and left the two halves joined by the smallest of tabs. When I lifted up the first half, the second half came along for the ride, dangled briefly then fell off, landing back on the plate – but wrong side up! Now that's the part that Sheila always leaves out of the story!

She does this to make we appear weird. I've told her many times, "I don't need your help to seem weird, thank you very much!"

Oh, and full disclosure, butter chunks do melt in my mouth...

CCABW
Pete Rennie

This story concerns an acquaintance of mine, George Coull, who is also a Morgan FP. It's some time since I
last spoke to George, but he and his wife did attend the school reunion that we held at the Dundee Science Centre, in 2004.

George had a brief career as a professional footballer in England with Millwall, in 1956. Sadly, this was permanently interrupted by injury, after only six games; he returned to Scotland and settled in Cupar, Fife, where he opened a restaurant that was quite highly regarded.

At some time, the then Secretary of State for Scotland, Malcolm Rifkind was scheduled to make a visit to Fife, and Cupar was on his itinerary. Since the visit extended over lunchtime, and the Secretary and his entourage would require to eat somewhere, George's restaurant was suggested and accepted.

Some correspondence ensued with the House of Commons to confirm arrangements and George told me that he always signed his letters, George Coull, CCABW.

Since replies were addressed to George Coull, CCABW, they obviously thought that this was some kind of degree or qualification. Being curious myself I asked George what the letters CCABW stood for. He smiled and replied, 'Chief Cook and Bottle Washer'.

I doubt if this explanation was ever offered to the distinguished party.

The Teetotaler
Hugh McGrory

In a previous story I told of my memories of the funeral of my Uncle Barney, the father of my double cousins, Mike and Frank. In the family, Mike was always referred to as Big Mick, a sobriquet that he got at the age of 10 when my younger brother (Mike/Wee Mick) was born; it also distinguished him from Uncle Mick, brother of my father, and Auld Mick, my grandfather, all named Michael McGrory.

I speak to my cousin Mike, who lives in the south of England, about once a month – when he picks up the phone I always say, "Is that Big Mick?" and he knows immediately that it's me. During our last talk he reminded me of some details regarding his father's death in September 1945.

Shortly before, Mike had been out running around on his bike, in Methil, the little Fife town where he was born and lived. At the bottom of Fisher street where it meets High Street, only a couple of hundred yards from his home, he somehow fell under the wheel of a lorry which ran over his bicycle and crushed his left foot. He was taken to hospital by ambulance, was operated on, and lost two toes in the process.

He also told me that when his father died, his mum was so distraught that she couldn't face going up to the hospital to tell her son that his dad was dead, so my mother did it instead. What a sad, tragic experience for an 11-year-old – and how difficult it must have been for my mother doing what she did to protect her sister from greater trauma.

Mike was in the hospital – the Randolph Wemyss Memorial Hospital in Buckhaven, Fife – for some time. I remember a family group went up to visit him – his mother and mine, some uncles, aunts and cousins. I guess we couldn't all troop in to see him, so we gathered on the pavement opposite his ward (I remember there being railings then rather than the hedge). His mum asked me to shout to attract his attention, his bed being near the window (shown by the white oval in the photo). I was 8 at the time and quite shy. I remember, little wimp that I was, that I wouldn't do it, so one of my cousins stepped up and did the necessary.

A bit of background history before I continue... This was September 1945 – World War 2 had just ended (September 2nd, 1945). When people think of this war, it's often in the context of a gallant band of ill-prepared Brits fighting the might of the professional, well-equipped German army. This obscures the fact that, eventually, almost every country in the world was involved to some extent – most supporting the Allies against the German-Italian-Japanese Axis.

Men and women from countries around the world flocked to Britain to serve in various capacities. Nations including, in no particular order, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, Luxembourg, Free France, Greece, The Netherlands, Norway, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Brazil, Mongolia, Ethiopia, the United States, India, Sri Lanka, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Southern Rhodesia, Uganda, Tanganyika, the Gold Coast, Kenya, Nigeria, Bechuanaland, The Gambia, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Palestine, Mauritius, the Seychelles, Cyprus, Mexico, the Philippines, the Soviet Union, and China.

The result was that there were all kinds of nationalities dressed in different uniforms all over Britain. Many of those men and women gave their lives, and many more were hospitalised – which brings me back to my story.

Still feeling embarrassed at not having the confidence to shout to my cousin, I slipped away on my own into the hospital grounds on to a large, treed, lawn area (to the left of the ward in the photo.) A patient dressed in pyjamas and a dressing gown came out of a side door with a bottle of beer in his hand, sat down in the shade of a tree, and said hello to me.

His English wasn't too good, and he had a strong accent – I've always thought that he was Polish, but I may be wrong. He was a pleasant man, and tried to make conversation with me, but as you can imagine, we didn't have a lot in common... At one point he offered me a taste of his beer which I declined.

After a few minutes I headed back to the family. They asked where I'd been, and once more I was the centre of interest. I told them of my encounter, and in my little 8-year-old noggin I thought I could regain some self-respect by telling them about the beer. The following conversation ensued:

Me: "He asked me if I'd like to share his beer with him."
One of my aunts: "He did! And what did you say?"
Me: "I said to him 'No way – I never touch that stuff'".

There was silence for a moment, and suddenly, that sentence which had sounded good in my head before I said it, suddenly sounded really 'stoopid'. And not just to me, the silence was broken when one of the adults began to laugh and then the whole group joined in – they laughed and laughed till tears ran down their cheeks!

So once again I had managed to embarrass myself – sadly, just an early example of many 'Mr. Cool' episodes in my life...

Looking back on it though, I've come to believe that there was an unintended consequence of value – the previous few weeks had been so sad and stressful for everyone, that a good belly-laugh was, perhaps, just what everyone needed...

We explore the Normandy countryside
Gordon Findlay
Mme. Théault managed somehow to find a couple of bicycles for us, and although they were heavy old
things, we didn't mind, and we began to cycle to nearby villages and to other parts of the coast of Normandy. We were astonished at how much of the detritus of war still remained in the countryside: a couple of burned-out tanks, one or two artillery pieces, shattered and blackened, lying at the back of a farmer's field and ignored while he got on with the business of working his land.

One day, the young man who had driven us in from Granville train station showed up in his Citroen, and suggested he drive us to the Mont St. Michel – the medieval Church astride a small patch of rock which becomes an island when the tide comes in every day (the causeway which connects the island to the mainland is submerged during high tide).

We gladly accepted and he dropped us off at the end of the causeway from where Dave and I could walk into the Mont St. Michel.

The abbey and its surroundings are beautiful and although the place is deluged with tourists in summer it was
still nice to wander this ancient site.

My only other memory of this place is the omelet I ordered in a tiny restaurant within the Mont St. Michel.

It was unquestionably the best omelet I have eaten in my life. Feathery light and filled with a small pocket of local vegetables and served with a local baguette, plus a pot of butter. My God it was good!

David and I left Carolles Plage
with many warm memories. Mme. Théault was a lovely lady and looked after us well. That holiday started my long personal love affair with France, its scenery, its food and its people, and its culture.

And at the time, as a young schoolboy, I discovered another huge advantage to having spent the summer in rural Normandy: my French-language skills leapt up dramatically and when I returned to Morgan in the autumn French classes suddenly seemed so much easier and enjoyable.

It seemed like a good idea
at the time.

Hugh McGrory

I'm sure you're familiar with 'Show and Tell' - a term I believe is used in the UK, and in North America. I can't remember if it was called that or not when I was at primary school. It's used, as you know, to introduce young children to public speaking.

My previous story mentioned a classmate of mine in primary school named Alan (#2 in the photo), and it
reminded of me when he brought an object to school to show the teacher and the class.

What he brought was an egg from a wild bird of some kind, smaller than a hen's egg - something like the photo. I don't remember his presentation, but afterwards, he went back to his seat and sat down. A little later he went out again, rather sheepishly, and spoke to the teacher.

She, for some reason, called on me to come out - I wondered what I'd done... I've no idea why me she picked me - maybe I sat beside him, or maybe I was sitting in the front row... She said that Alan had a problem and would I go with him to the cloakroom near our classroom and help him, and she would join us in a few minutes.

When we get into the corridor I ask him what was going on. He says that he'd put the egg in the side pocket of his short pants to 'keep it safe'. The egg wasn't blown, nor was it hard boiled, so when he moved in his seat, he managed to crush it, and so now had a gooey mixture of egg white, yolk, and eggshell, mushing around in his pocket.

Alan was a quiet and inoffensive litle guy and was quite over- whelmed with the disaster. There was a sink in the cloakroom, so I
said we needed to turn the pocket out to wash off the mess as best we could. He put his hand into his pocket a couple of inches then froze.

"I can't touch it", he whimpered.

"You have to," I said.

"I can't", he moaned.

"Bloody hell", I said (OK, I was about seven, so I probably didn't use those particular words, but you get the sentiment...)

I pushed him against the sink, turned on the water then gingerly stuck my hand deep into his pocket through the scrambled egg, grasped the bottom then pulled the pocket inside out. It was disgusting...

We washed off the mess as best we could, then the teacher appeared and helped to wring out the pocket and dry it somewhat with a towel.

Can't remember whether he spent the morning like that, or if they took him home, or what...

I wonder whether he was saying to himself "What was I thinking?" or maybe "It seemed like a good idea..."

Thistle and Hawks
Bill Kidd
I watched in amazement as Eliud Kipchoge completed the 26.2 miles marathon distance in twenty seconds under two hours. Then, the very next day, 25 year old Brigid Kosgei, another Kenyan, ran the same distance
in 2 hours 14 minutes 4 seconds. This broke the 16 year old world record of the great English runner, Paula Radcliffe, by a massive 81 seconds, and made me reflect seriously on how things had changed since I was a lad!

By the age of 14 I had realised that any thoughts of experiencing glory on the rugby, football or even the cricket fields were pointless. So, when a school friend suggested that I come with him to the Hawkhill Harriers one evening I accepted the invitation. After a few weeks of attendance and the fact that the clubrooms in Fairfield Street had a table tennis table I became a member of the "Hawks".

I spent the next four years as an undistinguished member, enjoying the companionship and helping with such events as the Kingsway Relay and the Perth to Dundee road race which were organised by the Hawks. During my time with the Hawks I met many fine athletes and I would like to tell you about one of the most talented and definitely the nicest of them, Charlie Robertson.

Running on road and cross-country was a popular form of activity in the late 1800s and Harrier clubs sprung up all over the country. With two clubs, Dundee Hawkhill and Dundee Thistle, the city was in the forefront. Both clubs were formed around 1889 and had a healthy competitive rivalry until Thistle was wound up in 1960 with many of its members joining Hawkhill and helping build it up to the important athletic club that it is today.

Between 1947 and 1953 the best-known athlete in Dundee was Charlie Robertson and his red vest
emblazoned with a huge white thistle was instantly recognisable at every road and cross-country running venue throughout Scotland and the North of England. He was familiar at local summer sports meetings such as the North End Sports where his dapper upright running style in the ten-mile road race always got a great cheer from the capacity crowd. His exploits were well reported in the Courier or Tele and there were few Dundonians who did not recognise him but there were only a few that knew how he became the popular athlete.

C. D. Robertson was born in Newport-on-Tay in 1919 and apart from war service, lived all of his life there. He was a Morgan Academy pupil and as a volunteer in the Territorial Army he was called up shortly after leaving school. He was commissioned and served with the 7th Black Watch in the Middle East, North Africa, Sicily and Normandy, ending his service in Germany. Leaving the army with the rank of major he returned home to Newport and life as a student at Dundee College of Art. Following teacher training, he served at
Fairmuir School (now Kings Park) for the 33 years of his career as an art teacher, ending it as it's assistant headteacher.

As a young man Charlie's main interest was cycling and, it was not until his service in Germany shortly after WW2 ended, did he take up running. He quickly found that he had a talent for distance running, successfully competing with army and combined services cross-country teams. Back in civvy street he found that running fitted in well with student life and he joined Thistle Harriers in 1947.

The start of the Perth to Dundee Race in 1951. Can you spot Charlie? He won...
During his competitive career Charlie won many honours including winning the Scottish Marathon Championship in 1948 and 1952. He represented the UK in various road races and just missed selection for
the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki. He captained the Scottish Cross country team several times and although he retired from national competition in 1953, he continued to run well into his 60s, winning the veteran's section of the Dundee Marathon in the early 1980s. Sadly, Charlie passed away in 2002 leaving a legacy of professional, military and sporting achievement.

Nowadays Charlie Robertson's marathon times would not be regarded as top notch. His best time of around 2h 30m would not be remarked on if run by a competitive woman athlete.

In assessing Charlie's merit as an exceptional athlete, it should be remembered that those now running such fantastic times are full-time athletes on carefully balanced diets, wearing the finest purpose-made kit and being fed scientifically formulated drinks during a race. Charlie was a full-time teacher, running in plimsolls with an occasional wet sponge
being passed to him. On mature reflection, I know who is my hero!

Eleven Plus
Hugh McGrory

Many of you will be familiar with Peter Robinson and his character, Inspector Banks, from his books or the TV series. Peter was born and grew up in Leeds but came to Canada in 1974 to study creative writing under Joyce Carol Oates at the University of Windsor. After finishing, he looked at newly Thatcherized England and decided to stay in Canada. He now lives in Toronto but spends a lot of time in North Yorkshire.

I recently read his first Inspector Banks novel, 'Gallows View', and was interested in some comments he makes about the 'eleven-plus'. For those of you who don't know the term, and speaking for Scotland in the late 1940s, this was a set of examinations given to primary schoolchildren around the age of eleven (more often referred to as 'The Qualie' or qualifying exam). The results were then used as a selection tool to decide who would go to an Academy (for up to six years of further education) or to a junior secondary school for three years.(The 'eleven-plus' was abolished across the UK in 1965 with the introduction of comprehensive education).

Robinson makes the point that the 'eleven-plus' process created havoc in children's personal lives in the sense that kids who had spent 7 years with their school pals in the same class were suddenly split into two groups, and many never saw each other again. When I read this, it made me compare this to my own experience, and I have to say he's right.

The photograph shows my primary class, circa 1947/48, at Dens Road School. The 'chosen few' who
went on to Morgan Academy are indicated. The others mostly went to Rockwell Junior Secondary.

A few years ago, I (#7 in the photo) was speaking to my friend Betty (#6 – and the smartest kid in the class), both in our late 70s, and I asked "There were three of us who came to Morgan from Dens Road Primary, right, you me and Dorothy (#5)?" She said "No, there were more than that, three or four more". "Really", I said, then we thought about it and finally came up with the names Bobby (#1), Alan(#2), Margaret (#3) and Nanetta (#4).

One of the reasons that I'd forgotten was that Betty, Dorothy, and I were put into the same "stream" when we entered Morgan and we finally ended up in sixth year together. The others were in different streams and so we really had no daily contact with them – also, I think they all left school after third year. There were around 250 kids in our first year at secondary school split up into six classes, forty plus in each – so a couple of friends, and about forty acquaintances. As year followed year, the classes got smaller, but you might add a few friends from having joined school activities like sports or school clubs.

It emphasised again for me something that I realised when helping to organise school reunions – that each one of us really only had a quite small group of close friends at school – one of the reasons they're so precious.

At home in Carolles Plage
Gordon Findlay
What surprised David and me, once we got to the outskirts of Carolles Plage, there were still some remnants of war here and there. We drove past a hillside just before we reached Mme. Théault's home and there on a
patch of ground were the blackened remnants of a German anti-aircraft gun sitting behind concrete blocks. And we saw workers demolishing some of the concrete bunkers near the beach area.

Mme. Théault turned out to be a very cheerful and gracious widow of around 50 who greeted us warmly, introduced us to her daughter Jeanine (who – surprisingly for French women sported red hair!) and immediately sat us down for a cup of coffee and a pastry.

The house itself was one of several built right on the beachfront walk, just steps from the nice sandy beach. It was a towering two-
story affair with a huge kitchen and a large dining room and all the sleeping quarters upstairs. David and I had a large bedroom which looked straight out at the beach. It was perfect.

But then came my mother's master stroke. And we only realized it later at how sensible and generous it was. We had brought along a gift for Mme. Théault. One whole half of David's bag was taken up with wrapped cakes of soap. When we brought them out and piled them up, package after package, on Mme. Théault's kitchen table, she was simply overcome.

Her hands flew up to her face. Tears flowed, she hugged each of us, she babbled with excitement, lifting the cakes of soap and smelling them and waving them around like talismans.

Mum had found out that one of the most precious items on the post-war Continent was that most basic of all items: good soap. It was in critically short supply all over France and our mother had accurately perceived that a selection of good quality bath and hand soap would be appropriate for us to carry over on our holiday. Well – it was not only appropriate – it was brilliant.

In particular, Mum had somehow found a selection of scented personal beauty soap in various colours, and this was like gold for Mme. Théault and her daughter. We two teenage lads couldn't have been more
popular if we had poured gold on to the floor of her home. It was, without a doubt, an auspicious start to our months in Carolles Plage.

Our days with Mme. Théault drifted by gently and enjoyably. After breakfast (coffee and rolls, with butter and jam, occasionally an egg) David and I were free to roam wherever we wished, and of course, the beach was always a big draw.

The water was warmer than the North Sea was, off the coast of Scotland, and the temperature was certainly a few notches higher,
so in the early days there we spent a lot of time just lying around the beach, soaking up the sun.

It's All in How You Look at It...
Hugh McGrory

Just before I went into secondary school, I looked like This; when I left school, I looked like That; and in

This That In Between...
between I seem to have been Harry Potter. Here's how that came about...

In my second year, my mother decided, for some reason I've forgotten, that I should get my eyes tested. We ended up going to a small, independent practitioner, Mary Crabbe Scott, at 44 West Port (now occupied by Gallery 48 where you can enjoy art exhibitions, and nosh on tapas and Spanish wine).

I was very unhappy when she said that I needed glasses to correct some problem or other. I remember being quite upset at the thought. I asked her if they were for reading, or distance, or what, and she said "You need to wear them all the time." I also remember asking for how long, and she said something like "A few years."

So began my Harry Potter period. I went back two or three times for annual checkups, and I finally asked her how much longer I would need the glasses. Her reply was "Oh, you'll always have to wear them".

I was pissed off to say the least - I felt betrayed. I told my mother that I wanted a second opinion, and she said "OK. You'll always have to wear them". (Sorry, I couldn't resist that old joke). What she actually said was "OK".

So we set up an appointment with David Beck, Dispensing Opticians, a larger, well-known practice (Jim Howie, who has contributed a number of tales to this collection, says that they should've used the slogan 'Becks for Specs'...). They were located at 90 Nethergate, opposite the Auld Steeple, (and now occupied by Dundee Nails, should you wish to have your nails done).

When we got there, we had to take a seat in the waiting area. There was a Dundee fella, wearing thick glasses, sitting there already, and somehow, we got into conversation with him. The name of our previous practitioner came up and he said, disparagingly, "Ach, useless! Look whut she gave me - glesses like mulk bottles!"

To cut a long story short, I had my eyes examined, and the optometrist finally said, "You don't need glasses..." One of the happiest days of my life.

And so ended my Harry Potter period. I was in my '50s before I finally had to succumb and start to wear magnifiers for reading.

Philately Will Get You Everywhere
Bill Kidd
As a child of the 1940s and '50s I enjoyed pastimes that involved collecting swapping and competing with others who enjoyed the same obsessions. As far as I could tell the main collecting interest of the girls of my acquaintance was the multi-coloured sheets of scraps depicting angels and fairies that could be purchased at outlets such as the City Arcade. No doubt the girls had other interests just as important to them as my stamp collection was to me and my friends!

As a six-year-old, I can vaguely remember being given an Excel stamp album with a few stamps already randomly pasted into the page of the appropriate country. Along with this gift was an old tobacco tin filled to the brim with stamps from various parts of the world, a magnifying glass and a mysterious piece of card printed with a black strip entitled, "Watermarks" on one side and what looked like the drawing of a saw labelled, "Perforations" on the other. Little did I then realise that what I had been given was my passport into a childhood passion and a lifelong interest.

Until the end of WWII, I maintained a desultory interest in my stamp collection. The original contents of the tobacco tin had been entered into my album using the stamp hinges that I had purchased for a few pence. My collection was further expanded by my pestering family and friends for any old stamps that they might have. This trawl proved to be quite successful and realised stamps from the reigns of George V, Edward VII and even the odd one with Queen Victoria's head. Of greater interest were stamps from France and Belgium torn from envelopes sent during and shortly after WWI, little did I realise then that I was vandalising our family history by harvesting the stamps and destroying letters and postcards. There were also stamps from Canada, Australia, South Africa and the USA marking where family members had settled. I wish that I now had a proper record of the treasure trove that I had inadvertently destroyed.

By the time that I had reached my tenth birthday my stamp collection had received a great boost in the shape of those uncles serving in the military who were aware of my interest in stamps. I received a hundred different San Marino stamps from my mother's brother, a huge packet of assorted North Africa and others


consisting of French and Belgian stamps from two of my father's brothers. As I hadn't even heard of San Marino, I did what I should have done years before and gone to the local library to seek out information about the country and its stamps. What I did learn from "Philately, a Guide to Collectors", was that I had been doing it all wrong. My album was inadequate, I should be trying to collect stamps in sets, I should arrange each country's issues in order of age and that I needed to get myself a Stanley Gibbons Catalogue!

On my birthday I got a second-hand catalogue and a loose-leaf album and spent the next few months identifying and arranging my collection in my new album. Thanks to my uncles and the vandalised family history I now had a healthy stock of swaps that I used ruthlessly to acquire specific issues that I had identified as desirable. Through complex haggling, I added the first British commemorative stamp celebrating the 1924 Empire Exhibition, some 1935 George V Jubilee stamps and a set of 1937 George VI


Coronation stamps. I really had caught the bug!

Although it was possible to buy packets of stamps in many stationers around the city, the main source of quality stamps and philatelic accessories was William Kidd (no relation) in Whitehall Street. I spent quite a lot of time in the shop drooling at the stamps that I could not afford. The shop staff were obviously used to small boys doing this and did not seem to object to my presence. Probably the odd purchase of stamp hinges saved me from being ejected. I discovered that the reference library in the Albert Institute had a selection of books on stamps and that the museum below had a comprehensive display of British stamps that I could pore over. Neither of these activities increased nor enhanced my collection but some rescue was at hand in the shape of the approvals advertised in the comic magazines that I read.

Approvals were (and still are) little albums of stamps that one could send for. Once they arrived you could examine the contents, which were individually priced and any stamps that took your fancy you removed and added to your collection. The remainder you returned about a week later along with a postal order to the value of the stamps that you retained. The discovery of approvals opened a new world for me. By this time, I had got past the point of assessing my collection on the basis of the number of stamps that I had and began to be more discerning regarding its quality. The approvals that I sent for were more specific regarding country of origin and subject. As time went on, I became more interested in the stories behind the country and subject of the issue.

Of particular interest were the various stamps issued during the Third Reich before and during the war, then


the post-war issues of West Berlin during the Berlin air lift and the stamps of East and West Germany.



Without realising it I was learning a great deal about the history and geography of Europe. Also, without
realising it, I was spending most of my pocket money on my hobby!

Now, my albums live in the attic. I still have a fairly comprehensive collection of British stamps, including samples of the first adhesive stamps ever to be issued, the Penny Black and the Twopenny Blue. I stopped collecting in the 1990s when I realised the Royal Mail was bringing out new issues on an industrial scale and that the later items in my collection bore a distinct resemblance to the scraps collected by the girls in my class all those years ago!

Stamp collecting is no longer a major interest of today's young, but I still look back with pleasure on my early days when I was a stamp collector rather than a philatelist.

The Things Mothers Do
to Their Kids...

Hugh McGrory

Funny how the mind works...

I'm always amazed, for example, when a word, or a smell, or a snatch of a tune suddenly brings back the memory of something that that you haven't thought about in years...

I've mentioned before that my father's brother, Barney, married my mother's sister Ev., and both families had two boys, my brother Mike and I, and our double cousins, Mike and Frank.

Uncle Barney and Auntie Ev. lived in Methil, Fife, during the war and he was a coal miner – a 'mine engineman'. I think that means he drove a train pulling wagons of coal underground, but it might refer to controlling the pithead hoist that took men and materials into the depths.

Sadly, Uncle Barney developed mastoiditis just after the war ended. The mastoid bone or mastoid process is attached to your skull and is located just behind your ears – go on, put a finger behind each ear, just behind your ear lobes, and press, gently, towards your skull – you can feel them. They are used as attachments for neck muscles, and are made of hollow, air-filled areas called mastoid cells that are involved in hearing.

Treatment with penicillin was what Uncle Barney needed. This new antibiotic was first discovered in 1928 by the Scotsman Alexander Fleming. Some ten years later, two other scientists, Ernst Chain and Howard Florey, began work on scaling up the production of penicillin to industrial levels, evntually finding support from US drug companies. The result was that the drug was put into production in the US in 1944, was widely available to the D-Day invasion troops, and saved thousands of lives in the final year of WW2. Fleming, Chain and Florey were awarded the Nobel Prize for their work in 1945. Penicillin was made available to British civilians – as a prescription drug – on 1 June 1946. Sadly, my uncle died on 13 Sep 1945, in the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh. He was 42 years old. In the US, the drug had been available, over the counter, from 15 March 1945.

I was eight at the time, my cousins, Mike and Frank, were eleven and nine. I have only vague memories of the funeral, and of being in the family flat in Harbour Wynd, Methil, on the third floor of a tenement building. The house was full of relatives, uncles, aunts, cousins, most of whom I knew slightly, and friends, most of whom I didn't know, everyone dressed in their 'Sunday Best'.

I do remember that I felt very awkward, not knowing what to say, or how to behave, or how to comfort my cousins. At one point, Frank and I decided (or perhaps were told) to go outside. We went down to the street below and didn't do very much. It was a very hot day, and we sat on the kerb and talked.

My memories of the event up to this point are quite vague, but I clearly remember, in some corner of my subconscious, what happened next. As Frank and I got up to head back upstairs, I discovered that I was stuck to the kerb having managed to sit in some road tar – and I was, of course, wearing my best suit...

Being 8 years old, I was still in short pants, and when my mother discovered the tar, in the main room, where most everyone was gathered, she insisted that I take my pants off so that she could inspect the damage and figure out what to do. I protested but she certainly wasn't in the mood to brook any backchat from me, so I ended up standing there in my tighty whiteys, on my skinny white legs, watched by everyone – including my girl cousins!! The Scottish phrase I'm looking for to describe my total humiliation is 'black affronted'...

The things mother's do to their kids – I mean we could have gone into the bedroom or the bathroom...

This humiliation must have made a big impression on me, since it recently jumped into my consciousness for no reason that I can think of. In fairness, though, this was out of character for my mother, and in retrospect she was surely highly stressed in trying to meet her prime responsibility that day, supporting and comforting her newly widowed older sister.

So, I went through the first 'rite of passage' of my life, a family funeral, and the main thing that stuck in my mind, some 70 years later, is standing in front of everyone in my underwear...

Funny how the mind works...

Our First Plane Flight -
to France.

Gordon Findlay
I have forgotten much of our trip. I recall that we flew from Edinburgh to Paris aboard a tiny 8-passenger de Havilland Rapide, a double-winged, piston-engined plane put into service by British European Airways
just as air service was getting back up to speed. It was the first airplane ride for us both.

Dave and I sat opposite each other, by one of the tiny windows, and just grinned at each other as the little plane soared and bounced across the North Sea before touching down at Orly Airport. David and I (and our hefty bags) found our way to the airport bus which ground its way to a point in central Paris. There we descended.

The next problem we faced: how to find our way to la Gare de l'Ouest where we were supposed to link up with a representative from the En Famille Association and board the train to take us to Granville in Normandy.

Now, remember please, this was Europe just after one of the longest and most destructive wars in history. Much of the infrastructure of modern society had been destroyed, railway lines were still being rebuilt, rolling stock was ancient and not yet replaced with modern equipment. Bus and train and taxi links were just getting back into regular operation.

There was no Traveler's Aid, no Information kiosks, no cell phone applications to help find your way around, no Internet to explore for information, no Euros to make continental travel easy, no organized cab ranks at airports or train stations. In short: as a traveler you were very much on your own, having to fend for yourself and find your own way to wherever you wanted to go.

David and I were able to find out that the train station we needed was at the other side of Paris – about 6 or 7 kilometres away. But how to get there? Was there a bus, a direct train? Would we have to take an (expensive) taxi there?

We tried out our elementary French-language skills. Most of these fell on stony ground, ignored by harried French railway staff, or by unconcerned passersby happy to ignore two anxious baggage-laden British teenagers who couldn't speak their language very well.

It was at this point that I had my epiphany. What if I tried my German on a couple of the train staff? Would that work any better? After all, I reasoned, most of them had lived through the German occupation of Paris and presumably had learned some German during that time. Maybe my German might be more effective than my French.

It's one of my few claims to fame from that period in my young life. It worked like a charm. I hesitatingly phrased my German-language question to one of the workers at the central station. "Excusez-moi, monsieur. Parlez-vous allemand?"

He looked at me hard for a second (probably thinking we were a couple of German lads) then he took in my anxious young Anglo-Saxon face, and his face brightened. He nodded and shrugged his shoulders as if to let us know that it had been a simple necessity to know the language of their occupiers. "Ja ja. Mein junger Freund. Wie kann ich ihnen helfen?" ("Yes, yes, my young friend. How can I help you?")

He turned out to be just what we needed: a polite and friendly Parisien – one who spoke German. I told him where we had to get to, and he told us to wait, then came back a minute later with a much-used street map of Paris, one produced by S.N.C.F. (Societé National Chemin de Fer) before the war – but still accurate.

He pointed to the Gare de l'Ouest where we had to get to, and told us that a bus would get us there. Then he kindly led us out to the street and walked us past ranks of buses to a kiosk where we bought the tickets we needed. And he walked us down to the right bus.

And in a classy gesture, when we thanked him and tried to give him some of our French money for helping us out, he simply smiled and waved away our offered gift.

"Non. Non. Apres la guerre c'est pour moi de vous remercier." ("After the war it is me who should thank you.") And to make sure we got it, he repeated his kind comment in German: "Nein. Nein. Nach dem krieg es ist fur mich ihnen danken."

The bus duly lumbered across the city and got us to our station. We looked around for any sign of a likely representative from the En Famille Association but didn't see a soul who answered that description. It was fairly easy to read the Departures board, to find our train to Granville and climb aboard.

The Gare de l'Ouest being demolished in 1969.
It was replaced by the Gare Montparnasse.
Then – just before our train was scheduled to leave – a tall lady carrying a small sign which said Association En Famille came running down the platform looking up anxiously at all the carriages and compartments. As soon as she saw us hanging out the window she came running over, smiling and laughing.

In good fractured English she asked us if we were "zee two Eeenglish boys goieeng to Carolles Plage?" We assured her we were, although Dave corrected her and told her we were "les deux Ecossais." ("the two Scots"). She laughed and apologized for missing us at the station, wished us bon voyage, and handed in a small basket of fresh fruit for the journey. A minute later we were on our way.

I do remember that when we got off the train at Granville, a tall, pleasant man of around 35 was waiting to greet us. He was a family friend of the Mme. Théault's and he was driving a sporty Citröen car. It wasn't a long drive to Carolles Plage, but it was a fast one. Can't remember his name, but I do recall that he pulled on a pair of flashy kid-leather driving gloves and was obviously proud of his driving skill because he whipped around those country roads like a Formula 1 driver.

Sitzpinkeln
Hugh McGrory

If you gotta go... and we all do – pee that is – if you're a woman you sit, a man you stand, right?

So, what do you think the title above means? Even if you know some German, you may not be familiar with the word, but given the German love of compound words, you may perhaps work it out... Sitz = seat and pinkeln means to tinkle (have a pee).

To digress for a moment...

It was more than 50 years ago. I was a young engineer sitting in a design office in Scotland. There were several desks in the room two of which were occupied by older engineers. They were having a conversation about a third colleague 'X' (not present at the time) that I couldn't help overhearing as I worked. It went something like this:

"You know he's homosexual?"

"Well I've heard people say that."

"No, no – it's true!"

"Oh yeah? How do you know?"

"Well, you know he lives in that old tenement block with shared, outside toilets. 'Y' (a mutual acquaintance of the two speakers) happened to be over there recently and he saw 'X' go into the toilet. He saw his head through the window as he sat down".

"So, he needed a shit – so what?"

"No! That's the point! He wasn't in there long enough. He sat down to pee!! That's how we know he's a homo! Men don't sit down to pee..."

Looking back on that conversation, I remember my reaction to the speaker as being something like "What an idiot!" I don't think the political correctness aspect even occurred to me then, just the illogicality.

That conversation jumps into my mind sometimes when I sit down to pee... because the term Sitzpinkler refers to a man. The term has been around for a long time in Germany, used as a pejorative meaning 'wuss' or 'pussy', based on the same logic as displayed in the conversation above. But that is changing...

Speaking personally again, for a moment, I sit down to pee when it's convenient – usually at home, not in public toilets. My reason are many – it's convenient since I usually dress in tracksuit bottoms if I'm spending the day at home (they don't usually have a fly but they're easy to pull down); it's comfortable and easy – especially when half-awake in the early morning hours; once seated you don't have to manage the operation – no guidance needed; and with prostate problems, the position helps to empty the bladder.

It's also much more hygienic. Women know that men are all members of 'The Gang that Can't Pee Straight' and even when free-willy's aim is good, there are splashes and fine droplets that spread around the toilet and the surroundings – one of the reasons why men's public toilets smell bad compared to women's. Listen to Larry or Paulie explain further...

So, as I said things have been changing in Germany. Many homes, businesses and public spaces have signs above toilets indicating that a standing, peeing man is discouraged or even forbidden. Cartoonists have got into the act too...


Now some of the guys reading this may be saying to themselves something like "Real men don't sit down to pee". My response is "Real men pee the way they want to – and they bloody well eat quiche if they feel like it too!"

Hey, if it's good enough for one of my heroes, Lionel, and for his buddy Luis, it's good enough for me!

Another Coincidence...
Jim Howie
Looking to improve my postcard collection, an advert in The Courier solicited a response from Letham, Angus, (not to be confused with it's namesakes in Perth or Fife). The village of Letham lies less than 20 miles, from Dundee. As it happens, thanks to the golden age of postcards, I have no less than three of the village in my collection...

The centre of Letham around 1910. How it looks today.

So I took a run out to have a look, and found that the owner had received the postcards from his Granny – they had lain in 2 albums in a vintage attaché case for years.

As we looked through them, on 22 January 2020, we found a cutting from The Courier. It showed a picture of the Earl of Airlie during the 1st World War, and on the reverse a report from wartime France. (Earl is, as I'm sure you know, the third rank of the peerage, standing above the ranks of viscount and baron, but below
duke and marquess.)

The Earl, or to give him his full title, 12th and (don't ask!) 7th Earl of Airlie, Baron Ogilvy, was serving in a cavalry regiment, the 10th Hussars.

He reached the rank of Captain, was mentioned in despatches, wounded, and won the Military Cross (a decoration awarded for gallantry during active operations against the enemy).

As to the coincidence: as we read the article, we noticed the date, 22 January 1917, and realised that it was 103 years before, to the day!

He kept the cutting, and I have the postcards.

Getting Old – 2
Hugh McGrory

One of the things sent to try older men is good old BPH – Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (means that the cells in the prostate are multiplying more than normal causing the prostate to enlarge). The only 'good' thing about BPH is a negative - it does not increase the chance of getting prostate cancer.

Statistics say that 90% of men over 80 have this condition. While it's non-malignant, it does compress the urethra. So, while peeing as a young man doesn't need much thought, for the older gentleman it requires rather more attention... It's often harder to start the flow, the flow is weaker, incomplete voiding is an issue, and there's a tendency to dribble at the end – which can be embarrassing if you forget to check, and tuck your dangly bits away too quickly...

I have two groups of retired colleagues, from different organisations, that I meet with for lunch on a regular basis, one monthly the other bi-monthly. (We used to talk about women – now we talk about medical issues...)

Recently I was at one of those get-togethers and excused myself to go pee. It's not unusual for me to have some difficulty in getting started, but this time it took longer than usual – but different...

At first, I wasn't quite sure what was going on, and it took me some seconds to figure it out. It turned out that, in dressing myself that morning (as I still do!), for my day out, I managed to put my underpants on backwards...

When I got back to the table, I told my buddies what had happened and got nothing but laughter and derision – it's tough getting old...

But I guess – considering the alternative...

Eh Dinna Like the Sound O' that Cough!
Bill Kidd
There cannot be many families of our generation that were not directly or indirectly affected by that dreadful disease Tuberculosis. This thought came to me some months ago when I read that some regulars of a pub in Glasgow were tested for the disease when one of their number was diagnosed as suffering from the condition.

My mind instantly went back to the advertisements encouraging everyone to attend one of the mobile Mass
Radiography units that turned up at some central location or large workplace. The use of these units lasted from the early 1950s until well into the sixties and their efforts along with an effective cure and the improvement in living conditions played a large part in the removal of TB from our everyday experience.

The organisms that cause Tuberculosis have been identified in ancient human remains, but the disease became prevalent in Europe
from the Middle Ages onwards. Sometimes known as Scrofula, Phthisis and later Consumption, TB became a common cause of death among all classes, particularly among those who lived in overcrowded towns and cities. There was no cure; among the poor those afflicted continued to work and further spread the disease until they died. Among the rich, suffering from Consumption became almost fashionably romantic, necessitating a great deal of rest and long stays in the

Swiss mountains where the air was beneficial. Such a regime did not provide a cure, but it did prolong a reasonable quality of life and inspired a number of heroes and heroines in romantic Victorian novels!

I first became aware of TB when, aged about five, I accompanied my parents to visit a distant relative who was in Noranside, a sanatorium located somewhere between Kirriemuir and Brechin. I was fascinated that the lady we came to visit was located in a hut in the grounds of a large house. I learned that she had been in Noranside for many months and that she was likely to be there for many months more. I never did find out what happened to her but I later learned that Noranside was only one of a network of sanatoria to be found throughout Scotland and that, until well into the 1950s, spending a long time in such an institution was the fate of those who contacted the disease.

Even before I received this introduction to the meaning of 'TB', medical researchers working through central government and local authority public health workers were making great inroads into the prevention of the disease. The 1930s saw the introduction of an indicator injection followed by a BCG vaccination where there was an indication that the bacillus was present. Because of the fragmentation of the responsibility for public health it was not until the end of WWII followed by the formation of the NHS in 1948 was it possible to coordinate a truly national anti-TB campaign spearheaded by the mass x-ray campaign mentioned above.

In addition to effective courses of treatment with the anti-biotic Streptomycin, an other important factor in the battle against TB was the increasing health of the general population. Throughout the war years malnutrition ceased to be endemic as the food ration, though small, was nutritious and universally available. The gradual spread of pasteurised milk delivered in bottles rather than being dispensed by a jug into a flagon left outside the door also made a significant contribution.

The cities and large towns had already enjoyed the benefits of this for some years before the war, but many small towns and villages had to wait until government action brought the practice of open-air transfer milk delivery to an end.

The reduction in TB cases among men reflected the attention that the military paid to testing and where necessary, vaccinating recruits. Until the end of National Service in the late 1950s any young man who failed his military service medical because of a positive TB test was routinely referred to his own doctor.

By the mid-1960s, as a result of these efforts, tuberculosis had ceased to be the commonplace illness that destroyed so many lives.

Slum clearance programmes and the provision of modern housing with electricity and bathrooms also greatly contributed to the gradual eradication of tuberculosis until we are now no longer aware of it as part of our everyday lives.

By a strange twist of fate one of my uncles was diagnosed with TB in 1943. He was hospitalised for nearly three years before making an excellent recovery and living to be ninety. At the time of his diagnosis he was coming to the end of his operational training as a Flight Engineer on a Lancaster bomber. He swore that, had he not had TB, it was probable that he would not have survived the war, as was the case for so many who trained with him ....... it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good!

June 6, 1968
Hugh McGrory
Around 1980, I was in Los Angeles, and stayed for a few days at the famous old Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard. From its opening in 1921, and for more than four decades, it was the place to go in Los Angeles. It was home to the Cocoanut Grove, the glamorous nightclub where stars such as Sinatra, Garland and Streisand got their start. The Ambassador closed for business in 1989.

When I arrived, I remember seeing, right across the street, the original Brown Derby Restaurant (1926-1980) opened by Robert Cobb (creator of the Cobb Salad).


I was there to take part in meetings of an international group promoting the use of computers as tools for engineers. We were not a large group, less than 100, and held our meetings over a couple of days in the Embassy Foyer.


This was a room separated from the larger Embassy Ballroom by one of those moveable partitions that allowed the Foyer to be used when the Embassy Room was not in use. The rooms could not be used at the same time, since access to the Ballroom from the hotel main lobby, was through the Foyer. (See plan below.)



It was just at the end of our two days of meetings when I realised, from overhearing a remark made by one of our group, something I should have known - that this was the hotel where Senator Robert Francis Kennedy was assassinated (hence the title of this story). In fact, RFK was shot on Jun 5, 1968 and died 26 hours later on the 6th.

The California presidential primary elections had just been held the day before, Tuesday, June 4, 1968. Just after midnight, as the results came in, Bobby Kennedy announced to the ballroom packed with campaign
supporters that he was able to claim victory over Senator Eugene McCarthy. He ended his speech (see him here) by stating: "My thanks to all of you; and now it's on to Chicago, and let's win there!"

He had no way of knowing that sentence was the last thing he would ever say to an audience, and that he would never get to Chicago...

The intention then was to head for the Press Room by leaving the ballroom through the Foyer and the rather narrow corridor that led to the hotel lobby. However, the crowd was so large that the Foyer and the corridor were jammed with people.

The fateful decision was made to have the Senator exit through a door just to the right of the stage into a service corridor. (As is typical with large hotels, the layout was such that the kitchen had adjacent corridors to allow access to the various facilities requiring service such as ballrooms and conference/meeting rooms.)

At that time, the government did not provide Secret Service protection for presidential candidates. Kennedy's only security was provided by a former FBI agent William Barry, and two unofficial bodyguards: Olympic decathlon gold medalist Rafer Johnson and former football player Rosey Grier.

Led by the maître d'hôtel the Senator's entourage turned right and went through swing doors that led into the pantry area around the kitchen, and it was there, adjacent to a large ice-making machine, that Sirhan Sirhan was waiting. He opened fire with a cheap .22 revolver and hit the Senator; he was tackled by


various people and continued to pull the trigger before the gun was torn from his grasp. RFK was hit by three bullets - five others were wounded but survived.


Some ten years later, after our session ended for the day, I headed for the main lobby. I saw a bellhop near the main entrance and asked him if this was indeed the location of the assassination. He was dismissive, shook his head and mumbled something about not speaking about it. So I took ten bucks from my pocket and offered it to him. He looked around then took it and indicated with his head that I should follow him.

From the bellhop station he took me into a corridor which skirted the kitchen and led to the pantry. It had tray stackers in the middle of the corridor and, a few yards on narrowed because of an ice machine on the left and a steam table to the right. This was where RFK fell as the world saw in that iconic photograph of Juan Romero, the kind young Mexican busboy, trying to comfort him by cradling his head.

Paths that intercepted - a dozen years later.
Red indicates the path that RFK took to point 'X' where he was shot. The lectern from which I and other presenters spoke to our group, was at location 'Me', blue is the path that I followed some 10 years later.
There was nothing much to see really, nothing to reflect the momentous event, just the rather cold, dingy pantry with the various storage units.

It felt strange to realise that, having gone to Dealey Plaza in Dallas purposely to be able to stand where JFK died, I, unknowingly, a few years later, was attending a meeting in Los Angeles in a room just a few feet from where the President's brother was shot to death.

Life's coincidences never cease to amaze me...

Summer Time in France
Gordon Findlay
The Second World War was over, and life slowly returned to normal, although for most people living in Great Britain, it was a difficult time. The country was impoverished after five years of war, many cities still had acres of bomb damage and destruction, food was still short, consumer goods were not available, and of course many young men had not come back, so there was an air of sadness and resignation over-shadowing the happiness that peace had finally returned.

In 1946, Mum heard about the En Famille Association. This was – then – a new organization whose goal was to build stronger relations between France and Great Britain through the children of these countries. Children would spend up to 6 months in a foreign country – placed with a registered family – and the children of that family would then return the favour, having their children spend a similar amount of time with the responding family

I suspect that she and Dad thought it might have two positive outcomes for David and me. One: it would give us a chance to spend a full summer in a nice part of France, soaking up French culture and improving our language skills. And two: it would give them a summer free from over-energized and demanding teenagers.

She wrote to EFA, described the two young Scottish sons she had, and by a process of elimination, eventually zeroed in on a Mme. Théault, a widow who lived with her daughter, Jeanine, in Carolles Plage,


a small seaside community in N.E. Normandy midway between Avranches and Granville, and about a half-hour's drive from the famous tourist destination of Mont St. Michel.

After some back-and-forthing (in those pre-Internet days it was not easy to communicate between rural France and urban Scotland. In fact, it was difficult and expensive.) But Mum persevered and in time it was confirmed: Dave and I would fly to Paris, and find our way to la Gare de l'Ouest where we would be met by a representative from the En Famille Association. From there we would catch a train to Granville, and once
there we would be met by someone from Mme. Théault's friends, and driven to our home for the summer at Carolles Plage.

Looking back on that time I think it says a lot for our mother who felt it important that David and I broadened our horizons a bit. And she took a chance on our ability to communicate properly, and to find our way from Orly airport to downtown Paris and to the correct train.

Moreover, she put her faith in the ability of the En Famille Association to place teenagers with families who would not ignore,
exploit, terrorize, brutalize, or do away with their precious charges.

And so it was decided. The summer of 1946 – June, July, August and part of September – for David and me would be spent in the bucolic delights of Carolles Plage.

Getting Old
Hugh McGrory
There's a saying that was first reported in the early '50s, and attributed to one of two actors,Maurice
Chevalier or, sometimes, Louis Calhern. It goes something like "Growing old doesn't seem so bad when you consider the alternative." While I generally agree, I have to say, "It can be bad enough, sometimes..."

As I get older, I find that I have to think about things that I used to handle subliminally – especially when I'm doing two things at the same time - walking and breathing for example...

A few years ago, I was walking in downtown Toronto one Saturday morning, heading for
my car after teaching my computer class at Ryerson – in the blink of an eye I was lying flat on my belly on the ground. I had caught my toe on a slightly raised flagstone, and my brain couldn't handle the fact that my weight was too far forward when my leg was suddenly 18 inches back from where it should have been...

The good news: I wasn't hurt at all – apart of course from the dent in my pride at making a spectacle of myself. People were looking at me in surprise, and my inclination was to bounce up like Inspector Clouseau – pretend that I was examining the pavement – except I'm much better getting down than up...

A few days ago, I walked from our entrance hall into our kitchen/dining room, negotiating one step up as I've done thousands of times. This time, for some reason, I didn't lift my foot quite high enough - my shoe caught the step and I headed for the floor – and I do mean headed – I thought I was going to drive my face into the ground.

The good news: I had entered the room at a slight angle, just enough that my trajectory was towards our dining room table. I ended up sprawled across it.

The bad news: It's a sort of modern glass table, and the pointy corner caught me in the stomach, right below the diaphragm.

The good news: It missed my ribs, if it hadn't, I'm sure I would have cracked one or more. Thank goodness for belly fat...

The bad news: I'm quite tender and developing a palm-sized bruise.

But I guess - considering the alternative...

National Service
Jim Howie
In a recent story, Bill Kidd spoke of some of the benefits accruing to him from serving Queen and Country through his two years of National Service. I too benefitted from my experience.

I did my National Service between 1955-57. After the initial introduction to Army life in Aldershot in The Royal Army Service Corps, I along with four other "recruits" were posted to Millom in Cumberland (now
Cumbria) to be part of the permanent staff of The Mobile Defence Corps Rescue Training Centre. I was the Company Clerk dealing with leave and travel warrants.

The Centre's purpose was to train National Servicemen in the last 8 weeks of their military careers how to rescue people from buildings that may have been damaged in the event that The Cold War heated up.

The unit was based on a former RAF Airstrip (now a prison) with a village of houses built to resemble damaged homes and they practiced rescue techniques with the aid of civilian instructors and their comrades.

Millom did not have a lot to offer the soon to be demobbed squaddies, Barrow in Furness was the nearest town with dancing etc., it was about 22 miles away and the last train was too early for the dancing to finish and for them to catch the train back.

I decided to hire buses for Saturday nights and The Cumberland Motor Services provided them – no deposit required the invoice followed, £5 for a single decker to Barrow and return – I can't remember


what I charged for the journey but it made a nice profit for me.

I was almost sorry to be demobbed soon afterwards...

November 22, 1963
Hugh McGrory
Most of you reading this will know the significance of this date – the day that John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th President of the United States, was assassinated.

I've heard it said that, when earth-shattering events such as this take place, most people remember exactly where they were when they first heard the news. That doesn't work very well for me, for some reason, but I do know that, at the time, I was working in Fife, Scotland, as a traffic engineer, doing various vehicle movement studies and trying to design future road networks.

I do remember sharing the feelings of shock and sadness that most people felt that day. Later, I followed the Warren Commission investigations closely and always had the uneasy feeling that the report didn't really seem to answer all of the important questions that were being raised at the time.

In Canada in the early '70s, I attended a lecture on the subject by a fellow who spoke for almost three hours and showed hundreds of slides. It was fascinating – raised many questions – and had many different answers... Really what he was doing was going over many of the conspiracy theories that existed then, and still have adherents today. I did a lot of reading on the subject thereafter, but found it very hard to separate fact from fiction within the various theories – it did make me realise, finally, how easily evidence can be misinterpreted or misrepresented...

One example: During the presentation I attended, I remember I was very impressed by one photo in particular – that of the 'three tramps' being taken into custody after being found in a boxcar in the nearby rail sidings. The lecturer showed the photo below and asked, "how could it be that, about an hour after the President was assassinated, the policeman would take these men in so casually – and walking in front of them?" I thought "Good question – it does look very suspicious in the circumstances."

Many years later, I saw the second photo... How easily I had been deceived by a simple cropped photograph... as you can see on the right side of the uncropped photo (click on the photo below to see it), there was a second cop, partly screened by someone passing in the other direction, also armed with a shotgun and just behind the three prisoners.

(According to the arrest reports, the three men were detained as "investigative prisoners", then described as unemployed and 'riding the rails' through Dallas. They were released four days later.)

As you've probably read over the years, many people and groups have been accused of being involved. Here are some (in no particular order):

People:
Oswald – plus one to four other shooters; George H W Bush – oil interests; Lyndon Johnson – wanted to be President; Fidel Castro; The Mafia – Sam Giancanna or Carlos Marcello or Santo Trafficante; Woody Harrelson's father; Joe Dimaggio – Marilyn Monroe; FBI agent George Hickey riding in the second car (perhaps accidentally); E. Howard Hunt – later of Watergate Fnotoriety; Ted Cruz's father – from President Trump.

Groups:
UFO researchers; CIA; Governments – Cuba or Israel or Russia or the USA itself; Dallas based oil interests; US military/industrial complex; and many others.

There are dozens and dozens of such conspiracy theories. Some, on casual reading can seem plausible – but there's one major problem, isn't there – if you assume one is true, then all the rest are wrong...


I was in Dallas in the late 70's and, having a few hours to myself I decided to visit Dealey Plaza. Plaza is a rather grandiose name for what is just a large grassy island where Elm, Main and Commerce Streets come
together, pass under the famous three-span rail bridge, and finally merge to become one street, Commerce.
View of Dealey Plaza from the 'Sniper's Nest'.
This is the view a few days ago (Boxing Day, 2019) taken from the live EarthCam in the window of The Sixth Floor Museum of the former Book Depository Building, looking south. See it live here.
I probably had unrealistic expectations – feeling, though more than ten years had passed, that the enormity of the event would surely, somehow, be reflected in the surroundings. In fact, my first impression was that there wasn't the slightest indication of the momentous event. I didn't see any plaque or memorial – and the Book Depository was not open for business, so I didn't get to visit the 'sniper's nest' on the sixth floor.

I was able to stand adjacent to the spot where JFK died ('X' marks the spot – literally – there's a painted 'X' on the road surface), and see the pedestal that Zapruder was standing on when he took his famous 26.6 seconds of film. I saw the grassy knoll and walked through the parking lot behind it and saw adjacent to that the rail sidings and tracks. But everything was just overwhelmingly ordinary... nothing seemed directly related to the event... I was quite underwhelmed...

Today, the collective wisdom, for most people who are not conspiracy theorists, is that the Warren Commission Report, unsatisfactory as the process had seemed at the time, probably got it right – that Oswald was the lone shooter, acting alone, and firing three shots. None of the official inquiries or private investigations seem to have come up with any convincing proof otherwise.

The three shots are interesting, the second is, apparently, the one which passed through Kennedy's back, hit Governor Connelly passed through his body and wrist and ended up embedded in his thigh. Later when the Governor had ben taken into an operating theatre, and the stretcher was being moved, a slight clinking noise was heard, caused by a bullet (presumably having fallen out of his leg wound) falling to the floor. Strangely the bullet was whole, though slightly out of round.

The third bullet was the one which hit the President in the head and was the immediately fatal shot. However, for the purposes of this story, the first bullet is the one that is of most interest – the one that missed.

While everyone knows about the injuries to the President and the Governor, not all know that there was a third person injured. His name was James T. Tague, and he received a small graze to his cheek. Tague was driving home in the fast lane of Commerce Street and was just about to exit from under the rail overpass when the traffic in front of him came to a standstill. He walked forward a few yards to exit the overpass, realised that it was the Kennedy motorcade and stood there to see it pass. Just as the presidential limousine competed the turn onto Elm Street and straightened out, he heard the first shot and was struck in the face by something which left a small graze on his cheek which bled a little.

James Tague Then. James Tague Returns 2013 Flight Path of First Bullet.

Apparently, Oswald's first shot hit the supporting arm of the traffic light on Elm Street, was deflected to hit the concrete surround on the far kerb of Elm Street, continued forward to hit the edge of the concrete curb on Main Street about 23 feet in front of Tague, and either part of the bullet or debris from the concrete hit Tague's face. Another piece gouged a groove out of the bridge support column – if this piece had hit Tague he would probably have suffered a much more serious injury!

Investigators removed that part of the Main Street curb which had been damaged by the bullet and replaced it with a new piece.

Bullet Mark on Curb. Removal of Curb Section Gouge from Bridge Column.

While I was in the Plaza, I was aware of the damage to the curb and the injury to Tague, so before leaving I decided to take a look. I was able to identify the replacement curb because it was a lighter colour than the surrounding concrete and half the standard length. (I looked for it on Google's Street View just now, and can still make it out...)

Strangely, my feeling that nothing related this place to the assassination, my disappointment at the lack of memorialisation, was all dissipated by that little strip of concrete which finally connected me to that terrible event some ten years before.

A Victim of the War
Gordon Findlay
Most of us had school friends who had family members in the armed forces, and after the war had been on for a couple of years, it was not unusual to find that school chum suddenly wearing a black band around one arm of his school blazer. Someone had been killed.

My friend further up Mains Loan, Ian Knowles, had an older brother in the British Army, and my mother instructed both David and me to say a prayer every evening before we fell asleep:

"... And please make Tommy Knowles come home safely. Amen."

I have often wondered if that was the beginning of my doubts about organized religion, because even at that young age when every week we could see ministers and priests blessing Spitfires and warships, throwing holy water on to brand-new tanks, and telling these war machines to do their duties and to carry their occupants safely through the war.

Even then it did occur to me that the Germans and the Italians and the Japanese must be doing the very same thing – and how could an impartial God sort it all out fairly?

As it was, Tommy Knowles had been captured in France and imprisoned, where apparently, he became very ill. He was released with a few thousand other Allied prisoners at the same time Britain released similarly sick German and Italian prisoners.

Note: There was an attempt to exchange sick and wounded prisoners with the Germans in 1941. This fell through at the last minute when the Germans realised that they would only get 50 men while the British would get more than 1,000. The first of several exchanges of British and American POWs for German did not take place until a brief cease fire in 1944, St Nazaire, France. See how it happened here. (This video has no sound.)

I was with my mother, walking down Mains Loan one day when we met Mrs. Knowles and Tommy, newly-released from German prison camp and still wearing his British hospital 'blues' (bright blue shirt, pants and jacket used to identify an active soldier who had been wounded, captured, or was recovering from injuries.) He looked dreadful. Painfully thin, his hair had turned from black to white-and-black, his eyes were sunken, his mouth unsmiling and grim.

My mother welcomed his safe return and made quick, polite conversation with Mrs. Knowles – but as soon as we got home, she burst into tears and ran upstairs.

The Phoenix
Hugh McGrory
So perhaps I was a little hasty with my parting words in my previous story, HMS Owl. It seems that the 'gloria mundi' didn't 'transit' as far or as fast as I had assumed.

In 2013, a husband and wife team, Justin Hooper and Charlotte Seddon, purchased the control tower property, and spent the next five years turning both the four-storey brick tower and the adjoining Nissen hut into Airbnb properties.

The photograph below shows, again, what the control tower building looked like when Mum and I visited it some twenty years ago - run your cursor over the photo to see what it looks like now:
       

HMS Owl then and now.
(Move your cursor over photo.)
I mentioned, in my previous story, that one of my dad's workmates very kindly gave me two wooden airplanes that he'd made. The first link at the end of this tale describes a trip to the site by an amateur historian from Aberdeen, before the conversion was undertaken. He describes an interesting find that he stumbled upon, examined, then left in situ for the next explorer to find:


I wonder – after 80 years – could it be by the same model builder...?

I wish my mother was still around. It would have been nice for us to visit the site again and to know that the brick building built by my dad and his mates has been repurposed and lives again. Perhaps it'll still be there 80 years from now...

--------------------
Photographs, for those interested:
  • The sad condition of the site when purchased may be seen here.
  • The result of the renovation of the tower here.
  • And the Nissen hut here.

Can Eh Hae A Word?
Bill Kidd
"Two nations divided by a common language." I have frequently heard this quoted in respect of the UK and the USA. Attributed, among others, to Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw and even Winston Churchill. Frankly, I don't really care who first said it, but I do believe it to be true! Suspenders won't keep your socks up, nor do you wear a vest under your shirt in the US of A. If in New York be particularly careful when you go into a shop to buy an eraser. However, you don't have to use Virgin Atlantic to find another two nations that are divided by a common language.

Scotland and England are a perfect example of such divisions. The misinterpretation of the response given by an uncle to a question put to him by an army recruitment sergeant nearly changed the outcome of WWII. When asked which school he had attended, Uncle Jim replied that it was Glamis Public School. On the strength of that he was selected for officer training! Regretfully, the realisation that a public school in Scotland was a little different from a public school in England put an end to my having a Field Marshall Kidd in the family.

We have resided (not lived) in several parts of England and been subjected to pity, derision or disbelief on many occasions simply because of our choice of words or the order in which we said them. Shortly after arriving in Berkshire, Muriel learned that the local bakers would not cut a loaf for her when she asked for a half loaf. Everyone in the shop became rather confused when she explained that she did not want them to cut a loaf and that a half loaf in Dundee was a whole plain loaf and a loaf was two plain loaves. I believe that if she had persisted in her explanation and went on to enquiring if they sold tea breads and plain or cream cookies the shopkeeper would have just given her the bread!

A similarly confused greengrocer who had told us that he did not have any turnips eventually discovered that in Scotland a swede was known as a turnip. We took pity on the poor man and refrained from asking for neeps! No one knew what we were talking about when we invited friends to join us for a trip into the countryside to pick brambles (blackberries). Neighbours were puzzled when we said that we were going into town for our messages and could we bring anything back for them. They knew that we had a telephone, so why did we have to go into town to pick up messages. I was working at Harwell at the time, so we may have been suspected of being spies passing on atomic secrets to the Russians. We eventually understood that shopping was the activity and a message bag was actually a shopping bag.

Communicating the time of an appointment could be confusing. I always understood that "half eleven" meant 11.30 while my colleagues believed it to be 10.30, I was considered pedantic when I insisted in using the twenty four hour clock when making appointments. Colleagues in Lancashire used to roll around with laughter when I enquired about the weather by saying "What like's the weather", eliciting some humorous response in an unintelligible George Formby accent "Farmers at harvest time if t' sun shines". There were, of course misunderstandings. A colleague referring to a mutual female acquaintance said, "She had fought to be married". I assumed that her husband to be did not have the approval of her parents, but I found out in time that what I had actually been told was "She had for to get married". An embarrassment diverted!

A couple of years working in London resolved most of my verbal solecisms, mainly because so few of the indigenous population spoke a recognisable version of English. I used my soft Scottish accent mercilessly, trading on a mistaken local belief that anyone with a slow, soft Scots accent had the wisdom of Dr Cameron, the senior partner in Dr Finlay's Casebook. Those who insisted in putting on a mock Scots accent in an attempt to mimic me were asked what part of Wales they were from. Anyone suggesting that if Scotland was so wonderful why did we come down to England was given the following explanation:

Scots are like the Mormons that come to your door. We are on a mission to convert and civilise. When we have served a few years outside Scotland we are free to return. Those of us who remain outwith Scotland have obviously got a very difficult area to convert and we should think of them as following in the footsteps of David Livingston, buying half loafs and going for the messages with impunity.

HMS Owl
Hugh McGrory
Some of you will be familiar with the term 'Directed Labour'... For those who aren't:

When Britain went to war in 1939, manpower was the principal immediate issue. Conscription was mandated, and to fill the ranks, males, late-teens and early twenties were, initially, the prime target (later, the upper age crept up).

Of course, health/fitness was a major issue, as was the competing need to 'keep the home fires burning' – to keep all parts of society functioning as well as possible.

Early in the war, my father was not a prime target for conscription – he was 29 years old, and his army medical established that he was deaf in one ear and had flat feet – but while he was not conscripted, he did run into the 'Directed Labour' initiative...

As a bricklayer, he was told that he had to leave his current job and head north some 170 miles to assist in
the construction of airfields – in his case RNAS Fearn (Royal Naval Air Station), in eastern Rossshire in the Scottish Highlands (formerly RAF Fearn, then a Fleet Air Arm base, aka HMS Owl). So off he set with a number of his workmates.

They worked to build the main building with control tower on top, and various other structuress such as offices, living quarters, storage facilities, and bomb-
blast protection areas. The squadrons based there during the war flew mainly Fairey Barracuda torpedo/dive-bombers. At its height, personnel grew to around 1500.

Meanwhile, my mother and I remained in Dundee. We were evacuated to Montrose, but after a few weeks my mother had had enough and decided to return to Dundee ( being two years old at the time, I have no memory of this adventure...)

My dad was living in barracks – see photo of him and one of his workmates (in their ever-present 'bunnets') here – and my mother asked him if he could find some rented accommodation so we could be together. He did (a room in a house about half a mile from the airfield), and we moved up there.

I was three by this time and have only a few memories of that time:
  • There was no running water, and my mother had to carry a bucket from a nearby spring.
  • The family we lived with had a son or grandson – I think his name was David – a bit older than me, he took me under his wing. I was told that we disappeared on one occasion and wouldn't amswer when they called. We were found sitting under an old table at the side of the house spooning Andrews Liver Salts out of a can (should that be tin?). I do remember how we liked the way it fizzed up in our mouths...
  • From time to time we saw army convoys, and once a despatch rider stopped at the house (no idea why). We thought he was a German and ran away...
  • Dad took me to the site once, and we visited the barracks where his buddies were housed. I remember one of them grabbing a 'bunnet' giving it to me and showing me how to hold it upside down, like a little basin. He then marched me around to each bunk in the large room and asked the guys to drop their spare change in. I ended up with a hatful (more money than I'd ever seen) for my piggy bank...
  • One of the men made carved model aeroplanes from solid wood, and he gave me two – one was, I think, a Spitfire, and was painted in typical wartime colours. The other was made of a hard shiny wood and was a biplane. They were quite big - both about 10 inches by 7 inches. I had those planes for years – wonder whatever happened to them... (Now that I think about it, it was probably my wee brother that happened to them...)
Around 2000, my mum and I decided to take a trip to Fearn. With some help from the little store in the nearby village of Balintore, we tracked down the cottage we lived in. We also had a look at the control tower

Fig 1. The cottage as it looked in 2000. Fig 2. We obtained this photo on our visit. Not sure of the date, but we believe it shows our landords – compare the chimneys and rooflines to Fig 1.

Fig 3. My mum on our visit. Fig 4. The sad-looking control block.

and some of the other brick structures around the airfield. HMS Owl was de-commissioned in 1946, and the equipment, furniture and fittings, including windows and doors, were removed.

Many of the buildings fell into disrepair – some were taken over by local enterprises for storage spaces or workshops.

The control building was sad to look at as you'll see from the photographs. The cattle grazing nearby must have figured out that the lower floor offered some shelter in inclement weather, and over fifty or so years had laid down multiple layers of cowshit some three feet deep, and hard-packed so that you could walk on top – thankfully there wasn't much smell...

I'm not sure how long we lived there, certainly less than a year. When the airfield was completed, we went back to Dundee, and my dad was then conscripted into the army for the next 5 years or so, becoming a sapper in the Gunners.

Mum and I enjoyed our little two-day excursion – we stayed over one night in Dingwall, and managed to fit in a vist to Tain and took in the Glen Morangie Distillery tour too.

Our takeaway from our visit was mixed. She was in her '80s and didn't seem to remember a great deal about her time in the north, and I was too young to remember much. I was glad to be able to look around at all of the brickworks and realise that my dad and his mates had sacrificed to be there and build these urgently needed facilites – but looking at the derelict control building made me feel quite sad.

Sic transit gloria mundi, I guess...
Wash Day...
Isobel Mackay McGuire
Hugh McGrory told a story about travails he, his mother and his grandmother all had (they were all attacked by the same washing machine! Story here if you're interested.) He couldn't remember the name of the
manufacturer and could never find a photo of the machine.

I suggested that it might have been a Connor, and, putting our heads together, we eventually established that my parents and his had the same washing machine just before the war. It was indeed a Connor, manufactured in Canada by J.H. Connor & Son, Ltd., Ottawa, Ontario. As you can see, we even found an illustration of the model...

I thought I'd share the story of my family and our washer...

In 1937, my mother answered the door bell one morning to find a rep. selling washing machines. He persuaded her to try out this amazing example of modern excellence. She could use it for a whole day and he would collect it at five o'clock that evening

My parents, at this time, had four sons and one daughter and another on the way. They didn't know it, but the expected baby was twins. The eldest son was almost ten and his wee sister one and a half so there was a fair amount of washing to be done.

Mother set to work – she started washing... She washed all day and when my father came home early, the pair of them kept going... When the rep. saw their enthusiasm he suggested that they keep it for the week-end.

Blankets, curtains, bedcovers went into the great round tub with the electric paddle. The back green washing line had to cope with repeated lines of anything that needed washed and the glory of it was that the efficient electric wringer squeezed an amazing amount of water out of everything with a minimum of effort. It was Mother's dream but, alas, far too expensive, so the miracle machine went back into the rep's van on Monday morning.

The spring of 1937 proceeded into summer and Mother's pregnancy was beginning to be difficult.Summer holidays with children, always hungry, must have been really trying for her. July was her birthday month
but there was no parcel on the breakfast table, only cards from the children.

However, in the afternoon, a van drew up and delivered a brand new Connor washing machine complete with the automatic wringer. What joy!

Mother looked after that machine – drying it out after each wash, oiling the paddle and applying Vaseline to the washer at the base.

I don't remember it ever breaking down and it was still on duty forty years on – having squashed no fingers!

Ashludie 2
Hugh McGrory
In a previous story I told of my father's time as a TB patient in Ashludie Hospital, and writing it made me think, for some reason, of change. If we live in one place for any length of time it's hard to notice daily, monthly, even yearly changes. If you leave, then re-visit a place the changes become much more dramatic.

Having lived in Canada for over 50 years, when I return to my hometown of Dundee, I often turn a corner expecting a view I grew up with, yet find it to be quite different – always a bit of a shock to the system. Which brings me back to Ashludie which, over the past 100 years appeared, and has now, apparently, disappeared again...

When I realised this, I had mixed emotions – I guess I have a love/hate thing going on – I never wanted to visit the hospital, but the doctors and nurses there did look after my dad for more than two years, and rid him of that terrible disease... I decided to see if any physical trace of the hospital still exists.

The ground, on part of which the hospital was built, was known as The Grange, and has a long history. Title to the land goes back to the 14th century when Robert the Bruce, King of Scots, granted a charter to Sir William Durham for 'faithful services as a knight'.

Through the centuries, ownership of the land changed a number of times, until 1864 when it was bought by Alexander Gordon, a flax spinning manufacturer of Arbroath. By 1886 he had built a fine mansion on the property.

About a hundred years ago, actually in 1913, Dundee Corporation acquired the mansion house and 48 acres of land to accommodate a sixty-bed sanatorium – the hospital was opened in 1916. A surgical block was originally built in 1932 as a combined orthopaedic and thoracic unit for tuberculosis, but wasn't fully operational until 1947.

Emergency wards were built in 1940 by the military authorities to accommodate air raid casualties and war wounded, and post war, they were utilised for medical treatments of patients suffering from respiratory complaints, principally TB. Medical staff at Ashludie were considered to be `leaders in the field' for treating chest problems.

'Open air' was an important part of the treatment, and the wards had large French windows which opened to the elements. Patients were also nursed in open-sided chalets (see various designs from around the world in the photos).


The hospital was transferred to the National Health Service in 1948 and in the late '50s was converted for geriatric patients. A new unit was added in the early 1970s. The facility closed for good in 2013, and one of the original ward blocks (nearest the house) was demolished in 2014. Since then, the remaining ward blocks have also been knocked down and the manor house has been converted into residential flats. The whole site has been converted into a large housing estate.

When turning land into a housing development, many factors are considered. The end result is a Plan of Subdivision showing where the roads with their individual lots will be located. Sometimes as in the example below, a simple, rectangular piece of land, the layout is obvious, and it's easy to make the most efficient use of the land.
However, many sites are not simple rectangles, and factors such as treed areas or ponds or high ground etc. result in curved street layouts, cul-de-sacs and so on. It can happen from time to time that orphan lots result – sites that are too small, or for which it's impossible to provide access. Sometimes, if there is room for an adjacent pathway, they can be turned into say, a parkette, or a children's play area. If not they're likely to be simply left as grass.

There is at least one such area on the Ashludie site – the Figures below show how this came about and the significance:
Fig 1. The first two ward buildings ca. 1921 showing two sets of seven chalets. Fig 2. Shows, ca. 1938, how two of the chalets (13 and 14) were moved to the other end of the row to make room for the new surgical block.

Fig 3. One of the trefoil-shaped ward buildings gone to allow for new wards in top right corner. Some chalet foundations still visible ca. 2001. Fig 4. From Google 2018, showing the small land-locked area.

I visited the site some time go and took some photographs which show that this is the site of one of the chalets – while the rails have been removed, you can see the base which held the central post that allowed the chalet to be turned. (The photo on the right shows a close-up of the central pivot point.) My measurements indicate that this was chalet 12.


I find it comforting somehow, fitting, that this small physical artifact remains as a little remembrance of the men, women and children who were treated there – some who died, many who survived. Perhaps it will still be there a hundred years from now...

What You Gonna Do When They
Come for You...?

Jim Howie
Whilst holidaying in New England in 2002 we spent a week in Great Barrington, Massachussetts. The local cinema, the Mahaiwe (Mahican for 'downstream') had been converted for stage shows by amateur groups and Les Miserables was on during our stay – we booked tickets.


The Mahaiwe opened in 1905 as a vaudeville house, and also hosted graduations, children's festivals and
other community events. Since then it has shown movies and had theatre, opera and ballet performances. Refurbished, it offers today, year-round programming that runs from dance to music, theatre, classic movies, and live-streamed events from around the world. Stars who have appeared live incude Judy Collins, Joan Rivers, Whoopi Goldberg, and Melissa Etheridge.

Prior to the show we were walking through the local park which had a bandstand à la Dundee's Magdalen Green, when we were hailed by a family group picnicking there before showtime. They invited us to join them and we were soon the best of friends.

The Bandstand and Park across the Street from the Theatre.
On parting we exchanged email addresses with one couple from Lake Placid in New York State who also had a house in Albany. On visits to New England we would meet for breakfast at The Blue Benn Diner in Bennington, Vermont, which was midway for both of us.

In the railcar or boxcar style of the movies we saw in the '40s, this circa-1945 diner has the booths, the counter seats, the jukebox, the serving hatch to the kitchen, the all-day breakfast and of course all the pancakes and doughnuts you an eat...

After one meeting they suggested that we join them at their Albany home for lunch (actually in Troy, a nearby city), and told us how to get there. (Troy is where Samuel Wilson, born in Greenock, is buried, he had a meat packing business supplying the US army in the early 1800's. His barrels were stamped 'US', and he became known as Uncle Sam – the rest is history.)

Unfortunately the directions failed us and we ended up in a part of Albany that we preferred not to be in... Whilst sitting in our hired car weighing up our options an Albany Police cruiser drew up alongside and one
of the cops asked if we needed help – we answered "Yes!". He started to give verbal directions to our destination, then had a change of mind and said, "Follow us". We did and they took us to our destination, even putting on the blue lights as we arrived...

Our hosts were suitably impressed!!!

Ashludie
Hugh McGrory
It was around 1949/50. My dad, 'home from the war' some four years or so, was a bricklayer, about 40 years
old at the time; I was 12, my wee brother seven years younger. My mother was worried about Dad – he was losing weight, had a cough and seemed low on energy. He was reluctant, but Mum insisted he go see the doctor (for Dundonians, our GP was Doctor Jacob whose surgery was on Victoria Road opposite the Public Health Clinic).

To cut a long story short, Dad was diagnosed with tuberculosis (TB) and was admitted to Ashludie Hospital for treatment. The good news – he was eventually sent home cured. The bad news – it was almost two and a half years later...

It was a worrying time for my mother obviously – for both health and economic reasons. My mother, brother and I had to attend the Public Health Clinic in Constitution House (55 Constitution Road) to be x-rayed and tested to see if we had the disease. I remember getting a small injection on the inside of my left forearm and being told to come back in a couple of days. My arm got red and a little bump developed – I was convinced that I had the disease and would be sent to hospital too...

The size (diameter) of the redness was the key, and mine was in the 'between 5 and 10 mm' range which was explained to us as indicating that I had been exposed to the TB germ and my immune system had recognised it and was dealing with it. (A diameter of over 15 mm would have indicated infection). Thankfully, all three of us were clear.

We did suffer economically though – my mother worked as an office cleaner, but she didn't make enough to keep us. However, since the Poor Law had been replaced in 1948 by the National Assistance Act, my mother was able to apply to, and receive some money from the NAB (The National Assistance Board.)

I remember too, that I had to ride my bike, once a month, to the home of
one of the officials of the Bricklayers' Union (The Amalgamated Union of Building Trade Workers) and be given an envelope with something like £4 in it from their benefit fund.

I can honestly say though that I never ever felt poor – we had a decent home and were well fed and clothed. I'm sure that my mother struggled to provide this, but at that age I never thought about it. I was though, conscious that we were 'on welfare' and never spoke about it to my schoolmates, teachers or indeed anyone...

Some information I didn't know regarding TB:

In the late 1940's, TB was a huge problem in Scotland. By 1948 it was virtually the only country in Europe where new cases of pulmonary tuberculosis were continuing to rise unchecked. Scots were dying from this disease at the rate of one every two hours! Up to that time, treatment was quite primitive, and TB patients could spend a year or more resting in a sanatorium to give their bodies the chance to fight the disease. Half of those diagnosed died within five years. It was a dreadful time – made worse by the appalling stigma attached to the disease.

The three bedrocks of treatment were good nutrition, fresh air and strict bed rest. The idea was to improve the body's immune system to encourage it to fight the disease. The first two seem obvious and appropriate, but the bed rest was draconian... Here is a description from a female patient:

"Absolute and utter rest of mind and body – no bath, no movement except to toilet once a day, no sitting up except propped by pillows and semi-reclining, no deep breath. Lead the life of a log, in fact. Don't try, therefore, to sew, knit, or write, except as occasional relief from reading and sleeping." It must have been torture - especially in those days before TV! Today, it's no longer practised, being recognised not only as unhelpful, but harmful.

It seems that my dad was lucky to have caught the disease at the right time just as the wonder drug streptomycin – the first real cure – appeared on the scene. It was developed at Rutgers's University, apparently from samples taken from a dung heap and a sick chicken's throat... William Feldman, a Glasgow-born vet, helped refine it into acceptable form at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. (Sadly, streptomycin came just a little too late for Eric Blair who died in 1950 – the world knows him better by his pen name, George Orwell.)

Two new drugs, para–aminosalicylic acid (PAS) and isoniazid also became available, but no-one knew how to use them to get the best effect and overcome drug resistance. Over the next year or two it was realised that the key was to give new patients all three drugs at the outset. With this 'triple whammy' regimen, and with meticulous bacteriology and monitoring of each patient's progress a 100% cure for tuberculosis was suddenly a reasonable objective. Between 1954 and 1957 TB notifications in Edinburgh were more than halved – a feat unmatched anywhere before or since.

Some well-known people benefitted – Ringo Starr, Tom Jones, Tina Turner, Cat Stevens, Carlos Santana, Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela to name a few.

My dad did suffer through bed rest when he was first admitted, spending most of his time in one of the wards which had walls with large doors/windows which opened up completely to let in that good Scottish sea air. I remember that he was on streptomycin and PAS – don't know about the isoniazid.

At one point my mum told us that Dad would have to have an operation. It was to induce a collapsed lung on one side (to allow it to rest and heal). He was told that in due course it would be re-inflated. He was finally taken into the theatre for the reversal procedure only to be told afterwards that it could not be re-inflated (because of scar tissue build-up or something similar). For the rest of his life he managed with only one lung.

For the last part of his stay, dad was moved into one of the chalets. These were little three-sided huts which accommodated two beds – the fourth side was open to the elements. The chalets could be rotated on rails to face the sun (or away from the rain). If rain was expected the patients would be covered in rubber type waterproof sheets to keep them dry.

I mentioned previously the stigma attached to TB in those days. It arose from the fact that Scotland was particularly bad with regard to housing the poor working classes. The dilapidated homes, poor sanitation, and overcrowding were an ideal breeding ground for TB and so it became associated with the poor and downtrodden. So, TB, like cancer, was a word that you almost never heard uttered.

My mum visited my dad every weekend – there was a special bus service from Albert Square in Dundee to the hospital. Every now and then she decided that I should go with her to see my dad. Being the self-absorbed little twit that I was I always tried to make excuses not to go – until she put her foot down.

I was just a kid then, but I feel ashamed now, that I felt ashamed then, just because my dad was ill. I was embarrassed that we were on welfare, that I had to go to dad's Union for a hand-out (although it was a benefit paid for from his weekly dues), that we couldn't mention the word TB to anyone – and I was always worried that by going to see him I might catch the disease...

As I said earlier, my dad spent almost two and a half years in Ashludie; thankfully he was cured, but he was unable to return to his job as a bricklayer. He lived another quarter century, worked as a storeman and retired at 65.

Our Air Raid Shelter
Gordon Findlay
During World War II there were more than 500 German air attacks on targets in Scotland and more than 2,500 people died as a result. Dundee was fortunate; the German war machine barely touched the city. (Local Dundee wits spread the rumour that the city was always going to be spared because Hitler's granny was born there.)

But early on in the war, Dundonians – like everyone else in Great Britain – were ordered to stop any light leaking out from windows at night, and air raid shelters sprouted throughout the city.

The majestic iron railings that ran around Morgan were removed and carted off to help fuel the country's war effort. Ornamental metal fences disappeared from homes. Brick air raid shelters for all the Morgan pupils were erected on that pristine stretch of lawn which faced the front of the school.

My father decided against building an Anderson shelter in our front garden. He felt they would offer scant protection from German bombs and he opted instead to construct a shelter inside our home at the corner of Shamrock Street and Mains Loan.

Our local Home Defence office provided my Dad with a basic guide to constructing a shelter inside a home. Essentially, you picked a floor-level room that had one or more major supporting beams above it, and with either no windows or a single one. This window was to be cross-taped to prevent broken shards from flying inward from a blast. Then, the homeowner was told to equip the room with bedding, since the family would retreat to this room in the event of a raid. Moreover, the room had to have one bucket of sand, one bucket of water, a flashlight, a first-aid kit that included anti-burn cream or ointment, our gas masks, a whistle (presumably to help rescuers find you).

We had a spare room downstairs and my Dad deemed it would serve as our "safe room", and once we had it ready and equipped I was anxious for the German Luftwaffe to come over some night so we could put our handiwork to the test.

And finally, it did happen.

The date was November 5, 1940 – one of the very few times that Dundee was hit by bombs from German planes. After dark the city's air raid sirens went off. My mother got me and my brothers up, and down we went to our safe room, where we found our father adding an additional water bucket to our supply.

We settled into the floor beds my mother had laid out for us. We were all much too excited for sleep. My older brother David said we'd be sure to hear the German bombs coming down because they fitted whistles to them so they shrieked and frightened people as they came down (that was very reassuring to hear).

The raid was all over within an hour, and soon after that the 'All Clear' sirens sounded. The Luftwaffe raiders had apparently been heading for Clydebank, but the lights of Dundee had stimulated some over-anxious crews to drop their bombs.

One bomb hit a 4-storey tenement on Rosefield Street and killed two residents.

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A previous story dealt with the bombing of Dundee in some detail. See it here if you're interested.
... all the towns in all the world...(1)
Hugh McGrory
I have a personal classification for towns – in my mind there are three categories:

1. All of the towns that don't fit into types 2 or 3 below – we've all been in hundreds of such places, all different, but really all the same...

2. Your hometown which, I believe, is a special place for most of us. Given the mobility of the world population today, and the way people often live in many different places on different continents throughout their life, it raises the question "what is a home town?"

You might suggest the place where you were born. While that is an obvious definition, it's not very useful – if your parents moved while you were still a baby you wouldn't remember anything about your birth town.

In my mind it's the place you think of when people ask if you ever visit your hometown... Specifically, I think it's the place where you spent most of your formative, teenage years – say from 13 to 16.

3. The Great Cities – those places that would be on your list if asked to name the ten great cities of the world. Places like London, Paris, New York, etc. No doubt there would be great commonality in such lists, the same cities showing up all the time, but there may be one or two surprises in each individual list – New Orleans and San Francisco would be on my list.

One of my favorites is New York. I've been there several times over the years, and it's always been a
fascinating experience. It's teeming with people, noisy (the Noo Yawk accent), dirty, smelly – always something happening around you, day and night. Every visit leaves you with fresh memories...

Around the '60s/'70s New York had a few places to eat that visitors had to try – places like Sardi's, Toots Shor's, Maxwell's Plum, Mamma Leone's – each with a different ambience – I've eaten in three of the four – all closed now...

I remember Mamma Leone's – my friend from Texas, Sam (whom I've mentioned before) and I, had dinner there in the '70s. I remember it for several reasons:

Size – so many rooms, tables, people... At the time, I believe it was the largest restaurant in New York.

So much food – To show my naiveté (I wasn't too familiar with Italian food) I heard the word antipasto, and, being as smart as I am, I figured "probably the sister – Mamma Leone and Auntie Pasto..."

Sam soon set me straight, so then, being as smart as I am, I figured it meant 'before the pasta'. Wrong again – as you all know, I'm sure, it simply means before food, the Italian version of 'hors d'oeuvres'.

The description of the meal below tells the tale. I barely got past Auntie's Pasto and could only pick at the main dish when it arrived...


The final thing I remember about the evening is a group of fellow diners. We were in quite a large room, and against one wall not too far from us was a wedding party. They sat at a long table against one of the walls, and somehow separated from us – can't remember whether it was on a slightly raised platform, had a small balustrade, or both.

In any event, it had the bride in white, the groom and others in tuxes, and we could identify the parents on each side, there must have been about two dozen to thirty in all. They seemed to be Italian, probably a good bet given the venue, and reminded me of the wedding scenes from The Godfather movie.

At one point, Sam commented on something that I had also noted – that the mood seemed rather subdued. I said "Maybe it's a shotgun wedding..."

Some time later, they got to the speeches, we tried to give them some privacy, and couldn't really hear very much. Finally, the bride stood up. This photo is from the Web – the closest I could find to my memory of that lovely young woman...

Noo Yawk, Noo Yawk – that city that never sleeps – definitely one of the great cities of the world... What would your Top Ten list be?

--------------------
(1)
You knew where this partial quote comes from – right? Rick to Ilsa?

"Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."
Sandy Smith
Murray Hackney

Alexander Hall Smith 1920-2002, language teacher at Morgan Academy until 1954.
Most of our era will remember Sandy Smith, the 'one armed bandit' (we never called him that!) and learning
French or German in his classroom. A book written by him has come into my possession recently, but it is unlikely ever to be published. Called Maryfield Chronicle, a copy was given to me by his niece because I lived with my parents in Mains Terrace, only a few houses away from Sandy.

Much of the book concerns his thoughts about his neighbours, and might have led to libel cases if published during his lifetime! I have extracted and shortened bits relevant to the Morgan which might be of interest... First though, a few facts about this man who never talked about his extracurricular activities.

After primary and secondary education at Morgan Academy, Sandy graduated in
modern languages from St Andrews University with MA (Hons) in 1942. He then enlisted and joined the education branch of Somerset Light Infantry. Might sound like a cushy number, but it was anything but, as I learned recently. He saw action in North Africa, Sicily and Italy and rose to rank of Lieutenant.

In Italy, he purloined a motorbike and drove around collecting wine in two enormous pannier bags, and this was duly shared out to maintain morale in the ranks! Because of his gift for languages, mainly German and Italian, one of his jobs, unbelievably, was to crawl in darkness as near to enemy lines as he could, behind hedges etc. and eavesdrop for any information that might be useful. Imagine the swift reaction if he coughed or sneezed!

In one such foray in 1944, he overheard Germans discussing an imminent shell barrage in that area and hurried back to his lines. Superior officers doubted he'd got that right and took no action. Next day his small group was mostly killed by the shelling and Sandy was severely injured. Despite the injuries He walked several miles back over fields to a rear field hospital, where the sister in charge saved his life with a new medicine – penicillin. But his left arm could not be saved, and one finger of the right hand was missing (I never noticed that!) Amazingly, the sister turned out to be a native of Broughty Ferry, and Sandy took flowers to her for many years after the war, until her death.

Sandy graduated Ph.D. St Andrews in 1957 after leaving the Morgan and became lecturer in modern languages in Northern College Dundee, retiring in 1981, and died in April 2002. He was a fellow of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, member of National Trust, Abertay Historical Society, the Bonnetmaker Craft of Dundee, an elder in Dundee Parish Church (St Mary's) and a former President of the Dundee Franco-Scottish Society.

--------------------

Now for the extracts (I have omitted quotation marks...)
  • As a pupil before the war... As compensation for some very dull teachers, Bunny Hutch was my German teacher and inspired me with a zeal which has never left me. For maths we had RGC Peden, goalkeeper for Queens Park, a fine teacher and a hero. Art was taught nominally by Ninian Jamieson, who was losing his grip, necessitating frequent intervention by Curly Watson.

  • Teaching at the Morgan 1945-1954... On my return from the war, I was appointed teacher of modern languages, and my principal teacher was Charlie Elder who was very helpful to me. My classes were in dire need of being licked into shape, and fortunately I had army experience of all types of men and I enjoyed dealing with undisciplined youths trying to get the better of a young teacher – I think I won!

  • Nicknames...
    Miss Mackay – 'Kaiser Bill';
    Miss Hoy – 'Hoyser';
    Miss Stewart –'Kipperfeet';
    Mr Hutchison – 'Bunny Hutch'
    And many others...

  • Tattie Holidays... Potato Duty for us junior teachers involved being at school before 6.00 am, home for breakfast then field supervision, followed by lunch at Kinnettles or Murroes, going home by public transport. I didn't enjoy that very much.

  • Rectors...
    Dr. Alexander Leighton was a stern man, greatly feared, but with a heart of gold. He met his match when he asked two boys in the corridor why they were not with their class. David Dundas, who became a lawyer, replied "We are the class, sir". They were on their way to Latin as the only two in that class.

    David E Collier. His claim to fame was to introduce mixed dances instead of the previous segregation of the sexes. He believed in the social side of school life!

    Peter Robertson was appointed rector while I was on active service in Italy, and he maintained traditions and always gave his staff their proper place and his backing.

  • 'Cheesy'... An English teacher, he was happier coaching rugby or talking about stamps. Teaching was not his forte. He was immensely popular because of his interest in extra mural activities, and his classes were inevitably chaotic – he did not seem to see it, or if he did, it did not bother him.

  • Musical Evenings... When I joined the staff, I was elected President of the Boys Lit. On the first 'Victorian' evening I sang the 'Gondoliers Duet' with Alex Melvin, and the 'Twins Duet' with Don (DB) Smith.

  • The Belt... Each teacher had his own technique, some casual, some more enthusiastic. A minority of us tended to use it for minor infringements, but generally it was applied fairly. Horse play in the lines often brought the command "my room, boy!" And this was usually worth two of the best.

    The Lochgelly special was 22-inch by 1 and a quarter inch and varied from one eighth to three eighth inch in thickness, manufactured by Phillips of Lochgelly or John Dick.

    Certain lady teachers boasted that they never had to resort to the belt to retain discipline, but I knew they asked male colleagues to do their dirty work! Outlawed now at great cost – anarchy in the classroom and nervous breakdowns amongst teachers. (This written in 1986 when Sandy could not have foreseen the situation now!)

  • The School Song... "Hail the Morgan, stately, splendid..." Words by Rev. Dr Blair, music by Anne C Bewick, who later became Mrs. Leighton. At prize-giving or closing days, the substitution of 'jail' for 'hail' was sung with great gusto, to the irritation of the rector, who was powerless to stop it.
  • --------------------
These extracts cover about a quarter of Sandy Smith's wee book, and the rest would be of little interest to anyone (unless they happened to live in Mains Terrace!)

Bernard Street
Hugh McGrory
Dundee, Scotland, the city of my birth, has a unique location on the north bank of the Tay Estuary. The town is dominated by The Law – a hill, almost 600 ft high, formed in pre-historic times by volcanic magma. The Law is the site of a tower and beacon memorial to the memory of Dundee men who fell in The Great War, 1914-1918.

Looking southeast over the Law, the City below, and the Tay Estuary.
(Click for a panoramic view from the far shore – a series of about a dozen photos I took in 2008, and stitched together. Click on the panorama to expand it.)
There are several watercourses crossing the city, the two principal ones being the Scourin' Burn(1) and the Dens Burn. During the early industrial age, the first factories followed the courses of these waterways, running water providing power and being used in the treatment of textiles, cotton, and later, jute. These streams exist today but are mostly covered over.

For those who know Dundee but may have forgotten their geography: The Dens Burn came round the Law on the east side via Dens and Victoria Roads, the Scourin' Burn on the west via Blackness Road, Brook and Guthrie Streets, and Ward Road. They met at the top of what is now Commercial Street, then flowed south to join the estuary at a creek situated at the intersection of Gellatly Street and the Seagate.

Industrial development around the beginning of the 18th century saw the building of textile mills along these two streams. This led to the concurrent building of housing for mill workers. When I was at school, my mother's younger sister Eleanor, with her husband Jim, and daughter Eleanor, lived near the top of Hawkhill, in Bernard Street, not far from the Scourin' Burn, in one of those old housing developments. Bernard Street was quite short, led southward from Hawkhill, with two or three-storey tenements(2) on either side.

The home of my aunt and uncle was a flat on the upper level of one of those tenements. Access was through a close between two ground-level flats and up an outside stair to a 'plettie',(3) passing the outside communal toilet halfway up.

I think that Jim's parents had lived in the flat, a but an' ben,(4) for many years before. I don't remember much about the home – I liked my aunt and uncle, but I know that I was glad that I didn't have to live there. I also remember that it seemed to be chock full of furniture – it was like an obstacle course to move around. The family eventually moved out to a flat which they purchased in Forest Park Road – much more comfortable accommodations.

Bernard Street was considered one of the poorest streets in Dundee at that time – around 1950 – but it was known for something else. It was known in local newspapers as "The Best Dressed Street in Dundee".

Every time there was a major event, VE Day, royal marriage or Coronation, out would come the flags and the buntings – and an article in the paper...

Bernard St. plettie
ca. 1925.
Coronation celebrations
1953.
Possibly VE Day celebrations
1945.
My aunt and uncle were decent, hard-working people – I'm sure that most of their neighbours were the same – living, at the time, in the very old sub-standard housing that was Bernard Street. I've always wondered what it was that made that community indulge in the periodic 'dress-up' of the street. VE Day is easy to understand, but The Coronation in 1953 – a celebration of the wealthy English by the poor Scots?

Go figure...

--------------------
(1) Pronounced 'scoorin'. The scouring or cleansing stream.

(2) A tenement is a multi-occupancy building – an apartment building.

(3) Access to these early tenements was through a close (a central passage-way giving access to the common stairs and the floors above). The two ground floor homes could be accessed from the close, but to get to the upper floor apartments it was necessary to continue through the close to the back yard.

There, uncovered stairs would ascend to uncovered platforms (known as pletties) attached to the rear of the building which gave access to the 'front doors' of the homes. See below:

The front might look like this. The rear like this... ...or this.

(4) But an' ben refers to two-room homes – as you enter through the front door, you're in the but, the living/dining room/kitchen, with another door connecting to the second, inner room, the ben, usually the bedroom.

A Toast to You
Bill Kidd
As a result of my sporting, social, employment and marital relationships I have been privileged to be on the fringes of that group of former Morgan pupils who have self-identified as a special intake and output of Morgan Academy. This group have had no corporate sponsorship by the school or any formal structure, they just seemed to coalesce as an entity. I know of no other informal group who have enjoyed a similar relationship over such a long period of time...

The seven reunions held over the years have proved to be warm and relaxed gatherings of friends who have enjoyed their time at school together, and an opportunity to hear how life has treated them and how they have treated life. They are truly a unique group and I have enjoyed their company.

As a mark of my admiration I offered to propose a toast at what, after seven decades, was to be the final organised meeting of the group, held on 15th June, 2019, and I set out the text of it below.

The Final Gathering – a View from the Edge
I stand here as an outsider, a pariah, a Harrisite no less! I am permitted to be here only because I met and married Muriel, who is one of you. What I did not realise then was that along with her, came a couple of hundred surrogate Morgan in-laws! Despite my obvious shortcomings, I confess that I have been made very welcome at every reunion that I have attended, and I thank you for that.

In 1984 you had your first reunion, organised by Bob Barnett and Murray Hackney. This was held in Bob's car showroom. I remember it well; we bought a Volvo from Bob a couple of months later! Regretfully Bob is no longer with us, but it is great to have Murray here today and to thank him for his part in organising that first get-together.

The reunions have become a highlight to be enjoyed every few years and judging by the playground chatter this one is up to standard. It is only right that we thank Anne, Richard and Hugh for their work in getting us together again today.

You are a unique group. Not because you were all pupils of Morgan Academy, or even that you all started your secondary education within a year of each other. You are unique because you are here, celebrating the 71st anniversary of the first of you commencing your secondary education and the 64th anniversary of the last of your cohort being cast upon this cold, wicked, cruel world to fend for yourselves.

And haven't you all done well? There is hardly a human activity or corner of the world on which you and the rest of your cohort haven't left your mark. Science, engineering, academia, sport, the military, education, commerce, the church, law, health......... I could go on! Part of your uniqueness is that you have kept together. At first informally, then networking by word of mouth, by telephone, by writing letters (perhaps you have forgotten what they were?). Then in more recent times by getting grandchildren or even great grandchildren to text, email or set up and try to explain the mysteries of the internet to you.

After all those years you are still interested in each other and you still care about each other and remember with affection those who are no longer with us or are unable to join us here today. That is really why you are unique and why I am proud to be standing here to offer a toast to your group.

Please charge your glasses and remember those who have already passed and those who, for whatever reason, cannot be with us today, while I salute the students and teachers of Morgan Academy Secondary Department's 1st years of 1948 & 1949.

You Can't Judge a Book By...
Hugh McGrory
I spoke, in a previous story, of Gordon, a fellow university student in civil engineering. Gord was brought up on a farm near Perth, Scotland, burly, not very tall, always smiling – a down-to-earth type – what you saw was what you got with Gordon.

He liked his beer, and seemed to spend a lot of time in the Student Union. We didn't really know each other,
weren't teamed on projects, and I, being from Dundee and having my own 'haunts', didn't frequent the Union.

I have always felt that I was a good judge of character (I'm guessing that you feel the same about yourself?) If I'd been asked at the time what Gordon's career trajectory might be like, I would have said something like: "He'll probably live somewhere in the Highlands or Islands, work for a small construction company, live in a small town or village, and spend a lot of his time in the evening at his 'local' where 'everybody will know his name', and be glad to see him.

We haven't been in touch since graduating, and by 1966 I was living in Canada. One evening I was a little late in switching on my TV to watch
a documentary about the construction of the Tunnel under the English Channel between France and England – The Chunnel.

They were in the middle of an interview with one of the people involved, and after a few minutes I began to wonder if I knew him. I took a closer look and listened to his voice and suddenly realised that this was Gord. "He must have had some kind of fairly senior job" I thought, "maybe he was the PR guy for the project."

I didn't have to wait too long to hear him addressed by his job title – 'Engineering Director, United Kingdom Construction, Transmanche-Link Joint Venture'. Gordon was the top man for construction of the UK end of the tunnel!

To get some idea of the magnitude of this position, let me remind you of some of the salient facts about The Chunnel:
  • A railway tunnel that runs between Folkestone, England, and Sangatte (near Calais), France. Total length 31 miles (50km) with 24 miles (38 km) under the sea.
  • Longest underwater tunnel in the world and third longest total length (Switzerland and Japan have longer). Actually it's three tunnels – two for rail traffic and a central tunnel for services and security. There are also several "cross-over" passages that allow trains to switch from one track to another.
  • The boring machines were longer than two football pitches.
  • Used for both freight and passenger traffic. Passengers can travel either by ordinary rail coach or within their own motor vehicles, which are loaded onto special railcars. Trains travel at speeds as high as 100 miles (160 km) per hour; the trip takes about 35 minutes.
  • Completed in 1994, it cost £9 billion pounds.

So, the lad that I thought would spend his days on small construction projects in the Scottish Highlands actually became the top construction manager on the greatest construction project the world has ever seen. If you think that is an exageration, read on:

You probably remember learning about The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World at primary school:

The Pyramids, The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Statue of Zeus at Olympia, Colossus of Rhodes, Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, Mausoleum of Helicarnassus, and The Pharos (Lighthouse) of Alexandria.

Did it occur to you that these are all major construction projects? Well, in 1994 the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) decided to put together a list of the most remarkable civil engineering feats of the 20th century. Nominations for this list were taken from all over the world. The seven selected projects are a tribute to the greatest construction works of the modern world:

Channel Tunnel (England & France), CN Tower (Toronto), Empire State Building (New York), Golden Gate Bridge (San Francisco), Itaipu Dam (Brazil/Paraguay), Netherlands North Sea Protection Works, The Panama Canal.

In 2013, the International Federation of Consulting Engineers celebrated the best consulting engineering achievements of the last 100 years. Decided by an international judging panel of industry experts. The Channel Tunnel won the Major Civil Engineering Project award...

So much for my thinking that I'm a good judge of character! Good for you, Gord!

Above, Gordon looking over the Tunnel entrance around 1990. He worked in many parts of the world, before and after the Tunnel – Scotland, Nigeria, Peru, The Phillipines, Hong Kong – photo on the right was taken at an event of the Selangor, Malaysia, St. Andrew's Society around 2005.

Notes
You can see Gordon (and hear his Perth accent) in this video.

Gordon featured in a previous anecdote – see it here.
Dundee During The War
Gordon Findlay
As a boy, you are not much aware of war's privations. That was for adults to worry about. I don't recall ever going hungry, although for three years or so, potatoes and vegetables (which were plentiful) formed a large part of our diet. My mother was skilled in "making do" and as the war progressed, she was able to find a local farm which always had eggs – at a price.

Somehow, my mother managed to drive out there (gasoline was severely rationed and Dad only got his ration because he needed a car to service our pub) and buy a regular supply of eggs. We ate them while they were fresh; the rest were put down in a large stoneware jar in clear isinglass, a thick viscous liquid which preserved them until my mother needed them for cooking.

There was always – always– a huge bowl of freshly-cut carrots sitting in cold water sitting on our dining room table. You walked past the table . . . you grabbed a carrot stick, or two, many times during the day. They were our fast food all during the war. We must have eaten ten thousand carrots as boys, only learning later that we probably couldn't have eaten anything healthier.

The British War Ministry even floated the story that our brave Spitfire and Hurricane fighter pilots sat in their dispersal huts waiting for the signal to fly into action, and gobbled carrot sticks to sharpen their eyesight, thanks to the magic ingredient of carotene in every carrot. It was all pure bunkum of course. Eating a dozen carrots a day does nothing to improve your eyesight – but it almost made it loyal and sensible to be munching carrots when you felt a hunger pang.

The one thing I truly missed during the war was candy. I have a highly-developed sweet tooth (inherited from my parents, who both loved nothing better than a box of fine chocolates or a bar of Dairy Milk). But sugar was tightly rationed and the other ingredients of chocolate – cocoa beans for example which had to be imported from West Africa – simply stopped coming into Great Britain during the war years. There were some
tasteless ersatz candies made from saccharine and other substitute sweeteners, but they were all pretty horrible and few people bought them.

Later on during the war, around 1943, when the tide was slowly turning in the Allies' favour and beet sugar
was flooding into the stores, the sugar ration was increased slightly. And my mother heard that one of Dundee's candy-makers – (an offshoot of Keiller's the marmalade people) was offering a deal.

If you brought in two pounds of white cane sugar to the store, they would turn it into fresh candies for a reasonable price. My mother promptly managed to save up the two pounds of white sugar, took it down to the store, and a week later I and David were with her when she handed in her ticket and received our box of freshly-made candies.

She had used some precious gas to drive down to the store; Dave and I sat hopefully in the car, waiting for her return. When she got back she sat down, ripped open the box and said: "Help yourselves!" I think I can still taste that wonderful tangy taste of a real candy – I think they were a sort of sweet peppermint flavor – and how you wished it would never dissolve in your mouth. Our mother was also savouring the candy, and then she said: "Have two more!" They were even sweeter than the first, pure heaven in our mouths.

In five minutes half the box had gone. And Mum then said: "We're going to eat the lot!" And that's exactly what we did, sitting in our green Ford, united in our little orgy of candy-eating after being starved of them for so long. Seventy-odd years ago, and I can still remember that warm and vivid pleasure.

When my Dad went off to be a driving instructor down in England (freeing up a younger man to go into action) I wasn't really aware of any huge change in our lives, except that we were on our own in the evening, when Mum had to see to the running of the pub when it was busiest. And of course, as the war progressed, more and more military units arrived in all parts of the U.K. including our area.

A Different Point of View
Hugh McGrory
My last story described my visit to St. Paul's Cathedral, and the wonderful views from the 'top of the world'. This story describes the same visit from a different perspective.

You'll remember that to go beyond the Golden Gallery we had to climb a series of wooden stairs, each at quite a steep angle, one person at a time. Each section went up about 10 ft vertically through an open trap door into a little room which allowed us to walk around to the next ladder and repeat the process.

I was with a group of friends, four guys and a girl. We were part of a larger group of strangers ahead of, and behind us, who had decided to continue the climb. The girl's name, I remember, was Esmee; she was attractive, outgoing, liked to laugh, and got along well with everyone – just one of the guys...

Esmee and I were the last of our small group. I was right behind her, and, being the gentleman I am, kept a close eye on her in case she lost her footing.

Remember, this was 1959, and Britain had not yet entered the 'Swinging '60s', and Mary Quant and André Courrèges hadn't yet inspired the mini-skirt craze. In fact, below the knee or mid-calf full-round skirts were


in vogue. Such skirts needed support to look good, and paper or nylon petticoats were used extensively to create a bouffant effect. Several layers of petticoats were often worn, until, for a brief period, 'crinolines', or 'hooped skirts' were 'in' and multiple layers weren't needed.

Esmee was wearing a white skirt with lots of small pleats, accordion style I think it's called, with hoops. (Imagine the skirt from the iconic dress Marilyn Monroe wore in The Seven Year Itch but with a hooped
petticoat underneath). As we climbed, I, of course had to look up frequently to check on her progress.

From time to time we had to pause because of delays ahead, and during one of these she looked down at me and asked, "Enjoying the view?"

I would have looked out of a window at that point, but there weren't any... Busted!

I responded with some witty repartee like "Uhh... Yeah." She laughed and said "Just as well I put on clean knickers every morning..."

Memorable as that climb was, I'll always remember it for what happened next:

Behind us was a family of four, a couple of around 30, with two boys around 7 or 8 years old. We came to a halt again with Esmee standing on the fifth step and I standing on the platform waiting for the line to move so that I could start up.

The family below had been climbing with the mother in the lead, then the boys and the father bringing up the rear. It seems that the kids got a little bored and decide to pass their mother and have a race. As I stood
there, I heard the rapid patter of feet and the kids burst onto the platform. The one in the lead was looking back at his brother and, rather rudely burst past me and started up the stairs.

His attention was wholly on his brother, and he didn't look where he was going – until his head disappeared up Esmee's skirt. For a moment there was a frozen tableau – nobody moved – the kid was visible only from the shoulders down. I think he was so shocked and embarrassed that he didn't want to come out and face the music...

He finally reappeared and stepped down, his face like a tomato. Esmee and I, the parents and the younger brother all began to laugh, while the kid slunk behind his mother, so he didn't have to face us.

I'll bet he still remembers enjoying that day as much as I did...

Passport Control
(or Lack Thereof...)

Jim Howie
In 2004, my wife, Moira and I booked a holiday, flying to Prague, staying a few nights there, then onwards to Budapest and Vienna by coach.

We went sightseeing on the Friday in Prague's Old Town Square, and later we discovered that our passports and air tickets had been stolen from Moira's unzipped bag. She remembered being surrounded by three young girls at one point, so we think they were probably the pickpockets.

The nearest police station was like something out of the past, dark and gloomy, however we got proof that we had reported the theft to the police, and set off for The British Embassy.


We knew we were at the right place when we were greeted by a statue of Dundee's former MP Winston Churchill. On explaining our predicament to the receptionist, she explained that we would have to complete forms identical to the ones used in the UK and submit it with the photographs and with payment, but they would be unable to issue replacements until the Monday, by which time we were due in Budapest. They also said that if Moira was upset and needed support they could provide that at a cost!!! We did not take them up on that offer.

The next day (Saturday) we completed the forms and were asked to phone on Monday to confirm they were
in order. Apparently emergency replacement passports are only issued in life or death situations.

As The Czech Republic had just been admitted to The European Union days earlier, there was still some doubt about free travel between countries, and our tour guide suggested we travel without passports and collect them when we returned to Prague a week later - he suggested we sit at the back of the coach...

There were border controls as we entered Hungary, but we passed through without incident.

We had a conducted tour of Budapest and at the end I asked the guide where The British Embassy was, as I did not relish the idea of phoning from a public phone to Prague, he said he would take us there and chatting along the way he said he had been to Dundee and asked about The Discovery etc.

British Embassy, Budapest, at the time of the Story.

The staff member at the Embassy in Budapest was persuaded to phone Prague and confirm that our passport applications were OK and that replacements would be available for collection, this she did but was surprised we were there without passports and that we intended going on to Vienna then back to Prague without them, hinting that it would be unlikely we would succeed. I told her I would send her a postcard from Dundee when I got home later that week.

On re-visiting The Embassy in Prague, we collected our replacement passports; at the airport tickets were re-issued to replace the stolen ones and we made it back to Bonnie Dundee – and I did remember to send her that postcard!

St. Paul's
Hugh McGrory
In 1958-60 I worked in London, England. One day, I went to St Paul's Cathedral with a group of friends from work and had a tour of this magnificent building.
Recently, thinking back sixty years to that day, I recalled two things in particular. One I'll talk about now, the second I'll keep for another day and another tale....

I remember that we toured the ground floor and the crypt first, then set out in a group, with a guide, to 'scale the heights'. My memory is a bit hazy, but I remember lots of steps and stairs in various configurations mostly going around in circles...

There was an elegant, wide, spiral staircase, quite beautiful – The Dean's Staircase – 257 steps rising almost


100 ft to reach the Whispering Gallery. Then a one-person-at-a-time stone step spiral to get to the Stone


Gallery – a total of 376 steps rising to almost 175 ft. Finally a metal step spiral taking us to the Golden Gallery – 280 ft and 528 steps from the floor.

This is well worth the trip today, for the fine view of London from the Golden Gallery, 280 ft above the floor of the Cathedral . But we were made of sterner stuff back in the fifties. To put this into perspective, see the cross section of St Paul's. We actually got to the point marked 'X', about 355 ft above the floor of the Cathedral.
I remember a series of stairs going up from the Golden Gallery, each at quite a steep angle, made of wood, perhaps 3 ft 6 inches wide, so one person at a time. We would climb about 10 ft vertically through an open trap door to come out into a little room the sole purpose of which was to allow us to walk around to the next ladder and repeat the process.

We eventually arrived at the Lantern, and high in this structure were glass portholes, letting in some light – can't remember whether or not we could look out of them. We didn't stop there though...

There was a simple vertical builder's ladder, 12 inch rungs, going up perhaps 10 or 12 ft further. Those who wanted to, could climb this ladder. My memory is that my shoulders were brushing against the sides of the structure as I climbed to get to a point just below the Ball. When I could climb no further, my head and shoulders were surrounded by the eight golden supports holding up the Ball and Cross.

The supports had gaps between them open to the fresh air, covered on the inside, with chicken wire – presumably to keep out birds and bats. The view was wonderful – a quite brisk wind blowing through my hair added to the effect. I didn't know it, until now, but at that moment I was the highest person in the whole of London...

St Paul's was the highest building in London until the BT Tower opened in 1965. Full disclosure though, there just might have been someone higher than me at that moment – a steeplejack on the Battersea Power Stations chimneys, or a communications technician working on the Crystal Palace Transmission Tower – but unlikely – so I maintain my claim that I was, in fact, the highest!

This was the memory I had when I began to write this little story, but as I researched it, I began to wonder if I'd somehow made this up. The information about St. Paul's today only ever mentions tours going up to the
Golden Gallery. Maybe I was thnking of somewhere else, Coventry Cathedral perhaps?

I spent quite a number of hours over the last few days searching for clues. I found lots of photos of the Lantern Ball and Cross, but none helped – until I stumbled upon the one shown. If you click on the photo to get the enlarged version, you can see the golden supports for the Ball and Cross, and the angle is such that two of the gaps are in alignment so that you an see through to the sky beyond – and the chicken wire is visible. (Imagine my head looking out through the wire...)

Also, just yesterday. I came across this statement "There are 530 steps up to the Golden Gallery at the base of the lantern. It was once possible to climb even further up to the ball
under the cross but this is no longer permitted for safety reasons".

I rest my case.

Next time I'll tell you of the other reason I have fond memories of the views...

Queen and Country - 3
Bill Kidd
The anecdote describing our introduction to Bridgnorth, the RAF basic training establishment, ended with us being left with a series of tasks to be completed before morning parade at 08.00 hours. As reveille was at 06.30 there was little time available to wash, shave, get dressed and have breakfast, nevertheless we had made a good attempt.

At exactly 08.00 Corporal Rowe arrived, immaculate in his neatly pressed uniform and gleaming boots. He called us to attention and appraised the general appearance of the billet then slowly made his way round the room stopping at each bed-space and examined its occupant. Apart from drawing attention to one or two individual shortcomings of air-craftsman appearance the inspection was conducted in silence.

When he had completed his circuit he called us together and said the first kind words that we had heard from our masters since our arrival, "I have seen worse but you will have to work on your boots and webbing.", was magic to our ears. He then went on to say that our uniforms would need to be pressed before parade the following day. When asked if we could borrow an iron, we were told that this was not possible but that he had one he could sell us for 30/- and to let him know at lunch time if we wanted it. Needless to say, we each stumped up 2/- to buy the iron that the corporal had been given as a farewell present from the last intake of 6 Flight!

The rest of the day was filled by collecting a Lee-Enfield rifle each, receiving some instruction in how to handle it and store it securely in the racks placed at the end of the billet. This was followed by some basic rifle drill on the parade ground. There were also lectures on the history of the RAF, how to recognise the various badges of rank, who to salute and how to get your pay. All this activity filled in the day until 17.00 when we were marched back to our billet and dismissed until 08.00 the following morning with the warning that we were expected to look immaculate in our working blues. After dinner we did a little exploring around the station before settling into our new hobby of cleaning, polishing and pressing with our newly purchased iron.

The rest of the week continued in much the same fashion, parades, inspections, rifle drill, marching, lectures, physical training and sport. We became noticeably fitter and better organised in working together. Nearly everyone got on well with each other, the major conflicts only occurring when there was a mix up about whose turn it was for the iron!

During that first week we could not use the NAAFI or go to the cinema and were expected to go for meals together. We were recognised by everyone as the new intake because of the coloured disc that we had to wear behind the badge on our berets and consequently we received a fair bit of ragging from earlier intakes. About the only facilities that were available to us was the barber and the small NAAFI kiosk that sold cigarettes, sweets, soap, toothpaste and razor blades. By the end of that first week we were ready to face anything that the RAF could throw at us and looking forward to the extra freedoms that were to be granted to us in our second week.

For the next three weeks, although still confined to camp, we made the most of the precious free time that we had. We went to the camp cinema for a few pence a time, had cups of tea and buns in the Salvation Army canteen and made tentative sorties to the NAAFI to play table tennis and snooker, the high life indeed.

We became used to the pay parade that was held every Thursday. This consisted of parading in front of an officer, coming smartly to attention and saluting him when your name and "last three" were called. All this for 24/-, riches indeed! The days were overfilled with drill, P.T. in the gym, yet more drill, some sport and in keeping our hut and kit sparklingly clean. During this time, we learned to use RAF slang, to swear profusely and to light a cigarette during every smoke break.

We also had the privilege of attending lectures on diseases that your mother never mentioned and being injected with all sorts of vaccines. At the end of our fourth week of training we were given a thirty-six-hour pass which meant we could leave the camp, even return home, provided you lived close enough, in this we Scots were obviously discriminated against yet again! In truth it was great to just stay in camp and do just as one liked for two whole days.

The remainder of our basic training continued in much the same way as the previous three. In addition to the daily rifle drill we were given weapons training on Lee-Enfields that had not been abused on the parade ground and on stripping and reassembling a Bren-Gun. We were taken to a 25-yard shooting range where we fired ten rounds of .303 ammunition at a target and a further fifteen rounds as single shots and short bursts with the Bren. I gained two things from the live fire experience. First, the realisation of how easy it would be to kill someone with a modern weapon and second, how easy it would be for someone with a similar weapon to do me harm.

During those final weeks of training we came to respect the NCOs who harassed and chivvied us every day. They had a tremendous insight into the psychology of their charges. The first terrifying week of basic training was designed to build our flight into a team where we looked out for each other and used our talents to ensure that we worked well together. On the face of it we were bullied and belittled by the NCOs but very gradually most of us came to realise what a difficult job they had in only having eight weeks to convert a disparate group into recognisable members of the Royal Air Force.

During the final week of our training we were each told what our future role in the RAF was to be and where we would be posted to for our trade training. My own destination was to be RAF Wellesbourne Mountford for training as a Photographer. Following our passing-out parade on our final day at Bridgnorth we dispersed to our homes, most of us would never meet again but we all felt that we had shared a life changing experience. The last act of 6 Flight A Squadron RAF Bridgnorth was to present the Hut 26 flatiron to Corporal Rowe as a mark of our gratitude to him. No doubt the next intake would club together to raise the 30/- to buy it from him!

As I already had photographic qualifications, I only spent four weeks on familiarisation training before being sent to what was be my only permanent posting, RAF Kinloss. There, more or less happily, I spent the rest of my service.

Looking back on it, I believe that I benefited from the experience. National Service certainly extended my horizons regarding future employment and location and gave me the opportunity to meet, live and work with people from a wide range of backgrounds and education.

Should we bring back National Service? The military wouldn't want it and if it was brought back it would have to include both genders. Perhaps some form of National Service involving the NHS, Fire and Police services could be incorporated into post-sixteen education, but I think that it would be a brave politician that introduced it. When asked what benefit there was in having the Nation's young men spend two years in the military my reply is, "Well you didn't ask that question in Russian!"

My Terrier
Hugh McGrory
In 1957, I looked around for a replacement for my (too noisy) Excelsior motorbike. I discovered the Triumph Terrier and was very taken with its look which was styled after the larger Triumph 6T Thunderbird.

1954 Triumph T15 Terrier

(Now many of you are saying to yourself "So what, I've never even seen a 6T Thunderbird", to which I
respond "Do you remember seeing Marlon Brando in the 1953 movie, The Wild One? The 650cc motorbike he rode in that movie was actually his own bike – a 6T.")

The Terrier had very similar power to the Excelsior (8 to 9 hp), though it was a slightly smaller bike, 150cc instead of 197cc, four-stroke instead of two-stroke (so didn't need oil added to the petrol) with overhead valves.

It was a great bike to ride, not very heavy, very responsive and cruised nicely at 50 to 60 mph. It could handle a pillion passenger,
and my girlfriend and I had a lot of fun tooling around Dundee and its environs. I remember late one afternoon we took a trip to Lunan Bay (about a 50-mile round trip from Dundee, the bay has a beautiful two mile stretch of beach on the North Sea).

Beach at Lunan Bay.

I remember this trip for two reasons:
  • As we stood on the beach, looking eastwards across the bay (towards the North Sea and Denmark) we saw a lone bottle-nose dolphin cavorting in the still water – appearing and disappearing, spending ages feeding or perhaps just having fun?
  • Resident East Coast Female Bottlenose Dolphin with Calves.

  • In those days, to get to and from the main road, we had to use a track through fields – really just two parallel ruts for car wheels. These had gradually gotten deeper over the years such that some of the cars, I'm sure, must have scraped their bottoms.

    I chose one of the ruts and did my best to keep the bike upright. We finally found a pothole which caused my footrest to hit the earth and pitched us and the bike over. We were only doing a few miles per hour – neither of us was hurt, and the bike wasn't damaged.
Looking back, I fell off various bikes five times. I wore a leather jacket and a helmet, and was never really injured, apart from my pride, just minor scratches and bruises, and none of the bikes were damaged apart from some scrapes. I mentioned in a previous story riding the pillion of my buddy's twin 500cc BSA somewhere in the English Midlands at two in the morning, running into black ice and landing on our backsides. Probably doing around 50mph but neither of us were hurt.

On another occasion, riding home to Clement Park and making the turn from Lochee Road into Lansdowne Place, not noticing that some workman had pumped out water from a hole at the side of the road. My rear wheel slipped out from under me, probably only doing about 15mph, and the bike and I slid through the water and mud. Uncomfortable and messy but no real damage to the bike or me...

I can't remember the other two occasions, but they were also low-speed events. Motorbikes are great fun and allow you to spread your wings geographically (when you can't afford a car), but they can be dangerous, and no matter what you hit at speed, you and the bike are going to come off worse.

They're not a lot of fun in Scotland's rain either – when travelling to the university, I had a light-weight bike cover which I carried around with me for such days – used to park the bike behind the old Student Union building, just at the entrance to the Geddes Quadrangle shared by the Engineering and Physics faculties.

The Heart of Dundee University, The Geddes Quadrangle.

I had the bike during the time I was a meat porter in the Dundee Slaughterhouse – used to park it out of the way in a grease-covered courtyard near the furnace room where offal was disposed of by burning.

One of the other porters asked if he could try the bike and I, reluctantly, said yes since he told me he knew what he was doing... I started the bike for him, told him that the clutch was quite sensitive so he should let it out gently, and only give it enough throttle to prevent it stalling as he got underway.

You know that scene in cowboy movies where a horse rears up trying to throw its rider, then gallops off with the rider hanging on for grim death...?

That's exactly what happened – the idiot gave it too much throttle, let the clutch out too quickly and the bike reared up (did a wheelie) and took off across the greasy yard, dragging him. It and the clown clattered into one of the buildings and came to a sudden stop. He wasn't badly hurt, and the bike survived remarkably well. I had a rear-view mirror on a long stalk and it was broken – I told him I expected him to pay for the replacement – he never did.

I had many happy days with that bike – sold it off when I left the Uni and headed out to conquer the world (London, England) and my first 'real' job.

My Mother Could Be Tough...
Gordon Findlay
From a standing start, once my Dad had been called into the Army, my mother had to master all the aspects of running a popular downtown bar and lounge. As I said earlier, staffing was a constant problem. With wartime shortages another major problem was dealing with suppliers of everything from beer to spirits.

As luck would have it, my parents were social friends with the Ballingall family. Hugh Ballingall and my Dad had gone to Morgan together, and had kept in touch, so when Hugh took over the family brewing business (Ballingall's Fine Ales & Beers) Caw's switched to serve Ballingall's draft beer.

We never went short of beer, thanks to that close connection – but getting liquor was another question. Some of the distillers tried to take advantage of the wartime shortages by demanding kickbacks for supplying Caw's long-standing quota of Scotch, gin, brandy, vodka, and the like. My mother had to deal with them face-to-face, and in some cases to stare them down when they tried to dust her off. She had to be tough. And she was.

In one instance, she told me in later years with some pride, she dealt with a representative from one of her Scotch whisky suppliers – Dewars. In talking with a couple of fellow pub-owners in Dundee, my mother had learned that this particular representative had invented a sneaky way of using the war-created shortage to put extra cash in his pocket.

When he came calling, he would tell a pub owner that he could only deliver HALF of the establishment's normal order of Dewar's Scotch. When the owner objected, this slimy rep would say that the full, normal order could be had – but only if the pub owner paid a 'special commission' under the table – a bribe to the tune of £50.

When my mother heard this story she made some preparations. When the rep arrived at Caw's and smirked out his offer, my mother pulled out a letter she had written the day before. The letter was addressed to the President of Dewars, detailing the exact words of the graft this rep was trying to pull. My mother said something along these lines:

"This letter will be in the mail today, by registered post, to your employer, unless you fill our proper order. You won't be a Dewar's representative for much longer!"

My mother said she was thrilled when the man's face paled (because losing his job meant he would immediately become eligible for service in the Armed Forces). He very quickly signed off on the original order and got out of Caw's. She never had a problem with him again.

Excelsior
Hugh McGrory
I mentioned in a previous story that, in my late teens and early twenties, I enjoyed motorbike riding. I was the proud owner of a couple of small bikes. The first of these was an Excelsior 197 cc (it looked very similar to the one in the photo, though this is the 1953 model – mine was probably the previous (1949) version).
1953 Excelsior Roadmaster 197cc. (Photo by Alan Kempster).

Despite how much I loved my Hercules push bike, I was heading to university and decided that I wanted to ride there without having to sit in classes in sweaty clothes. I couldn't afford a car, but I had saved up enough money for a motorbike. My mother, initially, was a stumbling block – not sure how I got around her, but she finally relented and I began to look for a used bike in my price bracket (I think around £40/50...)

I saw an advert for one from a little garage in Brechin, a small town about 30 miles away, jumped on a bus and went to see it. I did the deal and then had to get the bike back to Dundee. I'd never been on a bike before, so the seller took me out to the nearby road, showed me the controls and told me to try it out, so I rode about a mile up the road and back, then put on my 'L' plates and rode it back to Dundee (without falling off or hitting anything), although I have to admit that I found the ride quite nerve-racking, and my shirt was rather sweaty by the time I got home.

The bike served me well for about a year. It was a two-stroke engine fueled by a petrol/oil mix. It had no battery, having a magneto to provide the spark. One idiosyncrasy was that the lead to the spark plug would slacken off and have to be tightened from time to time.

I remember one day I was riding down Lochee Road, just at Dudhope Park, and the engine began to misfire slightly. My brain immediately said, "Need to tighten the ignition wire at the spark plug...". I reached down to tighten it... Idiot! As soon as I touched the plug, I got a shot of electricity that almost knocked me off the bike, probably more than 10,000 volts (though very litttle current – just as well...) I thought for a moment that my heart was going to stop. I pulled over to the side of the road to catch my breath, and then my brain said "... and remember the engine has to be off before you tighten the lead...."

The bike needed a new piston ring, which entailed taking off the cylinder, and I took it into a small garage in Yeaman's Shore just north of the West Train Station. They promised it in a couple of days, but when I called up to see when I could pick up the bike, they kept putting me off. I couldn't get a sensible answer as to what was taking so long, so I went down to see them.

I got hold of the owner, and he told me that they had completed the work, but they couldn't get the bike to run – it would start but would then die again. He said he'd never had this happen before and was totally baffled – had even taken out the spark plug and put a drop or two of petrol right into the cylinder – that got it to start and run for a brief period but then it died again.

I asked him what they were going to do about it, and he said they were going to have to repeat everything
they did the first time, until they figured it out... A couple of days later they said I could collect the bike. I was very keen to hear what it was all about, so we looked at the bike together. See the photo – the corrugated thingy is the cylinder which was removed to effect the repair. The round pie dish lower down is the aluminium cover for the magneto flywheel – this cover was also removed.

The cover is held in place by three spring-loaded clips around the perimeter. They discovered that, after the work was done and they were putting the cylinder back, they hadn't noticed that one of the clips had flipped back underneath the cylinder, and was trapped there when the hold-down bolts were tightened. This broke the air-tight seal and was the reason the bike wouldn't run...

Sometime later, I needed the bike to be tuned, and my Dad mentioned that one of his workmates liked to work on motorbikes. The fellow did the work charging me a reasonable price.

I collected the bike and found that it was running well, but the engine was way louder than it had been – so much so that when I passed pedestrians, they would all look to see where the racket was coming from.

I went back to the guy and asked him what he'd changed to cause this, and he said that it was nothing he'd done. I said it must have been, he denied it, and things got testy. I gave up, realising that my Dad had to work with this guy, but within a short time I sold the Excelsior and bought another bike. More on that later...

Queen and Country 2
Bill Kidd
The first episode of my journey through National Service ended with my being newly inducted into the RAF and going to bed feeling apprehensive about the next day's transfer to RAF Bridgnorth and the eight weeks of basic training ahead.

Our wake-up call came through the loudspeaker at 06.30. This rude awakening was followed by a quick wash and the arrival of our corporal who marched us to the airman's mess for breakfast. Before we returning to our hut, we were each issued with a lunch pack for the journey. Our picnic box was rather more substantial than the sandwich, cake, piece of fruit and little bottle of squash dished out before the Sunday school picnics of yesteryear!

On returning to our billet we were ordered to pack all our possessions into our kit bags and small packs, then to strip and fold our bedclothes and to stand by our beds for inspection. Our corporal and a shiny new National Service Officer carried out this inspection, seemingly with the sole purpose of ensuring that we had not misappropriated any of the bedclothes or furniture during our stay! By 09.00, burdened by our worldly possessions we were ready to get into the back of a lorry and say farewell to RAF Cardington. Being pre-Beeching the lorry took us to the nearby local railway station where we climbed aboard the RAF special train bound for Bridgnorth.

Our non-corridor compartment train took about four hours to cover the 120 miles to Bridgnorth with only one mercy stop during the journey. We were certainly relieved to arrive at our destination, but relief quickly turned to terror as we were rounded up by a band of psychopaths in the shape of a sergeant and a small pack of corporals. We were informed in words of four letters and two syllables that we were indubitably the most untidy, lazy and stupid men that the sergeant had ever encountered but such was his lot and he would just have to do the best that he could with such poor material, even if it killed us!. Our morale took a dip and we were a tired, sorry and somewhat frightened bunch that climbed onto the lorry that was to deliver us to our final destination which turned out to be a large tarmacked area that was to become very familiar to us, the Parade Ground.

We were chivvied into some semblance of order by the sergeant and told that when our name was called out to shout "Sir!", fall out and stand by the corporal who had moved to the side of him. This corporal would have day to day responsibility for our training. The sergeant called out our surnames and the last three digits of our service number, pausing only to hear the responding "Sir" or to criticise the slovenly way that some individuals marched to the waiting corporal. With surprising speed and in no particular order we found ourselves sorted into three groups of thirty-six, each led by its designated corporal. We were then addressed by a previously unnoticed officer who told us that he was the officer in charge of us, Flights 4, 5 and 6 of A Squadron RAF Bridgnorth and that he would ensure that his staff would turn us into the smartest, most efficient intake of recruits ever seen. He completed his speech with a curt "Carry on Sergeant" and exited left. He only made another couple of fleeting appearances during the remainder of our stay at Bridgnorth.

The next hour was spent sorting each Flight into some sort of order, starting with "Tallest on the right, shortest on the left", then "From the right, number!", immediately followed by, "Even numbers one step forward, March!". Our very own corporal revealed to us that we were Flight 6. Those with even numbers were allocated to Hut 26 and the remainder to Hut 27. A simple and fairly efficient means of allocating accommodation but perhaps less sophisticated than the Hogwarts' Choosing Hat! This exercise was followed by us and our worldly possessions being marched to our allocated huts.

To say that the huts were devoid of any signs of welcome wouldn't be an exaggeration, apart from the beds, bedding, large and small lockers, the only form of decoration was a large photographic print depicting a bed space with an airman's kit laid out in the approved (the only) style. Our corporal's welcoming speech consisted in him telling us his name and that we should stand to attention when addressing him as "Corporal". He went on to say that when he returned, he expected to see that the hut had been cleaned, the floor polished, beds made up and kit laid out as per the photograph. He concluded by telling us that he would return at 18.00 hours to take us to dinner.

As promised, our corporal returned but before we set off for our meal he had a walk round our hut finding fault with our housekeeping. A few individuals had their kit deposited on the floor because some item had been displayed in the wrong way in contravention of the example in the photograph. With a muttered, "How am I expected to cope with this bunch of halfwits", the corporal marched us to the mess hall. On our return, feeling the better of a decent meal, we were informed that we were to rectify the shortcomings of our housekeeping and that he expected us to clean our kit, have breakfast and parade in our working blues ready for billet and kit inspection at 0800 hours. With a final sadistic, "Have a nice evening", he left us to our own devices for the first time that day.

Left to ourselves with a lot of work to do, some of it clearly requiring individual and some requiring cooperative effort. We put our heads together and somehow worked out that as we were all in the same boat it would make sense to share the load as far as we could. This was when being in the school Cadet Force, the Scouts, the Boys Brigade or even the Brownies became useful and we had soon evolved a system of work share that made the best use of the talents that we had. My greatest gift was polishing the toecaps of boots using the spit and polish method. I soon had half a dozen pairs of boots polished to a reasonable level while my brass buttons and badges had been brassoed and my webbing blancoed by the owners of the boots.

In this way the floor got polished and the lockers dusted before lights out at 22.30 and Flight 6 of A Squadron Royal Air Force Bridgnorth fell exhausted into bed wondering what was in store for us over the next eight weeks but having the satisfaction of knowing that the nation was just that little bit safer because of our efforts that day!

Believe It or Not...
Hugh McGrory
In 1965 I was working in Fife on the design and construction of new roads. I was standing in a field that was
destined for some serious earth-moving activities in the future. I had a crew with me (a couple of workmen with a small backhoe like the one shown here).

I was holding a plan which indicated that there was an old buried pipe carrying water there – our job was to find it, pinpoint where it was and how deep. There was a road bordering the field on the west side, running north/south.

The plan showed the pipe approaching from the east,
crossing the road into the field then turning southwards into the area we were interested in. The plan, unfortunately, was very small scale, and distances measured from it were suspect, however we could see the signs of the crossing point on the road surface.

I had taken my best shot – a SWAG estimate (a "Scientific Wild Ass Guess") at a place to start – at a point south of where I felt the pipe would have completed its turn southward, and I asked the guys to dig an east to west trench. They did – no pipe. I asked them to go deeper, they did – no pipe. I told them to extend it eastwards, then westward – no pipe, no pipe.

After an hour or so, we looked at each other, they wanting to know, I'm sure, what bright idea I was going to come up with next – I had no idea, and was visualising holes all over the damn field trying to nail down the location

Then, out of the blue, I had this thought... maybe dowsing would work! I wasn't convinced that dowsing had
any scientific merit, but – what the hell... I told them to take a break and I'd be back in about 15 minutes.

Fortunately, there was a site office not far away, and in a cupboard there I found a couple of simple wire coat hangers. I borrowed a pair of snips, and cut off two lengths about two feet long, I then bent them into the shape of an 'L' with one leg about six inches long and the other around 20 inches (like a pistol), then headed back.

My 'crew' thought I was an idiot, I'm sure, and I sort of agreed with them – but in for a penny...

I stood at the edge of the trench they had dug and headed eastwards, holding the two pieces of wire like
'Two Gun Pete'.(1) The effect was just like the photograph, though, if you look closely, you'll see that the guy is holding two little loose handles. Mine wasn't as sophisticated – I held each with one finger and thumb – my forefinger under the 'barrel' just in front of the 'grip', and my thumb pressing down on the handle about two inches below the bend, lightly, so that they could easily move horizontally.

As step followed step, with nothing happening, I began to feel more and more embarrassed, when suddenly, about 40 feet east
of the trench, the two wires turned inwards and crossed each other. The guys marked the spot. I then walked east about fifteen feet, reversed course and walked back. Just after I passed the mark, the wires crossed again, and the guys marked that spot. We now had two flags about three feet apart.

We looked at each other and shrugged, moved the digger up and dug. Some time passed, slowly, as the hole got deeper, then, at about six feet the spotter shouted "Stop!". We looked and saw the top of a pipe – we'd found it, believe it or not – and on our very first try!

Given that it worked so easily for me, does that make me an expert dowser? No – that was my first and last attempt at dowsing. Do I think that dowsing actually works? No – while there are all kinds of anecdotal evidence out there, there haven't been any reputable, replicated tests that show dowsing is statistically any better than guessing.

So, do I have an explanation as to why it worked (or seemed to work)? No... My approach was pragmatic – we needed to find a pipe and we did. I still have no idea why it worked then – but if I ever had the same situation, I'd certainly try it again...

--------------------
(1)If you remember playing Cowboys and Indians as a bairn, you may recall the name Two Gun Pete. I always assumed that he was a gunslinger in the Wild West. In fact, he was apparently a policeman named Sylvester Washington, in Chicago in the '30s, '40s and '50s'.

If the stories are true, he was Dirty Harry before Clint Eastwood... If you'd like to read his story you may find it here.

The Women Take Over...
Gordon Findlay
One of the factors that had an enormous effect on the women in Great Britain was that, during World War Two, the country had to dig deeper and deeper into the available pool of men for the war effort.

Eventually, the country conscripted men of 40-45, and that age bracket included men like my father. He was served with conscription papers and off he had to go – leaving my mother, with three children still at home, to run Caw's!

It was only in later years that I realized how huge a load had been dropped on my mother:
  • Parent of three young developing boys, all at school, all involved in school sport and with other outside activities.
  • Food on the home front suddenly in short supply.
  • A thriving and popular pub to run.
  • Having to cope with staff shortages as young females went off to the higher pay of working in munitions factories, or joining a branch of the women's services so they "could do their bit".
My father had the good fortune to inherit one truly outstanding person: Ina (Ritchie). Ina had started as a young waitress and had quickly shown the drive, personality and toughness to do well in that role, so that she rose to become head of all the wait-staff. She was a gem.

Ina knew all the Caw's regulars, greeted them by name, and could handle multiple complicated drink orders with ease. She was firm but fair with the younger waitresses in the lounge-bar and when my mother had to take over running the pub, she became her strong right hand.

On the male side, my father made another good hire: Bob (MacKinnon) the barman. He had come into Dundee looking for work and approached Dad for a job in Caw's. He was a country boy, and honest as the day is long. He also had one other extraordinary quality: he was a teetotaler. Never touched the stuff. Bartenders who didn't drink were as rare in Scotland as Zulus!

Dad quickly began to train him as our bartender. Bob mastered the job well and this took some of the pressure of my father who could now move between both the bar and the lounge-bar (where ladies and their escorts could sit down in comfy armchairs and sofas and where we had a nice roaring fire in winter.)

Whenever any of us boys showed up at Caw's, Ina Ritchie always had a spare candy in her pocket to give us. She had been jilted many years before by "her man" who had gone off to New Zealand to start a new life, promising to send for her as soon as he found a job and was established. Poor Ina. She waited with great hope and excitement for over a year, waiting to hear from him, waiting to book her passage to a new life in the Southern Hemisphere. But the rotter never got in touch, just disappeared completely.

Ina never did marry, lived on her own in a tenement, and apparently was well known for her big heart and her kindness in her neighbourhood. Janet and I made a point of seeking her out when we flew over to Scotland after we were married.

Bloody Scary...
Hugh McGrory
In previous stories I've mentioned that my primary school was at the far end of the street we lived on. I'm sure that my mother was very happy with such a safe environment for my journey back and forward, and it suited me, of course – I could trot back and forward every day for a home-cooked lunch. (which we referred to as dinner – actually 'denner')

One day I did just that. When I arrived home, the door was unlocked. I went in and as usual shouted, "Mum..." No Answer. I went for my fall-back: "Gran...". No answer.

I was puzzled – couldn't figure out what was going on. I went into the kitchen: empty – no food cooking, table not set. Tried the living room: empty – the bedroom, the bathroom: empty, empty... Now I wasn't just puzzled, I was worried! The house was eerily quiet, and I was alone....

I began to go through the rooms again and in the kitchen, saw that there was a trail of blood on the floor which led out into the small hall. Now I wasn't just worried, I was panicked!!

I could talk about the trauma inflicted by this incident – nightmares, insomnia, bed-wetting... I won't, though, because – there wasn't any (and not the point of this story)! My memory is hazy, but I think that either my Gran turned up to reassure me (or perhaps a neighbour first?) and finally my mother with her hand bandaged. She seemed fine and life immediately went back to normal – for me, at least...

Some background... In the '40s (probably just after the war), my mother proudly became the first on the block to have an electric clothes-washing machine. I can picture this large, green and yellow monster, but can't for the life of me remember the maker. (For some reason I've always thought it was a Canadian make...).

It was a single round vertical drum, a top loader with a powered wringer (no spin dryer, of course) . The wringer could be used to squeeze the clothes out onto a counter-top or into a sink with rinse water. It could also be turned through 180 degrees, so it could sit between double sinks and squeeze the clothes from one to the other. I've tried to find a photograph of it with no luck, but the photos below are very similar in design:

The one on the right looks most like the one we had.
So, on the morning in question, my mother had got her fingers too close to the rollers and had her hand pulled in and crushed. It actually squeezed so hard that a couple of her fingers burst – hence the bloody floor. My Gran came to the rescue and walked mum over to the DRI (Dundee Royal Infirmary) where her fingers were stitched. She carried the scars for the rest of her life.

Gran, previously, had done exactly the same thing including the trip to the hospital and the stitching... I didn't say so to my mum, but I was thinking "Not very smart thing to do Ma, when your own mother has already had the same accident...".

Some years later I was heading out the front door, with my bike on my shoulder and as the door was closing behind me, I heard my grandmother calling out to me. No doubt I grumbled to myself, but I dutifully put the bike down and went to see what she wanted. She was doing a wash, and she asked me to set the wringer in place for her, and make sure that it was in forward, and not reverse.

I did so, got the wringer in position, and to make sure that she 'got it', I said "OK Gran, turn the switch (actually a sizeable handle) this way and put the clothes in here..." I was standing on the output side of the wringer as I said this, and reached over the top with my right hand to indicate the direction ... Unfortunately – I got my fingers a little too close and – in my hand went until it could go no further despite the roller keeping turning and trying to suck the rest of my body through. (Failing that, it decided to just abrade the skin from the back of my hand.)

It took a moment to turn off the power but a bit longer to release the upper roller – it was a poor design and needed some force, complicated by the fact that I was draped across the top of the wringer. I eventually got my hand out and I can remember that it looked really pale (I guess from its exsanguinated state) and, as Gran and I looked on, it slowly turned a shade of purple and began to swell up. Fortunately, since my fingers were not as thick, they didn't burst, so there was no spouting blood.

Gran, being an expert in this situation, walked me over to the DRI where my hand was x-rayed, bandaged up, and put in a sling. When we got back and explained to my mother, she and Gran looked at each other... I'm sure they were thinking "Not very smart thing to do, when your own mother AND your grandmother have already had this accident...".

To this day I have a memento of the occasion – a patch of skin on the back of my right hand which doesn't grow hair...


Queen and Country
Bill Kidd
Young men leaving school in or around 1954 found themselves on the cusp of a career with or without spending two years as part of Her Majesty's armed forces. If you were undertaking a degree course at a recognised place of higher learning your call-up was deferred until you either failed a relevant exam or you graduated. The fact that young women were exempt from this call to arms ensured that I became a life-long advocate of equal rights for women!

In practice most graduates from the class of 1954 completing a four-year honours degree at a Scottish university were not required to undertake National Service. Similarly, anyone undertaking a formal training course in industry or commerce could apply for deferment from the call-up until the end of their formal training period. I came into the latter group and a few weeks before my twenty-first birthday I found myself on a train in the company of another conscript taking the sixteen-hour scenic route to Bedford where transport awaited to take us to the reception centre at RAF Cardington. During that journey my travelling companion and I formed a close friendship that continues to this day and led to us being each other's best man at our respective weddings!

To say that sharing a wooden hut with nineteen other confused and slightly frightened young men was a fun time would be a barefaced lie! We came wearing various fashion statements involving beautifully coiffed hairstyles, Italian suits and brothel-creeper shoes along with more normal flannels and blazers or sports jackets. Some of us, myself included, had gone to the barbers in advance of our adventure and had short back and sides haircut. After we had been left fend for ourselves for a while, playing musical beds without any music in earshot, we were visited by an RAF corporal who gathered us together and said that he was taking us to the mess for some dinner and that we would be going through the RAF induction process the next day.

The corporal then ordered us outside and marched us in loose formation to a huge dining room where we had to queue with a tray and the mug, knife, fork and spoon that was handed to us. As we shuffled past various sections of the long serving counter sliding our trays along metal rails and then copying what the person ahead of us was doing, picking up a piece of bread and a soup plate which was immediately filled with a ladle load of soup. This process was repeated with stew, potatoes and veg followed by a plateful of steamed pudding and custard. Clearly, the RAF in 1956 was no place for vegetarians!

Following our repast, we were marched back to our accommodation to spend the evening as best we could. We were a varied group hailing from all over the British mainland. The youngest had barely reached their eighteenth birthdays while the eldest was an old married man of twenty-five. Our occupations were just as varied as were our ambitions in life. Being away from home in a strange environment led to some very interesting conversations about hopes and ambitions for the next two years that in turn led to the discovery that most of us, no matter where we came from, were very much the same and that we may as well enjoy the experience that loomed ahead of us.

At 6.30 a.m. we were awakened by means of a sadist making a loud announcement on the Tannoy loudspeaker mounted in our hut. This was followed by a visit from our corporal who told us that breakfast would be in half an hour and that our induction into the Royal Air Force meant that we had a very busy day ahead of us. As good as his word he collected us and marched us to a porridge and bacon and eggs breakfast before returning us to our hut to await whatever was in store for us.

At 08.00 (the military was already affecting how we told the time) we were taken to a large building where we were interrogated about our name, age, home address, education, civilian occupation, religion, medical history and who was our next-of-kin. On completion of this impersonal interview we were each given a card containing a précis of our life history. We were informed that this card which displayed an ominous number of blank spaces had to remain with us for the rest of the day.

Our corporal herded us like a sheep dog and ensured that we remained corralled together as a group. When we all had our cards, we were moved on to the next room where we were invited to strip to our underpants before being weighed and measured and the results marked up on our cards. On to the next room where the doctor awaited to look at our teeth, sound our chests, get us to stand on one leg, tap our knees with a hammer, had a look at places that I had never seen and finally checking that I could cough without discomfort (further details are available on application). Now that the Royal Air Force was convinced that we were actually alive we were passed on to what I thought must be the biggest gent's outfitter in the land. It was time to get our uniforms!

Now we were really in the Air Force! A host of people in RAF uniform stood beside or behind a line of trestle tables. The person in front of my table wielded a tape measure and applied it, seemingly indiscriminately, to various parts of my anatomy, calling out a series of numbers to his companion behind the table. In a flash the table was covered by two RAF uniforms, one a 'working blue' the other a 'best blue' and a folded greatcoat. These were followed by a 'cheesecutter' hat and a beret, each with a brass badge attached. I was invited to put on the trousers and jacket of one of the uniforms to check for fit. Clearly, if I could fasten the buttons and continue breathing, they fitted. Next came shirts, shirt collars, P.E. kit, boots and shoes, underwear, socks, towels, bits and pieces for sewing, button and footwear cleaning. Kitbag, webbing small pack, belt and bayonet frog were the final items from this cornucopia. Dazed by this generosity we were encouraged to put what we could into the kit bag and small pack and to wear or carry what was left.

Loaded to the gunwales we were then led to the crockery and silverware department. There we received a knife fork and spoon each stamped with the number that appeared on our individual card. Little did I know then that 5029362 was to last me all my life and be the default for many a telephone misdialling. It was impressed upon us by our attendant corporal that we must guard these implements, along with the large mug with our lives because if we lost them, we would have to eat with our hands! From here we were marched back to our hut to deposit our new treasures in our bedside lockers. And so to lunch!

Having enjoyed a good lunch, we were returned to our hut and given an hour to don our working blue uniform and pack our civilian clothes in the cartons provided and label them with our home address before once again being taken out for the afternoon's activities. our first stop was the camp barber who had clearly been practising on a sheep farm. Gone in a flash were the carefully groomed Tony Curtis and D. A. haircuts to be replaced by a uniform very short back and sides. Next was the security section where we were photographed for our pass, the 1250 carried at all times by every member of the Royal Air Force. It was impressed on us that to lose this was a heinous crime, second only to seducing the Group Captain's wife.

Our next destination was a lecture theatre where we were told that after breakfast next morning we would be leaving for RAF Bridgnorth by train and that civilian clothing had already been collected and despatched to our homes. We were to have our new kit appropriately cleaned and packed. Our ubiquitous corporal would demonstrate how this was to be done during the course of the evening. Before returning to our hut we were issued with our neatly laminated 1250. I looked at the photo and didn't recognise myself as the airman portrayed.

I was now 5029362 Ac2 Kidd W, one of Her Majesty's defenders, already apprehensive of what awaited me over the next year and 363 days.


Sailing...
Hugh McGrory
In the early '80s, Sheila and I decided to take a week's vacation in order to take a beginner's sailing course. We did this by signing up at The Harbourfront Sailing School. This is on the Toronto, Lake Ontario Waterfront, so we would drive downtown in the morning and back home in the evening for the week-long course.

The format was classroom study in the morning, and hands-on in the afternoon. There were 12 students in the course, and the school had four 26ft. Bluenose sloops, with main and foresails. a cabin and smallish cockpit, so three students plus instructor to each boat (a bit crowded, but it worked.) (They put spouses into different crews).


The Friday morning was the final exam, and a promised opportunity to sail in the afternoon across the harbour to the Toronto Islands (mentioned in a previous story).


The marina was just west of the ferry Termnial – our course would be similar to the westmost route.

In the course we covered such things as:
  • Basic terms used in boats and sailing
  • How to tie basic knots – like figures of eight and bowlines
  • How to sail with, against and across the wind
  • How to steer a boat under sail and under power, and how to dock safely
  • 'Rules of the road'
  • Importance of weather forecasts
  • Man overboard recovery
  • Lifejackets, safety harnesses, and personal buoyancy aids
  • How to avoid, if possible, and also how to deal with emergency situations
At the end of the course we were awarded our first-level, internationally-recognised, sailing certificate. (We never did pursue sailing any further, but it was a most enjoyable week.)

One of the exercises we practised was how to pick up a mooring buoy. This involved sailing with the wind, passing the bouy, then releasing the sheets (de-powering the sails), turning 180 degrees into the wind and bringing the boat gently up to the mooring, close enough for one of us to touch it.

(That, of course, was the theory, but our efforts left much to be desired... But clumsy as we were, it was an empowering feeling to see how a boat under sail, could be manoeuvred so accurately when you know how...)

On the Friday, we had the end-of-course exam, had it marked, and were presented with our certificates (I think they were in the form of a little book with a stamp applied.)

The weather was quite blustery, and we were all thinking they might, hoping they wouldn't, say that we couldn't go out after all. However, after we finshed our sandwich lunch, they said put on your life jackets and let's head out.

As we got on board at the marina dock, the boats were moving around against their moorings. We moved out under power, and when we passed out of the marina and into the lake, the wind seemed quite a bit stronger and there was a fair swell.

All four boats headed over to the Islands under power, ploughing through the waves. While the other three boats ahead of us 'powered on', our (youngish) instructor asked how we'd feel about trying to raise the sails instead of crossing under power. We all said let's go for it, whereupon he asked for a volunteer to release the sheet and unfurl the foresail.

So I clambered over the cabin onto the foredeck, where I realised there was nothing to hang onto (see the photo above). The boat was pitching and rolling quite a bit, and I ended up spreadeagled with my feet and left hand gripping the gunwale, while I released the sail. It was an enjoyable, exhillerating experience with the wind blowing spray into my face. I wasn't in danger, and I'm sure if I'd fallen overboard the young instructor would simply have said "Oh, good, now we can practise our man overboard drill again."

To this day, I've remembered the different feel the boat had as soon as the engine was cut and we were under sail. Before we seemed to be fighting the waves, under sail we seemd to be somehow working with them. Perhaps it was because of my delicate stomach that I particularly noticed this, but my slight feelings of sea sicknes immediately disappeared.

We entered the Island channel and switched back to power to navigate around some of the small islands – very pleasant and relaxing. On the way back, the wind was as strong or stronger than before, and as our little fleet headed for the calm of the marina, I noticed a launch coming out from shore. It made a big arc which brought it behind us and it seemed to manoeuvre back and forward behind us. I didn't pay much attention, but thought that it looked a wee bit like a sheepdog with a herd of sheep.

When we got back and were putting the boats to rights in preparation for heading home, I chatted to the senior instructor and mentioned the motor boat.

He said, "This morning we instructors met to decide whether to cancel our sail. We didn't want to disappoint you all, and we decided it was doable. That boat was the harbour Police Launch – they decided to come out and escort us in."

Then he pointed to a flag flying at the entrance to the harbour and said "That red pennant is a small craft warning. That was the strongest blow we've ever taken students out in!"

It was a great week. We thoroughly enjoyed it – I wouldn't mind doing it again...

The Class System...
Gordon Findlay
In a previous story, I mentioned in passing that Dundee High School pupils tended to look down their noses a little at us Morganites, since our school had a long tradition of admitting a number of non-fee-paying students based on their outstanding academic achievements within the public school system. I never really thought much about the concept, if I thought about it at all.

Having said that, I can vividly recall when the first batch of those non-fee-paying students came into Morgan. I was startled by their ordinary Dundee accent. It was harsh and coarse, it grated on the ear. It immediately identified the person talking as someone from a lower level of society – the so-called 'working class', and certainly did to me and I suppose, to most of my friends at school.

This new influx of youngsters from less-privileged parts of Dundee was, I suppose, in keeping with the founders of Morgan, who wanted to establish a sound, solid bulwark of Scottish education.

However, the founders had also wanted to extend that privilege to at least some of those children whose parents were unable to afford the obvious advantages of a private school education. It was commendable, and unusual, for the times since the class system was a fact of life in Scotland as well as England.

One of the rather brain-dead decisions made around this issue at the time was this: non fee-paying pupils who came into Morgan did not have to instantly conform to wearing the school uniform. (I suppose they were trying to ease the financial burden on those families). But of course, it only made them stand out even more.

However, as World War II ground on, it became harder and harder to get proper Morgan Academy blazers, caps and grey pants (blue skirts, tunics and white shirts for the girls) so it became voluntary. Morgan pupils could wear the school uniform – or they could not.

I wore holes in the elbows of my school blazer, and I was shocked and appalled when my mother patched the holes with leatherette... but after much moaning and complaining on my part – that's how I went to school. Wartime forced some changes, and everyone had to adapt.

I became friends with one of the 'new boys' from the working class, and I can recall being startled and dumbfounded when he told me that – when he was going to his elementary school in Dundee, he and his fellows regularly used to throw stones at Morgan pupils they saw walking home in their school blazers.

"We all hated them. We felt they wis a' stuck-up, wi' pan-loafy accents an' a'." By "pan-loafy" he meant an upper-class accent, which did not drop the 'g' at the end of a word, and spoke in the way I always had in Maryfield, where I grew up.

I suppose, in retrospect, it was my first indoctrination into class distinction, and, though I hadn't really given it much thought I was certainly aware that there was a 'common' accent in Dundee.

Set it Free...
Hugh McGrory
Superannuated as we are, my wife Sheila and I reached the point where we decided to give up on the Christmas/Birthday/Anniverary/Valentine's Day/ hassle of exchanging gifts. We took, instead, to giving each other an appropriate helium-filled balloon (very reasonably priced at the local dollar store.) We found that they lasted quite a long time floating at the end of their six foot ribbons, anchored by little plastic hearts. On occasion we've had as many as three in various stages of senescence.

Usually, when they lost so much bouyancy that they'd touch the floor, we'd give them a swift demise (I'd usually stamp on them to enjoy the loud bang).

One day, when a balloon had dropped about halfway to the floor, I suggested, as an experiment, that we cut the string off and set it free – in the house, that is... Sheila was game, so we did – we've followed this practice ever since...

When a balloon is first set free it heads for the ceiling where the upward pressure of the helium together with the friction between the balloon and the ceiling tends to keep it there for a time. As the helium continues its slow, inexorable escape, the balloon begins to move around against the ceiling, then it begins to slowly head for the floor over a matter of days or weeks. That's when the fun begins... (The photo shows our current, Valentine's Day, balloon which has lasted very well, so far.)

People usually aren't very aware of the air currents in their homes. These come from several sources, of course – the heating/cooling systems, draughts from opening and closing doors and windows, and from simply walking through a room, pushing air before you and causing it to flow after you to fill the space. Of course if you have free flying balloons in the house you quickly become aware...

One of the first things we noticed was that you could walk through a room past a balloon and it would slowly follow you. A couple of times times I've had a fright, seeing one out of the corner of my eye and thinking it was an animal.

Sheila wakened up one day with her hand hanging over the side of the bed and something touching her... Another time she wakened to find that a yellow balloon with a smiley face had been watching her sleep from the ceiling above the bed.

I was sitting reading once, and found one had made its way to join me - I figured that it was reminding me that the golf had begun, so I turned the TV on and the balloon settled down to watch it with me.

On this occasion one appeared, and seemingly feeling that I watched too much television, decided to block my view...



It's said, "If you love something, let it go..." We discovered one had made its way into our garage (we usually use the side door through the garage to enter the house). The balloon stayed around for several days, then when the garage door went up one day it made a break for it, disappeared into the sky – and never did come back...

The star to date was a Smiley Face that discovered that it could ride the air currents from one of our heating/cooling vents. The air moving upward from the vent caused an inward draft that gently pulled the balloon into the updraft. It then took the balloon up some six feet whereupon it drifted sideways and down to the floor and again got sucked towards the vent.

I spent ages watching the balloon going round and round and round and... It figured that out by itself, I didn't teach it - made me quite proud of the little thing.
And people ask me "What do you do all day now that you're retired..."

"Huh? All kinds of stuff!"
NB - All of the photos above were serendipitous – none were staged, and no balloons were harmed for this story...
Gie's a Buzz on Yer Bike
Bill Kidd
Anyone who has visited Amsterdam or Copenhagen will have experienced the cult of the bicycle. Old fashioned upright bikes prevail, whole families get around without effort on streets where motor vehicles

Amsterdam Summer Copenhagen Winter

have to bow to the needs of the cyclist. Why is this? The terrain is flat, so nearly everyone uses a bicycle with the result that most drivers are actually aware of the dangers of carelessly opening a door or cutting in. The provision of tracks for the exclusive use of cyclists also helps, any readers with influence please note!

In contrast, by any stretch of the imagination, Dundee cannot be described as flat, nor could the granite setts and tramlines of my youth be described as cyclist friendly. In the late 1940s and early '50s cycling in Dundee
Dundee High Street – beware non-expert cyclists – skint knees and elbows be here!

was like being on a Commando course. In my case, coping with my heavy upright bike was like a sojourn behind enemy lines.

As I drive around Dundee and its surrounding area, I sometimes wonder how I survived. I certainly would not encourage anyone to cycle the routes that my pals and I covered on our bikes unless they had the benefit of a safety car.

I have ridden a bicycle on and off (sometimes only too literally) for most of my life. It was only during my late primary and secondary schooldays that having and using my first bike was of any importance to me. This was a formidable machine, a brand-new Phillips upright that must have weighed about half a hundredweight, well it certainly seemed so when going up a hill or climbing three flights of stairs with it over my shoulder. This was a basic bike costing £11.00, no gears, no panniers, no lights and only a tiny saddlebag to carry a puncture repair kit. It did have a bell and it also had a bicycle pump. I loved it! I learned to ride it by persuading my father to run behind me holding on to the saddle. At first it was to keep me upright but after the first ten runs he only remained upright by holding on. After a couple of such sessions I dispensed with his services and carried on by learning not to fall off!

I worshipped that bike, I cleaned it, I polished it and if it was raining, I took it apart and reassembled it. When the sun shone, I rode it all over the place. I learnt that if I let someone have a 'shottie' then the quid pro quo would be being picked for his football team, a rare event before I got my bike. Of course, there were those people who despised upright bikes, they had racing bikes fitted with five gear Derailleurs and drop handlebars, they also had a habit of showing off how light their bikes were by lifting them one handed above their swollen heads. Then there were those cyclists that were universally despised by both the upright and racing bike fraternity. I refer, of course, to those who had a touring kind of bike, usually a Raleigh with Sturmey Archer three speed hub gears, a hub dynamo, cycle stand, security lock and capacious saddlebag. They were regarded as boys on a girl's bike, if you gave one of them a 'shottie' it was only too likely to be a cricket team on which you would be offered a place!

Our favourite evening excursion was to cycle through Invergowrie to Longforgan then up the Knapp road through Littleton, joining the Coupar Angus Road for the return to Dundee. A journey of about eighteen miles covered in a couple of hours. Weather permitting, two or three of us would take this tour nearly every week, occasionally reversing the route for a bit of variety. Once in secondary school, my bike was the transport of choice. This required the purchase of a padlock and chain, not as an anti-theft precaution but to stop any unauthorised use while I was in class. Once, I suffered the indignity of losing my padlock key. This meant that I had to push the bike on its front wheel all the way home, much to the amusement of everyone I passed.

The Easter and summer holidays were an opportunity for more adventurous outings. I bought an ex-US Army bivouac tent from Millets so that we could have overnight stays. Our first such expedition was to Forfar where a relative had a farm and would allow us to pitch our tent in one of his fields. We loaded up our bikes with camping gear and set off. The first obstacle was the, then, formidable Powrie Brae. Pedalling up it without getting off and pushing was usually seen as a challenge but this time we accepted defeat and pushed our laden (or should it be leaden?) bikes from bottom to top. The rest of the ride to Forfar passed without incident and we duly set up camp as planned. I won't pretend that three of us in a two-man war surplus bivouac was comfortable or that we had great success at fire-lighting and cooking even 'though two of us had Scout badges that said we could do this! All in all, that trip was enough to encourage us to repeat the experience over next couple of years. One thing that I did learn on the way up Powrie Brae was that I needed to save up for Sturmey Archer gears.

Over the next few years we ranged around Angus, Perthshire and the East Neuk of Fife. With the aid of my new four speed gears, tackled Tullybaccart on the Coupar Angus Road, the Electric Brae on the road to Glamis and once the Devil's Elbow at the top of Glenshee. All of these barriers have now been modified to the extent that they can be driven over without noticing the gradient or even giving enough space to the cyclist nonchalantly pedalling uphill on a modern superbike.

By the time that I left school I had lost the taste for such excursions and my bike was barely used and the bivouac lent to someone who never returned it. Occasionally I would borrow my son's racer and for my 50th birthday I was given a modern ten gear lightweight bike that I used around my home area for over twenty years until lorries, buses and cars frightened me too much. Perhaps we should all relocate to Amsterdam!

Captain and Tennille
Hugh McGrory
So my wife, Sheila, and I, and the Captain and Tennille, were... Oh, wait a minute. I'm jumping into this story without any background...

I'm sure you all remember the Captain and Tennille – if not, or if you just want a little walk down memory lane, click here.

In 1974 when 'Love Will Keep Us Together' was a huge hit for them, their fans thought that they were married. In fact, while they were living together, they hadn't legally tied the knot. Urged by her mother, their publicist and their accountant, who told them that it would be more tax efficient, they decided to go for it.

They were in Nevada and wanted a small ceremony with no muss or fuss. They drove into the mountains of Western Nevada to the small old-time silver mining town of Virginia City (famous for the Comstock Lode). Directed to the Silver Queen Saloon, they found a local judge who could, and did, perform the ceremony. Afterwards Toni apparently asked if it was really legal – she was assured that it was and that their certificate would be mailed to them – it was.

Afterwards, walking through the town they decided they should have a photograph to commemorate the occasion, came across an establishment (it might have been Silver Sadie's Old Time Photographs) that could do the job, and had their wedding photograph taken.

When Sheila and I got married in 1979 (second time for each of us), we didn't want any muss or fuss either and had a simple civil ceremony in Old City Hall in Toronto. Afterwards, walking through the streets of Yorkville, we decided we should have a photograph to commemorate the occasion, and so we had our wedding photograph taken.

So was this a case of 'think alike' or 'seldom differ'...?
Tapping
Gordon Findlay
On Saturday mornings, Ballingall's would deliver the week's supply of draft beer – in barrels, of course – to my Dad's pub. A metal trapdoor in the sidewalk in front of Caw's would be opened up, and the brewer's delivery men would each slip a rope around their necks. The other end of this rope was slung around the
barrel, whch was then eased off the truck, through the opening and down the ramp into the cellar where it would be lined up on the rack, ready to be tapped.

I can remember that once all the barrels were successfully rolled down into our cellar, each of the delivery men would come into the bar and Dad would serve them a large tankard of beer. A small perk for a job well done.

On occasion it would be time to tap a fresh barrel of ale or beer to supply the draft taps at the bar itself. This needed a practiced hand and a sure aim. Dad would pull the plastic tubes from the old barrel, then pick up a special mallet with a sharp pointed head. He'd aim this mallet at the bung of the new barrel and in one swift hard swing, drive the bung into the barrel. At the same instant he'd jam the pointed end of the plastic line into the bunghole of the barrel before the beer came spurting out.
The trapdoor still in use today.

Another line was linked to this one – carrying pressurized carbon dioxide – to force the beer up the line to the bar taps above. Dad would draw off a couple of pints of foamy beer until it settled down, pour away this frothy mixture, and a fresh barrel was all set to go for Monday.

A Social Experiment
Hugh McGrory
In his story last week, Bill noted that Sir James Caird was the benefactor who provided the City with the wonderful resource that is the Caird Hall and City Square. The Hall has served the city well to this day. Over the years, many well known artists have appeared there including Nellie Melba, Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, The Beatles, Willie Nelson, U2, The Rolling Stones, Billy Connolly, Elton John, David Bowie, Bryan Adams, Led Zeppelin, Queen, The Who, Rod Stewart, Fleetwood Mac and the Everly Brothers...

The Cairds were a local Dundee family who 'made good' in the jute business – at one time they employed 2,000 people in two factories. They had a reputation as good employers who ran an efficient business and treated their workers well. They were also philanthropists, contributing to various scientific activities, such as cancer research.

I was interested to learn that James Caird helped to fund Sir Ernest Shackleton's Antarctic expedition on the


Endurance. When the ship was trapped in ice (and later sank) Shackleton and five of his crew made their epic (and successful) small-boat voyage of 800 nautical miles from Elephant Island to South Georgia, in search of help. The name of the small 23 ft. ship's boat they used was – the James Caird.

The Caird Hall was designed by the City Architect to be a strong, solid presence in the central square. Indeed, in 1982 it was used in the film An Englishman Abroad to represent a theatre in Moscow – as you can see from the photograph, it played its part rather well...


The hall has hosted all kinds of events, and amongst these, and of particular interest to this story, an evening lecture series on a variety of subjects. When I was a young teenager, there was such a series running. I realised, in writing this, that these were part of the Armitstead Lecture Series from a bequest aimed at educating and entertaining Dundonians. (I was surprised to learn that these continue to this day, though they are now hosted at Dundee University.)

Often speakers told of their travels to exotic parts of the world and accompanied their talks with numerous photographs. A couple of pals and I decided to attend one or two of these (don't know now whether they were school friends or kids from the neighbourhood – since never the twain did meet...)

We liked to sit in the balcony on the left side near the back of the hall – the photo shows almost the exact
spot... We learned that it was the practice for the audience to applaud when a particularly fine photo was displayed. I found this interesting, since sometimes I didn't think the photo was particularly good.

I decided we should try a social experiment and my buddies agreed to help me. Indeed, if truth be told, we didn't actually know that's what we were doing – pretty sure we'd never heard the term before. I just wanted to see if we could influence the audience...

We waited until a particularly mediocre photo was thrown
up on the large screen then clapped enthusiastically. As predicted, many of the audience joined in. As we laughed at them, I suspected that those who didn't clap were saying to themselves, "Why the hell are they clapping?", while those who were clapping, were saying to themselves, "Why the hell am I clapping".

It was an interesting insight into human group behaviour – I can think of two or three reasons why this happens – I'm sure you can too. (Some of you may have been in the audience that night – did you clap or not, I wonder...?)

Maybe I should have gone into social science instead of engineering...

A Present for Dundee
Bill Kidd
One of my earliest memories is going "down the town" with my mother. I clearly recall that both she and I had to be specially dressed for the occasion. To my four-year-old mind the only redeeming feature of the expedition was that it began and ended with a journey in the tram. The only other activity that I enjoyed that
day was chasing the pigeons in the City Square. It was only some years later that I realised the importance of the Square and the large building that cast its shadow over it, I refer of course to the Caird Hall complex.

During WWII the City Square was the venue for a series of fund-raising activities. I recall as a small boy getting the opportunity to sit in the cockpit of the Spitfire that was displayed there as part of the Dundee- wide fundraising effort to buy one of the aircraft. I am not sure, but I think that it cost my parents sixpence

Another youngster enjoying the same Spitfire experience as I - but about 70 years later...

for me to be lifted into the seat and have the controls explained to me by the rather harassed airman in charge. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I was allowed to press the button that fired the gun, a sixpence well spent! This was only one of a series of military vehicles and displays that graced the Square during the course of the war.

Every Saturday the Square was quite busy but on one Saturday in April it was always crowded for the Students' Charity day. Citizens mingled with tin rattling Angels and Demons, Roman Soldiers and Nuns with Beards, Carmen Miranda and Mickey Mouse all of these and many more made their appearance that day and this was in addition to the tableaux displayed upon the line of lorries that paraded through the centre of town. It was all much more fun than our current Red Nose Day on TV!

As the years went by my interest in the City Square gradually waned in favour of events taking place in the Caird Hall. Although the building's exterior suggests that it had been transported in Victorian times from Ancient Greece it is actually of fairly recent construction. The building and its surrounding area were the gift of Sir James Key Caird, he stipulated that the construction must include a considerable retail presence. This was intended to provide sufficient revenue from rents to cover the cost of running and maintaining the complex without it being a burden on the (then) Dundee Burgh Council. The Council accepted the gift and the foundation stone was laid on 10th July 1914 by King George V accompanied by Queen Mary. The intervention of WWI, which started less than a month later, delayed the project. The official opening, performed by Edward Prince of Wales, did not take place until 26th October 1923.

Since then it has been in constant use, hosting everything from Orchestral Concerts through Cinema and Exhibitions to Professional Wrestling, not necessarily in that order of popularity! The auditorium can seat 2,300 and boasts a pipe organ and choir stalls. Proudly adjoining the Caird Hall is the more modest Marryat Hall, the gift of Caird's sister Mrs Emma Grace Marryat, can seat up to 300 and is used for Concerts, Balls, Post-Graduation Receptions, Political Meetings, Civic Events and anything else that comes to mind!

I am unsure whether the revenue from the retail activities worked as intended but there certainly was a significant retail and commercial presence in the complex. The Cafe Val d'Or at the north-east corner
Cafe Val D'Or in it's prime location on the corner opposite Keiller's and Timson's.

of the City Square was a popular venue for local businessmen to have their morning coffee and, no doubt, catch up with the latest gossip and scandal. I understand that it was also popular with their ladies, possibly for very similar reasons! The bank on the west top corner of Castle Street and all the retail premises on the west side of Castle Street were part of the complex. The shops were a varied lot with a tobacconist, photographic dealer, ironmonger and public house among their number. The Ministry of Food also had a ration-book office close to the passageway that gave access to and from the public toilets, City Arcade and City Square.

The south side of the complex on Shore Terrace housed an Electrical Wholesaler, the City Arcade, a wholesale fruit and vegetable merchant and latterly the Transport Department offices. Other than the main Post Office, which was located on the south-east corner of Crichton Street, I cannot recall any significant commercial activity on that side of the complex. Unusually for the time, Crichton Street gave access to a sizeable underground car park that had pedestrian access from the City Square. I believe that the east and west sides of the City Square housed various City Council Offices including the one that collected money for vehicle taxation.

The City Arcade was a joy, it had its own distinctive odour and was always bustling. This constant activity was the result of its use as a thoroughfare between Shore Terrace and the High Street as people arrived and left on their buses. The closure of the Shore Terrace transport hub in the 1980s sounded the death knell for the Arcade.
Almost every kid in Dundee had a ride on Champion the Wonder Horse in The City Arcade.

Returning to the Arcade's unique odour, I think that it was a combination emanating from the goods being offered. There was the poultry and game shop, the linoleum emporium, the herbalist and druggist, places to buy toys and paper scraps, the amusement section – and probably a hint of people and wet clothes! It was a magic place, where else you could watch Charlie Chaplin, test your strength and get your name punched out on a metal strip for only a penny a time!

My first venture into the Caird Hall was around 1947 when I visited the "Dundee's Own Exhibition". This was a major post-war event and featured the commerce and industry to be found in Dundee. It also had demonstrations of various kitchen gadgets and extolled the benefits of electricity in the home. My mother bought a lidded beaker that could be used to make butter simply by pouring some milk from the DPM bottle into the beaker, fitting the lid and shaking the device. The demonstration at the exhibition produced a usable pat of butter after about three minutes. Regrettably, an hour of my more or less vigorous shaking failed to produce anything more than a greasy smear. Perhaps the demonstrator didn't get her milk from the DPM!

My second time in the Caird Hall was when I attended a joint religious service for all the local uniformed youth organisations. This was the first time that I fully realised the sheer size of the building. All I can really remember of the day was that it rained heavily, and our Scout Leader bought us lemonade and chips afterwards. My next and most memorable visit was to the afternoon children's concert given by the Scottish Orchestra. Again, it was a full house and I was fascinated by the sight and sound of the orchestra tuning up. Then the conductor, quite a small man, came on to the applause that we had been told to give. He faced the orchestra, raised his baton and my life changed for ever when the first blast of Bizet's Overture to Carmen came from the orchestra. It was wonderful and I have loved live classical music ever since.

I subsequently attended many more orchestral concerts in the venue, different orchestras and many different conductors but Karl Rankl, who hit me with the Carmen overture, remains top of my list. I have been in the
Handel's Messiah.
Caird and Marryat Halls on many other occasions, the Christmas performance of the Messiah, our son's graduation ceremony, an STUC Conference and dare I admit it, to numerous wrestling shows.

As gifts go, I believe that Sir James Key Caird and his sister got their choice just about right!

Squash
Hugh McGrory
If you've been reading these stories, you'll know that I was a keen field hockey player in Scotland for about fourteen years before I left for Canada. After a couple of years over here I discovered a hockey league and played for two or three more seasons – then I found squash, and just loved the game. This would have been around 1970, and I played every year for the next thirty years before having to give up the game after my second knee operation.

I wasn't a great player, and at first, almost every one I played against was way too good for me. I needed someone who was closer to my standard, and was lucky to find, early on, a workmate named Ross who was at exactly the same level as I – when we played, we never knew on any given day, which of us would win. This kept us playing each other for some twenty-five years – he thought he was slightly better than me – I knew he'd got that wrong...

We would play twice a week, sometimes three – one year I was playing four times a week. Sadly, a rotator cuff problem ended his career. As luck would have it, I stumbled upon a fellow named Mike who had played hockey with me when we first came to Canada. He turned out to be at exactly the same level too, so we played for several more years.

Squash, so-named because the ball squashes when it hits the wall, is played, as many of you will know, in a four-walled court with a long-handled strung racket and a small rubber ball. We preferred to play the softball (the 'British', or 'International' version) not hardball (the 'American' version). In softball, which is the
standard game internationally, the game is played with a softer, slower ball, with less bounce, on the kind of wide, tall court, shown in the diagram above. The ball stays in play far longer, and there is more court to cover, making it a physically demanding game that requires fitness, patience, and deliberation. Hardball squash, which is popular in the United States, is played on a narrower court with a harder, faster ball. The hardball game emphasizes quick reactions and creative shot making.

Every time your opponent moves to strike the ball, you have to try to figure out the possible shots he can make, then you have to react really quickly to try to get to the ball after it's hit. There's a reason why the game has been characterised as 'high-energy chess' – you're thinking all the time, and come off the court exhausted and soaked with sweat – and you can leave work, play, shower, grab a sandwich lunch, and be back in less than two hours.

One match sticks in my mind. Ross played a 'dink' shot into the right-hand front corner as seen in the photograph. I was determined to get to the ball but, for some reason, badly misjudged how close I was to the front. The photograph below shows a similar situation (I would be the guy on the right):
I ran straight into the front wall – hit the wall really hard with the top of my head, staggered back a few feet then fell on my back. Ross said, "Are you all right", then came over and said, "Woh, you really hit hard." and then "Oh shit, you're bleeding like a pig". Then he said, "Don't move, you could have damaged your spine – I'm calling 911." I didn't completely black out, but I was seeing stars, and just lying there seemed like a fine idea...

Ross came back and used a towel to try to stop the bleeding while we waited for help to arrive. When I felt a
little better, I gently tried to move my limbs, very slightly, one at a time, and was comforted by the fact that every thing seemed to be in working order. Finally, a group of firemen in full gear came into the court and surrounded me. They did a quick assessment, put a collar round my neck then brought in a clamshell (or scoop) stretcher – split lengthwise down the middle, it's placed either side then slid underneath until the two sides meet and lock together. The crew chief explained this to me and said "be careful, don't let it pinch your ass..."

To understand the next sequence, I need to explain the
layout. The Squash Club was in an office building and took up the two-level basement. To get into the main level of the club you took the elevator down one level. The, to get to the court level, you went down two flights of stairs with a 180° turn. Finally, to get into a court you went through a 4-foot high door.

The firemen brought a gurney (trolley) down in the elevator but couldn't get it into the court so they left it on the higher level and manhandled the stretcher and me through the little door and up the stairs. They placed the stretcher on the gurney then used bandages to tie it securely to the frame so I couldn't move. They then wheeled me to the elevator, pushed the gurney in – and found that the door wouldn't close...

They said, "No problem" and cranked a handle to elevate the head of the gurney to gain the couple of inches or so that they needed. Unfortunately, they had tied one bandage around my throat and then round the frame so that as they cranked, they began to strangle me. I shouted to them to stop they cranked it back a bit and I said, "Your strangling me!"

The crew chief said, "Can you hold your breath for 15 seconds?"

I said, "Sure", so they cranked it again, and pushed the button. The elevator went up one level, they pulled me out cranked the gurney flat and I was able to breathe again. I then got loaded into the ambulance and had the second ride of my life (the first was when I was about two, contracted diphtheria and was taken to King's Cross Hospital) – they even used the siren once...

I was taken into the emergency room and left in a small cubicle. Eventually I was x-rayed and stitched up. Any of you who have had a scalp laceration know that it bleeds copiously – I think, despite the amount of blood on the floor of the squash court, it was quite a small cut and only needed six or eight stitches. Fortunately, I didn't suffer concussion.

Ross was very supportive – he had driven down behind the ambulance and soon joined me. I remember that I was tied down so well while lying in the cubicle that the point on the back of my head in contact with the surface became really painful. I asked Ross if he could find something to cushion me and he dug around in the drawers until he found some gauze which he rolled up and stuck under my head. It really helped, but just as he was doing it a nurse came in, saw what he was doing and gave him hell. "Don't you realise that he may have a spinal injury – that you might..." She reamed him up hill and down dale. I told her it was my idea and she said, "Then you're a bigger idiot than he is".

To add insult to injury, when he finally left to go home he found that he'd received a hefty parking ticket for leaving his car at the emergency parking. (I did pay the fine for him...)

We were soon back playing – the blood stain had soaked into the wooden floor and the staff couldn't get it out properly. We referred to it as 'The McGrory Memorial Blood Stain'. It was visible for years as it slowly faded away.

Much like Ross and I ...

Did You Have a Radio?
Bill Kidd
It was quite a while after television arrived in Dundee before I had access to a radio set. Before that we had to make do with a wireless! Until the late 1940s the wireless in our house functioned on a diet of high tension batteries that were very difficult to obtain and accumulators that had to be taken to a local cycle shop to be charged. Despite the Lo-Fi features of our whistling and crackling wireless sets they provided many happy listening hours during my childhood and adolescence.

My earliest memory of hearing something on the wireless was Neville Chamberlain telling us that war with Germany had been declared. Why this stuck in my four year old mind was that the air raid siren sounded shortly afterwards. I can also remember in the early years of the war hearing Lord Haw-Haw's "Jairmany calling, Jairmany calling on the forty-five metre band". Hopefully this confession will not bring on a charge of treason after all this time.

During the war years and for some time afterwards there was very little choice as we were restricted to the BBC Home Service. As I recall there were two "must listen to" programmes, ITMA and the Nine O'clock News. At lunch time there was Workers' Playtime, a variety programme broadcast from a factory canteen and at five o'clock there was Children's Hour. Sunday's were "do-gooding" days, so no variety or comedy programmes, only classical or near classical music, mainly of the Palm Court kind, lectures on serious topics and news. When around 1948 the BBC decided to allow a variety programme to be broadcast on a Sunday there were protests from religious groups, newspaper editorials and questions in parliament about how such an attack on the nation's morals could be allowed and predicting an end to civilization as we knew it!

My wireless universe consisted of comedy, drama, sport, factual and Children's Hour. You will notice that music did not feature, this being purely adult territory and a source of conflict when Scots Country Dance Music clashed with Dick Barton, a problem that could be resolved by my listening to the Dick Barton omnibus on Saturday morning. Perhaps my rugby career would have been more illustrious had my parents been averse to Jimmy Shand or the repeats of Dick Barton could have been broadcast at another time!

Comedy was well catered for by programmes such as Take it from Here; Much Binding in the Marsh; Ray's a Laugh; The Navy Lark and Educating Archie. The latter starred Archie Andrews, a doll, voiced by ventriloquist Peter Brough (who said that radio fed the imagination?). Archie was tutored by a series of unknowns who later became top stars in their own right. I keep an eye open for these classics turning up on Radio Four Extra, when they do I listen and wonder why I enjoyed them so much

Drama was Saturday Night Theatre; Just William; Paul Temple and The Man in Black. To these I can add serials such as Conan Doyle's, The Lost World and The Poison Belt; Mrs Dales Diary; The McFlannels and of course, Dick Barton Special Agent whom I suspect was James Bond's father. The McFlannels were a Glasgow family suspiciously like the Broons in the Sunday Post. There was a cast of characters each with a cloth surname. The actors were, or became famous in Scottish theatre. Uncle Mattha was played by W H D Joss and the minister Rev David McCrepe was played by Rikki Fulton, none other than the Rev I M Jolly who over the years added so much to Hogmany. We had McTweeds, McCottons, McSilks and McSatins, as far as I am aware there was no McNylon or McRayon!

Sport was mainly international football and rugby with a bit of tennis and athletics thrown in. The not to be missed broadcasts were, much to the disgust of my mother, championship boxing featuring Bruce Woodcock, Freddie Mills and Randolph Turpin with inter-round summaries by W. Barrington Dolby (where did they get these names?). Perhaps, because a shilling-each-way was involved, my mother was less censorious about the Grand National and the Derby!

What can I say about factual programmes? They formed an important part of my education. Interest in science was more general in the late 1940s than is the case today. The enormous amount of research and development that took place during the war years was largely secret and after the conflict there was a great outburst of information about many of the wartime inventions. There was general fascination with how the atom bomb could be tamed to provide limitless cheap power. Radar became a topic of interest to amateur radio enthusiasts and the darkness of the wartime blackout gave rise to a renewed interest in the stars and planets. All of these interests were catered for by the BBC engaging articulate experts to give comprehensible lectures and participate in discussions on a wide range of topics.

The series that still stands out for me is The Nature of the Universe, a series of six lectures by Fred Hoyle setting out his single state theory of how the universe works. The fact that that the theory turned out to be wrong does not detract from the wonder that his delivery and logic created and is certainly the foundation of my continuing interest in the subject that he covered. Children's Hour was an amalgam of the other three topics and was a 'must' at 5 pm every day.

A lot of the output was English middle class with the family losing all its money and having to struggle on with only a maid and a cook. The Scottish output was rather more down to earth, much of it centring on a farm for Down at the Mains with some dialogue, music and singing. The ubiquitous WHD Joss was Tammy Troot as he told a story of the river and an Angus McVicar's play such as The Black Wherry added some adventure to the proceedings.

The national network added factual material on science, nature and travel and drama came in the form of Ballet Shoes; The Swish of the Curtain; Jennings at School; Journey into Space and Norman and Henry Bones the Boy Detectives. Children's Hour was under the Direction of a series of 'Aunts' and 'Uncles', the favourite being Aunt Kathleen (Garscadden) the Scottish presenter. If I nostalgically describe Children's Hour to my grandchildren they think I am beginning to lose my marbles.

Maybe they are right but I still think that we got the best deal by listening to the wireless!

The Men Who Killed My Uncle
Hugh McGrory
Coincidences – those strange, serendipitous, contemporaneities ythat add interest to our lives, and make us say to ourselves "What are the chances..."

Many of you will remember my story about my Uncle Wullie – if not, you should read it before continuing – see it below.

My Uncle The Christian Krogh

During World War 2, Uncle Wullie was a crew member on the Norwegian ship, the Christian Krohg, sailing in Atlantic convoy OB-329, from Oban to the St Lawrence. The ship was torpedoed by U-108 on 10 June 1941, and lost with all hands.

Some time ago I heard mention on the radio that a book had been published with photographs showing life on board a U-boat during World War 2. I forgot about it for a few months then it came back to me, and I decided to see if I could track it down. I thought it would give some general insights into the U-boat fleet and their crews.

If it happened to be the same type of sub as the one that sank the Christian Krohg, that would be a real bonus. However, given that in World War 2, Germany built almost 1200 U-boats and the U-108 was a type IXB, and only 14 of those were commissioned during the war, this wasn't very likely.

I managed to track down the book and obtained a copy. Not only was it the same type of U-boat, the title was 'U-108 at War' – it was the actual submarine!

I want to show you a few of the photographs here – they tell a story which is, at one and the same time ordinary, and quite extraordinary...

The book actually has some 130 photographs, and should you be interested in obtaining a copy of the book, the author is Alistair Smith, and the publisher is Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 47 Church St, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS. A review of the book is here.

Klaus Scholtz U-108

The photo above shows Kapitänleutnant Klaus Scholtz, commander of the submarine.

Some of the Submarine Crew

If you ignore the clothes and the badges, you can't tell what nationality these men are or whether they're Allied or Axis combatants... "A Man's a Man for a' that."

The Elements – from Sunbathing near the Equator to Freezing off Greenland

The 108 crew, as in most navies of the world, carried out King Neptune ceremonies when crossing the equator and the book has photographs of the crew on the deck in late summer 1941, with the 'shellbacks' hazing the 'pollywogs' or 'tadpoles' (as those crossing the line for the first time are called).

But this wasn't a cruise ship – it was a highly efficient killing machine ...


The photographs above, taken from the conning tower of the 108 depict the sinking of another Norwegian ship, the Norland 20 May 1942 – the deck of the sub can be seen in the bottom-right corner of the first photo. The ship is dead in the water after being torpedoed.

The preferred mode for the coup-de-grâce (provided there were no enemy ships or aircraft in the vicinity) was for the sub to surface and use its deck guns (the one shown is a 105mm cannon which could fire a round weighing 50lb more than 9 miles – though they were usually used at close range).

The third and fourth photos show the results of shelling, and the sixth the last moments of the Norland as it rolled over and sank. The crew took to three lifeboats and amazingly, all, eventually, were rescued.

Death of a Merchantman

This ship is believed to be the Effna, sunk by the U-108, 28 Feb 1941, southeast of Iceland, west of The Faroes, while en route from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Liverpool. The ship was torpedoed, and the crew took to the lifeboats before the submarine finished the job with gunfire.

It was the practice for u-boat commanders to pull alongside lifeboats to question the crew, then point them towards the nearest land and send them on their way with some water, cigarettes, or perhaps chocolate – the photo above shows one of the lifeboats alongside the sub.

U-boats could not, of course, take prisoners. These seamen were left to face the rigours of the North Atlantic in winter. All of the men shown, indeed the whole crew of the Effna, 32 including the Captain, died.

The U-108 was finally sunk by US 8th Air Force planes, on 11 April 1944, in pontoon dock at the U-boat
base in Stettin. It was raised and de-commissioned on 17 July 1944 and finally scrapped in 1946 by the Soviets.

Klaus Scholtz was a very successful u-boat commander and rose to the ranks of Fregattenkapitän. His tally was 24 merchant ships plus one armed merchantman for a total weight of 128,00 tons.

He was in US captivity for 18 months and after the war he served from 1953 to 1956 in the naval arm of the Bundesgrenzschutz (Federal Frontier Guard), then transferred to the Bundesmarine (Federal German Navy). He commanded several naval bases, including Kiel, Cuxhaven and Wilhelmshaven. In 1966 he retired with the rank of Kapitän zur See. He died in Germany, 1st May 1987, at the age of 79.

Some final thoughts

I had just turned four a month before the sinking of the Christian Krogh. I don't remember my uncle – I don't know if we ever met – so discovering all of this information didn't really have any big emotional effect on me. What I'm left with is sadness and anger at the futility of war, and unbounded admiration for those seamen who fought it.

For every 10 German submariners who went to war, 7 did not return. Such horrendous losses were un-matched by any branch of any armed services in the Second World War (bomber aircrew were a close second).

As to my uncle and his shipmates, they were part of the Allied Merchant Navy which had representatives of many nations: Great Britain and the countries of the Commonwealth, the United States, Russia, China, Poland, Greece, Norway, the Philippines, France, and others.

Some 3,500 ships were sunk, and it should be remembered that merchant seamen were civilians who faced the same dangers of war as the regular armed forces personnel but who have rarely received the recognition they deserve (some were reviled in the streets of Britain – considered cowards for evading service in the armed forces).

They sailed in slow, virtually defenceless, ships often in unforgiving seas. In winter, in the Northern Atlantic, any seaman who ended up in the water without a lifejacket would die in anything from one to five minutes – with a life jacket, they might last an hour. More than 30,000 merchant seamen died.

This was our fathers' generation – ordinary men, Allied and German, who, though suffering great hardships were still able to show extraordinary fortitude in doing their duty.

Gordon Findlay
I've spoken before of my father's business, Caw's Bar, in Panmure Street, Dundee. I never really gave much thought to the fact that my parents made a living out of running a pub. It was just the way things were.

I can remember going down there every Sunday morning with my brother David to help Dad re-stock the shelves. Caw's had a very recognizable smell on a Sunday morning: an aroma which comprised part stale body odour, part stale beer with traces of perfume, ashes from the fireplace, furniture polish and – close to the washroom – just a hint of personal smells. Overall it wasn't a bad aroma – just distinctive.

There was a working fireplace in the lounge area of Caw's and on a cold Saturday night it was a popular spot to sit and enjoy an evening with friends. On Sunday mornings David and I were entrusted with cleaning out the ashes and setting a new fire ready for Monday evening. Then it was out to the bar and re-stocking the shelves. That was a two-step process.

Step one was to pull out all the beer bottles still on the shelves and sit them on the floor. Step two was to go down to the cellar (via a trapdoor behind the bar) find a fresh box of that variety of beer, heft it up the stairway, neatly rack them at the back of that particular shelf, then replace the 'old' bottles at the front of the shelf (so that the 'older' bottles were used up first on the next day of business). In the meantime, Dad would be checking on the liquor bottles and replenishing those that were getting low.

As a youngster I was always a bit leery of the cellar underneath the bar. It wasn't well lit, it was usually wet and damp, and Bob, our barman, had told David and me once that a family of rats were in residence down there. A lot of bar sales were in bottled beer and the cellar was always well filled with crates of Tennant's Lager, McEwan's Strong Ale and Light Lager, Ballingall's Nut Brown Ale and Light Lager, Younger's India Pale Ale, and George Brown's I.P.A., each with their own distinctive shape and colourful labels. I'm sure there were others but I've forgotten the names.

At one time my father decided to buy some craft ales by the barrel and bottle it himself, using our own capping machine. A tube would be slipped into the barrel, then one by one the freshly cleaned bottles would be filled up with the craft beer.

Once it had settled it was on to the capping process. Each bottle would be positioned in the capping machine. We would slip a metal cap into the magnetic head of the machine, slide the bottle into place, then bring down the handle sharply – and presto, – one capped bottle of beer just waiting for us to paste a label on it.

All these years later, the pub is still operating in the same premises under the same name, simply Caw's.
(Actually, the current owner has a string of pubs: Sandy's, in Lochee; Halley's, Strathmartine Road; The Bowbridge, Main Street; The Clep Bar, Clepington Road; The Barn, Nursery Road; and The Boars Rock on Arbroath Road. He also owns The Vault, on Reform Street in Monifieth.

A Wee Mystery Solved
Hugh McGrory
Gordon Findlay, who has contributed many enjoyable stories for this collection, wrote several times about a certain teacher – he said, "It was my great good fortune to come in contact with one of the finest teachers I was to meet during my years at Morgan: John Cooper, head of the English Department, who had come to Scotland from England because he liked the Scottish education system."

Having no memory of this man, I rounded up the usual suspects and asked them all if they remembered him. No one did. Casting my net wider, to the bi-monthly Former Pupils' lunches that Richard Young organises in the Yacht Club, and to my old field hockey teammates I finally got to the bottom of the mystery.

There were several reasons we couldn't pin it down: It wasn't Cooper, but Coupar; he wasn't Head of English (Cheesie was), and since he'd left the school before any of our two years had entered secondary, he wasn't in any of our staff pictures. We finally tracked down a former pupil closer to Gordon's age who remembered John Coupar and sourced a staff photo for us.

He is the tall fellow in the middle and seems to fit in with Gordon's description: "He was a tall, rangy man
who (to me, anyway) seemed to swoop down the school corridors with his black gown flapping behindh him like a pair of wings..."

(Click on the photo to see the Staff Photograph – my best guess is that it was taken between 1945 and 1949 – and I'm sure many of you will remember a lot of them.)

Gordon told of how Mr. Coupar's mentoring affected his whole career: "Coupar simply pulled me aside at the end of class one day and told me he had put my name forward to serve on the small team of pupils who would produce the School Magazine." Gordon enjoyed the experience so much that, as he stated, "I had to become part of the communications world. So a deep and sincere, thank you, John Coupar."

--------------------
It seems that John Coupar was one of those few of whom it could be said, "This was a teacher!"

Gordon Findlay emigrated to Canada in his twenties and spent his whole working life in the communications field. Sadly, he died in October 2017 at the age of 85. His stories live on in this collection.

WWII Childhood Memories
Bill Kidd
Our memories of growing up during World War II will vary depending on the actual year of our birth. I was born in 1935 and retain very clear memories from the early years of the war. Friends and family only a few years older not only share those memories but have greater understanding of what led up to them. On the other hand, those who are even a couple of years younger have little memory of happenings before VE Day.

Perhaps the differences in memory is the result of how the advent of war changed our experiences from what each of us regarded as normal! Here are a few of the 1935 vintage recollections:

There were no street lights as the authorities had imposed a total blackout to make it difficult for enemy planes to identify targets at night. Before putting on any lights you had to make sure that the windows were
properly covered so that no light escaped. My father made wooden frames covered with black paper that we put up at dusk every night.

Air Raid Precautions Wardens patrolled the streets and would complain if your windows were showing even a crack of light. The wardens were volunteers and they did this in their spare time outside their working hours as most of them had daytime jobs

Many of those too old or too young to serve in the fighting services were in the Home Guard that had been formed in 1940 to back
up the army in case of invasion. They manned anti-aircraft guns, cleared rubble, guarded damaged banks, pubs and shops, and assisted police and fire-fighters in rescue work and with other duties...

Everyone had an identity card and a ration book during the war. You could only shop for rationed goods at the butcher or grocer that you were registered with and when you bought your family's rations the appropriate coupons would be cut from your books. There were no supermarkets, so my mother (and sometimes me) often had to queue at the various stores in turn. Sometimes the queues were very long, particularly if it was rumoured that the store had just received a delivery of some scarce commodity.

There was very little choice in the shops, and quantities were limited – I never saw an orange or a banana during the war years ... Dried eggs, powdered milk and 'Spam' were widely used to complement the meagre rations. People who had access to a garden or allotment grew their own vegetables and some even kept chickens in their back yard. As well as supplementing their rations quite a few people also supplemented their income by selling their produce.

Goods such as clothes and furniture were in limited supply and were all labelled 'Utility' without a maker's name. I remember my mother and her friends embellishing their Utility clothing and furniture to give at least some individuality to their person and their homes. Rationing continued for quite a while after the war ended in 1945. In the following years various items were taken off the list but it wasn't until 1954 that rationing completely ended. One of the last items to come off ration was confectionery. During the war, sweets were in short supply, and ice cream pretty well disappeared altogether.

At home there was a container for vegetable peelings and other food waste. This was collected weekly for pig swill. Jam jars were hoarded like Ming vases to be refilled with home made jam when the extra sugar ration given for jam making became available. After some pleading and pledges of future good behaviour some of the extra ration was diverted into home-made toffee and tablet! Although rationing was very hard on adults, it didn't really have a big negative effect on me or my friends. As youngsters we had never been aware of many of the things that were in short supply and we didn't feel that we were being starved either!

What of the war itself? In Dundee we experienced little of it. There was a bomb that destroyed a building in Rosefield Street and a few desultory attempts at bombing the Tay Bridge and the submarine and seaplane facility near the Caledon shipyard. We had to carry our gas masks to school and had great fun in practising evacuating the school into the air raid shelters constructed on waste ground near the school.

Without having any idea of why we were doing it we collected "silver" paper and milk bottle tops for the Red Cross and waste paper for someone else. I don't remember wartime as being a particularly difficult time for us but then our family was one of those fortunate enough not to have suffered the loss of close friends or relatives.

I have shared a few of my wartime recollections. Each of us will have different memories of that period of our lives, so why not share your own memories of that time with your own anecdote.

Life Can Be a Drag – 2
Hugh McGrory
As I was writing my previous story, a memory of my friend Alan Mowat came to mind. Many of you will
remember Alan, a pleasant, quiet lad at school. Alan came to Morgan from Downfield School while I came from Dens Road, and, though we were in the same class for six years at Morgan, we only got to know each other in fourth year when we both took up field hockey.

We hung out together a bit, in our final year, since we were the only two headed for engineering. This continued into first year at university which was a general math/physics/chemistry year, but we drifted apart from second year on since he had chosen the mechanical engineering specialty while I went into civil, and he gave up field hockey, while I continued to play.

At school, Alan joined the School Army Cadet Corps and from time to time would go off for a week or so to various army locations where the young lads were exposed to some army training. His story was about one occasion when their sergeant said that
they were going to be shown how to drive in convoy.

Built by Bedford, the RL was the British military's main medium-sized lorry from the mid-1950s until the late 1960s. Each cadet was allocated a Bedford to drive in convoy, led by a regular army corporal
instructor, with the rear being brought up by the senior instructor, a sergeant. Alan happened to end up with the last truck in line, and found, to his dismay, that it wouldn't start.

The sergeant said that this was no problem since the truck was fitted with a tow rope. He manoeuvred his truck in front of Alan's and attached the rope from Alan's front bumper to his rear. Alan switched on the ignition, pushed in the clutch and put the gear shift into second. The sergeant pulled away and when they were doing about 15 mph Alan released the clutch gently and the engine started. Great!

Alan flashed his lights to tell the sergeant that he was good – but he just kept going. Alan waved his arm out the window – but he still kept going. Alan tried the horn, but it wasn't working – and they still kept going. Alan had by this time shifted to third gear so as to not over-rev the engine – and they still kept going. Then Alan had one of those, "It seemed like a good idea at the time", ideas... He thought that if he gently began to apply his brakes the sergeant would recognise the increased resistance and pull over. So he did – and they still kept going...

The tow rope, which had some stretch to it, was taut, of course, and Alan realised that if he didn't slacken off it might break. So he took his foot off the brake and the truck lurched forward. Realising that he was going to rear-end the sergeant, Alan braked again, the tow rope tightened up again, Alan had to release the brake again – and the sequence continued...

The third time, was the last, though... The whole tow assembly and rear bumper from the lorry in front tore off and Alan rode over it as it disappeared beneath his vehicle to be dragged along underneath.

Alan said that the sergeant, who was English, "Wasn't best pleased" and let him know what he thought of bloody useless Scottish twits...

Alan and I never met again after University – he moved to Birmingham after graduation and worked for Rolls Royce. Sadly he died in August, 2004.

PS
A couple of hours after posting this story my old school friend Neil (Tam) Thomson sent me the following from his home in Barbados:

"I remember when Alan was chosen to take part in the advance party convoy to the OTC(1) camp at Fylingdales near Scarborough in Yorkshire. We had a great time there. That's probably when this accident happened!"

(1) The Officers' Training Corps (OTC) are military leadership training units similar to school/university clubs but operated by the British Army. Their focus is to develop the leadership abilities of their members whilst giving them an opportunity to take part in military life.

OTC units are not deployable units nor are their cadets classed as trained soldiers. The majority of members of the OTC do not go on to serve in the regular or reserve forces.

My Friend Effie
Christine FitzWalter Clark
I was very sad when I heard that my school friend, Effie Marshall (Gordon), had died in August, 2018, just before her 82nd birthday. We were great friends (here we are, side by side, in Third Year) – we had kept in
touch after school, and she updated me with Dundee news over the years.

At school reunions we always went to the school hall together as she wanted to see the Dux Board with her son's name – she did not like to go alone, and my name is very near, under Homecraft. Sadly, Effie's son died very young.

My memory takes me back to the day Effie swallowed a halfpenny in class (she thought it was a Polo mint!)

I put up my hand to tell Mr Brown (the Geography teacher) but he gave us a row for whispering! It was difficult to convince him, but we were finally sent to Miss Wallace (her title – Lady Superintendent – known to us all as Nellie).

Effie was taken to Maryfield Hospital and fed only porridge – until the halfpenny finally dropped...

Life Can Be a Drag...
Hugh McGrory
In 1960, my then girl friend's father had just bought a (used) Morris Minor car and the family were heading
down to London from Dundee for a few days (can't remember why...). She asked her parents if I could come, and her father said yes – I think reluctantly, but he was happy to have someone to share the driving...

We got to the outskirts of London OK, but the car had begun to act up over the last hour or so to the extent that, once we got to the hotel, the father decided that we shouldn't drive it any further. He contacted the car sales firm that had sold him the car and they told him to have it towed to a specific garage, Lex, to
Morris Minor – 1956
be checked out. He called Lex and they said they'd send a tow-truck.

So I thought things were looking up, that he (wrong) would travel in the cab (wrong) with the tow-truck driver to the garage a few miles away (wrong) the car would be fixed up in no time (wrong) and we'd be back to normal.

The Lex garage was, in fact quite famous. It was located in Brewer St, Soho, in London's West End entertainment district about a ten minute stroll from Leicester Square. The garage and asssociated multi-story car park was the first opened in Britain in 1928. In those days it had a cafe (for owner-drivers) and a separate canteen for chauffeurs.

For much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation as a base for the sex industry in addition to its night life and its location for the headquarters of leading film companies. So the car park and garage had many famous and infamous customers – movie people, 'exotic dancers' from The Windmill Theatre and the Raymond Revuebar, clients of the music clubs such as the 2i's Coffee Bar and the Marquee Club, and various spivs and wide boys...
The Lex The Windmill Raymond Revuebar
Cliff Richard was a Lex customer too, and that same year, he traded in his Sunbeam Alpine and bought a red
American Thunderbird with a white roof. He paid £4,000 for it (as a comparison, he also bought his parents a house that same year – for £7,000!)

The Lex firm is no longer there, but in 2002 the building was listed as an important example of Art Deco architecture and it
remains in use as an NCP car park today, though it also hosts occasional events (such as a screening of Taxi Driver in 2010).

From the point of view of our story, the important fact was that the car would have to be towed from where we were on the outskirts of London, right into the heart of the city...

When the tow-truck arrived, it turned out that the car was to be towed on a rope – not a rigid tow bar. I saw my girl friend's father's face blanche when he realised this and – it seemed like a good idea at the time – I asked him if he'd like me to go instead of him. He had to think about it for a while – about half a second – before agreeing.

I didn't have a car at that time and didn't have much experience driving. I had recently paid for eight lessons from a driving school in Bromley, Kent, (7 hourly lessons plus the test) but I overslept and missed one – enough to pass my test, but I only had those few hours driving experience (plus the drive down to London...)

Those of you who have been towed by another vehicle by a towrope will know what it's like – scary! It needs skill on the part of the tower and the towee. The former has to drive carefully – very carefully – keeping the speed as low as safely possible, and pulling away gently, modulating the clutch to avoid 'snatching' the rope. That prevents a really unpleasant jerking action in the car being towed, and risks snapping the towrope.

A light foot on the brakes is a necessity and they need to be activated in advance to trigger the brake lights so the towed car has plenty of notice that braking is imminent. Turn indicators need to used well in advance to give the towee plenty of notice.

The AA says that the towee has the tougher end of the operation. First off, if the towed car has no engine power, power-assisted brakes and steering, if present, need much greater physical effort to operate. The towee has to keep an eagle eye out for brake lights and indicators on the tow car, and be ready to coordinate steering and braking actions. Ideally, tension should be kept in the towrope as much as possible by braking very lightly while being towed. This will prevent 'snatching' and will keep the rope from dragging along the road, and reduce the possibility of running over it.

I'm sure my tow truck driver was very experienced, and very used to driving in London traffic – but I was neither – and I had the impression that he quickly forgot I was there... I spent a nerve-racking hour and a half yo-yoing back and forward on the end of the rope amidst the thousands of cars trucks, buses and London taxis that seemed to come out of nowhere. I either reacted late then had to brake hard to avoid ramming the truck, or stopped too close to it then got a teeth-rattling jolt when he took off.

When we finally arrived, I was sitting in a puddle of sweat – I was literally at the end of my rope... The tow truck driver seemed just fine though...

The story didn't end there. The next day we got a call from Lex saying that they would have to strip the engine, and the seller back home gave the OK. The car needed major work on the crankshaft and piston rods, but was ready in a couple of days. When it came time to pick it up and pay the bill, the shop foreman told us that the engine was a lemon, and that they had found that paper shims had been used to temporarily take up slack in the bearings. They agreed to give us a letter describing what they'd found and a couple of examples of the shims.

The car behaved well on the way home, and fortunately, the company that the car had been bought from, Stout of Abernyte, were a reputable firm, as much victims as we were, and they reimbursed all of the costs involved. The car performed well for years afterwards.

For the glory of your House!
Gordon Findlay
Competition at Morgan was fuelled by another factor: the school was divided into four 'Houses' – Airlie,
Cortachy, Glamis and Mains – each of these being geographical parts of Eastern Scotland and each with some claim to historic fame... like Glamis Castle, where the King or Queen spent summer months. Each pupil at Morgan was allocated to a House, and from that moment on, you became identified with that House – academically and on the sports field – and could, if you wished, wear the appropriate lapel pin shown on the right, on your blazer.

In the school's large assembly hall, each House had its own massive wooden plaque on which was entered, by year, each student who had honoured their House with some academic honour – a dux in English, or French or Mathematics or some other subject.

The term 'dux' is used throughout the Scottish education system. The word is the Latin for leader or champion – from the verb ducere 'to lead'. The top pupil in a subject, class or in the school, became the 'dux' in that particular category. Achieving the 'dux' in an academic category was worth – as I recall – 200 points for your House. For sporting activities there were no duxes, but those who were selected for a team which represented Morgan Academy were awarded caps (real blue velvet caps, trimmed in gold with a tassel and the letters of the school embroidered on the front) – much coveted and sought after.

I eventually won my cap for rugby when I was chosen for the 1st XV which represented the school in competition against other private schools around eastern Scotland at that time.

Naturally, each year, one of the school Houses would emerge triumphant with most points earned over the year with a combination of total points earned on the sports field or in the classroom. The winning House had its name inscribed on the school's honor board displayed at the back of the main auditorium.

Again, I was lucky. If the first member of a family had been randomly placed in Airlie House, then subsequent members of the same family were allocated to Airlie.

My father had been an Airlie boy, so all we Findlay boys joined the House of Airlie. And as luck would have it, for some unfathomable reason over the many years of sport and academic competition, Airlie was by far the dominant House at Morgan Academy.

As a 'new boy' at school in the primary grades, you really didn't think much about your House affiliation; but as you grew older and became aware of the strong undercurrent of competition which flowed throughout the school, it became a very big thing indeed.

Inter-House rugby games were intense because not only were you playing for the prestige of your House, but you were playing against school chums who represented another House.

I was a very keen rugby player – even at that young age my competitive instincts were well honed. I practically lived for the annual grudge match against our across-town rivals, Dundee High School, the other private school within the city.

Morgan Academy Dundee High School
They looked down their noses a little at us, since Morgan had a long tradition of admitting a number of non-fee-paying students based on their outstanding academic achievements within the public school system. I never really thought much about the concept, if I thought about it at all.

What on Earth...?
Hugh McGrory
Long-term memory is weird, isn't it, the way things pop into your head for no seeming reason – I suppose we receive some sort of trigger from one of our senses - sound, smell - that we're not aware of, and bingo, a memory from years ago...

It just happened to me...

My hometown of Dundee has a beautiful location on the north shore of the Firth of Tay, and is dominated by a large hill known as the Law – it was made by an ancient volcano, many miles away, when it released
a lava flow which was first covered by sandstone, then later by glaciers. They eroded the softer sandstone overlay finally leaving it bare when the ice age ended some 14,000 years ago. It's not very high, less than 600 ft., but there's a great view of the city and beyond, from its summit.

If you flew due north from The Law for about 10 miles, you'd arrive at Glamis Castle where Elizabeth, the late Queen Mother, spent her childhood. You couldn't see the castle from the Law, however, since a 20-mile range of small hills known as the Sidlaws cuts across country between Glamis and Dundee, south-west to Perth. Known as the 'Seedlees', in the local tongue, they're not very tall, ranging up to about 1,500 ft., but offer pleasant hill-walking opportunities to Dundonians who are so inclined.

But about that long-ago memory...

When I was about fifteen, I must have been at a loose end one spring day and decided to go for a solitary bike ride. I think I probably dressed as I would for school – blazer, flannel pants and lace-up shoes, and didn't intend to go too far. I headed north and soon reached the city boundary then the road began to climb as it headed towards the hills.

I just kept pedalling and eventually ran out of road where the Seedlees began. I parked my bike and decided
to go for a wee walk on the hills. One thing led to another, and I eventually found my way to the top of Auchterhouse Hill.

I didn't see another soul around, enjoyed the view for a few minutes, and after watering the heather, set off downwards. I picked up my bike and coasted downhill, looking forward to very little pedalling until I hit the town.

After only a few minutes of coasting I saw a farmer in a field abutting the road, with two large horses pulling a plough in preparation for spring planting. Not being in any hurry, I stopped to watch.

He came to the edge of the field, probably needing to give his horses a breather and stopped beside me. We chatted a little about what he was doing, and I asked a few questions about the horse, the plough and the process.

He then said, "You want to try your hand" and I thought – "Why the hell not...?"

So I climbed over the low wall while he turned the horses and got them, and the plough, lined up for the next furrow. He then showed me how to stand between the handles and hold the plough upright with the continuous reins looped behind my back, over my right shoulder and under my left.

He gave the command and we were off – I found it really quite difficult to keep the plough upright and kept stumbling over the earth in the furrow. At the far end, he turned the horses, lined us up again and we headed back.

I thought I was beginning to get the hang of it – it was hard work – when suddenly the plough stopped dead and in a flash the two handles sprang up either side of me until they were almost vertical. The horses stopped immediately, and I realised that the plough blade had hit a large boulder. If I'd been leaning to the side a bit, I might have been uppercut by one of the handles, or could have broken a wrist.

At that moment, I think the farmer had visions of having to call for an ambulance at some point and we mutually decided that maybe enough was enough. I thanked him gave the horses a pat or two then headed back to my bike.

(As an aside: The boulder was perhaps three times the size of my head, and, buried in that hard-packed after-winter soil, easily stopped those two large Clydesdales. As I write this, it occurs to me to wonder why it was still there, in a field that has probably been under cultivation for hundreds, if not thousands of years?)

My shoes were covered in mud and full of earth, and the bottom of my pants were really messed up. When I got home, my mother took one look and said, "What on earth...?"

I said, "Funny you should say earth, Mum..."

Just another wee, fun, interesting experience in life's journey – now what on earth reminded me of that story, nearly 70 years later...?

Postcards – 2
Anne FitzWalter Golden
There is much to learn in the detail of postcards, front and back, by looking at the stamp, the address, the message, the artist, the publisher. The price of the stamp, the date stamp and the reigning monarch will help you date a postcard.... and of course you can send a message according to where you place the stamp!

The address will show you various addresses where your folk dwelt over the years. I found my grandfather's
address in London from a postcard sent by Miss Ogronovitch, en route back to Russia – it was a residence for embassy staff who left in 1937.

We sold the house in 1976 to a maried couple you may recognise:
Grandfather's House The Purchasers - John Thaw and Sheila Hancock - mentioned in her book 'The Two of Us' page 172.
The message often reveals a bit of history. Here is one sent to J. Brydon and Sons dated 3rd July 1946,
which bears no relationship to my weekly shopping list!!

I inherited a card that I sent my parents from St Andrews with the message SOS, LSD, Quam cellerime! One broke student!

Some deltiologists collect particular artists. Example of sought after artists are:

Louis Wain whose humanised cats sell from £40 to £100...a fortune in the attic.

Donald McGill born 1875 was King of the seaside postcard from 1905-1962 with his suggestive designs of buxom ladies, wimpish men and double entendres!

His cards became more and more saucy leading to his trial under the obscenity laws in the early 1950s.

AR Quinton 1853-1934 is also a collectible artist. His cards from 1904 on were of beautiful landscapes and gardens. He also introduced colour which was pioneered on the Continent. There are also some very well
known publishers of postcards... Best known is Francis Frith a Quaker and wholesale grocer in Liverpool until 1855 when he pursued his new hobby of photography to which the development of postcards owes much. Thanks to develop- ments in rail travel he spent the second
half of the 19th century taking photographs all over Britain and on the Continent.

He moved to Reigate and set up a publishing firm with his sons, publishing his photographs in book form. These can still be purchased for many towns. Some are marked 'real photograph'... but don't believe everything you see, as for example Loch Ness, clearly marked on the back as 'real photograph'.

Another early publisher of renown was Raphael Tuck and Sons. His cards bear the Royal Warrant logo and were published often in sets of 6 or more. I have a set of Tuck's Ironclads... HMS Lord Nelson, St Vincent, Collingwood, Colossus and Hercules, warships built for the Admiralty thanks to Winston Churchill who foresaw WW1. Churchill became First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911. I have two other cards of HMS Iron Duke and of HMS Superb... so much history in postcards. I also have a postcard of Admiral John R Jellicoe and his autograph.

There are numerous other postcard publishers, most common of the largest being Salmon and Hinds but to
all Dundonians it has to be Valentines, later under the name Whiteholme of Dundee...

Our Richard Young used to work for them and sent me some old cards of Bonnie Dundee so I will end there, otherwise I could go on forever – 4000 postcards are a lot,
even for a deltiologist – and every one tells its own story!

Keep sending postcards!!!!

Carpenters' Hall
Hugh McGrory
Many Cities around the world have Carpenters' Halls. One of the most famous is that in Philadelphia in what is now known as Independence National Historic Park (which, as it happens, I have visited). Built in the early 1770s for the Carpenters' craft guild, it was the meeting place of the First Continental Congress of the US in 1774.

In London, England, the Carpenters' Hall, known as Livery Hall, was first built in 1429, and is now in its third reincarnation on the same site – a showpiece for the craft of carpentry.

Dundee too had its Carpenters' Hall. At the beginning of the 20th century it was in Candle Lane, but, like the Overgate, it seems to have fallen to the bulldozers of progress and, I believe, moved along the Ferry Road to a spot near Market Street opposite S. Baffin Street.

I'm talking about this because one of our long-ago classmates, Muriel Allan Kidd, reminded me of an event from our schooldays:

At our high school, Morgan Academy, one of the perks of reaching fifth or sixth year (17 and 18-year-olds) was that the school organized an annual dance attended by both years, where boys and girls could dance together (a teacher-chaperoned event, of course...)

In first year, we 12/13-year-olds decided not to wait, and an unofficial, non-chaperoned event sounded like a good idea. This is how the hall we knew as Carpenter's Hall came to be rented... (The hall still exists today – as you can see it's rather less grand than the previous two...)

The prime mover in organising this event was Pat Dowie (Stevenson), and, I believe, she was assisted by George Boath (though I'm less sure of that fact).

My guess is that this was a Saturday evening event. I remember that the girls were all dressed in their pretty and colourful party dresses. I think the boys mostly turned up as if they were going to school – perhaps changing their ties in deference to the occasion...

The band was 'The Gie Gordons', the pianist and singer being our classmate Bobby Moffatt in the middle, below.

I can't remember much detail, unfortunately, other than it was a success and a generally pleasant experience for all conncerned.

We boys all wanted to end up with a girl friend, but I remember that the girls gathered at one side of the room and the boys at the other. The girls did a lot of dancing with each other while the boys indulged in conversations along the lines of:

"She's nice – go on – ask 'er to dance"
"Ehm no' askin' 'er – you go."
"Ehm no' goin'..."

We all wanted to catch a girl, but I suspect we'd have been like the proverbial dog who liked to chase vehicles – the one that caught a car one day, sank its teeth into the bumper, then said to itself "Now what..."

I don't know how the girls managed to resist my friends and me – but they did. I mean we were, after all, rather smart and sophisticated – cursor over the photo to see us, click for a bigger version


(My growth spurt had clearly not begun yet – of course, when it did, it didn't last very long...)

There is a sting in the tail of this story, though, that I only learned a few years ago:

Somehow, word of the event got back to the school, and the prime organiser, Pat, was summoned to the Beak's office (sorry the Rector's office) as our headmaster was referred to. He was apparently furious and told her that she was to be expelled from the school.

Fortunately, after her parents went to see him, he relented, and Pat went on to a distinguished career in school and afterwards, culminating with the award of an MBE from the Queen.

--------------------
Author's Note

When I was writing this little story, I was bothered by a memory that said that, when we entered the front door, we turned right into the hall proper. Neither Google Earth nor Street View cleared this up for me, so I put it down to my advancing years... Thanks to an email from Pete Rennie (who, himself, has contributed several entertaining tales for this series) I have the real story...

It seems that some time in the more than fifty years since I left Dundee, the Carpenters' Hall we knew was demolished and replaced by the structure shown in the photo above. 'Our hall' was a similar old wooden structure, but it ran parallel to the street.

Books, Cakes and Sarsaparilla
Bill Kidd

The Dundee City Centre that I think I remember as an adolescent was a busy, bustling sort of place, with lots of people walking back and forth or jumping on or off trams. Apart for the trams, there was very little in the way of traffic in the Nethergate and even less moving through the High Street. I still fail to understand why the constabulary thought it necessary to have a police man or woman on point duty at the top of Whitehall Street (answers on a postcard please along with an uncrossed P.O. for ₤1.00).

City Square, on a rainy day, with Caird Hall in the background.
The civic hub of all this activity was the City Square, where the pigeons were constantly being scattered by people cutting across the Square to take the exit for the GPO (General Post Office) located at the foot of Crichton Street, or the alleyway to the east that took them to the public toilets on the way to Castle Street or down the steps to the City Arcade.

Across from the City Square were the pillars guarding Reform Street (and perhaps the High School?). The pillar on the right was the H. Samuel's shop adorned with the clock under which the scenario for many a Brief Encounter was played out. The left-hand pillar was the building containing Boots the Chemist which guarded the entry to the major artery to the heart of Dundee, the Old Overgate!


The Overgate in the 1940s and '50s was a strange mixture of biggish well-established shops, little specialist shops, pubs, restaurants, chemists and appallingly bad housing. It was possible to buy almost anything in the Overgate and the adjacent Mid Kirk Style market. It was a fascinating place to while away an hour or two of a Saturday or a school holiday. To illustrate what was lost when the old Overgate was vandalised to make way for the first of the "new" shopping centres I will take a trip down memory lane.

Entering the Overgate from the Boots' corner, my first target was Franchi's restaurant and confectioner's shop. Franchi's was a popular and affordable venue for family high teas, mainly consisting of fish and chips, bread and cakes, all washed down with a pot of tea. On a Saturday it was well patronised by folk coming in from the country for an evening at the cinema. Next door there was a dress shop but as I never had to buy dresses, I only have a vague memory of its existence.

Crossing the road, I recall two Dundee landmarks that I certainly made use of, Wallace's Land o' Cakes and Riley's Amusements. The Wallace of Land o' Cakes was a different Wallace from the pie shop on Castle Street, the L o' C Wallace was J.M. Wallace, later the entrepreneur behind the JM Ballroom. I don't remember his cakes being particularly inspiring but then you can't have everything!

The amusement arcade next door was mainly a magnet for young males who had a surplus of pennies to put in the various machines. I recall an inefficient crane that kept dropping chocolate, small toys and one occasion a watch, just as the grab was approaching the chute that should deliver the treasure. One of the joys of Riley's is that you could shelter from the rain without having to spend anything and pass the time giving gratuitous advice to the younger boys trying to operate the various machines.

On the assumption that it had stopped raining and ignoring Tally Street, the New Imperial Hotel and the entrance to Mid Kirk Style market I cross the street to my next target, Greenhill's the chemist where, in addition to the usual cures and potions, sarsaparilla was for sale. In my innocence I did not realise that it's main claim to fame was as a renowned hangover cure!

Many a time I paid my fourpence and watched as the lady picked up a glass of the black liquid then added a white powder with a horn spoon and stirred until the drink had fizzed up to her satisfaction. Even as I write this, I can feel the saliva beginning to flow!

Moving on up the same side of the road we come to Birrell's and Patterson's, two of the main Dundee shoe shops. I cannot remember which of them risked shortening their customers' lives by the indiscriminate use of the X-Ray machine that showed if the shoe fitted properly.

Moving along, I recall a Stuart Patrick newsagent and tobacconist that held two items of interest for me. First, they sold single cigarettes and second, they operated a subscription library that enabled you to read books that the public librarians looked down their noses at.

On the opposite side of the road there was a row of small shops that each had a couple of steps to descend in order to gain entry. One of them sold song sheets, mainly traditional and Victorian. In addition to fairly well-known mainstream Scottish ballads they had a range of the most dreadful dirges that my grandmothers used to sit and sing when they visited each other.

Next door was occupied by the Polish photographer who seemed to attend every dance and party held in Dundee. You went into the shop and gave the details of the occasion that you were interested in. You were then shown the photographs that he had taken and for a half-crown you received a postcard sized print. If the photo that you were interested in had already been sold you could pick it out from a contact sheet, pay your half crown plus sixpence for postage and he would send it to you. The photographer was always in the shop during the day and as he was attending functions in the evening, he must have processed the films overnight, no sleep for the enterprising. I only hope that he retired before the invention of digital cameras!

Back on the right-hand side I make a slight diversion on to Barrack Street and Frank Russell's book shop, but I am not going to go in as I would be there until it closed. This is the real Frank Russell's not the ersatz version that turned up in the Nethergate. I remember Mr Russell himself helping me find what I needed downstairs among the second-hand books. Frank Russell's didn't smell of books it exuded the glorious bouquet of them!

Returning to the Overgate my next target is Lamb's Emporium at the corner of Lindsay Street. This shop was packed to the ceiling with sports goods of all kinds, toys and games, hardware and household items. If you had difficulty in finding something elsewhere in Dundee the chances were that Lamb's would have it. Continuing up the same side, opposite the end of Long Wynd I find Donnachie's, another chemist that sells sarsaparilla. To my mind their brew was a pale imitation of Greenhill's but if you had entered the Overgate from the West Port it could provide a welcome thirst quencher on a hot day.

Over the road there is an incongruous swing park and a tract of waste ground that has a few market stalls on it for a couple of days a week. If I continue further, I will leave the Overgate by the West Port, so I will just turn around and treat myself to another glass of Greenhill's Sass.

I still recall how I felt on returning from National Service to find much of the Overgate being torn down to make room for the Overgate Shopping Centre. I believed then, and I still believe, that the City Fathers tore
As it looked in the '50s and in the '60s.
the heart out of Dundee. Perhaps a more sensitive group of people could have taken a lesson from Amsterdam or Paris and found a way to retain the facade and spirit of the Old Overgate while integrating modern housing and shops.

But then, I am also reaching the stage that a renovation is needed to retain my own facade and spirit!

The Rent Man
Hugh McGrory
Many of you who grew up in Dundee in the '50s and '60s, if you lived in rented municipal homes, will remember a knock on the door on a Friday evening and a voice announcing, 'Rent Man'. Each household had a rent book, and after the rent man had been given the correct amount (usually by 'the wumman o' the hoose') he would enter the amount and initial the book for that week whereupon the book would be placed in its reserved spot – in one of the drawers, in the sideboard in the living room, no doubt.

In the early '60s I worked for a year and a half or so, for the Dundee City Engineering and Town Planning Department – many of you will remember the City Engineer at that time, John Armour, who later became City Engineer of Glasgow. I discovered, late in my employment there, that there was a perk to be had if you worked for the City Corporation. This was the ability to become a rent collector and earn a few bob collecting each Friday, after work.

So one of the 'old-timers' gave me the name of the contact who allocated the jobs – they were much sought after – and I finally got on the list and got a call to replace someone who was on vacation. When I turned up for my first assignment, I wasn't surprised to learn that 'those-and-such-as-those' got the prime 'territories' – the 'newbies' got allocated to the less salubrious parts of the city. I got the Overgate...

For those of you who aren't Dundonians, the Overgate was in the heart of the city, one of the oldest areas of this old town. The Dundee area supported humans for thousands of years, given its balmy micro-climate and its location on the River Tay – it was known as a port city, in Britain and Europe, as early as the 11th and 12th centuries.

Dundee became a walled city when Henry VIII decided to attempt to force Mary, Queen of Scots, to marry his youngest son Edward (the then Duke of Cornwall). In July 1547, much of the city was destroyed by an English naval bombardment.

The wall was punctuated by gates – referred to as Ports e.g. 'The West Port' – to allow commerce between the city and surrounding towns, villages and farms. The roads that led from the Ports into the town centre had names such as: Seagate, Marketgate etc.

The wall didn't last long – it was destroyed in 1651 by a Roundhead force, under the command of General Monck, determined to root out Royalists. Today there only remains part of one of the gates – known as the Wishart Arch.

Down through the years there was another reminder of that time however, in that several of the streets in the city retained their 'gate' names – the Nethergate is one, and a parallel street, at a slightly higher elevation, the Overgate.

'Tenements', as walk-up apartment buildings were referred to, were usually three or four stories. In the Overgate, the ground floor was mainly small shops, and 'closes' or pends, passageways, led between these to stairs that led up to the homes above. Sadly, the shops and houses of the Overgate that I knew in the '50s were completely razed in the '60s to be replaced by a shopping centre. The photo shows The Overgate as it was then and now:

The Overgate on the right going off into the distance. The tenements on the right were part of my 'route'.
In this early 1900s photo the boy with the basket stands outside a close between a clothing store and a hair- dresser.
How it looks today.
The toilets were outside and communal, the rooms were small though often extended families shared the space – illumination was from natural gas lighting – the buildings were around 150 years old.

But back to my brief career as a rent collector. The area described above was where I had to collect rents. I have a vivid memory of walking into one of the closes and being enveloped in pitch blackness – the gaslights in the close and up the stairs were all out – I literally couldn't see my hand in front of my face.

I was conscious of the fact that this was considered a rough area of the town, and I was carrying a bag of money... I wondered if it was an 'ambush'... I thought of missing the building altogether – but that seemed a 'wimpy' thing to do – and I would have had to explain the missing rents when I got back to headquarters...

So I took a deep breath and felt my way into the close and up the first flight of stairs, then I felt my way along the corridor until I found a door to knock on. Some people kept you at the door, others invited you to step inside while they got the rent money, and you marked their rent book.

The dim light as I left the first house let me see where the next door was, and I felt my way there in the darkness. I repeated this on each floor to complete the building. The folk I met were really very pleasant, and most of them had the rent money ready. No one was lying in wait to rob me and I got back to the street without incident.

I have to admit, though, I was sweating bullets by that time. I still remember how scary it was...

School Sports...
Gordon Findlay
The boys' winter sport at Morgan was rugby, the summer sport of choice for the school was cricket. Everybody had to play. No exceptions.

It certainly wasn't my favourite sport and I discovered early on that I didn't have the strong wrists, the muscled forearms or the quick reactions that you need to be a good batsman. I was a pretty good bowler, though, so I was able to win a spot on the Airlie House cricket team, as a bowler.

At Morgan, soccer – or rather, football as we knew it back then – was looked down on as a sport played by hooligans of the 'lower classes' who even played it (gasp!) for money as professionals . . . oh, the horror!

Gordon would have bowled on this pitch, probably with the same wickets, some years before this photo was taken.
Later on, as I was about halfway through my education, Morgan bowed to changing times and somewhat reluctantly introduced soccer into the accepted sports played at the school.

Eventually the school even fielded a pretty decent senior boys' team which competed against other soccer-playing schools in the district and accomplished itself well. Morgan even introduced an annual Masters vs Pupils soccer game which was enormously popular and even brought many parents out to see their youngsters playing against the teachers.
The annual Games Day at the school was a major event. The school's sports field was converted into a giant arena to display all the usual track and field events. Small viewing stands were erected, refreshment
booths were sprinkled around the grounds, and parents were invited to watch their children perform. Every student – and I mean EVERY student – regardless of ability, simply had to put his or her name down for at least one event. There were no exceptions.

Galveston, Oh...
Hugh McGrory
...Galveston,
I still hear your seawinds blowing...

In the 5 years from 1980 to 1984, Galveston was hit by 6 hurricanes and 4 tropical storms - Galveston is a city that knows from wind...

While Sheila and I were vsiting our friends Sam and Mary, Sam suggested we go down to Galveston and take a day trip in the company's sport fishing boat. We drove the 50 miles from Houston. It was a cloudy
day, a litle windy – helped to relieve some of the muggy heat of the city. We arrived at the marina and met the Skipper and the crew member.
I don't remember the boat terribly well - it was probably about 45 feet long – looked rather like the one in the first photo. The second is a poor snapshot that I took of Mary, Sheila, and Sam – it does show a glimpse of the actual boat...

The Skipper and Sam had a discussion and then Sam told me that it looked like there was going to be 'a bit of a blow', and the Skipper felt that it might be wiser if we landlubbers didn't go out...

We had a discussion, and I remember saying things like "Don't be such wimps." and "What's the worst that could happen?" – what the hell was I thinking! The others, reluctantly I think now, acquiesced to please me...

The Skipper said he'd take us out to 'The Bank' about 30 miles offshore (properly referred to as Heald Bank – a favourite spot for shark fishing.) The first few minutes after we left dock, sheltered as we were by the adjacent land masses, were very pleasant. As we moved into Galveston Bay, the swell began to be noticeable, then as we followed the channel towards the Atlantic (that part of it known as The Gulf of Mexico) the waves began.

We headed south east (in the general direction of Cuba), and the boat began to pitch up and down.
The contents of my stomach began to move in sympathy, prompting a message to my brain that said something like "does this idiot not remember that he can't travel 20 miles in a bus without getting travel sick...?"

I looked at Sheila, Sam and Mary – none of them seemed to be enjoying themselves – but none looked like I felt! I held out for a few more minutes then had to announce that I was about to throw up and made a dive for the leeward rail. The deckhand handed me a bucket ( he was prepared...) which I nursed as the Skipper turned us around and headed back. I would have been embarrassed had I not felt so bad that I knew I was about to die – so what was the point...

Once we got back to the shelter of land I began to feel slightly better. We tied up, and when I got on to the dock, I had that feeling that many of you will recognise when it feels as if the ground is moving under your feet. The others said that they were all feeling "a bit queasy", but they were all certainly much better sailors than I...

Full disclosure – for those of you who've seen the movie 'The Perfect Storm' and may remember the depiction of the highest waves ever recorded (100 feet), while my stomach thought that's what we were experiencing, I think, looking back, the waves were about 4 to 5 feet... Half an hour later I felt fine again. What can I say – it seemed like a good idea at the time...

The Gulf of Mexico is huge – close to land, the shallow continental shelf is a prime area for fishing and oil producing, but the whole of Britain could fit into the Gulf without touching the sides, and it's almost 3 miles to the sea floor at its deepest point.

Finally, for those of you who, like me, remember fondly, the late Glenn Campbell who made Galveston famous...

Serendipity...
Jim Howie
Like Anne Fitzwalter, I have collected old picture postcards for years – many of them feature Dundee in years gone by – I thought this story might interest you:

Whilst looking through a dealer's postcard stock in 2009, I glanced at the back of the card of The Queen's Visit to Dundee in 1908 as it had an advert for a motor car repair business in Reform Street which seemed unusual.

On turning it over I instantly recognized the handwriting of my great-aunt Georgiana W. Howie who was born in 1870. The card was posted on August 27, 1908.

Some three years later at a postcard and stamp fair in Perth, in another dealer's stock, was another of her cards 'The Latest Craze, American Roller Skating in Dundee', posted on February 2, 1909. This was in the Kinnaird Hall in Bank Street which had been floored over for the skating rink – we knew it better as the Kinnaird Cinema of our youth.

At an auction in January this year, I successfully bid for some postcard lots. Imagine my surprise and delight to find yet another card sent by my great aunt on March 24, 1909, of Windsor Street, Dundee, amongst the
cards I bought. They were all addressed to Mrs. Burns, Middle Craigie, Dundee which at that time was a farm on the eastern outskirts of Dundee.

Middle Craigie Farm was actually located just east of the Eastern Cemetery. The farmhouse and steading were in the area now occupied by North Isla Motors, off Mid Craigie Road – north east of the original part of the cemetery.

The Shootist – 5
Hugh McGrory
In the final scene of the movie Little Caesar, Edward G Robinson, playing the evil gangster Rico, says, as he lies dying a bloody death, "Mother o' Mercy. Is this the end of Rico?"

John Wayne's character in The Shootist, the 1976 movie of the same name (Wayne's last film), having only a few months to live because of cancer, ended his career in a bloody shootout in the local saloon against three rival gunmen.

My career as a Shootist came to a bloody end too – but not what you're thinking. I didn't do a Dick Cheney...

While we were on the ranch in Texas, my buddy Sam asked if had done any shooting. I told him of my meagre experience and he invited us to go hunt some doves the next day. It seems that Texas is, by far, the major dove hunting state in the United States, killing more than 5 million each year. The season only lasts about 2 months, but each year some 400,000 hunters manage to spend about a third of a billion dollars on food, lodging, transportation, licences, land access and equipment. The Texan dove hunters buy 75% of all shotgun shells sold in the US each year.

So, the next day, having provided me with a shotgun, Sam told me to walk along a lane which bordered the bottom of a field that had been recently harvested. He positioned himself at the top of the field and began to walk towards me with the intent of flushing some dove(s) into flight and towards me.

Our wives remained a safe distance behind me as I waited to see if we'd have any luck. Nothing happened at first, and my attention drifted slightly, when suddenly I heard "HUGH!!!". I looked at Sam and he was pointing. I scanned the sky as I raised the gun to my shoulder, and saw a small bird about to fly over the road about 40 yards ahead of me and perhaps 50 feet in the air. Remembering what I'd been told, I 'led' the bird slightly and fired while sweeping the gun in the direction of flight. The bird seemed to stop in midair and dive to the ground landing on the edge of the road. (While I was impressed all to hell with my shot, we have to remember that I wasn't firing a bullet, but rather lots of tiny balls which spread out as they go...)

I walked forward to pick up the dead bird, and heard the women coming behind me to take a look. As I got
to the bird, a little mourning dove, I realised that it wasn't dead, just badly hurt. The dove and I looked at each other and I could hear it saying to me "Why did you do that?" while I'm saying to myself "Why did you do that...?"

I picked it up and thought "I can't let this beautiful little creature suffer like this, and I don't want Sheila and Mary to see it either..." But what to do? They were only a few yards away by this time. From somewhere the phrase 'wring a bird's neck' came into my consciousness, so just as they arrived right behind me, I held the bird in my left hand, took its head between the thumb and forefinger of my right, then tugged and twisted at the same time.

The idea was right, but the execution (no pun intended) was awful. I pulled too hard, just as our wives arrived to see me standing there with the bird's head in my right hand, the body in my left, and blood dripping from both...

That day was about 40 years ago – I haven't touched a gun since.

Memory Chain
Bill and Muriel Allan Kidd
As we get older and odd memories pop up, seemingly out of nowhere, we are also prey to seeing or hearing something that stirs up a totally irrelevant memory that turns out to be the first part of a chain reaction that ends in a place and time that was Dundee in the mid twentieth century. Such was the case when Theresa May met the other EU leaders in Salzburg Fortress. This event reminded us of our holiday visit to the Fortress and so the chain reaction was triggered!

It was October 2003 and we were taking a SAGA (the UK travel service) break in the Austrian countryside. We flew into Munich Airport on a scheduled flight and, in accordance with our instructions, we were to wait in a specific area of the arrivals hall where we would be met by the SAGA representative. A small group of us gathered in the designated area and waited patiently for our rep to arrive. After half-an-hour we were less patient and had started to discuss among ourselves what we should do and decided that we would telephone SAGA in the UK.

Bill was the only one present with a fully charged phone so he spoke to the SAGA HQ who phoned back to say that the mini-bus had broken down and a replacement was on its way. All greatly relieved, we decided that a drink was in order. Meanwhile Muriel had been chatting with an elderly lady who was holidaying on her own so we invited her to join us in the bar.

When we got our drinks we exchanged the usual pleasantries and discovered that our new friend was not only an actress but had spent a couple of years at Dundee Rep. Her stage name was Nancy Mansfield and it was likely that we had seen her on stage in the Nicoll Street theatre. Over the week we became good friends and remained in contact until she died a few years later.

The next link in the memory chain was, of course, Dundee Repertory Theatre. Neither of us were regular theatre goers but over the years we did patronise the Rep and enjoyed many of the stock offerings from Agatha Christie, J B Priestly and Terence Rattigan. We even threw in the odd Shakespeare and Bernard Shaw.

As we recall, the company was always short of money but never short of talent! In later years it was always interesting to see someone that you had seen on stage at the Rep turn up in a TV show. Some of the Christmas shows stand out. Treasure Island and Toad of Toad Hall were particularly memorable. However, our all time favourite was a joint Dundee/Perth Rep production of Antony and Cleopatra when Antony got his Toga caught in a protruding nail on a rather flimsy on-stage pillar. Despite his best efforts he could not dislodge his toga and was followed around by the pillar much to the amusement of his fellow actors who were in fits of laughter. The Shakespearian pomp disappeared to be replaced by a wonderfully enjoyable hamming of the rest of the Bard's words. Live theatre is wonderful and unforgettable when the audience and performers are both enjoying the experience.

Our visits to the Rep were in the converted Masonic Hall in Nicoll Street, the company's home until it was burned down in 1963. By that time we were no longer in Dundee but kept an eye on how it managed to keep going in all sorts of temporary accommodation, including a marquee in Camperdown Park. A new home was found in a converted church in Lochee Rd where it remained for nearly twenty years. We are very happy that the Rep still flourishes and is now one of the jewels in Scotland's theatrical crown.

Reminiscing about the Rep took us to the anchor attached to this particular chain, the foundation of our love of the theatre. Not surprisingly, both of us being 1940s bairns, we shared the same experience but at different times and in different venues. How many of you have memories of trooping into the main hall of Dundee Training College or St Michael's School for an afternoon performance of Bertha Waddell's Children's Theatre.

If you don't remember Bertha Waddell then you are sure to remember the opening call of "Cooooooooee" which started behind the closed curtain and finished with a woman's head popping out on the final "eee" before stepping out onto the front of the stage! We think that this was Bertha Waddell herself and she went on to introduce the first act.

We can recall very little of the actual performance other than it was a series of tableaux illustrating children's songs, rhymes and stories. Although this was Bill's only experience of The Children's Theatre, Muriel saw them again but as a teacher accompanying her own classes to enjoy what largely seemed to be a similar programme to the one she had enjoyed in the 1940s. The company continued to tour, mainly in Scotland, still under the direction of Bertha with her sister Jenny. The final "Cooooooooee" came in 1968 when the company was disbanded. Bertha died aged 73 in 1980.

That is how our Salzburg Fortress memory ended, on a happy, nostalgic note. We can't help speculating on how Theresa May's Salzburg Fortress memory chain will develop!

--------------------

The Dundee Rep was founded the year World War 2 began, and is recognised as one of the top Repertory Theatres in Britain. Many stars of stage and screen in the UK either began their careers, or appeared in productions there over the years. You may recognise some of them below in film or TV roles for which they later became well-known. (If you need help, cursor over the photo.)


Deep in the Heart of...
Hugh McGrory
Sometime in the early '80s my wife, Sheila, and I spent a week at the home of two friends, Sam and Mary, at their home in Houston, Texas. They suggested we spend a couple of days at the family ranch. This was a working cattle ranch, and, of course, not something that we had experienced before.
They wanted us to get a feel for the cowboy life style – it was mid-summer and very hot, though thankfully not quite as humid as Houston. They said I had to wear a hat, and I was really glad for the straw cowboy hat that they loaned me.

They also insisted that I should be armed in case we ran in to 'any of those pesky varmints, rustlers, who'd been stealing cattle in the area...'.

You can see the result in the photograph (apologies for the poor quality photos).

The Shootist?
They asked if Sheila and I would like to take a couple of horses and go for a ride. We said sure, and they
provided Sheila with a really beautiful chestnut mare, and me with a smaller white one (not sure why she got the big one – I did tell them I was an experienced rider – as a kid – on the donkeys on the beach at Broughty Ferry...) Once they got the saddles on and the stirrups etc. adjusted they said
"There's the trail, see you later" and left us to it. We couldn't quite believe it, since neither of us had any idea how to ride. But what the hell...

So off we went, my horse leading. The early part of the ride was through trees which, thankfully, cut down on the oppresive heat. Sheila remembers, however, her horse diverting slightly so that she had to duck under a low-lying branch – she still believes that it was deliberate. We came upon a gate across the trail, and I had to dismount, open it, then close and remount – harder than it sounds since my left knee was not in great shape (after the first, but before my second operation).

Further on we came to a fork in the trail. We stopped, had a brief discussion and figured that the one on the right probably continued to follow the boundary fence of the ranch, while the other one was likely shorter and circled back to the corall. We decided to take the longer route.

I gently kicked my horse to get it moving and moved the reins to guide it to the right. The bloody horse
ignored me and took the left trail! I suspect it was saying to itself "This tenderfoot has no idea what he's doing, so I'm heading for the barn and the feed trough". And so we did...

When we got back, the ranch foreman prepared the evening meal, and I sat down, to – what else – a beautiful barbecued steak. It was a rib eye, about an inch and a half thick, cooked rare, the way I like it, and delicious – but it was the size of a dinner plate! Something like the one in the photo (though much rarer than that)! I could have made four meals out of it...

In closing, I want to go back to the first photo above for a moment. The weapons weren't loaded, of course, but they were 'working guns'. Sheila remembers, though I don't, hearing a couple of shots one day and seeing the ranch foreman, a little later, who said that he had just killed a rattlesnake.

I remember the feeling of wearing the holster and six-shooter, and thinking how much power they give you – literally at your finger tips.

Our US neighbors are currently very conflicted about the right to carry weapons, concealed or openly, versus the dreadful record the country has for mass or individual shootings of innocent people.

It seems that some men feel that carrying a gun and using it to harm others shows them to be 'real men' when all it really does is show that they can move one of their fingers about half an inch.

Postcards
Anne FitzWalter Golden
Following on from the Shootist I can be even more pretentious than Hugh, the Shootist, by claiming to be a Deltiologist and one time – note the one – a Speleologist.

The latter experience in a cave in the Appalachians was cold, muddy, wet, slippery and downright dangerous and a never-to-be-repeated experience. I would not have ventured there had I known the meaning of the word, but it was not taught in the vocabulary of our English-teacher sisters the Misses C and E Young!

Deltiology on the other hand has given me absolute pleasure. Note the 'ology' as Maureen Lipman used to say. Mere plebeians might call it cartology – the collecting and study of postcards.

My collection numbers over 4,000. Some very old ones from the Boer War, WW1 and pre WW2 were inherited from my grandfather and some later ones from my parents who never threw a postcard out.
Neither do I! While travelling and camping across the USA and back in 1959 I used to send a postcard or a letter back to my parents in Dundee almost every day, so I now have a record of my travels.

Frustratingly my father who was a philatelist used to soak the stamps off making it difficult to date precisely any cards of his.

My interest in postcards developed when at a Family History Fair in the early 1990s (I am also a genealogist) I bought some postcards of places and
churches where my ancestors had been hatched, matched and dispatched and I found some remarkable cards.

The one that excited me most was of Devorguille Bridge in Dumfries because I had come across Devorguille
in the early ancestral tree of the FitzWalters. We also had a connection to Dumfries on my mother's side as her grandparents hailed from Dumfries. Indeed here is a photo of my twin, Christine, and me clutching balls from our Granny marked 'A Present from Dumfries'.

Robert Burns referred to Devorguille Bridge, sometimes known as the Auld Bridge, as:

'Conceited Gowk! puff'd up wi' windy pride,
This mony a year I've stood the flood and tide...'

Devorguille was the granddaughter of David 2nd of Scotland and wife of John de Burgh Bailliol, founders of Balliol College, Oxford in 1263. Their son John was appointed King John of Scotland 1292-1296 by Edward 1st.

He had a sister Devorguilla who was the first wife of Lord Robert FitzWalter, the grandson of the Robert FitzWalter of Magna Carta fame and from whom all we FitzWalters are descended.

A story from a postcard – indeed every postcard tells a story, and I began to study my old postcards in more detail.

Deltiologists often specialise by themes – towns, churches, different forms of transport – lifeboats, ships, buses, trains, planes etc. – animals, artists, publisher etc... The list is endless as is the method of organising a collection.

The history of the postcard is relatively short and spans just over 100 years, taking off around 1894 when the Post Office monopoly was ended. It was in 1870 that the first official prepaid card was issued by the Post Office. The prepaid card was attributed to Sir Roland Hill. Previously the recipient paid on receipt of a delivered missive.

Sir Roland is said to have seen a maiden in distress as she could not pay for a missive from her amour and so payment by the sender was introduced. He is most credited with the introduction of the Penny Black on 1st May1840 and he also introduced letterboxes or 'slits' in May 1849 to improve the greater rapidity of delivery by not keeping the postman waiting.

From 1870 to 1894 the Post Office held a monopoly of prepaid cards. A postcard of this era was recently sold at auction for –22,000, exactly the same as my postcard below, which is probably my earliest postcard....

Well; it is not exactly the same! My 'clean' – i.e. unwritten – card lacks a signature, while for –22,000 the auctioned card was sent to Ealing Police station on 29th October 1888, days before the death of Mary
Kelly, his last victim and in which Jack the Ripper was goading the police.

From 1894 to 1902 postcards are known as undivided backs. Instructions were given as to where to put the stamp and how much to pay...half penny inland and one penny abroad. Only the address could be written on that side. The other side had a photographic picture and a varying amount of white surround on which a message could be scrawled.

My favourite example is a late undivided of Oriel College, Oxford and the message simply says 'IN'. How pleased he must have been. The stamp on the back shows that it was posted on 4th September 1904.

The Edinburgh card is dated conveniently on the front for July 22nd 1899 with the message 'I hope you like this view of the castle. I think it is sweet. Love to you all. Reata.' The stamp on the back is of interest, dated July 23rd 1899 but the stamp is upside down. In the language of stamps upside down denotes ' I love you truly'– little wonder Mrs Bucket was so particular (she wouldn't accept any mail that didn't have first class stamps)!

1902 was an important year in the development of postcards, the year when divided cards, as we know them, were introduced with instructions – 'Address here' is written on the right hand side and 'Message to be written here' is on the left! Post cards then took off and 1902–1914 is known as the Golden Age of Postcards. Up to 800 million were sent annually at this time by the Edwardians, 'Wish You Were Here' being the most common message. My brother in law once sent me a card saying ' Wish you were here – instead of me'.

1914-1918 saw a decline with the Great War but many photographs were taken of men and their families as they volunteered to go off to fight and these were produced as postcards. These personal cards continued to mark special occasions right up to WW2. There is one of our baptism in 1936 and the argument continues
as to who is who. Suggestions (on a postcard, please) gratefully accepted!

There was a revival of postcards in the interwar years, a decline during the Great Depression and then a further decline with WW2. Postcards from 1945 onwards are known as Moderns. By 2007 only about 350 million were sent and that figure is now much reduced, being replaced by tweets, twitters and selfies.

Next time I'll show you some more from my collection.

The Shootist – 4
Hugh McGrory
In the last story my friend Peter and I were sitting on the steps of his bothy having just tried a stupid experiment... For those of you who aren't sure what a bothy looks like, I found the photo below which is really quite similar to Peter's (though his was in rather better shape).
The terrain is similar too in that it sloped all the way from the top of Meall Liath down to Loch Tay, broken only by the road along the north shore of the loch. The slope had several flat areas such as the one the bothy sits on.

I mentioned that Peter had access to a second rifle. This was a .22 and must have looked something like the photo:
Marlin Model 60
Apart from plinking (look it up) the .22 was used for hunting rabbits which Peter did now and again to
supplement his diet.

The rabbits would emerge from their dens in the morning to graze, and would stay quite close to their burrows. They are very wary, of course, and if you aren't careful – approaching downwind, or making too much noise – you'll simply see flashes of white tails and they'll be gone.

My favourite spot was not far from the road. The slope climbed upwards, then had a small downward slope before the flat area. This let you approach uphill, the last few yards on your belly, then set up for the shot on top of the small rise. It was far enough away that they rarely noticed, if you took it slow.

The bang when you fire a .22 is not terribly loud, but it certainly breaks the peace of the early morning. Strangely, if you shot and missed, (which, of course, The Shootist rarely did...) the rabbits wouldn't scatter. They would startle, become very still and look around (they have very good eyesight) then go back to grazing. The zip of the bullet hitting the earth close by didn't bother them.

Now I know promised blood and gore in this story, but as I write, I realise that, while there's certainly guts, there isn't really much blood...

If you're going to hunt to eat, then you have to be prepared to skin and dress the prey – quite easy when you know how to go about it (and you have a very sharp knife). Here's how:
    o First, break each of the ankles then cut through the joints to remove the feet (unlucky rabbit's foot anyone?).
    o Lay rabbit face down, pull up the fur/skin in the middle of the spine and make a slit about three to four inches across (the hide of a rabbit is very thin).
    o Put two fingers of each hand into the wound and pull in opposite directions – towards the tail and the head. The skin/fur will pull off surprisingly easily.
    o Work the legs free and cut off the tail if it's still attached.
    o Pull the front part of the skin up around the head as far as it will go – remove the head by cutting through the neck.
    o With the rabbit on its back, make a small incision in the belly. Do this carefully – you really don't want to cut into the intestines or the bladder.
    o Extend the cut down to the pelvis and up to the ribcage.
    o Cut through the sternum, than put two fingers into the chest cavity and reach up as far as possible and press down to contact the spine.
    o Pull downwards towards the tail and you can remove all of the organs/innards in one go.
    o Cut through the pelvis and detach the anus being careful not to spill any of the contents of the intestines.
    o Tidy up the carcass (pull out any remaining membranes etc. from the chest and abdominal cavity) then cut it into pieces for cooking – usually 4 legs, 3 to 4 loin sections and 2 belly meats.
    o The heart, liver and kidneys can also be eaten, of course, and the pelvis, neck, and ribs can be put into the stock pot.
From this...
to this...
in about 10 minutes or so.
to this,
Or you could just go to a butcher's shop if you prefer.

The next (and last, I promise) Shootist story does have blood - but no guts...

In Memoriam
Pete Rennie

Since 2014 it cannot have escaped anyone's notice that we will soon be marking the end of the First World War 100 years ago. The war has been the subject of numerous books, films, plays, T V programmes and newspaper articles, how it started, how it progressed, how it ended and ultimately its legacy.

Putting aside all of these, ultimately it comes down to personal experience and how it affected families then and continues to this day.

I had an uncle who was a casualty of the war, he was killed on the 14th of October, 1918, aged 24, and although I had visited his grave twice previously I made up my mind that I wanted to visit again, 100 years to the day from when he fell.

This I may say, took a good deal of negotiation since my nearest and dearest was of the opinion that, at my age, I should not be undertaking a car journey of this length. Eventually a compromise was reached – we would travel to my stepson's home in Germany which could be accomplished in three easy stages, and then he would drive me to Belgium to achieve my goal.

All went according to plan, and I stood at my uncle's grave on Sunday 14th October, 2018, and paid my respects to this man I had never met, one of a family of ten who was born in the same house in Graham Place, Dundee, where I was born, in my Grannie's house, 18 years after his death.

To those of you who have never visited a war graves cemetery they are places of great tranquility which belie the violence which brought about their creation – they have common features, the cross of sacrifice, stone of remembrance inscribed with the words 'THEIR NAME LIVETH FOR EVERMORE', and row upon row of identical stones inscribed with an appropriate regimental insignia, the name, date of death and age of the person buried there. Some, but not all, bear an inscription chosen by their family – sadly, many bear only the inscriptions 'A SOLDIER OF THE GREAT WAR' and 'KNOWN UNTO GOD'.

I took with me two items – firstly, a pot containing a heather plant, and secondly, a box with some soil dug from behind my uncle's birthplace in Graham Place. Having dug a hole in front of his stone I placed it in the earth, followed by the heather, and tidied it up. The cemeteries are looked after by local gardeners employed by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and are immaculately maintained.

I paid my respects and left – more than likely for the final time.

My Brother the Runner
Gordon Findlay
My brother Dave showed outstanding ability as a track athlete. Morgan Academy, like most private schools, had one ironclad rule: everyone had to participate in a sport. For boys, it was rugby and cricket. For girls it was field hockey.

Brother David showed early on that he had special talent. He set the school record for the 220 as it was then known... 220 yards or one-half way around the school track. He then set the school record for the 440. And as if that were not enough, he got interested in the javelin and the discus, mastered both disciplines, and soon became the school champion in both.
Finishing line at School Sport's Day - but taken some eight years after David's triumphs.
Later on, as a 17-year-old, racing against 18-year-olds (that was the cut-off age for qualifying athletes competing as schoolboys) I was on hand, with my parents, at Hampden Stadium in Glasgow, to watch Dave win the 440 yards race with a fantastic finishing burst which took him past two other young athletes and into the finishing line. We were all intensely proud of him, and it was a very happy family which drove back to Dundee later the next day.

I was a hopeless case at track and field. Didn't have the twitch muscles for sprinting, and didn't have the stamina for long races. In desperation I tried one year to become a shot putter, but our Phys. Ed. Teacher at the time – a Mr. Sorbie – took one look at my style and the distance I could heave that metal ball, and quietly told me I should really try something else.

I tried to become a long jumper, but frankly I hated training for that event, so that was a washout too...

PS
If you're interested, see more photos of Morgan Sports Day here.
The Shootist – 3
Hugh McGrory
In the early '60s I was living in the village of Killin, Perthshire, while working as the Resident Engineer on various bridge and roadworks in the area. As many of you will know, Killin is famous for the well-known
beauty-spot, The Falls of Dochart. Entering Killin from the west you cross a bridge over the Falls – we lived about 500 yards from the bridge.

One of my staff of four, a young engineer named Peter, was living in a small rented bothy (a hut or small cottage) on the hillside above the north side of Loch Tay west of Morenish. The land here slopes from the lake upwards to the summit of Meall Liath around 1900 ft. above sea level (pronounced Miaowl Lee–eh in Gaelic, Meall means hill and Liath is grey).

The middle photo must have been taken from close to the bothy looking eastwards across Loch Tay.
The right-hand photo was taken from the east end of the Loch looking southwest, and shows a mountain in the distance with two smaller twin hills in front – the one on the right is Meall Liath.

Peter had access to two long guns (courtesy of his landlord); the first was one of the world-famous Mannlicher-Schönauer (M-S) rifles. This Austrian gun was used by the Greek army from around 1900 to
Mannlicher–Sch–nauer rifle Y1903/14
1948, and was the favourite of many big game hunters and African safari guides for killing lions and elephants. It used a 6.5x54mm cartridge (6.5 is the diameter of the bullet, and 54 the length of the cartridge case).

Although this was a smallish bore bullet it was quite long, giving it a high sectional density and good penetrating power. I found this quote: –"A civilian version of the rifle, also introduced in 1903, proved very popular with deer and big game hunters worldwide. In the UK ... the 6.5–54 probably accounted for more red deer during the 20th century than all other rifle cartridges put together."

The M-S was a favourite rifle of Ernest Hemingway, and in his book ,The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber, it's the rifle that is used to kill Macomber.

We didn–t do any hunting with the Mannlicher. We did take it down the slope below the road and shot at a log floating on the loch. I remember being surprised on two counts: the recoil from the gun was less than I had expected, but the noise was much greater – the sound of the shots seemed to echo up and down the loch.

One day Peter and I were sitting on the steps of the bothy having a drink, and got on to the subject of what happens when a bullet is fired straight up into the air. Some background:

Assume that you could fire a bullet straight up in the air. It would finally stop, and for a split second would be stationary, then it would begin the return journey. You might think that, when it got back to earth it would be travelling at the same speed as when it was fired (and it might if we lived in a vacuum) but not so, because of the issue of terminal velocity.

From the point when it began its return trip, the bullet would travel faster and faster under the effect of gravity. However, since it's travelling through a fluid – air – the friction will cause drag. At some point in the descent, these two forces will be exactly balanced, and the bullet won't get any faster – this is known as the terminal velocity and applies to anything falling from a great height.

In tests, it's been found that bullets falling back vertically don't remain point forward, but turn sideways, a more stable attitude, and tend to reach a terminal velocity of maybe 100 mph. If one of these hits a person it could be painful and bruising – but not likely to be lethal.

So why you may ask do hundreds of people die or suffer injury each year from 'celebratory gunfire'? The reason is that it's next to impossible to fire a weapon perfectly vertically into the air. Instead the bullets follow a parabolic path – and the spin from the rifling (the spiral grooves cut into gun barrels) steady the bullet and keep it travelling nose first. So there is no terminal velocity effect and the bullets hit at much higher speed. Such bullets have been known to kill innocents over a mile away.

So back to Peter and The Shootist sitting on the steps enjoying an evening drink... We convinced ourselves to try the experiment (it seemed like a good idea at the time) and so Peter held the rifle on the step between his legs and, looking south, lined it up, as best he could, vertically, while I sat beside him and tried to do the same looking east. He fired, and we leaned back a bit under the lintel and waited for the result.

If you're waiting for this tale to end with a bang, you'll be disappointed – it ends with silence. Such a bullet could take anywhere from one to two minutes to return to earth, and we waited and waited – we didn't hear a thing, no sound of any impact, not with the earth or, thankfully, the roof – nothing. (Given the science above, this was actually the expected result...)

As noted earlier, we had access to another long gun, but you'll have to wait for the next Shootist story.

Warning – there will be blood and guts this time...
A 21st Century Postcard from Falkirk
Bill Kidd

As I approach old age I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time reflecting on how much better things were when we were growing up. War, threats of war, ice on the inside of one's bedroom window... need I go on? Perhaps I should be spending more of my time in reflecting on what has changed in our lives over the last eighty or so years.

To my mind the biggest change is in the ease with which we can communicate and travel globally. For the upcoming generation a trip to Europe or America is regarded with the same level of anticipation as I experienced in advance of a trip to Arbroath, while the idea of looking for the tuppence needed for using the phone box is completely alien to them! What then are the changes in how we communicate and take for granted as an integral part of our daily lives?

One of the first things to come to mind is television. Since its arrival in Scotland in time for the 1953 coronation it has grown from a feeble monochromatic, flickering, tiny image with only one channel
being broadcast, to the enormous garish coloured screen giving a selection of at least a hundred channels to watch. Strangely, we seemed to have spent more time watching the 1950s 'Hobson's Choice' version than we do the present day, all singing all dancing, ever repeating, offerings. Not only can we watch whatever is on offer now, we can record our favourite shows or even freeze the show we are watching while we answer the telephone handily set on the table beside us.

We can even record aspects of our own lives on our video cameras or smartphones, instantly send the resultant images anywhere in the world or play them back on our own tv set without the need for additional special equipment. On the downside it is now almost impossible to walk down a city street or shop in a supermarket without being recorded on a surveillance camera, hardly a fair way
1953 GE TV 14 inch
cost 65 guineas
to treat shoplifters!

While growing into early adulthood we had an unquenchable thirst for the latest music. This was normally slaked in one of two ways; by listening to the Hit Parade on the wireless (probably Radio Luxembourg) or by splashing out 3/6 on a fragile 78rpm record. The mid 1950s introduction of long play records, followed by the reel to reel tape recorders made music more accessible and more affordable. To benefit from these innovations you needed to stay at home or visit a friend in order to enjoy your recorded music.

This remained the situation until transistor technology led to the introduction of the portable radio/tape cassette in the 1960s and the Sony Walkman in 1979. Unknown to many, the laser had already been invented
12-inch LP
1949
Phillips cassette tape recorder
1963
Original Sony Walkman 1979
without any obvious application in mind. A very great and profitable use came to the fore in 1982 when the compact disc hit the music market and very quickly became the preferred medium for domestic users. In parallel, the use of tape and CD technology had made the recording and playing of films on TV a practical proposition, bringing together domestic audio and visual home entertainment. This situation lasted until the turn of the century when affordable digital data storage measured in gigabytes made it possible to digitally stream music and visual material from the Internet into home computers, telephones and those portable music players little bigger than a cigarette lighter.

In our young days methods of inter-personal communication had changed little since the introduction of universal postage and the invention of the telephone in the 19th century. Postage was cheap while the cost of telephone calls was relatively high and this led to the use of the postcard for many aspects of social communication. Pretty well everyone who went away for a holiday sent a sometimes pretty, sometimes rude, picture postcard, to friends, family and colleagues. Birthday cards, Christmas cards, cards of congratulation or commiseration were an everyday part of our social life. Friends and lovers wrote long letters to each other, absent children received letters from anxious parents asking why they had not received a letter that week. The postal service sustained the business community by delivering invoices and receiving orders and cheques as appropriate. The rising cost of postage and reducing cost of other means of communication has meant that the word written on paper is gradually disappearing from our lives and the daily post largely consists of unsolicited catalogues for recliner chairs, footwear and holidays.

Personally, I am saddened by the demise of the written letter, there is something satisfying that someone was thinking of me enough to get out his/her pen and notepaper, put the product in an envelope, apply a stamp and walk to the post box all for me. I hasten to add this does not apply to anyone to whom I owe money!

We now come to the alternative, 21st century means of communication, the systems that our grandchildren patiently explain to us how to use, the system that sends the messages that pay little attention to grammar or spelling, the messages that I inadvertently send to myself, or even worse, the person that I am complaining about!

Email and the internet are awesome things, particularly when used in conjunction with a smartphone. After reluctantly accepting an outdated smartphone from my son I eventually got round to using this three-year old technological antique. The main use that I had for the phone was to telephone home and to make a few tentative forays into the art of sending texts. After a few months I came to realise how useful it was to be able to contact my other half and my hand-me-down phone was replaced with a more up to date version. No prizes for guessing who got the old one...

We already had WiFi access for our computer and I was encouraged to use my new phone to access the internet. This became my main channel for cheating crossword puzzles and catching up with the news. Now I am rarely seen without my smartphone and would feel bereft without it.

Although we enjoy getting news of friends and family we have avoided Facebook and Twitter so far and tend to use text or email to keep in touch. We send photographs to relatives in far flung places and receive calls from them through WhatsApp or Skype. After absorbing the incredible developments that have occurred during our lifetime we still remain a little apprehensive about using these apps to make our own video voice calls – but one day–?

The Shootist – 2
Hugh McGrory
The Shootist moves on from clay targets to live prey!

At the end of the last story, The Cousin had invited me to go duck hunting with him and his buddy on the shore of the Tay Estuary. (Actually, as I write this I'm wondering if it was duck or geese we were going after – truth be told I can't really remember – now I'm thinking geese). No matter...

The night before, I went to bed early and got up around 2:30 to get to his house by 4:00 am. I dressed warmly as instructed (this was late autumn). ...

Once in the car, they introduced me to some of the 'tricks of the trade'. First of all, it's necessary to know where the wildfowl roosting areas are – where the flocks gather to rest and preen through the night, as well as between feedings during the day – in our case, the extensive mudflats and sandbanks uncovered at lower tides in the Upper Reaches of the estuary. ...

Then, where they are likely to feed – usually farmers grain fields close to the river. Next, on a straight line between the two, finding cover close to the shore to lie in wait as the birds come in to feed at dawn. ...

We drove west from Dundee to Longforgan then south towards the shore (close to what I now know as Monorgan Farm.) We parked the vehicles, got the shotguns in order, and then walked across a large field to a line of trees which still had enough foliage to hide us from the flock as they came over. ...

The grey indicates the intertidal areas. The 'X' marks the location of the Great White Hunters.
We then settled in to wait... After what seemed like two days (probably about half an hour) I got a nudge and turned to see The Cousin with his hand cupping his ear and nodding his head in the direction of the water. I could hear the beginnings of bird noises, and it was clear that the flock was stirring and about to head our way. The sky was beginning to lighten and I began to see the flock through the foliage. ...

The Cousin and his mate had drummed into me the fact that we had to let the flock come over our heads before firing. This way the shot would have a better chance of penetrating the bird's feathers. ...

We were spread out about 20 ft. apart and I was facing away from the river waiting for them to pass over my head. Suddenly, before the lead bird had reached our trees, The Cousin and his mate jumped forward and started blasting away. To say that I was dumbfounded was putting it mildly – not to mention mad... I asked "what happened to 'Wait until they pass overhead'?" They both looked sheepish and mumbled something or other. ...

And that was it. The flocks wouldn't come back to the same spot, and it was getting light – they didn't hit a bird and I didn't even get to fire my gun! ...

And I got up at 2:30 for that! ...

And All That Jazz
Jim Howie
In the mid 80's there was a TV programme highlighting Brits who had gone to America and were competing in areas that were considered to be exclusively American - like Jazz in New Orleans.

We spent a week in 1986 in New Orleans celebrating our Silver Wedding, and on Sundays in The French Quarter there were numerous bands and singers entertaining the public. As we watched and listened we recalled the programme and realised that one of the bands was led by Chris Burke who had featured in the
programme.

Al Rose, a well-known jazz historian who has written extensively on the New Orleans jazz scene described the self-taught clarinetist, Chris Burke, thus: "the elfin and resourceful Chris Burke from Nottingham, England, had become a fixture in the world of New Orleans music by 1985. Not prepossessing to look at, short and slim ... his quick wit and geniality made him an ideal master-of-ceremonies. He could as well have been a stand-up comic as anything else".

At the interval we approached him and he was delighted to be recognised.

He said that on week nights he and his band played at The Storyville Jazz Club along with the sole survivor
Site of the Storyville Jazz Hall in the Mid-Eighties
of the original Ink Spots, Jerry Daniels (1915 - 1995). You may remember that the Ink Spots hits were numerous and included Whispering Grass, Java Jive, My Prayer and many others, at their peak in the 1940-50 era.

Chris invited us and an American couple we were friendly with to come along and see the show, which we did, and on entry, he stopped the band and waved us to the best seats in the house and introduced us to Jerry.

We had an enjoyable evening topped off by Chris taking us back to our hotel.

The Shootist
Hugh McGrory
OK - I know that's a rather pretentious word for a person who shoots guns.

The Oxford English Dictionary states that the term was first used in 1872 and defines it as One who shoots game or competes in a shooting match; one skilled in shooting". (It was also the title of John Wayne's last movie in 1976).

It appealed to me as an appropriate title for this story of my own shooting prowess – we're talking long guns here not handguns...

This tale was inspired by an email from Anne FitzWalter Golden who mentioned that her father was an accomplished marksman and had once taken her and her twin sister Christine to a shooting competition in a quarry setting west of Dundee. I recognised this as what is now the Auchterhouse Country Sports Shooting Grounds (the quarry seems to have been filled in).

I remembered shooting there – it was around 1960. My then girl friend had invited me to tea - also invited was her cousin. He was a big guy, into hunting and fishing and the like. I don't remember his name so we'll call him 'The Cousin'. We got on quite well together and he mentioned that he and his shooting buddy were going out to do some clay pigeon shooting near Auchterhouse that weekend – he invited us to come and watch, and we did.

After we'd been there for about an hour watching the various shooters, The Cousin asked me if I'd like to try.
I said "I've never fired a gun". He said "Well this is a good time to start – you can use my old gun." (It was a side-by-side rather than the more upmarket over/under type). I thought, "Well, what the hell!"

I bought a ticket (for five targets) and waited at the 'down the line' stand. This is where the target springs up from ground level, and away from you at a speed of about 42 mph, high or low, to the left or the right, or down the line.

So I'm standing waiting to shoot a gun for the first time ever. For some reason I was dressed in a sports jacket and pants with shirt and tie (not sure why...) amongst all these shooters dressed as they do. Looking
back on it, they were probably thinking one of two things – either "This guy looks like he may be some kind of visiting-expert shooter", or "Who's this dork?"

"I soon showed them which..."

When it's my turn, I assume the position and shout "Pull". The clay target flies out, I fire and miss. I call again – and nothing happens! I realise that I didn't call loudly enough and he didn't hear me. I lower the gun slightly and turn my head towards him and, with authority shout 'Pull!" He does. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the gun back into the proper position fast enough and didn't even get off a shot! I missed the next target, hit the fourth and missed the fifth – 20%... pretty awful.

The Cousin was undeterred. "Let's try a different set up." I soon find myself standing at a butt facing a line of quite high trees. I'm told that the targets will fly over the trees towards me and over my head – I'd have to shoot them above my head, or high behind me by turning.

To cut a long story short, I hit the first two, got cocky and missed the third, hit the fourth and missed the fifth – 60%... not bad.

The Cousin was impressed. He said "How'd you like to come duck hunting with us tomorrow. I thought, "Well, what the hell!"

So he said, "Ok, be at my house at 4:00 am tomorrow morning." "I said to myself "Oh, bugger!"

But that's another story!

PS
The Oxford English Dictionary, when defining the word Shootist, notes that it's usually used jocularly or disparagingly...

Coping with Math
Gordon Findlay
My brother Morris wasn't much help, I'm afraid. He was rather dismissive of my struggles. "Math isn't that hard, Gordon. You just have to learn the basic principles. Do that, and the rest will come."

Not to me... It all seemed so dull and antiseptic, with answers depending on some basic formula which you applied. I can still remember trying to master one of those esoteric math problems that presented itself something like this:

"The engineer on Train A leaves Manchester at 8.50 a.m. to go 65 miles to Liverpool. His train travels at 84 miles an hour. The engineer on Train B leaves Liverpool at 9.10 a.m. to travel to Manchester, and his train travels at 95 miles an hour. At what time will the two trains pass each other?"

I'd sit in my bedroom with this math textbook, considering this problem, but before I knew it, my day-dreamy mind would loop away from the cold, rational problem and start to think: "Is engineer A annoyed that his train can only do 84 miles an hour? Has engineer B tinkered with his engine so it can go faster at 95 miles an hour? Is it a contest? Are they bitter rivals? Do they wave to each other as they go thundering past? Do the kids of engineer B boast that their Dad''s train is the fastest on the line?" And so on.

Until I was having a lot more fun thinking about all these real-life situations than I was in trying to solve the bloody math problem. Believe it or not, I can remember even writing out a little fictional short story about these two engineers and bitter rivals on this Manchester to Liverpool railway line and how their murderous rivalry wound up in bloody destruction and mayhem.

But eventually, I conscripted a couple of my pals (stuttering Bob Partington one of them) to give me some help, some tips, some proven formulas which I had neglected to absorb in class. Slowly – very s-l-o-w-l-y – I began to make sense of some aspects of basic math, and geometry, so when exam time arrived once again, I was not in the sheer cold sweat I had been in the first time around. I passed. I was through!

I would get my H.L.C. and if a few other things worked out, I was eligible for university. All I had to do was escape from the clutches of the British War Ministry and the program of National Service. I foolishly opted to do my military service first, and of course, never did get to university, but I swore that any kids I fathered, if they had the ability, would definitely get their opportunity.

Travel Travails – 5
Hugh McGrory
I spoke, in a previous story, of borrowing my friend Ron's motorbike one lunch time – this was 1958, in London, England. (I had managed to drop the bike, but fortunately without damage!) Ron and I worked together for a firm of consulting engineers – he was also from Dundee and a civil engineer (he didn't attend Morgan Academy, though).

On the way back to the office after that lunch, I was coasting into the parking area and thinking that I didn't even have to mention my little accident to Ron, just as I got a little too close to the bumper of a parked car. The bike was a BSA 500 twin and Ron had added a rear rack with two panniers, saddlebags, hanging down
each side. The car bumper caught the bottom of one pannier, right on the bottom seam, and sliced it open along the seam as cleanly as if it had been a scalpel. As I rolled by, the contents of the pannier, assorted tools, spilled onto the ground with an almighty clatter.

So much for not fessing up to Ron! I said I'd buy him a replacement, of course, but a day or two later he said that he'd been able to sew the seam together and it was as good as new.

At Christmas time, we decided that we'd drive up to
our hometown, Dundee, to spend the holiday there – we shared the driving and the fuel. We set off mid-evening, and it was freezing cold. We both had helmets and 'leathers', so it wasn't too bad – if not driving we hunkered down as best we could behind the driver to keep out of the wind.

The distance was a little short of 500 miles, so with stops, say 12 hours. I always enjoyed long overnight journeys, especially stopping for something to eat. We used to look out for truck stops (service areas for lorries) with lots of heavy vehicles in the parking area. A 'full english' all-day breakfast (fried eggs, bacon, sausages, tomatoes, mushrooms, black pudding, fried bread and baked beans) with a large mug of hot, strong, sweet tea at 3:00 am on a cold day is one of the best meals ever...

In the wee sma' hours Ron was driving, I was half-dozing behind him. It was pitch black, we were between towns, no other vehicles on the road, making good time – then suddenly we weren't – we were skidding down the road on our backs behind the bike on its side.

When we came to rest, and established that neither of was hurt much, we tried to get up to see to the bike – and couldn't! The road was covered in black ice – invisible, but treacherous enough to bring us down. It was so unbelievably slippery, that we literally couldn't get up ' we eventually dissolved into laughter and sat there giggling, with tears streaming down our faces. Fortunately, the bike wasn't much the worse for the wear and we were able to resume our journey – very gingerly...

After the holiday period it was soon time to head south again. We were in Northern England, I was driving, when the feel of the bike changed – it wasn't handling properly. I told Ron I thought we might be losing air from the rear tire, and pulled over to the verge. The tire seemed OK, then we realised that the one of the struts of the rear rack had broken. The load had shifted hence the change to the feel of the bike. So we had to figure out what we could do...

We were on a rural road (this was the late '50s remember) and the grass verge beside us sloped up a few feet and was topped by a drystone wall (drystane dyke as we Scots would call it). We looked around to see if
there was any scrap wood or metal around but found nothing. There was a wooden telephone pole a few feet away with two guy ropes supporting it, and as I looked at it one of the guy ropes looked slack. I took a closer look and realised that the wire had broken, and someone had simply pushed it into the dyke to stop it flapping around. Ah-ha – maybe we could jury-rig something with this!

I found that I could bend it, so we took turns working it back and forward until it eventually broke giving us about three feet of wire to work with. We
were able to MacGyver a fix, re-load the panniers and get on our way.

A hundred miles or so later, Ron was driving, he pulled over and said "She's handling funny". This time it was indeed the rear tire – the bead was damaged and we'd need to get another tire. Fortunately there was a garage not too far ahead – closed, of course – so we pushed the bike there and left it with a note.

We then hitched a ride to the nearest town that had a main railway station – can't remember which one – and caught the next train to London. With our leathers and helmets we must have looked a bit unusual – like two cowboys who'd had their horses stolen... It was so nice to have a soft seat in a warm compartment – I slept all the way...

Ron contacted the garage, got a new tire fitted, and picked up the bike the following weekend. I offered to go with him, but he knew that I had a regular weekend field hockey match and said that it wasn't necessary – so I got to freeze my butt off on a hockey field instead!

D' Ye Mind the Carnival at
Gussie Park

Bill Kidd
Hugh McGrory's anecdote about his visit to Epcot and his non-experience of the Soarin' feature set my thoughts to similar experiences from my childhood. Not Disneyland in my case but Gussie Park and its Carnival. Before proceeding further I should make it clear that the use of the word "carnival" in Dundee did not bring to mind the carnivals to be found in Rio or Venice but only a rather down market fun fair! The very
name "Gussie Park" sounded less than posh and I had only heard the word "gussie" in the context of eating an orange. I subsequently learned that a gussie was a young pig and that Gussie Park got its name as the place for parking your pigs! But I digress, that's what happens when you reflect on Hugh's anecdotes.

The machine that was brought to mind by the Epcot Soarer was a funfair ride called the Rib-Tickler. This gave you the experience of being tumbled around a room, being suspended upside-down from the ceiling and being held horizontally from one or more walls, it was the opportunity to be terrified for sixpence and good value as long as you kept your eyes open. Hugh could have enjoyed this experience a couple of hundreds of yards from home and saved himself all the bother of going to Florida.

The Rib-Tickler was a practical optical illusion. It featured a large hexagonal drum that looked as if it was constructed from giant tea boxes that had seen better days. The outside was garishly painted and the inside was divided into six sections painted to depict the floor walls and ceiling of a room with the remaining two sides left matt-black. Inside was three rows of benches each capable of seating around ten punters. When everyone was seated the overhead lights were extinguished and the ceiling illuminated. The benches, which were mounted on a swing, were set in motion. Suddenly the drum began to rotate, slowly at first, then faster giving the participants the feeling that that they were spinning inside the room. Suddenly everything would stop and they were stuck to the ceiling and staring at the floor. The swing would start again and the victims hung on to their benches for dear life. The drum started again but this time in the opposite direction giving further variations of the sensations. After about five minutes everything stopped, the room lights came on and the victims staggered off to find their next thrill.

Gussie Park was a small, muddy patch of land but when the carnival arrived it was packed with all the usual fairground rides. Dodge'em cars, waltzers, motorbikes, kiddie's rides, swing boats and chairoplanes. Surrounding them were the sideshows consisting of horror exhibits, the boxing booth, the magic show, a hypnotist, fortune tellers, prize shooting, archery and darts stalls, ice cream and candy floss. I remember the
excitement of the bright lights and blaring music as I pondered on how I would spend my half-crown.

Like so many other locations from my childhood, Gussie Park is completely changed. It has now been redeveloped as the Dundee United Foortball Club training ground and known as the GA Arena. It is well
used by other sport and cultural groups and plays a key role in the Dundee United community outreach programme.

Wonderful as this is, I cannot help having a few nostalgic thoughts about the Gussie Park carnival and the Rib-Tickler.

I Skied the Rocky Mountains
Hugh McGrory
In 1969, I was trying to convince the owners of the Canadian consulting engineering company that I worked
for, to agree to install their first computer. I had done the investigative work that convinced me that IBM's 1130 computer was the right choice. I signed up to attend a conference, in Boulder, Colorado, where engineering firms that already used the 1130 would be presenting papers on their experience to date. Two IBM salesmen from Toronto, keen to get our business, decided to attend the conference too.

We got there a day early, and they convinced me that we should spend the day skiing in the Rockies - they were both experienced, I had never worn ski's... We could have headed for Aspen, 170 miles one-way, or Vail, 110 miles, but settled for Arapahoe Basin (A-Basin) about 75 miles away.

We set off in the morning and got there before 10:00. It was a beautiful sunny day, warm, and the snow was quite blinding - unfortunately I had no hat or sunglasses. They took me with them to hire skis, then suggested that I should try the 'nursery slope'. They then showed me where the Pomalift was, helped me into the skis then left me at the back of the queue for the lift while they headed for the real slopes.

So there I was, on skis for the very first time, with no instruction, shuffling along with what felt like ten foot skates on my feet, in a queue that was getting closer and closer to the contraption ahead. The Poma consists of pylons which climb up the hill with an endless cable attached which runs continuously to the top and back down again. Attached to the cable are long poles, each with what looks like a seat, a sort of hook shape covered with a plastic disk on the end.

When it was my turn, I had some trouble maneuvering into position but the attendant helped me line up my skis in the twin ruts that headed uphill. Then, my pole whipped round the corner, he grabbed it and stuck it between my legs from the front. I felt the spring-loaded tension increase and settled down onto the seat for the trip up. When my butt immediately hit and dragged along the ground, I realised that it wasn't a seat, and that I was supposed to stand up all the way. I managed to get upright again without falling off and after a minute or two began to relax and enjoy the ride, the view, and the warm temperature.

As we neared the top, the ground rose up onto a little hill and the tension in the pole eased off - it was only as I went over the hill, felt the tension increasing again and saw the empty poles in front of me whipping around the
end pylon and heading downhill again that I realised why the hill was there - well who knew...

I had a dickens of a job getting the pole out from between my legs finally standing on one leg and lifting the other, ski and all, into the air. I managed it and collapsed onto the flattish space where people congregated before launching themselves downhill. I got back onto my feet with considerable difficulty, still facing uphill, and immediately started to slowly slide backwards towards the top of the ski slope. One or two people looked at me in a bemused fashion as I slowly passed by but one kind fellow reached out, grabbed me then helped me to stop and turn around to face the right way.

The launch area was quite small, and the lift kept disgorging more people, so I had to edge forward with everyone else until I was at the edge. At this point, the 'nursery slope' which had looked OK from below now made me feel as if I was on the peak of a roof and about to slide off...

I had no choice but to go - but, knowing that I had no idea how to stop, I headed across the slope instead of straight down. The surface which looked fine from below turned out to be all humps and bumps carved with the tracks of hundreds of skis. I managed to stay upright, but saw the piles of snow at the far edge of the slope approaching - I'd no idea how to stop, so I simply ran right into pile and fell down. I remember thinking "Ok, use your pole to help you to stand up", so I plunged the pole into to the snow bank. It simply disappeared and stopped with just the handle clear of the snow...

I finally got up pointed towards the slope on the other side, and pushed off - after doing this several more times I managed to get to the bottom.

At that point, I realised that there was no point in repeating the fiasco since I still had no idea what I was supposed to be doing, and really needed to take some lessons. Also, I wasn't feeling very well - hot and headachy, a little dizzy, not sweating but thirsty and a bit sick to my stomach.

I returned my skis, didn't feel like eating but got myself a drink, and then decided to find a seat in the sun and relax until the two salesmen had had enough. I half dozed for a couple of hours or so before they turned up. When they saw my condition, they decided to get me back to the hotel. We had intended to go to dinner together, and they were starving, so I told them to stop when we came to one of those old mining towns that dot the Rockies and cater to tourists. I told them to stop and have a meal while I'd try to sleep in the back seat of the car.

I'm sure they rushed their meal, though it seemed that they took forever, and we finally got to the hotel. I managed to get to my room, threw up, staggered to the bed and slept until mid-morning the next day, missing the opening sessions, but managing to make the lunch.

I described my adventure to the table, and one of the locals said, "You know you had sunstroke. It's quite common - people don't realise the effect of clear skies, a hot sun and no hat, at an altitude of around 11,000 feet! And the worse thing you could have done was sit in the sun!". Who knew?

In researching this piece I came across the following statement "The Pomalift continues to be a challenge for the skier who's had little experience with riding a surface lift of any kind."

In fact, people stand around and watch the lift line-ups so they can see the hilarious pratfalls that occur. Click on the photos below if you're interested.

The Poma Looks Simple A Smooth Takeoff is Crucial One Approach to the Climb
A Different Technique Taking the Safety Fence Too Chair Lifts Can Also Be Tricky

That was the only time I skied the Rockies – actually the one and only time I ever skied anywhere!

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The Scots show how here.

The School Magazine
Gordon Findlay
In a previous story I spoke of John Cooper, a fine teacher of English who had influenced my career. Because of his position, he headed up the small school committee which produced the annual Morgan Academy
school magazine, a glossy production which incorporated news of the school's academic and sporting triumphs, plus a selection of teacher profiles.

There was always a piece or two about the history of the school, and a large selection of art, poems and essays on various subjects written by pupils. Cooper simply pulled me aside at the end of class one day and told me he had put my name forward to serve on the small team of pupils who pulled all these items together to produce the magazine.

For a couple of months I was absolutely intoxicated with the thrill of it all, as our little team assembled the mass of entries, went out to interview teachers, dug into school archives to discover our school's history, mapped out the magazine page by page, then met with the printers to see it all come together.

For me, it was like a sudden bright light coming on in my mind. I loved this whole process. It was challenging. It was stimulating. It was exciting, and enormously satisfying. I think I realized right then and there: this was what I wanted to do, somehow, some- where.

I had to become part of the communications world. So a deep and sincere, "Thank you, John Cooper."

It was my first introduction to the business of putting a publication together. And it was instant love. However, the reality of obtaining a Scottish Higher Leaving Certificate (high school graduation, in other words) meant that you had to achieve a 60% or better in three 'basic' subjects – like English, or history, or geography, French, or German or Art, plus the same passing grade in two other subjects in the 'hard' disciplines: math, algebra, trig, chemistry, or the like. I had got through in chemistry, but failed (badly) in math. So my first time around in 5th Year was not a success. I had to take a second lap – in 6th.

In one sense it was enjoyable. We had a fairly easy schedule of classes, I was a sergeant in our school Army Cadet Corps, and of course I was a regular with the rugby 1st XV, so school life was – in one sense – a bed of roses. But what made that bed uncomfortable was the thought that, somehow, I had to get a passing grade in math: a monumental task, I thought, for the subject seemed like some obscure Chinese language to me – remote, cold, and incomprehensible. But it had to be mastered, somehow...

I was a Cub Scout Too...
Hugh McGrory
You may remember that Gordon Findlay wrote a story for us entitled 'A Cub Scout' – you can see that story here. It reminded me that I too was once a Cub.

It must have been a year or so after the War that my mother decided it would be a good idea for me to become a Scout. I told her that I wasn't interested – she explained to me that I was... So a few days later, I set out one evening, along Dundonald and Dura Streets, towards the Church which is now known as Stobswell Parish Church (it has had quite a number of name changes over the last 150 years...)

I had some trouble getting in – started with the main entrance on Albert St., but finally found a back door on Dura St. which led into the hall where the Cubs were meeting. The photo shows where that door used to be...

Looking South from the Morgan School Gates towards the Church. Looking north towards the Morgan showing the door that is no more.
Here's what I remember of that evening:

At one point we sat around a pole with an alsatian's head on it and the dozen or so other boys chanted something weird. I looked around and thought "My mother was wrong – I'm definitely not interested in spending time with this lot..."

I guess, before long, my attitude was becoming apparent, and the man in charge asked me what was wrong. Deciding that lying would serve me better than saying what I really thought, I said that I wasn't feeling too well. He asked if I would like to get some fresh air and I said I would, so he asked one of the senior boys there if he would escort me outside. We went for a little walk along Dura Street, and he asked if I would like an ice lolly. I said I would, and he bought a couple from a little store near the church and we continued our strolling until we finished our treats.

My memory is a little hazy at this point – I'm not sure if I went back in and hung on till the end, or whether I said I felt like going home and took off (I think it was the latter). I still remember though, the kindness of the older scout, the concern he showed for me, and his parting "Hope to see you next week".

"Aye. That'll be right!", I was thinking to myself.

So as I said, I was a Cub Scout – for about an hour and a half...

Gordon said that the church was called St David's, which didn't ring any bells with me, but on re-reading his story, I realised that he said the church was in the Stobswell area. I think he mis-remembered the name – I don't think it was ever St David's, perhaps it was Ogilvie back then... in any event, if you take a look at the map below, you'll probably come to the same conclusion as I did – that this was the same Scout troop that Gordon enjoyed so much. I wonder if, had I given it a chance, I might have enjoyed it as much as Gordon did...

Gordon, five or six years older than I, may actually have been there that night – I like to think that he might even have been the older Scout who was so kind to me. When he and I finally met over lunch, here in Canada, it was almost 70 years later.

Did You Read The Wizard?
Bill Kidd
Who was the first man to reach the peak of Mount Everest? No it wasn't Sir Edmund Hillary as suggested by the record books. Who was the first man to run a mile in less than four minutes? Once again the record books have got it wrong. Any avid reader of the boys' story paper the Wizard would immediately give the correct answer that both feats were achieved at the age of about 150 by William Wilson.
Of course, these feats were achieved with the aid of the Elixir of Life! Boys, particularly those with little hope of emulating him, were avid followers of his exploits. Unsurprisingly, hero worship fell short of following his mode of dress which consisted of bare feet and a black, close fitting, one-piece Victorian swim suit. Certainly not suitable wear for Dundee weather!

Over the course of the 1940s Wilson got involved in World War II! (thankfully on our side), nearly coming to grief during the Battle of Britain when having to ditch in the English Channel and being forced to swim some twenty miles back to the British mainland. After the war he was sent on a diplomatic mission to a sports mad African dictator. Wilson saved the lives of thousands by undertaking to provide a rugby team to beat the dictator's hand picked fifteen. Needless to say, the only British locals available were rejects from part one of their Charles Atlas course! Despite this the British team won by the simple expedient of collapsing every scrum and allowing Wilson to score amidst the confusion. On more mature reflection I have come to the conclusion that the rules applied in that game had more in common with Rugby Railway Station than Rugby School!

Wilson was only one of the fantastic characters to be found in the four boys' story papers produced by D C Thomson. These publications, the Wizard, Adventure, Hotspur and Rover were part of the staple reading diet of those boys who grew up in the 1940s and early 1950s. The stories they contained, even if they occasionally stretched credibility, served to stimulate imagination and often provided an entry point for more fruitful reading. The subject matter was mainly sport and adventure served up in a variety of guises and located on sports field, boarding school, jungle or battlefield. The good were very good and the bad were very bad indeed. The environment was strictly male with only the odd sister getting involved when there was a message to be run or meal to be prepared, remember this was the 1940s!

The only other hero that I can recall who had athletics as his basic activity was Alf Tupper "The Tough of the Track".
Tupper was a gifted middle distance runner whose lifestyle did not meet the standards of the athletics establishment. Alf made his living as a welder and survived on a diet of sweet tea and fish and chips. Despite being regularly diverted by rescuing people from drowning, or from a burning building, or capturing a gang of thieves on the way to an important track meet, Alf usually managed to overtake the "establishment" runner in the final few yards.

School stories were always located in an upmarket boarding school. The hero occasionally being a "scholarship boy" dragged out of his comfortable downmarket state school to suffer from the malign attention of a snobbish group who, sometimes with the contrivance of an evil teacher, tried to bully him. He always found a posh friend and an unexpected talent for cricket that enabled him to take the final wicket or score the winning run against the rival school team whilst at the same time giving absolute proof that he had not stolen the much revered school trophy.

Boarding schools were a fruitful setting for almost any plot that you could possibly dream of. One could easily transport a prisoner-of-war story into a school setting. The boys being the rebellious prisoners with the teachers being the camp guards. There was often a caretaker or groundsman who acted the part of the evil security officer! Stories were often given a sporting theme where the hero was the son of a legendary old boy who had taken all ten wickets at some famous victory in the past. However, the son of the legend couldn't bowl for toffee and found it impossible to convince the old sports master that he was a brilliant batsman until after many issues Son of Legend scored a double century at the inter-schools championship. Stories woven around almost any sport or subject were standard fare at those august seats of learning although there did not seem to be a great deal of learning going on!

Football was another much exploited subject. Football stories always had some peculiarity about an individual or even the team. Characters that come to mind were Limp-along Leslie who overcame his disability by having an exceptional football brain and tactical skills. Baldy Hogan who saved his club by recruiting and training a whole lot of unlikely characters including a Gipsy goalkeeper who would not make any attempt to save a shot that he did not think he could reach.


Finally, there was Billy "Cannonball" Kidd, an incredible goal scorer who went from schoolboy promise to international hero. I must confess that Cannonball was not my favourite character for the simple reason that I shared his name. I went through some years trying to avoid the touching belief of my contemporaries that I shared his skills but found little difficulty in convincing those daft enough to select me for their team. One session was always enough!

The Seabraes
Hugh McGrory
I've always had a soft spot for the Seabraes...

The Perth Road, as it leaves Dundee, runs along an ancient beach 60 feet or so above current sea level. For many years there has been a municipal garden opposite the University campus known as the Seabraes. (If the word brae is not familiar to you it means a steep(ish) hillside or road.)

Airlie Place and the University Campus from The Seabraes
So, a hill from which you can see the sea – except that you can't. However you can see the wide sweep of the estuary of the River Tay, and since the Tay is tidal upriver for some twenty miles beyond Dundee – close enough!)

Some years ago the park (really a parkette) was given a major face lift, but I remember it as it was in the early '40s.
The Old Seabraes
There was a wide flat area with flower beds and seats, then flights of stairs that led downwards with short paths leading off to the left and right every 15 feet or so, with more flower beds and wooden seats.

The Fife Shore, Railroad Yards and the Tay Rail Bridge
Sitting on a seat at street level you could admire the Fife coast across the wide estuary, and upriver the Tay Rail Bridge. However, if this was too bland for you, you could start downhill, and find a seat overlooking the bustle of the railway main line and marshalling yards.

It was a pleasant place for older folk to sit, and no doubt for young teenage lovers – I wouldn't know, since I was around three years old when I used to visit the gardens.

At the beginning of the Second World War, both my grannie and my mother worked. I spent a lot of time at my grandparents – not sure if we lived with them for a time when my father was away in the army or if we just visited a lot! In any event my granda and I were apparently buddies, and he used too babysit me.

His name was Frank Ryan, born in Scotland but of Irish blood. He and Gran lived in a house in Wilkie's Lane, which ran from Blackness Rd, with St. Joseph's Catholic Church on the corner, to Hawkhill opposite the Princess Cinema.

The Buddies – Granda and Me...
The photograph shows Granda acting the clown for the camera in the living room in Wilkie's Lane. The
other snap is me, on what I always thought of as my Mickey Mouse bike. (In researching for this story I came to the conclusion that it wasn't, in fact, a Disney product, but rather a Tri-ang, made by the British company, Lines Bros., who in the late '40s claimed to be the largest toy-maker in the world. The photo shows that model...)

Apparently, my Granda and I would go out for little trips, with me on my bike – I suspect that on the way back he was probably carrying the bike (and possibly me too...)

If the weather was good, we would head for the Seabraes – down Hawkhill to Balfour St. then I seem to remember a jog through a pend (a pend is a passageway through a building often for pedestrians only, but sometimes for vehicles – usually one-way) which took us out into Airlie Place with the Seabraes across the street at the bottom.

Granda, I'm sure, enjoyed sitting in the sun, watching the river and the trains. It seems that to keep me occupied, and give him some peace, he always brought my bucket and spade along, and he would set me down in one of the flower beds and I would dig them up to make sand (dirt?) castles.

I couldn't for the life of me find any photographs of the sloping part of the old Seabraes gardens, but this is what the replacement looks like: (notice the green slope to the left where you can still make out the terraces where the flower beds and seats were – you can just make them out on the right hand side as well...)


I have to say I'm not impressed – I still prefer the old people-friendly Seabraes!

A Great Teacher
Gordon Findlay
It was my great good fortune to come in contact with one of the finest teachers I was to meet during my years at Morgan: John Cooper, head of the English Department, who had come to Scotland from England because he liked the Scottish education system which, at that time, made 'core' subjects (English, languages, math and physical education) mandatory.

He was a tall, rangy man who (to me, anyway) seemed to swoop down the school corridors with his black gown flapping behind him like a pair of wings (all our teachers wore suits, with long black gowns over them in those days). I was happy that Cooper was my teacher since I was pretty good at English and also, I suppose, because I was anxious to impress him.

I can still remember his signature phrase, which he repeated often: "Think for yourselves. Don't just say or do what everyone around you says or does. If you do, you'll just be like everyone else. Is that what you want? Be yourself." And, unusual for these times, he always set aside ten minutes at the end of a standard period: 'Questions and Answers'. This meant that we could ask him anything at all about the topics in the class just ended . . . but also about anything else we were curious about, puzzled at, or angry at.

There were many topics and issues we youngsters wanted to know more about or didn't fully understand. I can remember we asked some obvious questions. Did he himself like rugby? Football? Did he like Scotland better than England? And: "Where did you grow up, sir?" "Do you have brothers or sisters?" "Why did you come up to Scotland, sir? "Will you become Headmaster some day?" He patiently answered them all.

The one startling comment Cooper made during 'Questions and Answers' time popped out when the subject was war: the topic surrounded us every day; many boys had family members serving in the armed forces, and the war dominated everyday news.

The talk had got around to why every person had a role to play during the war: the front-line forces, the workers in factories who kept them supplied with war materiel, the air spotters who identified the direction and number of enemy planes flying into Britain, the hospital doctors and nurses who tended wounded servicemen.

Then Cooper said: "And the women's forces." Then he paused and added: "Although many of them seem to think they're only there to service the men."

Those words dropped on us like a bombshell. We all looked at each other. Did Cooper mean what we thought he meant? So finallly some brave soul asked:

"You mean . . . like . . . sex, sir?" Cooper realized he was treading in deep water, but he quickly said: "Yes – that's exactly what I mean. And this subject is closed!" Our grasp of sexual matters was almost non-existent, but we knew we had broached a touchy subject – and that John Cooper had strong – and unconventional – views on it. The subject was never raised again.

I truly loved every minute of his English class, and for the obvious reason: I was good at it. Even then I loved words, loved discovering new ones, learning them, understanding them, knowing how they could be used in language and in sentences. Each week Cooper set a class test: he asked each of us to produce a piece of original writing.

It could be anything at all: pure fiction, sci-fi fantasy, an essay about a topic we were interested in, thoughts on life – or death; a composition about an experience, a holiday or family life; descriptions of the city and countryside around us, profiles of people we admired, loathed, or feared. It could be poetry if we were so inspired . . . he put no limits on our creativity or imagination.

I can remember writing a piece about the anger I felt at losing a key rugby game and blending those thoughts into a description of a summer storm which swept through Dundee. And I can still recall the adrenalin surge I felt when Cooper told the class he had received "one very fine and quite mature piece" and then proceeded to read my essay out loud to the class.

I'm quite sure my head swelled to twice its normal size. It was shortly after that, that Cooper asked me after class one day if I was proposing to make writing a career choice once I was nearing the end of my education.

Like most young schoolboys, I don't think I'd given much thought to the prospect of earning a living. But at that precise moment, the idea was planted in my head, and it pleased me.

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Note from the Editor:
I don't remember a teacher named Cooper. However, since Gordon left Morgan in 1950, Mr Cooper may have left around the same time.

I looked at the 1950 teachers' photo that we have and these two were the only men that I couldn't identify. Can anyone confirm one of them as Cooper, or provide their names?

Feedback:
Pete Rennie says that the teacher on the left above is Mr Melvin.
A Temporary Situation – 4
Hugh McGrory
I've always enjoyed watching experts practising their craft (in whatever field) seeing how education, training and experience can make demanding jobs look simple. For instance it can be really difficult to cut a tongue out of a head if you don't have the knowhow – but when you do...

Between the first and second years of my engineering studies I was again looking for summer employment. One of my fellow students, Arthur (not a Morganite – Lawside Academy) said that he had found a job and that there was another one going if I was interested. I said "Sounds good, what's the job, and he said "Meat porter in the slaughterhouse", and I said "Gulp!" That's how I became a meat porter for three months...

Note: I've limited my use of photos in this tale in case the sight of blood and guts might be upsetting to some readers – I have, however, provided some links if you're interested in finding out how
This, in 15 minutes, becomes this.

The Dundee abattoir was at the corner of Dock and Market Streets. The photos show it as it was originally, and as it is now – a tank farm for Nynas (formerly owned by William Briggs and Sons).


Market St., on the left, runs uphill away from the camera and East Dock St, runs across the photo. You can see window openings in the wall along the front, and these indicate the location of the work areas for several wholesale meat companies (for one of whom we worked). They would purchase slaughtered cattle, sheep and pigs from the abattoir and sell them on to retail butchers.

It took me a few days to adjust to the sound and smells – blood, shit, and grease that permeated the place, and the occasional bellows and squeals of scared animals – but as one does – I adjusted quickly. The process was as follows:

Animals would arrive on trucks (Monday was the big day), and be directed to the pens in the diagonally opposite corner of the site to the one shown in the photos. The cattle were supposed to be handled gently and kept in a calm state. (If cattle are in a state of anxiety or panic, the quality of the meat will be affected – they will have darker-colored meat.) In my experience, the level of 'gentleness' varied with the individual drover...

I believe that the animals were inspected on arrival by a vet to detect any evidence of disease or any abnormal condition that would indicate a particular animal is diseased. Any such animal would either be condemned on the spot or be marked for special post-mortem scrutiny.

On the Tuesday, the cattle would be driven from the pens, one at a time, through a pathway that ended up in a tight killing-pen with a space at the end for the beast to naturally stick its head in and look out.

At that point, the 'killer' (the term used – the top dogs in the slaughterhouse and earning very good money) would pull a lever that trapped the animals head in a fixed position. A humane killer (captive-bolt) would be placed against the animals forehead and fired, driving the bolt into the brain and causing the animal to collapse (the bolt then retracts).

The killing-pen had a floor which tilted so that the carcass could be ejected to the left or right bleeding-floor, thus enabling two killers to work at the same time.

With cattle, the process thereafter was:

Bleeding: The point of a very sharp knife was stuck into the animal's throat immediately below the jaw-line and a 12" to 18" cut made parallel to the neck through the dewlap, trachea, esophagus and jugular vein to allow the blood to flow out. The animals are bled before being dressed to prevent coagulation in the tissues which could make the meat go bad. I noticed that the killer would often grab the animal's tail, then use a foot to pump its belly – presumably this helped the outflow of blood.

Removal of the head and limbs: The head and lower limbs, are split from the carcass by cutting, sawing or by use of a cleaver.

Skinning: The carcass was positioned on its back, and opened up by means of a shallow cut along the median line of the belly from the cut already made in the throat right to the genitals, and the hide was separated from the belly, sides and legs.

The cut along the belly was deepened and the breast bone sawn open. Beef hooks were inserted into the hind legs behind the tendon that runs from the tip of the hock up to the tibia, and the carcass was hoisted up to hang vertically – the skin was then stripped from the back. The breast and pelvic bones were sawn.

Removing viscera or offal: The midline cut was deepened and all internal organs except the kidneys are removed – they just plop onto the floor in a heap. The anus was cut out, and the offal was dumped out into a cart or barrel to be hauled away.

Splitting the carcass: A cleaver was used to split the carcass through the centre of the backbone and the tail was removed. The spinal cord was removed during this process and discarded.

Final Inspection: A Meat Inspector examined the carcass and either stamped it approved or condemned it in which case it was burned.

Washing the carcass: The split carcasses or halves were washed with cold water using a pressure-washer, and left to dry.

Storage: The halves were then kept in a cooler room at a temperature of around 34 degrees Fahrenheit for a minimum of 24 hours.

For those of you who want to see this process, I looked around to see if I could find a video that showed the process as I remember it. The one that was closest comes from New Zealand – an itinerant killer who goes round farms and slaughters animals for the farmers. If you're sure you want to see it, it's here and shows a very skilled man at work.

As meat porters, we didn't, of course, kill any animals. We helped to get the newly arrived animals into the
pens and sometimes in herding them, one at a time, to the killing pens; we rolled the freshly killed carcasses along the overhead rails to the cooling room; then, when butchers bought the meat, we carried the quarters to their vans.

A quarter of beef would have weighed somewhere around 175 lbs., though could be up to 200 or more. When I was first told that I'd have to carry these, I figured there was no way! However, once shown the proper technique I was able to handle it – I must say I preferred the smaller quarters though – which most of them were. Here's how it's done:

Take a look at the sides of beef above. Imagine that a cut has been made across the carcass between the twelfth and thirteenth ribs – by leaving one rib on the hindquarter it holds the shape of the loin and makes it easier for the butcher to cut steaks. The cut starts about five inches from the edge of the flank, leaving a flap, and stops at the spine. The spine is then sawn through so that the forequarter is hanging by the flap. We would then place our shoulder against the outside of the carcass (so right forequarter to my left shoulder and vice versa). We would then run forward until we were upright, adjust the weight to balance then a colleague would cut the remaining flap and we would take off to deliver the meat to a customers van.

The hindquarter required a different technique. We would stand under the quarter hanging from the rail and hold the spine like we were tossing a caber. Once we had taken the weight, the colleague would use a long wooden pole with a curved metal piece at the end to pull the hook from the tendon – we would let the spine slide down our body until we got to the balance point, swing the piece to horizontal then take off.

With regard to the above two-man process, one of our butchers turned up seriously bandaged one day. He was a butcher whose job was to travel around the surrounding countryside in the firm's van visiting small abattoirs and farms to pick up dressed carcasses. Usually someone would be around at each stop to help him, but on this occasion there was no one there.

He decided he'd do the quartering and loading himself. Everything went fine when he approached a side, made the cut between the ribs, sawed through the spine and had the forequarter hanging from the uncut strip of flank. He then took his (very) sharp knife in his right hand, half-squatted so he could use his legs to help hold the carcass, and wrapped his left arm tightly around the spine and back. He cut the flank and quickly grabbed at the meat with the same hand to steady it. His one error was that he didn't drop the knife and managed to drive it into the palm of his left hand and out through the back...

Some of my other memories include:
    – The pervasive patina of grease that seemed to cover every surface in the place, including our hands and coveralls. The fact that we had cold running water but no hot contributed to this. I usually brought a sandwich or two for lunch, and had to use soap with cold water to try to take the worst off before eating.

    – The fact that the throats of cattle and pigs were cut in the same way – down the neck, whereas sheep were bled using a cut across the throat. There are good anatomical reasons for this – click here if you want to explore further.

    Pigs: Pigs were stunned into unconsciousness, by the use of stunning tongs, before having their throats cut. This worked well on the smaller pigs (though the squeals were piercing and sounded almost human). I remember one occasion when they were dealing with a large boar (probably weighed between 500 and 700 lbs.).

    The operator placed the tongs either side of its head and switched on the current. The animal went stiff, while the killer straddled its back. After quite a long time, he turned off the current. The boar shook itself then took off at a run with him on its back. To cut a long story short, they repeated this scenario three times before the boar finally succumbed.

    Sheep: Seeing a rabbi appear one day, take off his coat and roll up his sleeves before performing the ritual slaughter of lambs to ensure that the meat would be kosher.

    I would have liked to stay and see how he did it. (there are strict rules that the rabbi has to follow – for example the throat must be cut in one motion, any pause part way through will render the meat non-kosher). Unfortunately I had other duties to attend to and wasn't able to stay.

Finally, I want to re-visit my first paragraph for those of you who read it and said to yourself "cutting out tongues – what the hell is he talking about now..."

When sheep (actually lambs) were killed, the heads were cut off and thrown into a pile – by the end of the day it could be quite large, and the heads were simply taken to the furnace and burned.

The experienced porters had a sideline going – cutting out the tongues and selling them to butchers.

Once I'd been there a week or two I was allowed to take part in this sideline – and this brings us to how to cut out a tongue... If you were asked how to do this and had no experience, you might open the mouth as wide as you could, then reach in with your (very) sharp knife and try to cut across the tongue without taking off any of your fingers. That doesn't work very well! You see,
This isn't a Tongue... This is!

Here's how it's done: You stick your boning knife under the point of the chin and cut the flesh down either side of the jawbone as far back as you can go. You then reach in and pull the tongue out so that it hangs down the neck (rather like a Colombian necktie...)

You then firmly press the blade against the bone and run it along each of the V-shaped edges of the jaw. You bump into bones at the end of each, and sever them exactly at the two cartilaginous joints.

So there! With my newly acquired skill I made a little extra pocket money – I also remember taking a lamb tongue home to my mother who cooked it up (not sure how), but it was delicious...

An Even More
Temporary Situation

Bill Kidd

Hugh's tale of his short time as a bus conductor put me in mind of an incident in the equally short bus conducting career of my friend the late Charlie Dixon. Many of you will remember Charlie from school. He was a likeable fellow – friendly, intellectually impressive, but rather height challenged – much closer to five feet than six... (see him, front right, in the photo).

Charlie spent several summer vacations working alongside me in Lindsay's photographic processing establishment. However, the lure of Mammon in the shape of Dundee Corporation Transport Department wrenched him away from a life of holiday snaps!

I guess that Charlie's induction into the world of public transport would have followed along the lines so graphically described in Hugh's anecdote. After gaining some experience Charlie was allocated one Friday evening to a 'Special' service. This consisted of a double decker bus going from the Caledon Shipyard to the City Centre.

His driver told him that it would be very busy with thirsty shipyard workers who had just been paid and would be anxious to slake the dust of a long hard week. It was impressed on Charlie that there must be no standing upstairs and only twelve were allowed to stand downstairs. The final word of warning was that on no account was he to abandon his platform. With these instructions in mind the empty bus drew up in front of the works entrance of the Caledon about 4.55 p.m.

At 5.00 p.m. the huge gates opened and a flood of eager passengers descended on the bus. Charlie stood firm and asked the intending passengers to form a queue, the response to this request would have been familiar to King Canute, and a tide of people flooded on to the bus. It quickly became clear from the fact that there was a line of people standing on the stairs that all the upstairs seats had all been taken. A quick look at the downstairs deck showed that this too was full.

With great courage Charlie told the horde still trying to board the bus that it was full and that some of the excess would have to get off the bus and wait for the next one to come along. Somehow, just after that, Charlie found himself off his platform, standing on the road, hearing three bells ring out and seeing the bus moving off in the direction of the City Centre!

It must have been a pitiful sight to see a disconsolate, uniformed bus conductor, complete with money bag and ticket machine trudging along Broughty Ferry Road in the direction of Shore Terrace. I understand that the Transport Manager was not best pleased that the fares had not been collected before the bus was hijacked.

We now have two tales that illustrate why the experiment of having students as bus conductors was not a great success and I have a sneaking suspicion that the complete withdrawal of bus conductors followed soon after!
--------------------
Dr Charlie Dixon was a Senior Lecturer in the Mathematics Department at the University of Dundee and worked there for over 47 years, retiring in 2000, which made him one of the University's longest serving members of staff. Charlie was a dedicated and enthusiastic teacher and was the students' perennial favourite. He was an avid supporter of extending access to University to those who might not have considered further studies, was the founding member of the University's Schools Liaison Office and the first Dean of Students for the Faculty of Science and Engineering.

Sadly, Charlie died suddenly in 2009. He was active to the last, and is recognised by the creation of the Charlie Dixon Award. These awards, given
to mathematics students from the Dundee area who have shown exceptional dedication to their studies, represent a fitting continuation of Charlie's lifelong efforts.

The Terrorist
Hugh McGrory
I mentioned in a previous story how, in 1974, I went on a business trip to Europe with a colleague, David. He was an American professor of engineering based in Pittsburgh and we were visiting national engineering computing centres in France, Holland, Germany and the UK.

While passing through London (heading for the Genesys Centre at the University of Loughborough), David said that he'd like to see the Houses of Parliament. I'd never been inside, despite the fact that I lived in London for a couple of years and worked only 15 minutes from Big Ben, so we decided to see if we could get into the Commons gallery while Parliament was in session.

Question for you – think back over the last 50 years – which decade saw the most deaths from terrorism in Western Europe? In fact, it was the '70s – 1974 (with about 410) was third highest after 1988 (440) and 1980 (425), and just ahead of 1972 (405) – and this was London, and the 'Mother of Parliaments' – don't forget the IRA... So, in those days, though security wasn't as tight as it is now, there was a serious societal awareness of the issue.

I also mentioned that every time we entered a new country, David sailed through immigration while I always had to undergo an enhanced security check – I guess I matched too many items on their profile (looked like a Turk, had an Irish name...?) If you're interested, you can see that story here.


I don't remember the security procedure in any detail – I'm sure there was one – but it certainly wasn't rigorous (nowadays it's 'airline standard'). We entered through St Stephen's Entrance into the Porch (12 on the plan above) and through it to St. Stephen's Hall (11). Originally St. Stephen's Chapel, this magnificent room was actually the first House of Commons.

Hover your cursor on any photo for description then click for a bigger version.

In St. Stephen's Hall there were four rows of seats awaiting us, two rows against the outside walls and two back-to-back down the middle. David and I settled close to the far exit against the south wall (on the right).


We waited to be called into the Central Lobby (when the group in front of us was departing from the chamber), not saying much since we were both quite tired from our travels, just relaxing, admiring the room and its accoutrements and studying the multi-cultural group around us.

I casually noticed one man who sat at the end of the row facing us, closest to the exit we'd soon be passing through, with a briefcase at his side. A few minutes later I noticed that he was no longer there ' but his briefcase was.

I looked at the case, looked around for him – no sign – then back at the case. At that point, I began to think of scenarios ranging from 'he's gone for a pee', to BOOM!!!

I hoped it was the former – truth be told I was feeling a bit like peeing myself at that moment! I then thought of possible courses of action – the first, and my preferred one, was to do nothing, since in all likelihood it wasn't any cause for concern – no one else seemed to be reacting.

At the other end of the range was to shout "Bomb! Run like hell everyone". At best, though, that would probably cause quite a few broken limbs, concussion and perhaps even deaths – and how dumb would I feel when the bomb disposal guys opened the case and found two egg sandwiches...

I decided it was better to be embarrassed than dead, so I devised my plan – I would tell David we had to leave, giving him a quick reason why, then walk quickly to the door we came in (at the far end from the bomb) and tell the security people. I nudged David who was dozing and started to explain when, half way through my sentence, the bomb went off and we were both killed!

Actually, as I spoke, I saw, over David's shoulder, the guy come back and sit down. Panic over! I can't even remember what he looked like.

What would you have done, back in the day?

A few minutes later we were called to file into the Central Lobby (10), then a sharp left through the Commons' Corridor, (17), the Commons' Lobby (16) and into the balcony of the House itself (15).


After more than 40 years, apart from the 'terrorist' and the over-the-top architecture, the main impression that stayed with me is that the House of Commons is way smaller than I thought it would be...

My First Car
Ian Gordon
In early 1962, I was a young C.A. in South America trying to learn a new language, trying to understand how big American companies did business and put their numbers together, and trying to have fun in an exhausting 7 days a week work schedule. (Don't know how we put up with such conditions for relatively poor salaries – but such were the times!)

In any case, after I had amassed about $1,000 in savings – there was nothing to spend money on – I decided to invest my dough on a real asset, an automobile as my American friends called it. I soon discovered there was no real value in an automobile. However, I reckoned that to get in with the American group I needed to turn up at events (mainly boozy parties) in my own real car, and not in an old battered taxi. So I went car shopping.

There were very few used car lots in Medellin, Colombia at the time, but every used car workshop (of which there were hundreds) had a car or two for sale. Cars ranged from genuine guaranteed 100% original parts to mongrels with assorted reconditioned parts. With my true auditor's zeal I did discover my dream car, with the right precedence– a 1948 Buick Roadmaster, owned previously, I was assured, by two young American gold prospectors whose cash assets did not last long enough to continue prospecting. I was also assured that the automobile probably needed a touch-up here and there, but could be mine, as is, for $1,000.

Putting things in perspective, I would like you to imagine the picture of me with my new automobile. Pete Rennie describes how his car was too small for him. Well, I was then about a foot smaller than Pete, and my Buick Roadmaster was about twice the size of Pete's Morris Eight. Some people used to think it was a driverless vehicle when I passed by, and I must admit I had some breathless moments when making sharp turns on Colombia's mountainous terrain. Some of my friends called the car –Big Bertha,– which I think was unkind, but perhaps understandable.

I had an unfortunate start to my social life as a car owner. I invited a sweet young socialite called Maruja to have lunch with me on one of my few days off. Our venue was to be a new restaurant called El Punto de Vista (The Point of View) situated halfway up a very large mountain, about one hours drive away – quite a test for Big Bertha. However, the dear car huffed and puffed its way up the winding mountain road and took us to our destination without fail.

Unfortunately, the interior temperature in the car became almost unbearable, even with the windows open. It seemed to be caused by an unstoppable blast of hot air emanating from the over-worked engine and blowing into the front right seat, occupied by Maruja – who had turned a violent shade of beetroot by the time we arrived. The lady did not take it well and rushed immediately to the restrooms on arrival. Everyone in the restaurant, including close friends and relatives of Maruja's, stood and gasped –Esta muy mal? (Is she very bad?) Maruja returned in a few minutes, acknowledged her friends with a brief nod and ate a light lunch. She never spoke a word to me.

Just when I thought things couldn't get worse, they did. After its gallant efforts to get up the mountain, the beleaguered engine of the car would not turn over. Now, starting a car in Dundee was relatively simple and we had all done it many times. Just hold the clutch down while you get a push from the back and release it at the right time. But here we have a mountain road to push down and no clutch to release.

I wasn't about to get into that huge vehicle and let it run downhill without an engine – but I had to! I got a push out of the parking lot, put the car in neutral and hoped the engineers in Detroit had thought about this situation. The engine caught at my second attempt – and my heart started beating at a normal pace again. The people in the restaurant actually cheered as I returned to pick up Maruja.

I learned a lot in my time with Big Bertha. The car you see above is in very good condition and recently offered for sale for $23,000 U.S. Bertha was not in very good condition, but she taught me, and many other owners, that having your own car has given us a freedom of movement, and action, that we would never otherwise have had. We may lose that freedom when the driverless car finally arrives!

A Temporary Situation – 3
Hugh McGrory
In a previous story I told of losing my temporary bus conductor job early in the summer - fortunately I, and several other schoolmates, were lucky enough to find work in the Smedley factory on Clepington Road in Dundee.
As it was then. Photo taken from railway bridge on Clepington Road. Burnett's Bakery on right, Kerr of Balfield's Dairy on left, Smedley's buildings in the background. The path behind the fence led to Kingsway at the Ice Rink.
Smedley's opened in this location in 1933 as a fish cannery. It converted to vegetables and fruit, such as peas, raspberries and strawberries. Such products are of course seasonal, and for us it was the pea season.

I knew nothing about canning, and was ignorant of the process which takes a green pea from field to table. The steps are:
    1. Harvesting
    2. De-vining and shelling
    3. Shaker/cleaner for washing
    4. Sorting by size
    5. Blanching (parboiling)
    6. Can Filling (peas topped with brine)
    7. Capping and crimping
    8. Sterilising (in a pressure cooker)
    9. Cooling
    10. Labelling
    11. Packing
    12. Transporting.
We were assigned to tasks involved in steps 6, 7 and 8

Hover your cursor on any photo for description then click for a bigger version.

Some of us were in the loft – this was where boxes of new empty cans and lids were delivered, opened, and the cans and lids put onto separate gravity-driven rail systems. The can rail did a vertical 360 degree turn on the way down so that the cans would turn upside down and any loose material that might have got in would fall out.

The cans were delivered to a machine where they were filled with peas, then transported to the brine station, on a horizontal conveyor, for topping up. They then went through a machine which added the lid and crimped it into place, and then onto the pressure cooker for sterilising at 100°C.

I was initially assigned to the steriliser – my job was to stand there wearing heat-resistant gloves and make sure that every can going by was upright. This was to ensure that any can that had fallen over was removed; since it would inevitably jam the cooker (didn't happen often).

This machine was about 40 ft. long by 5 ft. high and 20 ft. across. The conveyor went in, and then doubled back multiple times so that the cans followed a snake-like path, the distance and speed calculated to give the correct exposure to the heat to ensure proper sterilisation.

At first I thought that I had lucked out by getting an easy job, but that feeling wore off after about 20 minutes – it was soul-destroyingly boring! After some time had elapsed, I felt a smack on the back of my head. It was one of the foremen passing by who wanted to make sure that I was awake. I was really pissed-off at the time, but I needed the job – and, to be honest, I couldn't swear that I was actually awake...

A machine which filled the cans was nearby, and at a break, I spoke to the kid operating it (a stranger) and asked what the job entailed. He told me and asked what I did. Long story short we agreed to switch jobs – that was, I'm sure, a no-no without a foreman's permission - but I don't think they could tell one of us students from another...

As you can imagine, the various pathways for cans, lids, peas and brine were synchronised, and the worst thing that could happen was that one of the lines would develop a fault of some kind and have to stop. There were red buttons around at strategic points to be used in such emergencies to stop the particular conveyor – and of course all of the others. It would also cause lights to flash, horns to go off and foremen to come running.

The inevitable happened, and it turned out that, at the pressure cooker, a can had been allowed to go in sideways, and jammed. This was a major issue, since it meant that the top of the cooker, which consisted of heavy plates bolted to the chassis, needed to be taken off piece by piece until the blockage was located.

This was bad enough, but remember that the plates were being heated from below at more than 100°C. This meant that the whole line was down while we all waited for the beast to cool down enough to let the foremen/mechanics get on top and start the process. In fact they started too soon, no doubt being pressured by the next layer of management, and before long they had taken on the hue of cooked lobsters. But we all got a few hours of relaxation before the line finally got back into action.

I felt sorry for the kid who had taken over the job from me (but, in truth, was so glad that it wasn't me). He disappeared – I don't know if he was fired, quit, or moved to another area (my time was yet to come...).

Looking at the incident, it was easy to see that the disaster was inevitable. In the first place, the conveyor was badly designed – it was ridiculous that they needed someone to stand on guard for cans which had toppled over!

Secondly, given this flaw, they should have arranged for operators to rotate in and out of the job frequently so they didn't fall asleep or die of boredom – no one could have done that job well!

Back at the can filler, I felt I'd mastered the machine after an hour or two, and the days and weeks became long and boring, with an enervating sameness–until they weren't...

I was standing at my post, thinking about whatever, when I got hit on the head with something, then another – for I moment I thought one of the guys was throwing peas at me, until I looked up just as an avalanche of peas came down on my upturned face. I dashed for the red button and everything ground to a halt. (On the plus side it was nice and quiet...)

To understand what had happened you need a brief explanation: the peas ready for canning appeared at my station from a conveyor belt about 15 feet in the air and were deposited into a large hopper – funnel-shaped, rectangular at the top end, say roughly 6 feet square, then tapering to a round spout at the can-filling end some 10 feet below.

At the top end, it was divided into two halves, 3 feet by 6, separated by a paddle which could be moved from side to side by pulling chains. This allowed the peas to fill up one side, then be diverted to the other side so it would then fill up. I just forgot to pull the chain and it had overflowed...

To make matters worse, the full side was so stuffed with peas that the paddle wouldn't move no matter how hard I pulled on the chain (as I stood in layers of slippery wegetables rapidly becoming mushy peas...)

Very soon, of course, a foreman appeared, with a face like thunder, and we finally had to get a tall ladder and climb up to ladle peas from the full to the empty side. We eventually got the line going again; I didn't get fired, but my dreams of a job for life standing by that machine were irretrievably dashed... Perhaps just as well, since, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't my fault, Smedley's Dundee factory closed down in 1972. In its heyday it employed more than 700 people.

Then
The company has been sold several times since then, and the Smedley name, once so ubiquitous has all but disappeared from the shelves of the UK. However, the original 1924 Smedley Canning factory in Wisbech, a small town in the Fens of Cambridgeshire, and now known as Princes Foods is still in the canning business. Apparently, Smedley's beans and peas are available at the local LIDL, and Smedley's tomato soup can still be found at the Co-op.

Now
In researching this story, I came across a piece written by a man who, as a teenager, had worked on the line in Smedley's Wisbech factory. The following excerpt is pertinent:

"Very often my job was to sit next to a line of small rails on which freshly sealed tins of food rolled along flat stretches or long bends, or up and down steep slopes, to some mysterious destination where I suppose they got on to pallets or lorries.

When a tin fell off the rails or caused a 'traffic' jam, I was supposed to wake up from my drowsiness and start frantically to throw the derailed tins into a large metal tub, then place them as soon as possible back on the rails for them to resume their journey. I understand why the bosses did not check our professional expertise or our IQ before they hired us.

I remember Ivan M., a Czech guy, who was sitting close to the rails some distance from me. One evening, he nearly fell off his chair because watching those tins in the din of the factory had put him to sleep..."

Schooldays
Gordon Findlay
Most of my schoolday memories have long since faded away. I'm left with little cameos . . . episodes or incidents which for some reason remain implanted in my memory.

I can remember my pal Eric Dargie (who as an adult emigrated to Australia) coming to our side door in the
Eric on the left and Gordon on the right flanking
Jake Anderson in the School Rugby Team 1949-50.
morning, so we could walk along Shamrock Street together to Morgan. Sometimes we were joined by Jimmy Partington who had the worst stutter of any person I can remember.

Poor Jimmy. To be saddled both with this affliction and a three-syllable, three hard-consonant name like Partington was just plain cruel. Even telling someone his name took a superhuman effort on his part: face reddening, lips twisting, eyes bulging, he would try desperately to get out the letters of his name . . . –P-p-p-PAR – t-t-t-Ting-t-t-t- TON–, the last syllable blurted out like an explosion from his contorted face.

One thing I do know: I was not a particularly bright student. Adequate would be the word. Not a bad all-rounder, but deplorable in mathematics and the sciences. Just could not get my head around the complexities of algebra, trig and geometry. It might as well have been Greek.

And of course, being the youngest, I had to follow the academic trail blazed by my two brothers ahead of me. David had been pretty good in the mathematics-oriented subjects. Oldest brother Morris had been a star in all these subjects – a fact I was reminded of forcefully and frequently by Mr. Peden, head of the mathematics department.

When I landed in his math class, it didn't take Mr. Peden long to discover that this last in the line of Findlays was not cast in the same mould as my brothers. I was quite simply, a dunce in math. A memory which still stings after all those years is this: a math problem is presented in class. Everyone begins to solve it. I am at a total loss.

When time is up Mr. Peden surveys the class and decides that a little bit of light sport will liven his day up. –Let–s see if Findlay has the answer, shall we?

"Well, Findlay, speak up!" I would get to my feet and for a few agonizing moments I would mumble some gibberish until Peden tired of my ineptness and barked: "Sit down, Findlay! You don't have any idea, do you? And I didn't.

Fortunately, I was strong in English, decent in history, geography, adequate in German and French. But I really lived for English class because for whatever reason, I simply began to enjoy putting words together, and have had a life-long love affair with them.

Always found it wonderful to find and learn a new word to add to memory, couldn't wait to start on a free-style English composition, almost wore out an edition of Palgrave's –Golden Treasury–, the famous anthology of English poetry. I was stirred by the use of language in that book . . . Matthew Arnold, Tennyson, Rosetti, Coleridge, Thomas Hardy, Kipling, and of course, one of the most famous Scots of all, Robert Louis Stevenson.

A Temporary Situation – 2
Hugh McGrory
Actually, this should probably be entitled 'A Very Temporary Situation'.

Around 1954, I was looking for a summer job, and, like quite a few of my classmates, heard that the Dundee Corporation Transport Department ('DCT') was hiring students as temporary summer staff. Those were the days before one-person crews, and the bus and tramway system in Dundee had a driver and a conductor for each vehicle.

Quite a number of us applied and were hired. We duly reported en masse to the Bell St Bus Depot for indoctrination. As you can see from the photograph, this was a huge hanger of a building, and we were gathered into a large room where our duties and the administrative procedures were described to us. We were provided with uniforms though I can't remember anything about how, nor can I remember whether or not we were provided with hats - I have no memory of ever wearing one...

Old Bell St Bus Depot A Real Dundee Bus/Tram Conductor
We were also provided with our ticket machine and spare rolls of tickets, and our shoulder bag for collecting fares and dispensing change – I do remember this experience. There was a table at the side, of the room when we entered piled high with bags – a few brand new, but most in various stages of dilapidation.

Being the smartest guy in the room, I positioned myself close to the table so that at the end of the session when they told us to grab a bag, I was in the first wave and was able to snag a brand new one. Pretty smart, huh? Well actually, no – No, No, No! Can you figure out why?

I really don't remember all that much of my time as a bus conductor – just a few vignettes:
    – I had been allocated to a bus (as opposed to a tram), a 'double-decker'. We were on the Barnhill route which meant a trip due east from the Shore Terrace Hub in the centre of town to the eastern boundary at Balmossie Street then turn around, return and repeat.
    Shore Terrace Bus Service Hub circa 1950
    I met my driver the first day, a nice enough fellow, though he didn't seem enamoured about being lumbered with a know-nothing student.

    – It was on that first day that I realised the problem with brand new money bags. They were very sturdy, made of cowhide about a quarter of an inch thick, with three compartments that basically didn't want to open. By the end of the day the cuticles on my left hand were raw and bleeding. Ok, maybe I wasn't as smart as I thought...

    – I do remember a couple of times the driver pulling over between stops for no apparent reason. He later explained to me what was going on...

    It seems that the bus had a semi-automatic gearbox (this is often called a pre-selector gearbox, where the driver can move the shift lever to indicate the new gear he wants, but the gear doesn't actually engage until he depresses the clutch. This is supposed to give a smoother change.) Apparently, for some reason, the clutch would, on occasion, spring back aggressively, and as he said "Bloody near breaks my ankle".

    – One of my duties was to check that all passengers got on and off safely, and to bell the driver to let him know that it was safe to pull away. On one occasion I rang the bell, and he just sat there. I tried again – nothing. Why the heck wasn't he moving? One more time, then I see him turning round in his seat, giving me the stink-eye. I didn't know what he was telling me until a helpful passenger said –The traffic light is red– and then so was my face...

    – The bell at the rear platform, which was my station, was a push button, but there was also a strip which ran the length of the roof of the downstairs compartment down one side of the aisle, nicely colour-coordinated in green and white, the signature look of the DCT. This allowed the conductor to bell the driver while inside the compartment collecting fares, and passengers to signal that they wanted to get off at the next stop.

    I remember one trip when a Morgan school girl got on the bus. She was very pretty brunette, a year or two younger than me (first name Gloria), and I decided to 'chat her up'. The bus stopped, and I checked we were good to proceed, then reached up to the roof strip, belled the driver then shifted my attention from the bell to the belle.

    I then realised that we hadn't moved, so I reached up again – nothing. The driver turned around in his seat and looked at me with a raised eyebrow. All of the passengers on the lower deck were trying to figure out what was going on. I spread my hands to indicate that I'd tried, then demonstrated by doing it again – at the same moment as I realised that I wasn't pressing the bell but the matching decorative strip on the other side of the aisle. So the bell was unpressed - and the belle wasn't impressed.

    Mr. Cool had done it again...

    – One last memory... The bus was very full - passengers were standing on the rear platform (see photo (a London bus but the same type - Dundee actually bought some of London's cast-offs). Passengers on the platform was a no-no, but often done. It was raining and we stopped to pick up several more people. At the back of the line there was a middle-aged man frantically looking through his pockets. I asked him if he was getting on, and he said that he'd come out without any money.

    I told him to get on anyway, then, remembering the indoctrination I'd just completed, I told him that I'd need his name and address. (The dreaded Inspectors (see photo) who moved around the various routes just might turn up unexpectedly.)

    We got to the Town Centre (Inspector free) and he asked if I had a pencil. I told him to forget it (I figured it would probably have cost the Town five bob to collect the tuppeny fare anyway).

    I enjoyed the job – it wasn't boring, the money was good, and there was opportunity for overtime – too bad that I got fired after two weeks. No I didn't do anything wrong, the Corporation fired all the students! Union and management were gearing up for a power struggle over upcoming attempts to move to one-person crews, so the Union complained that
    we were taking jobs from their potential members - and management caved.

    Damn - so we were all back on the job market!
My Morris
Pete Rennie

Recent tales of cars have inspired me to write a brief tale of my first:

Having recently graduated from Art College, gained my first salaried employment and, of course, passed my driving test, my thoughts turned to the purchase of a car.

I went to see my old school chum Bob Barnett now well established in the motor trade. I was not disappointed for Bob had exactly the vehicle of my dreams! It was a black, four door, 1947 Morris Eight Series E– registration ESC 634 and came with the guarantee that it had only been used by two old ladies for shopping!
It cost me £65 and I drove it away along Riverside Drive even though I had never before been in a car on my own. To make matters worse the lady driver must have been quite small since the driver's seat was as far forward as it could be and my knees were nearly touching my chin. I made it home after a nerve-wracking drive through the city centre where I was able to examine my purchase at leisure.

As with Sandra Dow's car, it had a hinged windscreen (which was stuck shut) and semaphore indicators (which sometimes needed assistance to appear!)

Also there was no spare tyre! I was so entranced at being the owner of a car that I was able to overlook these 'minor' deficiencies. I looked forward to distant horizons – without a lot of thought as to how I might return home. In truth, the car was a heap – but it was my heap!

One day I drove down to Broughty Ferry and I got a puncture! I managed to get down a side street and found myself outside the Fire Station. I decided to ask for help there and one of the firemen obliged.

He produced a jack, jacked the car up and together we got the wheel off and I was able to get the puncture repaired and drove off quite happily.

Several weeks later I was driving along and heard a strange grating sound from the rear of the car. I stopped to investigate and on lifting the carpet at the rear seats I discovered a tear in the metal floor. I realised that my helpful fireman hadn't positioned the jack properly.

I decided to have a word with Bob about this without, I must admit, revealing the circumstances! Bob was not best pleased to see the car again but grudgingly agreed to have the tear welded. The repair was done and I drove off guiltily – but secretly satisfied.

Newfie, eh? – 3 of 3
Hugh McGrory
The Avalon Peninsula

In my previous story, I was continuing my journey southward in search of the Avalon caribou herd.

The Avalon (see the map) is a large, almost-an-island, peninsula that makes up the southeast portion of the island of Newfoundland. Despite being small in area compared to the rest of Newfoundland (less than 10%) the peninsula is home to more than a quarter of a million people, about half of the Island's total population, according to the Canada 2011 census.

The round trip I'd embarked on is known as the Irish Loop (see the map), round trip from St, John's is about 200 miles. Back in the 1500s, Europeans, particularly from France, England, Spain, and Portugal crossed the Atlantic to fish for cod off the Avalon coast to feed Europe's growing population. By the 1700's the Spanish and Portuguese had been pushed out, and the French and English fought over the abundant resource until 1815.

During this time communities around the Peninsula grew from small seasonal stations to year round settlements. Beginning in the early 1800's, large numbers of Irish began settling year round and caused the regions demographics to be changed forever. By the mid 1800's, unlike other parts of Newfoundland, the great majority of settlers in this area were Roman Catholic and of Irish descent – hence 'The Irish Loop'.

The area is home to many animals, coyotes, beaver, lynx, mink, muskrat, otter, red squirrel, fox, snowshoe hares, weasel, the odd black bear, whales, seals, moose and, of course, the object of my interest, caribou.

I had seen photographs and film of vast herds of thousands of caribou in their grazing grounds or migrating south before winter, and since the Avalon herd numbered around 6,000 or so at the time of this story I had high hopes of seeing them.

I travelled south on Hwy 10, and shortly before I'd have to turn west along the bottom of the peninsula
I saw an animal in the distance to the east. I stopped the car and got out for a closer look – it seemed to be a single doe, further away than the one in the photo. With my small camera it seemed pointless to take a photo so I decided to wait until I found one of the herds. But it was 'My First Caribou' – a good omen to have seen one so soon...

I stopped at a small store and asked if they could tell me where I might
find caribou, but the server and the few customers weren't very helpful and didn't seem to have any suggestions – more on that later... So I continued west, then north on Hwy 90.

I kept scanning the land on both sides of the road, but as I got further and further north I came slowly to the realization that 'My First Caribou' was also 'My Last Caribou'– I never did see another one!

Looking back later, I realised that my expectations were rather ridiculous. If you were a caribou with all that open space, would you hang out near roads...? In fact, the south east third of the island is referred to as The Barrens, and the central portion of the Avalon Peninsula has been designated The Avalon Wilderness Reserve to protect the most southerly caribou herd in Canada– it covers more than 400 square miles.

A rolling plateau, the area is dotted with boulders that were left behind by melting glaciers more than 10,000 years ago. The landscape pattern consists of, usually stunted, almost pure stands of Balsam Fir, broken by extensive open heathland, ponds, rivers, and bogs.

So if you want to see the caribou, you really need to visit the Reserve (as you'll see from the map, I just drove all the way around it...) To do so, you are told that you should observe certain guidelines:
    – obtain an entry permit
    – let someone know your route and expected time of return
    – travel light and leave no trace of your passage
    – carefully plan your clothing, footwear, and equipment
    – take a compass and appropriate 1:50,000 topographic maps
    – note that if you take a cell-phone, coverage will be spotty, though it is possible to make calls from some hilltops
    – read and abide by the rules and regulations which are:
      – Carry your entry permit (and other applicable permits) with you while in the reserve.
      – Camping in one location is restricted to a maximum of 10 days.
      – Pack out everything you bring in, including cans, glass, and other refuse.
      – Snowmobiling is not permitted in the reserve.
      – Keep dogs and horses under control at all times when in the reserve.
      – Outboard motors are restricted to Cape, Mount Carmel, Franks, Bloody, Blackwood, and Southwest Ponds or other ponds accessible by road and must not exceed 6 hp.
      – The use of ATVs for game retrieval is not allowed in the reserve.
      – Aircraft must fly above 300 m, except during take-off and landing.
      – During some seasons, open fires may be prohibited. Contact your local office of the Department of Natural Resources to determine if open fires are permitted. Completely extinguish fires before leaving
So getting back to my rather cool reception in that little grocery store on the tip of the peninsula, I think they looked at me – dressed as if I had just nipped out to get a pint of milk, and expecting to see hundreds of caribou grazing by the roadside – they simply wrote me off as an idiot 'come from away' and not worthy of their attention... Having said this, though unlikely, it wasn't altogether out of the bounds of possibility that I might have gotten lucky...

I never did see another caribou, but I recently came across a video, a 1980 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation documentary film telling the story of Mike Nolan, a fur trapper turned wildlife officer, who played a huge part in saving the Avalon caribou. The survival of this herd is a North American conservation success story. The herd had dwindled to only a few dozen animals by the early 1960s, but it rose to a high of six to seven thousand animals in the early 1990s (when I was there). In 1998, it numbered around two thousand animals.

If you're interested, you may see the video here. It lasts about half an hour, but you could skip to about minute 22:00 to see the part of interest to this story.

D'ye Mind Korky the Kat?
Bill Kidd

How many of us can pass a Dandy or Beano left lying about somewhere without picking it up and flicking through it to see if it retained any of the characters that we remember from our childhood. If it is a Dandy, hang on to it, it may become valuable! The last printed edition was issued in December 2012 and was replaced by a web only edition. The printed version lasted 75 years but the web version ended after only six months.
First Edition Jul 30,1938 First Edition Dec 4, 1937                Last Edition Dec 4, 2012
Recently a Beano First Edition sold for £17,300. In 2004 a Dandy First Edition sold for £20,350.

Today's Beano is nothing like the version that we grew up with. Big Eggo the ostrich got up to all sort of unlikely antics on the cover page of the Beano while Korky the Kat risked at least one of his nine lives on the
front of the Dandy. During the war years these comics were published on alternate weeks in order to save paper. At the height of their popularity during the forties and fifties it is believed that their weekly circulation peaked at an astounding two million copies.

In their early years both the Dandy and the Beano were innovative in that they replaced having text along the bottom of each
picture with speech bubbles that were an integral part of the illustrations. Many of the illustrations were printed in solid colours and the characters were instantly recognisable. Right from the beginning the somewhat anarchic story lines were attractive to children that were expected to behave well at all times.

Perhaps one of the most important effects of these comics was that they encouraged children to read, this was particularly true of the earliest editions because they also contained stories in text only.

I have a clear memory of many of the characters featured in these comics. How many can you remember?

One of my favourites was Desperate Dan whose diet of cow pies must have played havoc with his arteries! His phenomenal strength could either get him into trouble or help the citizens of Catcusville out of many a tight spot. He smoked a pipe and was not averse to lighting it by bending the post of a gas street light to use in place of a match. Dan is now immortalised, sans pipe of course, by his statue in Dundee.

In the Beano one of my favourites was Lord Snooty and His Pals. This strip featured Lord Snooty, appropriately dressed and an assorted group of rag-a-muffins who got up to all sorts of adventures under the disapproving eye of Aunt Matilda.

During the war I can remember one storyline where Hitler had invented a ray that caused snow to fall over the UK. This led to the gang having a wonderful time sledging, snowman building and snowball fighting. I have no idea what it did to the war effort!

At the risk of being accused of racism I recall another wartime character Musso da Wop (He is a big ada flop). This was a satirical view of the competence of our other arch-enemy, Il Duce, Benito Mussolini.

There was a fair bit of violence involved in many of the comic strips of both publications. Teachers, wielding the cane, parents chastising children with slippers, dentists pulling teeth with pliers and vandalising property were only a few of the activities that you certainly wouldn't find in any present day children's publication. Living in such a society I sometimes wonder how we survived!

The choice of a character's name could even have a bearing on one's nickname at school. Characters that appeared regularly such as Hungry Horace, Keyhole Kate, Dennis the Menace, Pansy Potter, Roger the Dodger, Absent-minded Alfie and Meddlesome Matty were often a convenient starting point for renaming a teacher or fellow pupil.

Many adults, possibly Moaning Minnie's, frowned upon our weekly comic, saying that they were a bad influence, that they stopped children from reading 'good' books and encouraged bad behaviour. There may well be some truth in this but I don't believe that two million kids can be wrong and we didn't turn out too badly did we?


Newfie, eh? – 2
Hugh McGrory
Kiddy Viddy

Pronounciations vary, but this is how most Newfie's say the name of the village and lake of Quidi Vidi (no one seems sure of the derivation of the name). The photo shows the village in the foreground and The Gut, the channel that leads to the Atlantic, and in the background, Quidi Vidi Lake.

Quidi Vidi is a picturesque old fishing settlement of around 600 people thought to have been settled first in the early 16th century. It's well worth a visit, since it has the genuine feel of a typical Newfoundland
outport – a small group of houses around a sheltered harbour clinging to and protected by surrounding hills. It has one of the oldest wooden buildings in North America, Mallard Cottage, which was repaired in
recent years and is recognized as a National Historic Site of Canada.

I enjoyed my visit to Kiddy Viddy – and here's two more reasons to visit – it has a brewery, and, amazingly, is situated no more than a mile and a half from downtown St. John's.

Heading South

The following day, I set off south from St. John's on my trip to see the Avalon Peninsula caribou herd. Almost immediately I diverted east to visit Cape Spear. Not that there's much to see, mind you, but it does
let you say that you've stood on the most easterly spot of Canada and the USA. After this brief diversion I resumed my journey south.

After driving for some time, a sign for a restaurant ahead extolling the view from its location reminded me that I was hungry, so when it appeared, I stopped for lunch. It was a pleasant place with decent food and
good service, and a great view. After I ate and was paying my bill, I said to the waitress that I had a suggestion for the owner. She said "Tell him yourself."

With my usual sparkling repartee, I responded "Huh?"

"He's sitting at that table in the corner", she said.

So I went over and said hello, and made my point as follows:

–I like your place – the food was tasty, and the waitress was friendly – I'd certainly come back – but you need to do something about your windows. When I'm sitting at the table, the only way to see the view properly, is to lay my face sideways on the table or stand up...!

He sighed. "I know–the horizontal bar gets in the way."

If you look at the couple dining by the far window you'll see the issue.
"Why don't you go after the architect and get it changed – and I'd suggest at no cost to you – it's pretty significant after all!"

He sighed again and said "I can't."

"Howcum?"

"Well, during construction I visited the site, saw the first window being put into place, didn't like it, and told them to turn them all upside down."

We looked at each other for a moment, I said "Oops!", and left to continue my Great Caribou Hunt.

To be continued...

The Beach at Arbroath
Gordon Findlay
Our gang of kids had one favourite place: the beach at Arbroath, about 16 miles east of Dundee. Arbroath was graced with one of the longest and most beautiful beaches on the east coast of Angus, and since it had
a direct rail line, getting there was fairly simple for us. We would load up with sandwiches and Barrie's lemonade, our towels and bathing suits, and off we went to the Dundee East railway station to catch the train to Arbroath.

There was still a bit of romance about rail travel back then: the trains were steam-powered, belching black smoke into the air, and the windows of the compartments rolled down, so you could sit with the rush of the wind blasting in the window, smelling the hot, sooty smell from the engine up front and taking turns leaning out that window, yelling at other kids in the streets and parks we passed, and all of us getting an early start on our lemonade because it was a treat to have a whole bottle each to drink.

Once arrived at Arbroath station, it was a quick walk down to the dunes, across them, then down to the endless beach and the chilly North Sea (although I don't remember ever feeling it was too cold to swim in; we just dashed in and out the whole day and let the wind and sun dry us off).

Arbroath beach had one other huge attraction: the friendliest, most active sheepdog we had ever seen. It seemed to live on the beach and was always racing around it looking for cheerful company. As soon as we'd arrive, the dog would magically appear and come racing over the dunes, as excited to see us as we were to see it. Endless hours of chasing balls, sticks thrown into the sea, or just rolling in the sand with us.

Naturally, we called him 'Rover'. None of us had a dog at home so we all loved this exuberant, happy-go-lucky dog which seemed to live on Arbroath beach. He wore a leather collar, but no identification tag on it, so obviously he belonged to someone in Arbroath.

We shared bits of our sandwiches with him and he didn't seem to be fussy . . . whether it was a basic jam sandwich, a cheese bun, a wedge of apple or a couple of carrot sticks: he ate it all gratefully. When we left in late afternoon to catch our train back to Dundee, we'd troop back across the sand dunes with 'Rover' romping alongside us, but as soon as we reached the nearest solid path or road that led to the station, he'd stop and just stand there and watch us leave, tail wagging, his tongue hanging out.

Never, ever followed us along the road. Perhaps he'd been trained to stay on the beach; we never knew. He was just 'our' dog for the day.

Newfie, eh?
Hugh McGrory
Sometime in the 1990s I attended a Conference of the CSCE (Canadian Society for Civil Engineering) in St. John's, Newfoundland. I felt very much at home on the island, perhaps not too surprising considering that fully two thirds of the half million residents of Newfoundland and Labrador identify their ethnic background as English, Irish or Scots.

At the end of the conference I decided to stay an extra couple of days – I wanted to wander around St John's a bit more and enjoy the harbour, the colourful houses, and Kiddy Viddy. I also had it in mind to see the caribou herd on the Avalon Peninsula.

The Harbour

I can't claim to be a sailor, though I have done a bit here and there. Those of you who are real sailors and have been out in stormy weather will know well the wonderful feeling when finally making it to a sheltered harbour.

The photo below looks out over the heart of St. John's towards Signal Hill (you can see Cabot Tower on top, the location where Marconi received the first transatlantic telegraph message, from Cornwall, England, in 1901), and shows the north-east end of the magnificent harbour and The Narrows, the exit to the
Atlantic. The Narrows runs almost due east, and if you were to sail out along the line of latitude you'd end up very close to Saint Nazaire at the mouth of the Loire in Brittany, some 2200 miles away. Can you imagine braving the journey from Europe to North America through ocean storms to finally arrive at the Narrows and the safe harbour of St. John's – it must have been a wonderful moment for countless sailors over the centuries.

The part of Signal Hill overlooking the Narrows is called The Battery – from the location of the cannons which protected the entrance to the harbour. The hotel I stayed in was the white building high on the hill (top left in the photograph), and had a great view down the length of the harbour.

I walked up the road from the hotel to the top of Signal Hill, then took a set of steps which drop about 150 feet to a path that runs along the edge of the Atlantic Ocean dropping another 200 feet or so. This path called the North Head Trail, rounds the hill and heads back along the north shore of the Narrows about 60 to 80 feet above sea level. The path ends amongst the colourful houses of The Battery shown in a photograph below.

The Stairway The North Head Trail
Looking Back Along the Trail The Battery – End of the Trail


I took my time wandering along the trail, it wasn't very busy – a few people behind me and the occasional person or two coming the other way. When I got to the Battery I followed the streets back up to the hotel – probably spent about two and a half hours altogether. The 'Looking Back 'photo above is misleading in that it suggests that some climbing might be involved – in fact it's simply a walk along fairly flat paths. If you're ever lucky enough to visit St. John's I highly recommend it.

The Houses

One of the charming aspects of the city is the brightly-coloured houses. The practice isn't unique to Newfoundland, of course, and can be found in many places around the world – it does seem to be particularly prevalent in colder climes, though:
Hover your cursor on any photo for location then click for a bigger version.

It's suggested that people who live further north, being more exposed to cold, rainy, shorter days, like to brighten up their environment. In St John's, one theory says that the practice springs from the Portuguese
dory fishermen who fished off Newfoundland's shores for some four hundred years. These men had one of the hardest jobs ever conceived, rowing out from a mother-ship in one-man dories for 12 to 16 hour shifts, long-line fishing for cod.

Their boats were painted in a buff colour which apparently made the best contrast to the grey/blue of the sea. Some Newfies came into possession of some of this paint – somehow – and began to use it for the exteriors of their houses. This gradually morphed into other colours.

There are now many colourful streets in St John's referred to collectively as Jelly Bean Rows – Victoria Street which runs up the hill from the harbour and downtown is a good example. Sights worth seeing.

Victoria Street.
To be continued...
Kingoodie Quarry
Jim Howie
Many of you will know that the hamlet of Kingoodie is just west of the village of Invergowrie which is just west of the city of Dundee. The quarry there produced large sandstone blocks for hundreds of years. The fine-grained bluish stone could be polished to a high sheen and was sought after for building purposes. The nearby Castle Huntly was built with Kingoodie stone.

The location of the quarry - a few hundred yards from the banks of the Tay River meant that the stone could be easily trucked to a pier and loaded on to barges for transport. Kingoodie stone was used for engine foundations, and for the construction of London's East and West India Docks, and Dundee's Victoria Dock and Esplanade.

The quarry was last worked in 1904, and was soon water-filled. The Dundee Courier recently ran the picture on the left below showing the in-filling of the quarry in 1973 - the second photo shows how the quarry looks today.

My relationship to Kingoodie began in 1970, the morning I walked along to Soutar St. and found that the garage for my Cortina Estate car had been broken into and my car was gone. Of course, I reported this to the police. Some time later they contacted me - they had good news and bad. They had found my car - underwater at the bottom of the quarry. They found another car or two there as well... I eventually heard what had happened:

A couple of lads who worked in a jute mill in the West Port area had 'clocked on' for their night shift, to provide themselves with an alibi, and had then taken off again. They stole my car, drove downtown then up the Arctic Bar pend (a narrow street off the High Street). They then used the car to ram the rear doors of the DPM Reform Street caf'. They stole a safe then transported it in my car to a lock-up near Balgay Park where they broke into the safe. They then put the safe back in the car, drove to Kingoodie, ran the car with safe into the quarry, then returned to work.

The police figured out somehow who they were, arrested them and they, and I, had to appear in court where they were duly convicted. Apparently they had pulled off other 'heists', and the police found swag behind the bath panels in a flat in a Dryburgh multi-story tower.

My car was written off, of course, but a pair of sunglasses in their case survived and were returned to me. I still have them.

A Cortina MK 2, Estate 1.6 The Survivor

Travel Travails – 4
Hugh McGrory
Airlines!!! Moving targets – everything always seems to be in a state of flux!

You'd think that to get from Toronto to Dundee would be a simple no-brainer, but, as I've mentioned before, on various trips I have passed through Detroit, Chicago, Montreal, Newark, New York; and Amsterdam, Belfast, Edinburgh, Frankfurt, Glasgow, London, Manchester, and Paris. My latest round trip: Toronto-Frankfurt-Glasgow-Munich-Toronto. So I can add yet another city to the list...

The KLM Frankfurt to Glasgow flight, is a short one, and the valiant stewardesses work very quickly to hand out drinks and sandwiches then collect the debris – if you don't scoff your sandwich, you lose it!

On my latest trip, when they arrived at my row, I asked for a glass of orange juice and a glass of water. They handed them to me and at that moment the plane flew into turbulence. Most of the liquid from both glasses sloshed out onto me, and I ended up with an OJ-soaked right thigh and a water-soaked left.

After a few minutes when things settled down, they handed me a bundle of napkins and I headed to the toilet – I dropped my trousers and, with napkins on the inside and the outside of the wet areas, I wrung as much liquid as I could from each leg. Fortunately the wet areas were from mid-thigh down to my knees, so my underwear escaped the deluge...

I was wearing trousers made for travel, and I was surprised to find that when we got into the terminal, my pants were dry, and – bonus – no stains...

This incident reminded me of an earlier trip – more than thirty years ago – sitting in a plane on the tarmac waiting to roll away from the gate, and the pilot announces that they have a minor electrical problem and the maintenance crew were going to replace a unit so there would be a delay of about half an hour – and they wouldn't be able to put on the air conditioning. It was mid-summer and very hot outside, and, since the doors were closed, the heat mounted quickly! Just as we were all feeling quite miserable, the captain announced that we were good to go, the a/c came on, the engines started and we took off. Once the seat-belt sign was switched off I stopped one of the stewardesses and asked her something. We chatted briefly, and then she said, "You look rather warm – how would you like a large OJ?"

I said "That would be great!" A minute or two later, I see her coming up the aisle, with a glass in her hand – I pull down my tray and begin to salivate...

She got almost to my row – I was in an aisle seat – tripped, dropped the glass which caught the edge of the tray closest to me tilted over and landed, upside down, in my lap. Tied down as I was, I couldn't do anything, and there was silence as I looked at my lap then at her, and she looked at me and then at my lap. She was extremely apologetic of course, but it was an accident and could have happened to anyone – you can't get mad, can you?

She got napkins and I did the best I could to mop up – the plane was full, so I couldn't move to another seat.

I said to her "Would you ask the Captain to come see me, please?"

She looked apprehensive and asked "You want to make a complaint?"

I said "No, I want him to change pants with me..."

When I got home, about ten hours later, damp, stained and sticky, I immediately headed for the shower. As I stripped off, my wife, who had brought in some fresh towels, looked at me and said, "You look like you've had your dangly bits dyed."

I said "No – flavoured!"

Even I was Once a Boy
Bill Kidd

A recent inter-generational family discussion led me to thinking about present day childhood in comparison to my own experiences during and immediately after World War II. The first thing to strike me was the enormous amount of freedom that I had from the time that I started school. After getting home at four o'clock, until it was time to go in for our evening meal around six o'clock, I could go out to play with other local children. As there were very few cars around we were free to use the street as our playground.

We played all sorts of games, most of them involved chasing around and catching whoever happened to be 'it' while in others the chaser was the 'it'. When we tired of this the boys and girls went about their own specialist occupations. If there was a suitable ball available the boys played variations of football such as 'Five and In' or 'Keepie Up'. If no ball was available then an old tin can was used as a replacement. The girls with their skipping games using one or sometimes two long ropes were much more skilled than the boys.

If one or two balls were available then a suitable wall was used for throwing and catching games such as 'Capie Clappie', this game involved a complex ritual of special throws and physical movements as the ball or even balls bounced against the wall. All these girls' games were played to well established chants setting out the next movement or action(1).

During the war there was no street lighting and in the middle of winter our outdoor activities were severely curtailed, it was not only in cricket that bad light stopped play! However the government gave us some help by having double summertime which meant that we only had to abandon our street games for December and January. As winter gave way to spring we were again able to go out to play after tea. This was the time for other games such 'Red Light', a variation on 'I Spy'. This game involved the 'it' person having to guess something in a shop window (unlit). The other players stood on the other side of the road and they could take a step forward every time a wrong guess was made. When the correct item was shouted out the successful guesser chased the others and whoever was caught was 'It' for the next round. If a car came past during this game positions on the road were supposed to be resumed where they left off. You can imagine the great opportunities for cheating in this game!

Summer, particularly during school holidays, was a magic time, then children exercised their freedom to the full, usually leaving the house immediately after breakfast, retuning for a midday meal and then out again until tea. If the weather was good the local parks were a magnet, particularly if there was a pond where minnows could be fished for with a net and a jam jar. If it rained then we congregated in a close and had competitions to see how many steps we could jump down. Such activities were not always appreciated by the adults residing in that particular close. Residents who were particularly nasty to us may even have had their doorbell rung and not found anyone there when they answered it.

During term time there was a well established season for various games and pastimes. One week everyone was making match guns from a piece of kindling, hair grips and the rubber ring from a lemonade bottle. These devices fired spent matches and were used in games of cowboys and indians. The ammunition was garnered from the gutter where they had been jettisoned by the ubiquitous smokers. There were many more matches than there were cigarette ends as the scarcity of tobacco and the absence of filters meant that many fag ends were retained for re-rolling!

Just as suddenly the match guns were set aside to be replaced by another 'must have' piece of equipment. One such game was 'Pinner'. This game required two pieces of steel about a quarter inch thick and around one by one and-a-half inches in size. To find such treasures meant haunting the local engineering works and pleading, "any broken files?" or scrounging any other suitable piece of metal. The game itself was simple. It could be played as solitary pastime as you walked along the street. This consisted of throwing one pinner ahead of you and trying to hit it with the other from as far away as possible. The more common, communal game, was to throw your pinner against the bottom of a wall, then your opponents tried to win your pinner by hitting it with theirs. It was imperative to establish before a game started whether or not it was for 'keepers', many long-standing feuds started by failing to do this!

After a few weeks of pinner mania the game was suddenly no longer fashionable and was replaced by yet another fad that in its turn had a similarly short season. While these important boy's games were the main events in our social life we still continued to play other better established street games that needed accessories like chalk for marking the play area and an old boot polish tin to use as a marker.

We were never bored and always imaginative. We would re-live what we had seen on the cinema, perhaps waving an imaginary sword and making 'Z' motions like Zorro. If the main fare that week had been Hopalong Cassidy it would be an imaginary horse and a pointed finger pistol. These tales of derring-do would be incorporated into our more organised games with swords made from splitting a bit of loose fence from the backyard of someone else's tenement or, as red indians, fastening the pigeon feathers found in the street and backyards into our hair!

No, we weren't perfect, teachers could and did inflict corporal punishment and we usually took heed of any adult who scolded us. There were very few toys available so we treasured them. Sweets were rationed so we didn't eat too many of them. If we had any sort of cut that became infected we were packed off to the doctor clutching half-a-crown to pay for the consultation.

Can I compare my Dundee childhood to the one that present day children enjoy? No I can't, nor should I! Our material situation and living conditions are now way beyond what we could even have dreamt of in the 1940s. At least some credit for this must be given to the generation that I grew up in and I am sure, that given the opportunity, the current generation when they get to my age will be writing a very similar story.

We did have fun!

(1) One version:
"Capie, clappie, rollie ower backie,
Right hand, left hand, touch your toe,
And through you go, and a big birlie-o."


Mr. Cool – 3
Hugh McGrory
Like Gordon Findlay, I had great fun with motorbikes in my late teens. They're wonderful rides, and, for kids with limited resources, relatively cheap to buy and to run – and what a difference they made to our mobility compared to our faithful and trusty push-bikes.

Having said that, you have to use them with care and be very conscious of safe/defensive driving techniques. Flying along through the slipstream is one thing, but coming off and hitting another vehicle or a wall before contacting the ground never ends well for the motorbike or its driver.

In his story 'Damn Cassies!', Gordon Findlay told about coming off his 350 cc BSA motorbike in Princes Street, Dundee, and the price his bum paid in a fall that, in fairness, wasn't his fault. It reminded me of one of my 'adventures'!

It was in 1959, London, England. I was meeting a friend for lunch at a pub a few miles from Victoria St where I worked. A colleague and friend who also worked there, Ron, had a BSA 500 cc twin. We had shared the driving on a winter trip from London to Dundee and back (close to 500 miles one-way), so I asked him, if I could borrow it (he had used it that day to come to work). We didn't get a long lunch hour, and he, recognizing the time constraint, said "Sure."
This was probably the model, though Ron's had a windshield,
and a carrier over the back wheel with dual canvas panniers.
One thing about riding larger motorbikes that is worth mentioning at this point, is that they don't feel that much different from smaller bikes – when moving – but when not under power, they can be very heavy and ungainly to move.

So off I set. London at noon is always busy, but I made good time through the traffic and the pub soon hove into sight. It was a pleasant day, and the patio outside the pub was crowded.

My friend didn't know that I would turn up on a motorbike, and so, as I approached, and as one does, I gave the throttle a blip, just before cutting the engine so I could make a dramatic entrance – and I certainly did!

The roar of the engine had the desired effect, and all heads turned towards me as I drew to a stop and put my foot down to steady myself in preparation for sliding off the saddle and parking the bike. The idea is to coast to a smooth stop, put your left foot down to the ground, swing your right leg over, then slide the bike backwards so that it's an angle to the kerb/curb, kick the stand down with your right foot and lean the bike on to it – all in one graceful movement.

Unfortunately, I hadn't noticed that the road had an unusually steep camber down towards the gutter, and instead of my left foot meeting terra firma at the moment I expected it to, it was still about six inches above. So I and the bike continued to tilt to the point where recovery was impossible – I landed on the pavement with the bike on top of me! Could I have made a worse impression – oh yeah – I could!

Lying on the ground with the heavy bike trapping my leg and one of the hot exhaust pipes trying to get at my leg through my pants, I realised that I didn't have the strength to lift the bike. There was a bit of a delay while I lay there futilely trying to get my leg out before a couple of guys at a nearby table took pity, got up and lifted the bike off me.

Fortunately I wasn't hurt, and the bike wasn't dented – unlike my ego...

Mr. Cool had done it again!
Winter in Dundee
Gordon Findlay
Unless you lived in the hilly north, winter in Scotland was fairly benign, thanks to the effect of the Gulf Stream which loops up the west coast and gives the UK a fairly temperate climate. In Dundee, snow fell of course, but it usually didn't lie around for long, so sledgers (tobogganers) had to get out early if they were to enjoy the best of the snow. Within five or six blocks of us, we had some decent steep roads (Mains Loan, Dalkeith Rd.) and they were always a focus for sledgers.
Snow-clearing equipment was virtually non-existent; it was confined to a handful of snow ploughs which kept the downtown part of the city clear; the rest of the city just waited for the inevitable thaw, which almost always showed up in a couple of days – thanks to the warming efforts of the Gulf Stream.

My only vivid memory of whirling down that snow-packed steep road was the following. My brother David and I had set out with our own batch of friends to sledge down this road on a Friday evening. A decent snowfall had blanketed Dundee, and it was quite cold, so the conditions were good. The hill was packed with youngsters like ourselves, some of us on good, store-made sledges, others on home-made devices, and some others just sliding down the hill on bits of cardboard or dustbin lids.

I think I was with Colin Barclay and Bruce Davidson, and the three of us got in line with the crowd and were soon flying down the hill, over and over again. David had gone off with his pals and was doing the same.

Well, my little crew soon got a bit bored with just sliding down the hill. But we had a bright idea. We went off to the side of the hill and made a small pile of snowballs. As the ranks of tobogganers came sliding past
us, we took aim and let fly. It was huge fun, trying to hit a moving target – and when we scored a hit (great cheers from us!) they were flying past us so quickly that it was almost impossible for them to see where the offending snowballs had come from. All accept one group.

In our enthusiasm for this great new sport of snowball target practice, we got carried away. We poured a barrage of snowballs at one toboggan before we realized that it was filled with larger, older kids . . . and of course, that was the one we scored multiple hits on. They were not amused. No
sooner had we cheered our three bulls-eye hits on the figures going past us than they instantly slewed off to the side, stopped, saw us – and came pounding up the hill bent on revenge.

We were terrified. We might have been 9 or 10 and these kids were 11 and 12-year-olds – very angry 11 and 12-year-olds. We fled – raced up the hill with our hearts pounding and the threatening roars of the pursuing kids in our ears. It was no contest. They caught up to us right at the top of the hill and the next thing we all knew was that we had been thrown down on the snow and were about to be pummeled for our transgression.

And that was the precise moment that David showed up. Calm and steady as always and tall for his age with an athlete's build, he had noticed the commotion at the top of the hill, had spotted me and my pals being tossed around, and had come over. The exchange went something like this:

"Don't hit that lad!"

"What's it tae you? He hit me wi' a sna' ba' so Eh'm gonna bash him!"

"He's my brother. You hit him then I'll hit you – and I'll REALLY hurt you!"

Dead silence. Angry stares exchanged. But David was a quiet but towering presence, and his two pals shouldered in beside him as backup. My assailants muttered darkly, but in the end they picked up their sledge and walked away, glaring back at me and my pals. David mildly admonished us, suggested we stick to sliding downhill – and went off to enjoy himself again.

We'd been saved. And although it happened seventy years or so ago, the memory of it still shines in my mind.

A Span of Memory
Hugh McGrory
As a civil engineer, I always get mildly annoyed when I hear things like "It was a cement beam.", or "He crashed into a cement wall."

Cement is a powder made, usually, from crushed limestone.

For use in construction it's mixed with aggregate (sand, gravel, crushed rock), then water is added. The ensuing chemical reaction turns this paste into a strong solid known as concrete.

As an analogy, when flour is mixed with various combinations of salt, sugar, skim milk powder, butter, yeast and water, and the resulting paste is heated, it turns into the solid we know as bread.

So there – and if you'll use the word 'concrete' when appropriate, I'll refrain from offering you flour and jam with your tea.

Now that I've got that off my chest, to my story:

My first job after university in the late '50s was in London, England, for a civil engineering consulting firm. One of the jobs the company had, in partnership with another large consulting engineering firm, was the design and supervision of construction of the Forth Road Bridge – the suspension bridge, of course, not the new cable-stayed structure.

The three magnificent bridges across the River Forth a few miles west of Edinburgh. The photo
shows the northern approach road to the first (1964) road bridge – the one in the middle.
As a very green graduate, I was still trying to figure out which end was up, and had only a very minor design role for one of the bridges on one of the approach roads. I don't think my work was actually used for the final design, though I'm still not sure of that, a point which is significant to this story.

A few years later I was back in Scotland, and when driving to a work site on 22 June 1962, I heard on the radio that there had been an accident. By the time the story registered on me I had only gotten the last bit of the story. A bridge under construction on an approach road to the Forth Road Bridge had collapsed and three workmen had been killed. They had driven under the partially-constructed bridge in a site vehicle just as the deck collapsed.

I immediately began to worry. Was it the bridge I'd worked on? Had I made a mistake? Had I gotten those poor men killed and ruined my career at the same time?

The next few hours were seriously tense for me – I kept listening to see if I could get more information. Then, around noon, the black cloud over my head lifted when I caught the phrase – on the north approach road... My work had been on the south approach!

My thoughts then turned to Gordon who had been at university with me. He was a Resident Engineer on the North approach. Perhaps some explanation of terms here would help:

When a client, say the government, wants to have a bridge or some other type of structure built, it may hire a consulting engineering company for design work, and for the supervision of construction.

A construction company may then be hired to carry out the work – often known as the Contractor. The person supervising the actual construction work on site is an employee of the Contractor and is known as the Site Engineer (or Project Manager). The Resident Engineer, also on site, works for the consulting company that did the design, and is the client's representative to make sure that the work is done properly and to approve progress payments to the Contractor. This was Gordon's role.

Given the collapse of the bridge, the questions, as always, were, what happened, who was responsible, and how can we learn from what happened so that such tragedies can be avoided in future?

Some further explanation:

The bridge was being built of reinforced concrete. (You could refer to this as a concrete bridge as opposed to a steel bridge – actually a reinforced concrete bridge.) Concrete has high compressive strength i.e. when a load squeezes it, but it has a relatively weak tensile strength i.e. when stretched. To make up for this weakness, concrete is reinforced with steel rods (known as rebar, for reinforcing bar) – hence reinforced concrete.

So, picture this bridge being built. First the abutments are constructed – the walls at either end which retain the soil under the road behind them and also act as the supports for the bridge deck. The process involves setting up formwork, wooden frames in the desired shape for the component – abutment or deck – then the rebar is fixed in place and the concrete mix is poured and vibrated into posiition .

Over time, the concrete mix hardens and gains strength to become the concrete we're familiar with. It's important to allow the concrete to set until it reaches the appropriate strength. This is managed by creating test cubes from the concrete and crushing them. In construction projects, the aim is to allow the concrete to cure until it reaches the required strength before 'stripping' the formwork – don't wait long enough and the concrete may be too weak to handle the load – wait too long and the costs mount up needlessly...

From memory this is what happened (I tried to find the accident report for this story but was unable to do so):

The bridge deck was being constructed in sections working from one of the abutments and gradually approaching the other. So scaffolding would have been set up then the formwork built on top (something like the photo below) and the concrete poured.

At a certain point, when the concrete had cured to the desired strength, the scaffolding would be removed. Somehow, partly through this process, four workmen drove under one of the original sections from which the scaffolding had been stripped, and the deck collapsed just at that moment. The concrete had not cured long enough and was too weak to carry its own weight. One of the men survived.

You may find this video interesting. In terms of the inquiry the issue would be – how did this happen... – and this was when I worried about my fellow graduate Gordon.

As it turned out, however, I worried needlessly. Records showed that Gordon had written to the contractor noting this issue as a deficiency and asking that the problem be rectified. Thus he was not singled out for blame and went on to a long career in engineering.

Gordon will feature in a future story...

Jo-Anne
Sandra Moir Dow

Hugh's story about his first car brought back fond memories for me – we had just such a Morris 8 when I was growing up. Dad had bought it (her) in 1937 when my brother was a baby. The previous owner had had the exterior repainted all black but it still had the red interior trim. Her registration was YJ2868.

During the war she was off the road and stored on bricks – that's the way she was when I knew her first. We called her Jo-anne – 3 speed synchromesh gears, semaphore indicators and a 6 volt battery.

Our front windscreen could open up forwards, and Dad had to do this one day when driving through snow – the one wiper couldn't cope, and with no heating was too frosted to see through.

Dad taught me to drive in Jo-anne and eventually I passed my driving test in her. She towed our first caravan too. Dad always let me have a turn driving and on one holiday while going south through Wigan-Warrington I was losing control of the steering, being accused of bad driving, lost my temper, stopped the car and demanded he get out. We found a front tyre punctured. The traffic around us was surprisingly tolerant.

I remembered when Dad came home from serving in the RAF during WW2, he rebored the engine of the car. Although he was a professional journalist, he'd been trained as a mechanic while serving and worked on aeroplane engines. Both my brother and I thought (and hoped) that Jo-anne would fly when he completed this... Iain and I got to 'help' a bit, and I sliced a finger taking off a piston ring.

I can find that scar still!
Avril Wilkinson's family had a Morris 8 too and we used to join together for picnics. Theirs was the green version, like Hugh's, with reg. YJ2688. The funny double-take looks we got going along together amused us all. The photo was taken by Avril at Monifieth beach.

Sadly she and I are the only survivors of our respective families.

A Temporary Situation
Hugh McGrory
I don't usually bring this up in conversation, but I spent some time in a mental hospital in my late teens – only a few months – and I was actually more ill when I left the institution than when I entered it... However, I recovered well and went on to university. I look back on my time in the hospital as a brief but eye-opening experience.

I wasn't there because I had psychiatric problems – not schizophrenic, not depressed, not manic depressive, and I didn't have an eating disorder (although I know that some people think that the Scots diet actually is an eating disorder...)

I wasn't particularly anxious or subject to panic attacks, no substance abuse (though I admit, there was some drink taken, on occasion...)

I was not mentally ill. That's my position on the matter, and I'm sticking to it no matter what any of you, who know me, may think. In point of fact, money was the reason for my being there – I needed some! I wanted to contribute to my parents' household as they supported me heading to university later that year.

That's why I became a ward orderly in a mental hospital. This was in the summer of 1955, the few months between leaving school and entering university – it was my cousin Frank, who'd just completed his first year in Medicine, at Queen's College, who told me that he'd got a job at the hospital and that they were still hiring. Like most Dundonians, I knew almost nothing of this institution known to most of us as Westgreen.
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It had its origins back in 1820, in Stobswell – actually at the junction of Albert and Cardean Streets – when the Dundee Lunatic Asylum was established as part of the Dundee Infirmary.

In 1875, Queen Victoria granted a Royal Charter and the asylum became the Dundee Royal Asylum for Lunatics. When opened, the hospital site was in the countryside, outside of Dundee, but the city was growing rapidly and the Stobswell area was becoming built-up. The Board of Governors wanted to find a site further from "the cold, damp air of the mouth of the River Tay" and purchased land at Westgreen Farm, considered a "pleasant and healthy site", between Liff and Camperdown. The new hospital opened at the site in 1882 and was known as the Dundee Royal Lunatic Asylum.

Westgreen when it opened. The men's wing was to the left and the women's to the right.
And never the twain shall meet – I don't remember ever seeing one of the female patients.
Operations were transferred to the National Health Service in 1948, and in 1959 the Asylum, along with Gowrie House, and the psychiatric wards at Mary- field Hospital were amalgamated to form the Dundee Royal Mental Hospital. In 1963 the name was changed again to the Royal Dundee Liff Hospital and it finally closed for good in December 2001.The property was sold and converted into a residential development known as West Green Park.
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Over the years from the opening of the Dundee Lunatic Asylum at the beginning of the 19th century to when I got my job there, the care and treatment of the mentally disturbed in the UK changed drastically. In the beginning, asylums were really prisons, with many inmates chained in crowded cells. Sometime mittens were used to prevent the inmates from scratching or attempting to induce vomiting, and strait jackets were used to hold their arms against their chest.

This began to change around the mid 18th century with mental illness being recognised as a disease, and various types of treatment being tried and conditions becoming somewhat more humane.

Some of the treatments seem quite barbaric today - arsenic, various tonics of dubious content, blood-letting, leeches, dunking a patient's head in a tub of cold water, removal of teeth and large intestines, induction of fevers, sleep therapy, hypothermia.

During the period before and after the Second World War, several treatments were in vogue:

Lobotomy

This barbaric operation was based on the idea that much mental illness came from the frontal lobes of the brain, and that by sticking a knife or needle into the brain and separating much of the frontal lobes from the
rest of the brain patients would improve.

This is the procedure that ruined the life of John F Kennedy's sister, Rose Marie (referred to as Rosemary). The story is a tragic one. If you're interested you can read about it here. If you have a strong stomach you may see one terrible method of carrying out this procedure here.

I don't know if lobotomies were carried out at Westgreen while I was there, I doubt it – but the first ever lobotomy carried out in Britain was at Maryfield Hospital, Dundee, in 1946, and the
procedure was carried out in Britain for a further 30 years. The successor procedures are used very sparingly today, and only for some very specific, individual problems, like depression, OCD or chronic pain that have proven intractable.

There are only two centres for such psychosurgery in the UK, one in Wales and the other at Ninewells Hospital, Dundee. See more information here if you're interested.

Insulin shock therapy

Also known as insulin coma therapy (ICT) was a form of treatment in which patients were repeatedly injected with large doses of insulin in order to produce daily comas over several weeks. It was introduced in 1927 by Austrian-American psychiatrist Manfred Sakel and used extensively in the 1940s and 1950s, mainly for schizophrenia, before falling out of favour and being replaced by neuroleptic drugs in the 1960s.

I know from personal experience that this treatment was in use while I was there. One day I was told to assist one of the nurses with a patient in one of the single hospital rooms. The man seemed sound asleep, and when I asked the nurse he said that he was in an insulin coma.

He had defecated in the bed and we had to clean him up. That is to say, the nurse and I stripped the bed, then he attended to the patient while I took the bedclothes to the sluice to clean the shit off before sending the bed clothes to the laundry. (I learned through such experiences something that I suspect all mothers know – use cold water, for that task not hot...)

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)

Also known as electroshock therapy, and often referred to as shock treatment, is a procedure in which seizures are electrically induced in patients to provide relief from mental disorders. It was first conducted in 1938 and is the only currently used form of shock therapy in psychiatry.

ECT is often used with informed consent as a last line of intervention for major depressive disorder, mania, and catatonia. A round of ECT is said to be effective for about 50% of people with treatment-resistant major depressive disorder, whether it is unipolar or bipolar. Debbie Reynolds daughter, Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia), told Oprah a few years ago that she had regular (every six weeks) ECT sessions, and found them very helpful.

Not long after I began work at the hospital I was told to report to a room where there was a patient on a gurney with a doctor, a nurse and another orderly. The patient had a rubber mouthpiece inserted in his mouth then electrodes like small earphones were placed on his temples. I and the other orderly were told to stand on either side of the patient and hold down an arm and a leg.

The doctor pressed the button and the patient went rigid, lifting his body up from the bed. He seemed to stop breathing for 10 or 15 seconds then the rigidity began to subside while at the same time he went into convulsions – vigorous spasms that slowly subsided. When they stopped, the patient seemed to fall into a natural sleep.

The reason we were holding his limbs was to prevent any damage – apparently during one of their first uses of the procedure at the hospital, the patient broke an arm. I know that also, in the early days, Westgreen was reprimanded by the Hospital Board for carrying out ECT procedures in open wards. If you're interested, you can see the modern method here – it uses anesthesia, a muscle relaxant and oxygen, none of which were used in 1955.
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As a new, temporary staff member I was allocated to Ward B, a hospital ward, as opposed to a Day Ward. There was more scut work in the hospital ward and they could also supervise us more closely – so not unreasonable. While the day-to-day experiences of more than sixty years ago, have faded from my memory, a few snapshots of people and situations remain:
    1. Sitting on the edge of a comatose patient's bed speaking to an old fellow in the next bed – there was only about eighteen inches between the beds – when I hear the nurse-in-charge tell me, brusquely, to get out of the way while he and another nurse checked on the patient on whose bed I was sitting. They then said that the man was dead – I hadn't noticed!

    2. A family consisting of a father and two sons, with a female member, either the mother or a daughter, in the women's side, all long-term patients. The father was admitted to the hospital ward soon after I started work there with cancer in his left lower jaw bone. To begin with it looked like a large ulcer on his cheek, but it progressed very quickly. (I understand that cancer in this location is difficult to diagnose, and so the poor man must have been late-stage before anyone realised it.)

    Over a couple of months, the cancer opened a hole in his cheek and ate through the bone. When he asked for water, we had to gently turn his head to the right otherwise it just ran out through the hole.

    It was so sad to see his two sons come to the window of the ward and try to catch a glimpse of him. He died while I was still working there.

    3. One visiting day, meeting one of the teachers from my primary school who was visiting her brother – a short-term patient. I'm not sure, but I think he was suffering from some kind of depression. (While I was there, I can't remember ever exchanging words with a doctor, and the nurses very seldom told us anything about the patients. The little I did learn came from the permanent orderlies.)

    4. The patient who was in a bed with railings around it –like a large version of a cot for a new baby. This fellow was provided with a constant supply of old newspapers and spent his days tearing them into smaller and smaller strips. He wore only a gown which was made of what looked like canvas.

    5. A catatonic patient who lay all day in the same position – on his back with his hands by his sides. If you were close, to him or spoke to him his eyes would respond to the stimulus but nothing else.

    6. The hospital ward got quite a few patients who were suffering from what was called, in those days, senile dementia, a term that's not used today. I remember a nice old fellow who came to us with huge bed sores – some of them as big as the palm of my hand. They were treated with gentian violet, and so he had huge purple patches on his back and the backs of his legs.

    He still had a good sense of humour, and we would chat together. From time-to-time I would tell him, jokingly, that if he didn't behave himself we'd send him to Westgreen, and he'd say "Nah, laddie that's one thing that'll never happen to me. He died a few weeks later.

    7. There were some long-term patients who functioned at a high level and were given positions of minor trust – if it had been a prison they would've been 'trusties'. As I left one day, I saw one of them, 'Davy' cutting the grass, but he was running back and forward with the hand mower, at full speed.

    The next day I was told that he'd made a break for freedom. I asked if they thought it would take a long time to catch him. They said "Oh we caught him – we found him after about half an hour, a mile down the road waiting for the next bus."

    8. One day about two hours before my shift ended, I was given the job of keeping 'Wullie' interested. He was going into a manic phase and was known to become obstreperous to a greater or lesser degree. The staff had arranged some other beds around Wullie's in one of the bow windows so as to hem him in and I was told to sit on the ward side of Wullie's bed and try to keep him calm. He said to me "So they gave you the job of keeping me busy did they?"

    What I would've done if he'd become violent I don't know – but he didn't. We chatted for the rest of my shift with no issues.

    Next day when I reported for duty to the ward, I saw that one of the bay windows (see the photo) had been smashed and was covered with plywood. They told me that Wullie had decided to make a break for it and had thrown a chair at the window. I asked if he'd escaped and they said that they'd caught him before he got through, and he was now sedated in a side ward.

West Green Park homes today, showing the former Ward B – Wullie's bow window on the left.
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When I said that I was sicker when I left than when I went in, I was being quite literal. A couple of weeks before my planned last day, I was tasked with helping one of the senior orderlies to make beds. I remember he got quite annoyed with me because I wasn't working hard or fast enough. I told him that I wasn't feeling well and he wasn't buying it. I got through the shift then headed for home where my mother took one look at me then put me to bed and called our doctor's office for a home visit.

Next day we got the verdict – at eighteen years old I had chicken pox! I remember being very embarrassed at having this childhood disease. I was supposed to be taking my girl-friend at the time, to see a film that night. When I called to say I wouldn't make it she wasn't there and her mother kept asking what was wrong with me till I finally told her – then she started to laugh – thought it was hilarious – I was black affronted!

(A few weeks later, I had to visit the home of the senior orderly. He lived not too far from me in Lochee, and kindly agreed to bring home my final pay packet since I didn't have time to go back to work after I recovered.

To his credit, he said "I owe you an apology. I was pretty rough on you – I thought you were malingering. When I learned that you really were sick I was embarrassed that I'd treated you that way." I thought that it was big of him to apologise.)

Looking back later on my experience at Westgreen I guess I had two 'takeaways':

1. What a lottery life is, and how lucky I, my family and friends were to have been born 'mens sana in corpore sano' whilst those poor patients, almost all through no fault of their own, had such tragic lives.

2. How adaptable I, and by extrapolation humans, are. We seem to be able to adjust to new situations very quickly.

On my first day at the hospital, in my new tan-coloured shop coat with the two master keys (which opened all the doors) in my pocket, I remember being very nervous, and when allocated to one of the day wards, I tried to stand with my back to a wall. I'm sure my air of unease was apparent to staff and patients alike and probably explained why one of the young, mid-twenty, patients decided to show me who was boss. (Later, he was one of the sons who used to visit their father at the window of the hospital ward).

He began to shove me around, and while I was trying to decide how to deal with this (what to do – run, hit him, call for help...) a couple of the regular orderlies appeared, grabbed him, shoved him into a side room and punched him a couple of times in the abdomen. He never bothered me after that. (I suspect the two orderlies had been told to keep a close eye on the students for the first few days.) But in a few days, I had acclimatised – the place became simply my normal work environment, no longer scary.

One final memory that has stuck in my mind after all these years – on one of my last days there, I was on the late shift, it was near sunset, and many of the non-hospital patients were taking the air in the courtyard on the south side. I was standing at the stone balustrade looking out over the fields, one of which, in the middle distance had a small herd of cattle.

One of the long-term patients, about six inches shorter than me, Wee Davy, born mentally deficient, now middle-aged, came over and stood beside me quietly, and we surveyed the view in companionable silence. Finally he turned to look up at me – he had no teeth and a squinchy wee face – and he said in a voice of wonder "Coos, b'fuck!–

I said "Right enough, Davy", and we went back to our mode of silent, comfortable contemplation and watched the sun go down.

I'm sure that, as the self-centred teenager that I was, it never occurred to me at the time, to think that, in a few weeks, I'd be off to University, while Wee Davy would still be there – for the rest of his life.

D' Ye Mind Comin' Hame
fur Denner?

Bill Kidd

As I laid aside my knife and fork alongside the remains of our Saumon en Croute and took another sip of an excellent Premier Cru Chablis I reflected on how much our eating habits had changed over the course of our lifetime. Yes, I had been dreaming but as I awakened, the memories of how we shopped, prepared and consumed our food came flooding back.

During the war and its immediate aftermath meat and groceries were rationed. Everyone had a ration book, straw coloured for adults, blue for children under fourteen (I think) and green for under-fives. Each individual had to register with a butcher and a grocer, as the price of rationed items was regulated the quantity of the ration was expressed in monetary terms.

Wartime weekly ration for an adult.

Some non-rationed items such as offal and sausages could be sold to registered and particularly, favoured customers. Eating out to conserve one's rations was curtailed by a five shilling (25 pence) limit on the price of a meal. It always seemed strange to me that bread was not rationed until a year or so after the war ended. It was only when food rationing finally ended in 1954 that our eating habits began to change.

The Scottish tradition was for three substantial meals per day. A cooked breakfast with bacon and eggs; dinner (lunch) around midday, this was usually the main meal of the day consisting of soup, meat and potatoes rounded off with some form of dessert; the final meal, taken at the end of the working day was high tea consisting of a single cooked dish, perhaps fish or macaroni followed by bread and jam tea-breads and cake. Before retiring for the night a light supper, perhaps cocoa and biscuits for children or welsh rarebit and tea for adults. Although this pattern of meals was the ideal it could not be followed by every household, perhaps for financial or work related reasons. Maintaining such a pattern of meals was predicated on two major factors that only barely exist in our current society, mother stayed at home all day and father worked close enough to come home for dinner each day. During the war years in many homes the traditional pattern of meals could only be maintained at weekends.

I retain a clear memory of the shops that we were registered with. The butcher, whose premises sported a sawdust covered floor with large carcasses hanging on hooks fitted to the wall on the customers' side of the shop. On the counter there could be a tray of potted hough, some white or black puddings or even sausages. Behind the counter was the butcher's block on which a series of bits of mutton, beef or pork was carefully cut in accordance with the ration allowed. No one seemed to mind very much if we brushed against one of the hanging carcasses or even brought our dog into the shop. Hygiene was not very high on the list of priorities during these years.

The grocer's shop was very different, here there was a great deal of bustling about by the shop assistants as they ran about filling brown bags with sugar or lentils or any one of the myriad of dry goods dotted around the store. The great skill of using wooden paddles to remove a sliver of butter from the big lump that lay on a marble slab and then pat it into an attractive shape before wrapping it in greaseproof paper. The cheese was cut using a wire and similarly wrapped. All of these items were carefully weighed to ensure that you were buying the correct ration. A few tins, perhaps of cold meat, salmon or fruit were dispensed and the relevant points cut out of the ration books. If the family had a "book" which was paid monthly the shopping might be delivered by a message boy on a bike otherwise it was everything into the shopping bag, pay at the cash desk and carry everything home.

Even today we Scots are not known as a race of vegetable lovers! Our local greengrocer sold potatoes, carrot, turnip, onions and cabbage pretty well the whole year round. In summer he added lettuce, radishes, spring onions and sometimes tomatoes to his repertoire. He also sold in season eating apples, cooking apples (which he occasionally disguised as toffee apples), plums, gooseberries, strawberries, raspberries and blackcurrants, most of these were used for jam making rather than to grace the table.

In the City Centre the posh greengrocer (Dryden's?) displayed all sorts of exotica such as capsicum (peppers) and zucchini (courgettes) that the Italians were rumoured to eat, mushrooms (that we were warned against in case they were poisoned), asparagus, cucumber, green beans and several other items that we could not then put a name to. Vegetables were incorporated along with ham bones into soup or were simply boiled to a taste-free state, served and eaten without ceremony or pleasure.

Today, things are very different; we enjoy a vast range of foods imported from all four corners of the Earth. We now accept cuisines from all over the world and our towns and cities are served by restaurants that reflect this. Most of our food is now purchased ready packaged which enables us to serve ourselves in supermarkets.

Supermarkets in even the smallest towns have an all-year-round range of fruit and vegetables that would put even Dryden's to shame, and sell Indian and Chinese foods as a norm. How we travelled from the limited post-war bill of fare is a miracle of current marketing and economic progress that is not unconnected to the courage needed to try something new.

I wonder who the first person to eat an oyster was, and did he or she get a medal?

First Love
Hugh McGrory
They say you never forget your first love, and I think that's probably true for most people. I hope this doesn't embarrass anyone, but my brother Mike and I had the same first love. Those of you who know that my brother is seven years younger than me are probably wondering how that could happen. Was he 16 and I was 23 – or was I 16 and he was 9? Well neither actually – though she was quite a bit older than him. You see – oh wait a minute – you're thinking it's a girl I'm talking about! No, no, no – our first car...

I worked in London after university for a couple of years and didn't find the need for a car, but I then returned to Dundee and began thinking of saving up for one. This was 1961, and you may remember some of the cars that were popular then (unfortunately all outside my price range):

Austin Healey Sprite Ford Anglia Ford Consul Classic
Jaguar E-type Morris Mini Morris Minor 1000

Then one day, my boss mentioned that he was selling his old vehicle. The car was the same age as me – a 1937 Morris 8, 2-door, 4-seater saloon. I grabbed it – can't remember what I paid for it – 40 or 50 quid maybe. While she didn't have the post-war look, with her running boards and semaphore turning signals, she had been well looked after and ran well. I could throw my field hockey kit onto the back seat or squeeze in some teammates for away games – easy to repair. My first car, 918 cc, 24 HP, and top speed 60 mph with a following wind – green and black, just like the one in the photo – and I loved her.

In the meantime I got married and my wife became pregnant with our first child. We lived in a flat in a large house at the bottom of Ellieslea Road a stone's throw from the Yacht Club where so many of us have enjoyed group lunches over the years. One Saturday we were heading up East Kingsway – the plan being to drop my wife off at her parent's place in Lochee, then back along the Kingsway to Forfar road for the afternoon hockey game.

As we climbed the hill, the engine, which had always been a little smoky, began to belch out black fumes, I mean really huge clouds of it. We obviously had a blown engine, but those simple little four-stroke engines were tough, and she was still running, albeit rather roughly. There wasn't a good place to stop so we continued for a half mile or so. At that point time was of the essence. I saw a bus stop coming up with some people waiting, and getting great amusement from this old banger blowing large plumes of smoke. They didn't laugh so much when I pulled past them and stopped, enveloping them in the cloud – and keeping the engine running.

I dropped my heavily-pregnant wife there to get a bus along Clepington Road to Lochee – a not-very-pleased-wife I remember, understandably – then limped along to the sports ground about a mile away in time for the match. I got the car towed to a garage and they told me later that one of the pistons had split in two. When they pulled the engine block, the piston fell off the connecting rod and landed on the ground in two pieces. Fortunately, it had stayed in place, presumably the piston rings had kept it together, and it hadn't destroyed the cylinder.

Once the new baby, our first girl, arrived the two-door wasn't the most convenient, and I decided to buy the little Morris mini van that I've written about before. (The van was really convenient for throwing the baby in her baby basket in the back, plus the pram, the bags with nappies and dresses and baby powder and... This was just before seat-belt legislation came in, and we never thought about how dangerous it was!)

When my boss heard that I was about to sell the car he asked if he could buy it back. I would have been happy to agree, but had to tell him that I'd promised it to my wee brother – who says he paid me £25 for it. It was his first too, and he says he loved her as much as I did. He remembered the registration as EJO 108 (Oxford).

Mike remembers driving it up to Killin, where we were living, for a visit, and while driving through rain having to reach out of the side window and flick the wiper which kept getting stuck.

He also remembers an occasion when he was driving the car full of fellow drunken revellers down a hill somewhere out near Kellas or Tealing and had to stand up to apply the brake hard enough to manage to stop just before the field at the T junction end of the road) thank heaven for the hydraulic 8-inch drum brakes front and back).

His wife remembers a time when the car was making a strange noise, so she was sent into the back with the seat removed armed with a long screwdriver to hold against the differential to see if that was where the noise was coming from.

Ah, good times...

Now, if you'll indulge us, my wee brother and I are going to take a walk down memory lane with these photos of a car, exactly like ours was, except with blue and black trim instead of our green and black. Those of you who remember the days when you could lift the bonnet/hood, recognise all the components and do many needed repairs yourself may wish to join us...





A Wonderful Machine
Gordon Findlay
Can you remember that feeling when you had bashed holes in both the toecaps of your shoes? When you could feel the stone pavements of Dundee through your feet? When you stood in a puddle and you could feel the water oozing between your toes? In other words: when you absolutely HAD to get a pair of new shoes?

The tedium of being dragged to the shoe store by your parents was sometimes offset by the thrill of standing on an amazing machine, looking down, and seeing the clear outline of all the bones in your feet, encased in a pair of new shoes.

It was the Pedoscope, and I remember it stood against the inside wall at Alex. Potter & Son, where I and my brothers would be taken to be freshly shod. I'm pretty sure at that time, Potter's shoe store was in the Murraygate, and I have two distinct memories of the place: the comforting smell of fresh leather; and the thrill of standing in that fluoroscope in a brand-new pair of shoes.

I must admit I rather enjoyed the whole predictable process. Being seated by a sales person. Taking off an old shoe and being thankful my mother had had the foresight to change me into good (unholed) socks. Then a series of boxes piling up, each with a shiny new pair of shoes curled up inside. Selection being made (always a pair of stout black brogues) and the pleasure of feeling your stockinged feet slipping into firm new leather. And then – oh joy! – being led over to the magic machine to see the blueish picture of my feet encased in new shoes.

It's incredible to think that back in the late 1940s and '50s shoe stores all around the U.K. and elsewhere in
the world, used low-density X-rays to show feet in new shoes. The Pedoscope itself was a simple box affair around 4 feet tall, with a slot where you put your feet. You leaned down and put your eyes to the viewing scope – and there were all the bones of your feet, showing clearly, as well as the outline of the shoes they were in, plus the stitching around the edges.

There was a viewing port in the side of the machine as well, where the sales-person could look in to make sure that the shoes were a good fit. And, of course, for the fussy buyer, this process could stretch over several pairs of shoes, with unprotesting feet being subjected to those harmful X-rays several times over. But in those days that machine was state-of-the-art. I mean, who was going to
argue that the shoes 'felt a wee bit tight' when the Pedoscope showed everything fitting in perfectly, with lots of room all round?

My feet apparently survived their occasional dose of X-rays, but I wonder if anyone else has memories of looking at their feet in that shoe store's magic machine?
____________________
Note:
Advert in the Dundee Courier, 3 Sept. 1954:

"SCHOOL FOOTWEAR - Shoes by CLARK and STARTRITE expertly fitted with the aid of Pedoscope X-ray.
Junior Dept., Second Floor,
POTTERS, MURRAYGATE, DUNDEE."

The shoe fitting fluoroscope was first shown at a shoe retailers convention in Boston in 1920, and became a common fixture in shoe stores during the 1930s, '40s and '50s. In the UK, the Pedoscope Company of St. Albans was the largest manufacturer. In the early 1950s, estimates placed the number of operating units in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada at 10,000, 3,000 and 1,000 respectively.

By the early 1950s, a number of professional organizations had issued warnings about the continued use of shoe-fitting fluoroscopes, A few years later various US States began to ban their use. The machines continued to be used in Canada and the UK to a limited extent, at least until 1970.

Over the years of use, many shoe salespersons put their hands into the x-ray beam to squeeze the shoe during the fitting. As a result, one saleswoman who had operated a shoe fitting fluoroscope 10 to 20 times each day over a ten year period developed dermatitis of the hands.

Apparently there was one reported case of a more serious injury linked to the operation of these machines - a shoe model who received such a serious radiation burn over time that eventually her leg had to be amputated.
____________________

PS from the Editor

I remember, very well, having the same experiences Gordon had with the Pedoscope, though it was in the large DECS (Dundee Eastern Cooperative Society) store in Peter St. (Actually I never heard that store called anything but the 'Sosh' (local corruption of 'Association'), and I always thought of Peter St. as a 'pend' not a street...)
Soarin'
Hugh McGrory
About 10 years ago, we decided to spend Christmas in Florida taking grandkids to Disneyworld – with three generations of family and in-laws there was about a dozen of us. The weather was quite warm – in fact on Christmas Day it got up to 26 C or almost 80 F mid-afternoon.

I have always preferred Epcot to The Magic Kingdom, and made sure that we allocated one day for a visit. Of course when we got there we all had a look at the list of exhibits/attractions and the site plan to figure out who wanted to see what. We agreed on where we'd all meet for lunch, then split up into groups. My wife, Sheila and I wandered around for an hour or three before heading for the restaurant.

At lunch, everyone recounted where they had been and what they had seen, and the consensus was that the 'must see' was Soarin' – this seems to be generally agreed by all who visit the park. Soarin' is a ride which simulates a flight in a hang glider. Now I've never been keen on amusement park rides, roundabouts, roller coasters and the like – it doesn't take much to give me a queasy stomach, so I wasn't too sure about this. I was told that I was being silly, and that we had to see this – "definitely the best of all the attractions in Epcot".
    For those of you who haven't experienced such a ride (there are installations also at Disneyland in California, in Shanghai, and in Tokyo), I'll try to set the scene – conceptually rather than in detail:

    There is an IMAX 80 ft., concave, 180-degree dome screen which shows movie scenes, shot from helicopters, of magnificent locations from around the world – the Pyramids, the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China etc. So imagine that you're sitting in this cinema which has three rows of seats, one behind the other, each row being broken up into three sections each of 10 seats – so 90 people in all. The seats in each section of ten are joined together along the row, and have high backs attached to a roof like an airplane wing which juts out about four feet overhead.

    The lights dim, and the first row of seats glides forward and upwards (everyone is strapped in by seat belt) – the second row moves out and up behind the first, though not as high, then the third row does the same.

    The reason the rows move forward is so that each person is now surrounded visually by the screen to
    create an 'immersive experience'. The reason they move up is to provide a clear line of sight for the rows behind – if people look up they can see the dangling feet of those above them.

    This brilliantly simple arrangement was conceived by Mark Sumner, a mechanical engineer, or Imagineer as they call them in the world of Disney. You can see how this design came about here.

    (If you'd like to experience this ride – from queuing up to the final credits, see it here.)
But back to the story. Sheila wanted to go Soarin', and persuaded me not to wimp out, so we set off through
the heat from the SE corner of Epcot around the large lake to the NW corner to find the attraction. When we got there, the lineup was huge, and the signs told us that the wait would be 60 to 70 mins (the ride lasts a little under 5 mins). We looked at each other and said "I don't think so!"

We decided to head back to find some of the family and see what they were up to. When we did, and told our tale of woe, they said "Did you book for later?" We said "Book?"

(I must say that The Walt Disney Company has honed its crowd handling over the years, and is
pretty good at it. It turned out that they have what they refer to as Fastpass. At the busiest attractions, like Space Mountain, Expedition Everest and Soarin' you can insert your ground admission ticket into a machine and make a booking for a later time.)

So we traipsed back to Soarin' and duly got two bookings for about three hours later. At the appointed time, we showed up at the attraction for the third time that day, and as we approached, we could see that, while the line was smaller, it was still substantial. Signs directed us to the Fastpass line, and as we walked by I'm sure I could feel the stink eyes from the people lined up – though that may have been my imagination...

When we got to the entrance, we were admitted only to see another substantial lineup, but again we got the royal treatment and joined a small line of perhaps twenty or thirty. The show was just about to begin and the young attendants were squeezing in the last few by saying things like "Do we have a single? Please come forward." A minute or so after we joined the back of the queue they asked for a twosome, no one else was interested so we were in. They showed us to our row, and we in settled beside the eight people who were already seated in that row.

We assumed we'd be "in the air" in minutes after they seated us in our row, but no... We sat for a while and
studied the set-up which was indeed impressive. Then a few of the young attendants (university and college students) suddenly appeared before us and said that they were going to lead us in a singsong! Can't remember what the tunes were, but the kids weren't very good singers, and we, the crowd, were rubbish, so it was excruciatingly embarrassing for everyone for about five minutes.

We assumed that the machinery had broken down, and they were stalling while repairs were made... WRONG! The next announcement was something like "We have to evacuate the building. Will
everyone please move to the sides of the theatre where staff will guide you to the emergency exits."

There was no panic, but everyone walked quickly and before we knew it we were in a courtyard at the back of the building and were directed back to the main concourse. We learned later that it was a bomb threat, presumably a false alarm. Each of Disney's theme parks apparently has their own bomb squads. They're kept busy every day checking out backpacks etc. when people set them down then move away.

Well that was several hours of our lives that we never got back. So if any of you have actually experienced the ride maybe you could tell us what it was like...

My Gran and Grandfather
Jim Campbell
My memory box was stirred by Hugh's account of his Gran's 'but n' ben' residence in Clepington Street. I have memories of my own paternal Gran living in similar accommodation at the bottom of a tenement in Crescent Street. Only, as I remember it was really a single room which had a 'bedroom' comprised of a wooden partition.
Tenements at the bottom of Crescent Street (on the left) where it meets Princes Street.
My Grandfather was a full-time soldier in the Black Watch serving in both the Boer War and the Great War. I understand that he was hospitalised for some reason after his service and that, while there, a fight broke out between two patients. Grandad attempted to separate the combatants and suffered an embolism as a result, and died. Apparently his widow was granted a pension of 6d (sixpence) per week to bring up her family consisting of my father, his three brothers and a sister.

4th (Dundee) Battalion Black Watch after Battle of Neuve Chapelle, March 1915.
Of his brothers, two went overseas – one, Malcolm, to Canada and the other, Finlay to Western Australia.
(I am guessing that the YMCA ('British Boys for British Farms') had some involvement). The youngest, John, became a boy-entrant in the RAF and sister Betty joined the Navy as a Wren.

One of my main memories of these days is of an occasion when, as a result of the Second World War the two migrants found themselves reunited in that Crescent Street 'hoose'.

My Canadian uncle had gone to the (outdoors, of course) toilet and left his holstered revolver on the back of a chair. Somehow yours truly managed to
remove the revolver (probably the standard issue Enfield No. 2 Service Revolver shown here) from its holster, but it was too heavy for me and I dropped it on the floor with a clatter.

Can you imagine the panic that resulted?!
____________________
Notes:

1. The YMCA's 'British Boys for British Farms' programme was a forerunner to what would become Farm Institutes and Agricultural Colleges. Writing in the Derby Telegraph in 2014, Jane Goddard wrote how the BBBF "was seen as a means of introducing 'townies' to the way of life in the countryside, help provide employment both before, during and after the Second World War and boost the country's agricultural production."

With the support of the National Farmers Union, the War Agricultural Committee, and the Ministries
of Agriculture and Labour, the YMCA helped set up 14 centres across the country. Between its inception in 1932 and the scheme ending in 1968, more than 20,000 boys between the ages of 14 and 16 took part.

The boys were provided with hostel accommodation and given work and training on the land for up to 12 weeks, before moving onto farms, where they were monitored by a YMCA Field Officer for a further year.

The BBBF scheme was highly thought of in agricultural circles, promoted by schools, colleges, employment agencies and social welfare departments. In 2014, an article in Farmer's Weekly reflected on the success of the BBBF movement. Writer, Nick Fone, explained how the boys had been given basic training in all aspects of farming. Many were then placed in Commonwealth food-producing nations such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand. These were nations which had lost millions of young men in the First World War and been left with a critical shortage of manpower. While some young men struggled to adapt to working on the land, –most settled, set up new lives and a good number went on to farm in their own right.'
____________________
2. The Battle of Loos, September 1915, had 45 Scottish Batallions taking part. Not since Culloden had so many Scottish soldiers been in the field at the same time. Sadly it was a tragic defeat for the Britsh. More than 60,000 British troops were killed or wounded, nearly twice the number of German casualties.

The Germans called it 'Field of Corpses,' with one regimental diary recording, "Never had the machine gunners such straightforward work to do, nor done it so effectively. They traversed to and fro along the enemy's ranks unceasingly."

When Dundee's Own, the 4th Battalion, arrived in France in February 1915 the strength was 900. By the time the order came to go 'over the top' at Loos its numbers had already fallen to just 423 fighting men.

Exposed as soon as they mounted the parapet, the beleaguered 4th suffered horrific losses. Out of 20 officers 19 were killed or wounded and 230 of the 420 men who took part in the attack were killed or wounded. They had advanced too far too fast and were an easy target for machine gunners.

The losses had a profound effect on the city. Hardly a household was unaffected by the loss, not a family left untouched by the men's sacrifice. Dundee's Own the fathers, sons, friends and workmates in the 4th" was so reduced by Loos that it had to be amalgamated with the 5th.

Today, the Loos Memorial and Cemetery commemorates all the lost from the battle, including 20,000 men with no known grave.

Each year in Dundee on September 25 the beacon at the top of the city's war memorial on The Law shines to remember the battalion's heroic dead.

Meh Gran 3
Hugh McGrory
Sometime in the late '50s, our Gran had a close call – she was very nearly killed by a city double-decker bus.
The old photo, taken in the early years of the century, shows Lochee High Street looking north – it hadn't changed very much 50 years later. You can see, in the distance, a church spire with clock on the right-hand side of the road, and it was in front of that church that the incident occurred. Gran had walked south down Bright Street (see the street plan) past the school and church until she reached the second church (the one with the spire), then prepared to cross to the west side of the High Street.

Cars were usually parked on both sides of the street, so she would no doubt have stepped out onto the road and stood at the corner of the end-most parked car to wait for a gap in the traffic.

The bus meanwhile was coming from the north-west and making the right-hand turn to go south on High Street. The buses usually came round that corner quickly, 'fairly wheeched roond' as people described it. The street plan shows the path of the bus in red, and the blue cross indicates where Gran and the bus met.

To jump to the end of the story the bus driver was charged with, and found guilty of dangerous driving. Gran was one of the witnesses called to court – in fact the star witness... The local paper, the Dundee Telegraph (known as 'The Tully'), reported that Mrs
The horse and cart in the right foreground looks exactly how my Uncle Jock looked delivering jute bales from the docks.The bag hanging down at the rear between the wheels is probably a canvas nose bag for giving the horse a feed during the day.    
Ryan had told the magistrate that the bus had 'skriffed' her coat, and had actually left a smear of dirt behind.

It was that close – had Grannie been just an inch or two further out, she would have been hit by a vehicle weighing 200 times more than she did and travelling at about 40 mph.

D'ye Mind Gettin' the Courier and the Tele' Delivered?
Bill Kidd

Some weeks ago I produced an anecdote reminiscing about the smells that wafted around various parts of Dundee. Some days later I got a very nice message from Gordon Findlay whose earlier anecdote had inspired me to put pen to paper. One of the things he said was that I should have included the smell of the D C Thomson newspapers being printed. Alas, a few days later I heard of his passing, and in reflecting on what he had suggested, the ubiquity of D C Thomson products in Dundee life during our early years sprung to mind. So, if the Anecdote Committee pleases, here is the result of Gordon's suggestion!

One of my earliest recollections was looking for the "Billy and Bunny" cartoon that appeared in the Courier
each day and of pestering my mother until she read to me the rhyming story printed below the picture. Like many Dundee homes we had the Courier delivered every morning and the Evening Telegraph every teatime except Saturday when the Tele was swapped for The Sporting Post. The reason for this was because the Post had the football results and it usually arrived before BBC Scotland got round to broadcasting them! When my father had finished checking that he had not won £75,000 on the pools I got stuck into the only other thing of interest in the publication, Dixon Hawke
the private detective who clearly had a contract with the Metropolitan Police to solve a baffling murder case every week.
There were other daily newspapers of course but only the Courier and the Tele could boast that it had Dundee in their title and they reigned supreme in the city with a circulation that would make current newspaper proprietors green with envy.

The Courier's full title was Dundee Courier and Advertiser and it fulfilled its advertising role by devoting its front page to advertisements for jobs such as Tenter; Potato Roguer; Armature Winder; Clerkess and Lorry Second Man – sorry ladies but that's what it said! The odd bits and pieces so necessary in the 1940s could be found in the miscellaneous sales columns. Items such as musical instruments; Tea sets; Bicycles (gents and ladies) and all sorts of domestic appliances marked as "unwanted gift" could be yours by applying to the box number under which the item was displayed.

The daily newspapers in the D C Thomson stable were complemented by several weekly offerings – the best known of these was the Sunday Post home of the "Broons" and "Oor Wullie" not to forget the second team
of "Nero and Zero" and "Nosey Parker". What other newspaper could have a columnist who wrote under the pseudonym of Francis Gay?

The Sunday Post was at one time the world's most read newspaper within its circulation area, being read by about 90% of the potential readership and this was confirmed by the Guinness Book of World Records.

The Weekly News and The People's Journal were the other weekly offerings popular in Dundee. The Journal, although it carried little actual news, was the nearest thing that Dundee had to a "local" newspaper. It served up a diet of Dundee themed features, concentrating on local worthies, events and the City's history.

It usually carried a large photograph of a Dundee scene. Most importantly it featured a pen and ink illustrated story, my favourite was "Black Bob", the sheep dog that rather suspiciously mirrored the adventures of Lassie!

The Weekly News was a Scottish rather than a Dundee paper. Nevertheless it was fun to read, I particularly enjoyed the "Fun an' Games with Andy James" football stories about people with inventive names.

I still smile when I think of Alden Dunn, the aptly named centre half, Willie Signim, the club manager, the winger Wan Fittit, and the goalie, Dinny Drapitt.

Perhaps it was as a result of local news being covered by the Courier and Tele that the Dundee edition of the People's Journal ceased publication in January 1986. It is the only one of the four Thomson weekly newspaper publications circulated in Dundee not to survive to the present day. (The Journal was replaced by The Dundee Extra, a free weekly newspaper).

Of course the newspapers dropping in our letter box each day were not the only manifestations of the ubiquity of D C Thomson publications in mid 20th Century Dundee. There were the boy's adventure comics the Rover,
Wizard, Adventure and Hotspur, each having a garish cover and four narrative stories of derring do on the sports field, battlefield or boarding school. They also had advertisements for "stamp approvals", model aircraft kits and magic things like "seebackascopes".

In the late 50s girls were also catered for with the arrival of Bunty, Judy and Misty but being a boy I was unaware and had had little interest in what girls were reading.

I do believe that before then a non-D C Thomson publication known as Girls Crystal made an occasional
appearance in the house but it was beneath my dignity to look at it!

There were of course other weekly publications on offer from Thomson's for female Dundonians. The People's Friend, aimed at the more mature ladies, offered a mixture of romance, home-making, good and uplifting advice. Having recently read a Friend in the doctor's waiting room I can confirm that it has changed little over the years.

For the younger housewife there was Woman's Weekly, seemingly a less uplifting and more advice-
oriented version of the People's Friend. For the younger and more romantic ladies there were Secrets, Red Letter and Red Star Weekly.
These publications were similar in appearance to the boy's adventure comics but I am told that they provided less violent and more romantic fare!

For children of all ages the Dandy and Beano were a source of regular entertainment. "Korky the Cat" and "Big Eggo" provided the cover stories for many a year and inside, a host of memorable characters comes to mind, too many for today's anecdote but they just might provide the basis for a future trip down memory lane...

Meh Gran 2
Hugh McGrory
Another memory of my Gran:

It would be too strong to say that our Grannie had an addiction – maybe "a guilty pleasure" is a better description. It was never mentioned, but, as a kid, I remember from time to time that Gran would take a hankie from her sleeve, or the pocket of her 'peenie', to blow her nose, and thinking to myself how 'clorty' it was and wondering why she didn't get a clean one...

It wasn't something I thought much about, just one of life's little mysteries, until one day in the early '60s I dropped in to see her. She was quite old by this time, and close to being 'aff the legs' and she asked if I would go down to the local newsagent/tobacconist and get a tin of something, the name of which she wrote down for me. When I got it I realised that it was snuff. I never saw her actually take a pinch, since she must always have done it in private, but it certainly made sense of the dirty hankie for me.

In talking to meh wee brither about this, he told me that when he was a bairn, Gran used to give him amd his buddies a surreptitious sweet treat every so often – he recalls her slipping him a handful of raisins one day, but when he came to eat them they were snuff-infused. Fortunately he never became addicted – at least not to snuff, though he does like his raisins...

I was surprised to learn that snuff is still widely used today.

Note:
Is snuff harmful? Apparently so. Although it doesn't seem to cause lung cancer, it is highly addictive, and can negatively impact the body. Like other forms of tobacco, snuff contains cancer-causing chemicals, and it seems that it can increase the risk of several types of cancer, including, nose and sinus, oral, esophogeal and pancreatic.

Apparently it also raises the risk of other conditions, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, heart attack and stroke, and increases the chances of premature birth and stillbirth. Moist or 'dipping' snuff can also yellow teeth, sour breath, and lead to tooth decay, gum infections, and in some cases lost teeth. Problems may even develop deep inside the jaw resulting in bone loss and possible face disfigurement.

Thankfully none of this seems to have happened to my Gran as far as I know. She died in 1963 aged 82.

A Cub Scout
Gordon Findlay
Like most good parents, our mother and father enrolled us in The Boy Scouts. I can remember being a Cub Scout, sitting in that little circle in St. David's Church at the foot of Stobswell and chanting "Dyb dyb dyb. We'll dob dob dob"

Learning at home how to make a bed, boil water and make a pot of tea, sweep a floor properly, wash and dry a stack of dishes and cutlery – all to win that coveted 'Housemaker' badge on our jersey. Later on, mastering the art of putting up a tent, making an outdoor fire (with protective rocks around it); drying wet clothes, making a walking pole – all to earn the 'Outdoor' badge. Then the swimming badge, the first aid badge, and so on.

The highlight of my Cub Scout career was a day trip to Balmerino – a lovely hillside spot on the other side of Dundee across the River Tay, full of hiking trails and covered in wild raspberry bushes which, during July and August, would be laden with tiny sweet raspberries. Nothing better than diving into those bushes on a warm summer day, picking and eating, picking and eating, and to heck with the stains on your fingers and your face.

(On our living room wall above the fireplace, we have an original James Reville water colour showing those very hills of Balmerino on the banks of the Tay. And we have another Reville downstairs – of a small burn somewhere in Angus. My mother was a great admirer of Reville and his painting prowess.)

Two watercolours by James Reville, 1904-2000.

This trip, with our Akela (a good friend of our mother) was highlighted by a crossing of the Tay in the ferry boat called 'The Fifie', from Dundee to Wormit – about a mile from the hills of Balmerino. This was before the days of the Dundee roadbridge. We marched from Wormit to Balmerino, which, apart from the 800-year-old ruins of Balmerino Abbey, was basically five houses and a post office, then off into the small forest on the hills above.

The Hill behind Balmerino Bay.

What followed was a day of outdoor sports, running, jumping, tree climbing and wrestling until the second highlight at the end of the afternoon: an outdoor cookout fire with potatoes roasted in the red embers, split open and eaten with the fingers while still hot and steaming. And all washed down with lemonade or hot tea for the leaders.

Good memories.
Meh Gran
Hugh McGrory
So many of these stories spark memories for me. Muriel's recent question "What did Grannie Look Like?" made me think of my Gran. The picture that springs to my mind is of her, not long before she died, hunkered down in front of a coal fire, her legs wide open to the hearth, showing off the legs of her bloomers, her stockings held up by elastic, and toasting her corned beef legs.(1)

Lizzie Lawson, was born in 1881 in Dundee, in Thom Place. (Anyone know where that was? If you do, please let me know.). At the age of 19 she married Thomas Maxwell from Tayport who was 20 years old. Five years later, they lived in Glasgow, in Cathcart less than a mile from Hampden, Scotland's National Football Stadium. Sadly, Thomas died there at the age of 25, from acute appendicitis – Gran was pregnant with her third child and she returned to Dundee. Four years later Lizzie married my grandfather, Frank Ryan. She had six more children, though two were girl twins who died at birth in 1912. Frank and Lizzie were married for 38 years until his death in 1947.

Lizzie & Frank Ryan right, with Kate (holding me as a baby, so 1937) and Great Uncle Jock Ryan(You met Jock & Kate in a previous story – he was a carter (horse and cart) and she smoked a clay pipe.)
My Gran was a pleasant woman and she "wisna scared o' hard work" as they used to say. She was a 'biscuit packer' when she first got married, then ten years later the census described her as a 'confectioner'. When I remember her, she was an office cleaner. She used to get up at 5:00 in the morning and walk from the foot of Arklay Street to Courthouse Square where she worked as a cleaner in Telephone House from 6:00 to 9:00, got the tram home, then later in the day went back again from 4:30 to 6:00 pm.

My Gran and Grandad, when he died in 1947, were living in a 'but and ben' in a tenement at the foot of Clepington St., right next to the The Airlie Arms pub (in fact it's now part of the pub and used as a storeroom – see the photo).
To walk from there to where my Mum and I lived in Fairbairn St. (my Dad was away in the army for most of the war) took less than two minutes. My Gran and my Mum spent a lot of time together, and I was essentially brought up by the pair of them, Grannie doing a lot of babysititing when my Mum was working.

My memory is populated by little vignettes of my Grannie – here's a couple:
  • The but and ben had a bed nook in the living room where my grandparents slept. Sometimes when I was young, and when Grandad wasn't there (not sure why, perhaps he was in hospital?), I would sleep over at my Grans' house and share her bed – I think it was just for company for her.

    One time she had discovered, earlier in the day, that they had bed bugs, and she'd bought some kind of powder to get rid of them. I remember getting ready for bed, and her saying that we first had to spread this powder.

    I insisted that I could do it, and she gave me the box which looked just like a pepper pot with holes in the top. She pulled back the sheets, and showed me how to spread the powder – then she made a mistake – she left the room, probably to go to the toilet. When she came back she realised that I had finished the job – and had also finished the whole box... I probably applied enough to kill all the bed bugs in the whole street.

    Gran said something like "Oh, help m' goad, laddie", then spread the top sheet over and said we'd sleep on top of it under the blanket.

    In my own defence, neither of us seemed to suffer any ill effects – and neither of us got bitten that night or any other...

  • My wee brother, Mike, is seven years younger than I, and I remember one time when he was only a few months old, Gran was babysitting us, and he was crying incessantly – I mean continuously. I'm sure that Gran, with all her experience of bringing up children, must have tried every trick in her book, but to no avail. She finally decided that she had to get medical help for the bairn, bundled us up and headed out carrying him, with me behind, no doubt dragging my arse and whining all the way because she was walking so quickly. We went by Alexander St. (now no more), Hilltown, Constitution St, and Dudhope street to DRI (Dundee Royal Infirmary, also no more).

    Mike cried all the way there, and in the waiting room, and when being examined... Eventually the doctor said that there was no obvious reason for the crying and sent us home. So our little caravan headed back along Constitution street, the bairn crying every step of the way. My diagnosis was that he was just a girny-faced wee git, but in fairness to the kid it was probably gripe – gas pains or acid reflux perhaps.

    When Gran told the story in later years she would say "Abody we passed looked at us winderin whut eh wis daen t' the bairn "–" eh wis black-affronted!"(2).
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(1) Corned beef legs:
When I was growing up, most houses in Britain were heated by burning coal in open hearths – quite inefficient, since a lot of the heat disappeared up the chimney. Very few houses had central heating, so the living room was often the only warm room in the home in winter. With no TV set, furniture would be organised around the fireplace, as the centerpiece of the room, and, in the evening, the family would gather round to read or listen to the radio.

Older people, of course, suffered more from the cold, and would often sit very close to the fire. Particularly in women (skirts v trousers), the exposure of their legs to the heat would cause changes to the skin, usually a mild and transient red rash resembling lacework or a fishing net. Prolonged and repeated exposure caused a marked redness and colouring of the skin, and somerimes underlying tissue started to thin. Sufferers might complain of mild itchiness and a burning sensation, and sometimes sores developed. Today, reports of this condition caused by hot water bottles and laptop computers still occur.

Medically the term 'Erythema ab igne,' or 'Toasted skin syndrome' is used, but the common term for it, in Dundee at any rate, is 'corned beef legs'.

Corned Beef Canned Corned Beef Legs
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This Scottish phrase is believed to come from heraldry. When animals (lions, eagles etc) are portrayed on
coats of arms, the direction in which they are looking is distinguished in the official description: if facing to the viewer's left, as in the Scottish Lion Rampant, near right, it's referred to as 'dexter' ( as opposed to 'sinister').

Compare the lion on the far right (from the Crest of the Scottish version of the Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom). The face and body are both facing towards the viewer and this is referred to in heraldry as 'affronté'.

A knight errant, if up to no good (and perhaps ashamed of his behaviour) would not want to be identified, so he would cover the crest on his shield with a black cloth – black affronté – hence the Scottish phrase meaning 'seriously embarrassed'.

Scrumpers Unite!
Anne FitzWalter Golden
Loved the scrumping article by Gordon Finlay. It reminded me of our Denholm(1) days about the age of 4 up to 10 years when we were always out scrumping in the long gardens, plums, pears, apples, gooseberries, peas, broad beans...whatever! and usually they were less than ripe. We must have had cast iron stomachs. Maybe it was the wartime rations that left us hungry.

We knew where to get hazelnuts in season and all the wild fruits, strawberries and raspberries, with the yellow ones a particular favourite. We would pull a neep out of the field and smash the root on a sharp stone in the dyke then knaw our way through it. We were also daring enough to creep in to the henhouse at the farm and enjoy a raw egg.

But guess what...just like Gordon and his pals we were nearly always caught. Later in life when our thinking kicked in we reckon that we were easy to identify, being twins BUT we always had an alibi which was that it wasn't me it was Christine or vice versa! This did not work, of course, when we were out together...the terrors of the village!

Post war in Dundee, Jannette Nicoll and I used to go for long walks at weekends. A favourite was out round the Dighty burn and up the hill behind Balmydown Farm(2).


I taught Jannette how to deal with a neep one day only to get home and find that father had been watching us through his binoculars. As he worked in the Approved Schools service based at Balgowan School his threats put paid to any more Dundee scrumping....except the pea field out of town end of Frederick Street!

What fun and what freedom we had as youngsters... too bad today's lot are tied to their technology.

Viva the countryside and Scrumpers unite!

The ruffians, age 13, Jannette on the right..        

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(1) Denholm is a village, population today around 600, located between Jedburgh and Hawick in the Scottish Borders region. It lies in the valley of the River Teviot, about halfway between the towns of Hawick and Jedburgh.


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(2) The photo, looking west, shows 'our' hill, behind 'Balmydoon' – the roof of the farm can be seen in the bottom left corner just to the right of the tree:



Sweet Memories
Hugh McGrory
Gordon Findlay's story about sweeties got me thinking. I was aware that Scotland is at, or near the top of the list of nations for things like consumption of confectionery, sweets/candies, chocolate, cakes, soft drinks loaded with sugar, and the like; for childhood and adult obesity; for bad teeth and for heart disease.

To digress for a moment, I remember some thirty years or so ago, flicking TV channels at home in Canada and coming across a show about those countries with the worst record for heart disease and the two countries featured were Finland and Scotland. They were talking about diet, and had a person-in-the-street interview from Mid Craigie (a Dundee suburb) where this woman was quizzed on her eating habits – she answered in our broad Dundee vernacular – not a problem for the North American audience since they supplied subtitles...

Gord's anecdote made me wonder why Scotland has such a sweet tooth. It seems that it stems from the colonial outreach of the British Empire in the 17th century, the colonisation of the Americas and in particular of the West Indies. The combination of sugar cane, the slave trade and the establishment of the 'Triangular Trade' system (textiles, manufactured goods and rum from Britain to West Africa, slaves to the Americas, and sugar, cotton and tobacco to Europe) led to ships laden with raw cane sugar coming into Glasgow.

This raw sugar was granulated using a process developed in Scotland, and much of it ended up in the refineries in and around Glasgow. By the late 19th century, there were 16 sugar refineries around the city, and Greenock was know as 'Sugaropolis' (it was here that Abram Lyle, later of Tate and Lyle, invented Golden Syrup, as a way of using up surplus sugar). Cheap sugar became so readily available locally that a cottage industry of candy-making emerged. Women known as 'Sweetie Wives' bought it in bulk, boiled it into home-made sweets, and then sold them in local markets.

I was two years old when WW2 began, while Gordon was eight, so he remembered the wartime period better than I – my memory is rather patchy about the 1939-45 period.

Rationing in Britain began 8 January 1940 just a few months after war broke out. In particular, sweet and chocolate rationing started on 26 July 1942, and didn't finish until 5 February 1953. The amount of sugar, and therefore sweets, which was allowed, fluctuated during the war, ranging from 16oz a month down to 8oz (227g) a month. Amongst the popular sweets you could get in your local sweet shop were lemon sherbets, flying saucers, barley sugar twists, liquorice, jelly babies, Fry's chocolate creams, pear drops and cola cubes.

The government began the process of de-rationing in 1948, but it was phased in, and it wasn't until 1954 that rationing ended completely. On the day of derationing of sweets and chocolate in 1953, toffee apples, sticks of nougat and liquorice strips were apparently the best sellers. Some companies even gave out free sweets to children at lunch time to mark the occasion. As a consequence of the end of rationing, spending on sweets grew by –100 million in the first year. (Brits now spend in excess of –5.5 billion annually on confectionery).

Gordon shared memories of his preferred sweeties with us and got me thinking about my favourites. I scribbled out a list and found that it only overlapped his once.

So, in no particular order, here's my list from those days (well OK, still today, when my wife allows it – or isn't around...)

(Obviously not to scale. Hover your cursor over the photos).


Ah, sweet memories! How does your list compare?

Candies and Ice Cream
Gordon Findlay
What is that famous mantra about real estate value? Location, location, location. And that was certainly true about two of the iconic retail stores that were close to Morgan Academy, the public school we attended. One
was Dolly Souter's, a long-established sweetie (candy) store. The other was Hector Gibb's dairy and ice cream parlour.

Both were on Forfar Road. Dolly Souter's store was right at the southwest corner of Janefield Place, while Hector Gibb's dairy was about 100 yards north – right opposite the northwest entrance into the school at the time. With a steady stream of pupils passing by their doors from early morning until late afternoon, the location of these two stores could hardly have been better.

Dolly Souter's wasn't a large store, quite tiny in fact, but it was a storehouse of sweet treasures in a riot of colours. Its one large show window looked out on to Janefield Place, and it was always crammed with all
those delights which appealed to school children. Jelly babies, all-day suckers, pear drops, humbugs, Mars bars, sherbet fountain, Brighton rock, liquorice allsorts, Rolos, striped boilings, Pontefract cakes, and my all-time favourite, chocolate coconut snowballs.

Once you went inside the store you were surrounded by jars and bottles of sweeties, each offering looking more toothsome than the next. The heady, sweet, tantalizing aroma was almost too much to bear. And deciding what to buy was always an agonizing decision for me. Funds were limited and whatever you chose had to last an entire day: a lifetime for any youngster with a sweet tooth.

For Hector Gibb, ice cream was an offshoot to his main business of running a dairy and supplying most of Maryfield with milk and cream and fresh eggs, an activity which began before dawn every day.

My older brother became one of Hector's delivery boys and I briefly decided to make some extra pocket money by joining him on the route. But I quickly realized that rising at 5.00 a.m. and getting down to Gibb's dairy to make deliveries around the neighbourhood while it was still dark was not for me!

As soon as the weather turned warm enough, Mr. Gibb began to churn some of his milk products into ice cream. He opened up a part of his dairy as an ice cream parlour and even on cool mornings business was brisk.

Cones and sliders were the favourite offering, and of course for the big spenders there was always a 'Lochee' which as I recall, was a slider with a thin chocolate bar or a wedge of marshmallow stuck in the middle. There may have been other 'specials' but I've forgotten their names.
Perhaps someone out there, of my vintage, can jog my memory.

Apparently, Hec was quite a character, and had a reputation as a bit of a 'fly-man'. The rumour was that he was not above skimming off some of the cream from his dairy products to supply his profitable ice cream parlour. It was said that, every so often, when the local dairy authorities checked his milk products, they'd find that they were somewhat light in their fat content.

Mr. Gibb would then profess surprise and innocence and would readily pay the fine for this transgression, apparently comforted by the knowledge that the profit made was greater than the penalty...

Hilda
Hugh McGrory
In Canada 'Cottage Country' refers to areas of lakes and forests around cities where cottages and summer homes abound. Across the country the specific areas referred to depend on the Province and the major population area – in the Toronto area the term usually refers to the Muskoka, Kawartha Lakes, or Haliburton areas.

The term 'cottage country traffic' refers to the exodus from the city on Friday afternoons, and return on Sunday evenings, of thousands of 'city folk' making the two to three hour trip so they can spend the weekend communing with nature.

This sometimes creates long delays on highways, and 'non-cottagers' know to stay away from specific highways on Friday afternoon and evening, and Sunday evening in summer.

Cottage Country, of course, has year-round rural inhabitants, and they tend to have a love/hate relationship with the cottagers – they sacrifice their peace for the income they can make over the summer months...

My brother-in-law, my wife's brother, and his family have a lakeside cottage, in The Peterborough-Kawartha area near the town of Havelock, and we visit from time to time. Havelock is a village of around 1,100 people. Its roots go back to 1823, and the original settlers made their living through fishing, logging and farming. The main industrial activity now centres on two large quarries. The first produces nepheline syenite (major use is for ceramics such as toilet bowls and sinks). The second produces crushed basalt commonly used as an aggregate in construction projects.

The village has one more claim to fame – The Havelock Country Jamboree, an annual four-day country music camping festival, the largest in Canada. This is quite an affair – it runs Thursday through Sunday on the third weekend in August every year and 2017 is the 28th year. There are twin stages, each measuring 60' wide by 40' deep and the site encompasses 500 acres with room for hundreds of RVs from all over the country.

The show features over 25 entertainers each year, and even I, not a CW music fan, recognise many of the perfomers from past years – Reba McEntire, Wynonna Judd, Kris Kristofferson, Glen Campbell, Travis Tritt, Kenny Rogers, Stompin' Tom Connors, Billy Ray Cyrus, LeAnn Rimes, Tanya Tucker and Loretta Lynn.

We last visited my brother-in-laws cottage in August, and as we were leaving to head home he said, "As you're heading out of the village, just before the Jamboree grounds, you'll see a field of cows on your left, pull over and take a look at the herd."

I said, 'Why – I may not be country born, but I have seen cows before..."

He smiled and said, "Just do it..."

As we got close to the site, we saw the cattle and several cars parked by the side of the road with people standing looking into the field. It was quite a large meadow and the cows were on the far side, so at first we couldn't see anything remarkable, until – well I took this photo:


It's not very good – I was using my phone and the animals were quite far away – but you can see that the animal third from the right is a funny looking cow. It is in fact a moose – a Canadian moose, not a Scottish moose. I'm sure you all know how to tell the difference – the Canadian is the one with horns – for clarification, below, Scottish moose on the left, Canadian on the right.

However, the Canadian moose above is a male, and the one we saw was a female. She was named locally as Hilda, and had her story told in newspapers and on the web. A professional photograph of Hilda is shown below:

Apparently, although not common, this co-mingling does happen from time to time, despite the fact that moose are solitary animals and do not herd as, for example, reindeer do. Two possible reasons for this 'getting together with cattle' behaviour are; the animal is attracted by the good pasture, or, if a young male, it may be for mating reasons and he couldn't find a cow moose.

An example from the Bella Coola valley in British Columbia:



What did Grannie Look Like?
Muriel Allan Kidd
Photographs play an important part in our lives. We can see images of ourselves and our loved ones at any time we choose. We can even send them across the world at the press of a button.

The availability of photographic images has never been so great, we just take them for granted and snap
away at anything and everything that takes our fancy. It's difficult to realise that photographic images as we know them only came into being in the mid 19th century(1) but it wasn't until 1889 that the first film camera came into use. And not until the introduction of the Kodak Brownie box camera (not biscuit) in 1900 did photography become available to non-specialist photographers.

Within a few years most families had access to a camera of some kind and they quickly became as important as sandwiches on family picnics. Only very few enthusiasts could convert the image taken by their camera into actual photographs that could be passed around admiring friends and family. The typical camera took eight photographs on a film. After the eighth picture had been taken the film was handed in to the local chemist shop for
developing and printing with the finished 'snaps' being collected a couple of days later amidst great excitement to see if they had 'come out'.

Our family, like most others, had a collection of images going back to the time of World War 1 – that's how I became familiar with great-grandparents, uncles lost in the war and my young and to my eyes, oddly-dressed parents. Little did I realise then that when I pressed the shutter of my Box Brownie that I was contributing to our family history!

I'm afraid the once ubiquitous industry producing photographic prints has virtually disappeared. Cameras became more sophisticated, colour films and the availability of cheap flash meant that photographs could be taken at any time. Now even most of these have gone to be replaced by digital cameras and telephones.

Photos are now shared by email, posted on Facebook or just by passing around the mobile telephone. Nowadays most people don't get hard copy of their photos – perhaps we should start to think about the future and how our grandchildren will be able to see our funny clothes and odd looking cars.

It certainly won't be by passing around the 'phone that the photos are lurking in now – and your descendants will be asking "What did Grannie look like?"

(1) If you're interested, you can see the first-ever photograph here, and further details on the 'why, what and how' here.

The Tortoise and the Hares
Hugh McGrory
Gordon Findlay's story about cycling to Edzell reminded me of my one and only experience of youth hostelling(1) by bike – though I have to admit that my memory is a bit hazy after all this time.

I would have been a bit older than Gordon was when he made his epic journey – I think I was around 14 – so it was probably 1951. I believe it was a long weekend, and two classmates (I'll refer to them as Tom and Dick to protect the innocent) mentioned that they were going to cycle to Killin and stay over at the local Youth Hostel.

I asked if I could go along with them, and they agreed. I lived on my bike in those days, back and forward to school every day and around town, but had never done any longer distance cycling. My bike was an upright, while theirs had drop handlebars, like Gordon's, great for streamlining when going downhill.


From Dundee, we cycled through Perth, of course, but I can't remember if we made it a circular trip; perhaps out via the A85 through Crieff and the north bank of Loch Earn (about 67 miles one way), and back via the north bank of Loch Tay, Aberfeldy, and the A9 (about 10 miles longer).

In any event, we made it to the hostel in Killin. I really don't remember much about that weekend – I recall the dormitory with upper and lower bunk beds and I seem to remember porridge for breakfast but that's about it.

1951Killin Youth Hostel2011
The trip home I do remember, though – principally because it poured most of the way back, and there was a strong east wind. Now, as you know, Gore Tex jackets and pants will repel the rain but allow your body to breathe – a wonder material – pity it wasn't invented until around 1970!

I was wearing a rain cape, probably bought as army surplus from the Army and Navy store. It was called a cape, but with the strong headwind and my upright bike, it was actually a sail and it did it's best to slow me down to a crawl.

We struggled on for hour after hour and on the last stretch along the Perth Road, Dick pulled away and disappeared into the distance. I remember almost dying on the rise from Inchture to beyond Longforgan. Somewhere along that stretch, Tom remembered that he had a music lesson that evening, and that "his mother would kill him if he missed it". So he took off too and left me to it.

I struggled on – push one foot down – now the other – now the first one again– Finally I made it home where my poor mother was waiting anxiously – she said I looked like a "drookit rat", before feeding me and sending me off to bed. Like Gordon before me, I'm sure I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

Next morning, stiff, but none the worse for the wear, I cycled to school as usual, prepared for a ribbing from my two friends for being such a wimp – but it didn't happen! Not because they were being kind – neither of them actually made it to school that day!

It seems that 'Tom' and 'Dick' needed a day off to recover from their ordeal, but 'Harried' didn't...

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Killin Youth Hostel was opened in a former doctor's house, Tighndhuin, in 1942, and ran without disruption until early in 2008, amassing some 320,000 overnight stays.

Tighndhuin was demolished in 2011 in favour of a development of 14 new homes on the site.
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(1) Established in 1931, SYHA Hostelling Scotland is a self-funding charity operating a network of over 60 exceptional youth and affiliate hostels for the benefit of all those wishing to learn and experience what Scotland has to offer. Their unique sites provide affordable, comfortable, safe and quality-assured accommodation with a warm friendly welcome, local knowledge, activities and services for guests travelling around Scotland. It is a not-for-profit organisation, and all income generated from activities and services is invested back into the hostelling network.

My Raleigh
Gordon Findlay
When I was growing up we lived on the south side of Shamrock Street, on the corner of Mains Loan, just


a few hundred yards from Morgan. This was in the Maryfield area of Dundee, one of the older, more settled
parts of the city. I suppose you could call it a 'tony' area; large stone homes with nice gardens, the homes of business people, school teachers and the like.

Like many homes in those days, ours was enclosed on all sides with a stone wall and when I was quite small I thought it was like living in a small castle, secure and safe. Our garden was unique in one sense – it contained one of the very few 'monkey puzzle' trees in Dundee – like this one in Fintry.

The tree is actually an Araucaria araucana, a native species common in Chile and Ecuador; it has long, upswept branches with spear-like spiny dark green leaves and it's an evergreen. Ours grew to some 60 feet and dominated the garden. People passing on Mains Loan could see it towering above our stone fence . . . a South American interloper living graciously in a Scottish garden.

Our area had a number of kids in our age bracket: Colin Barclay (son of a successful bakery shop owner); Bruce Davidson (son of a jute company manager); Norman Anderson (son of a widowed mother); David Spankie (son of a jute wholesaler); Ian Knowles (son of a teacher). We roamed pretty freely through our little street kingdom . . Clepington Road, Argyll Street, Madeira Street, Shamrock Street and Mains Loan . . . either on foot or on our bikes most of which were hand-me-downs from older brothers.

Mine certainly was, a Raleigh which was passed down from Morris to David, to me; when new, it would have looked like the one in the photo – but by the time it got to me it bore the scars of its hard life on the streets. It had bent handlebars, a missing mudguard, non-existent brakes, rusty rims, and a Sturmey-Archer gear system that was down to one operating gear. But as a kid you accepted those things: a bike was freedom and mobility and as long as it went forward when you pedalled it, all was well.

I had one huge advantage: my brother Dave was a natural mechanic, a tinkerer, a fixer. It was he I turned to for puncture repairs, loose pedals and cranky gears. When the chain on my battered Raleigh broke one day – snapped in half and flailed uselessly on to the ground in a snarled, oily mess – it was David who uncomplainingly took it from my hands and painstakingly extracted the broken link, somehow found a new one and carefully secured it in place then rejoined the chain. I was in awe of his ability.

It was on this bike that I and my brothers undertook the longest and most taxing bicycle journey I had undertaken. A little background first. Our parents had a favourite summer holiday spot: the little village of Edzell around 32 miles northeast of Dundee and right beside the North Esk River. The village was known as the 'jewel in the crown of Angus' (Angus being the county where Dundee is located).

The village had one hotel – The Central, owned by the Japp family and known locally as Japp's. It was well known for its old-fashioned country hospitality – the rooms were comfy and the food was good. Our parents loved it. When we were there, we could roam the woods and hills and wander down to the river, crossed by a wooden suspension bridge which swayed deliciously as you walked across it.

On this special occasion, Morris and David decided that we kids would cycle to Edzell while our parents drove. I would be around 10 or 11 at the time and there was some concern that I could manage 32 miles in one day to get there, but I was anxious to prove that I could, so it was agreed. On the big day my mother made a large bag of sandwiches and added bottles of Barrie's lemonade (my favourite was their 'Big Orange' flavour), all of which was carried by Morris and David, and off we set. I can't remember much of that cycle trip except that it was a warm Saturday, we all got thirsty early on, and for me exhaustion set in around the 25-mile mark.

The last six or seven miles were hard because there was one long uphill stretch on the outskirts of Edzell, but finally – finally! – the famous 'Dalhousie Arch' that graced the entry into the village hove in sight, and we coasted up to Japp's Hotel to the welcome of our parents.
My mother told me much later that I ate a monster supper, almost dozed off at the end of it, then was packed into bed around 7.00 p.m. where I apparently slept like a log until 9.00 or so the next morning.

The Dennie
Hugh McGrory
I attended Dens Road Primary School in Dundee from 1942 to 1949.


The school opened in January 1911, and in 2010 created a blog, preparatory to celebrating its centenary (we sure didn't have a blog when I was there...). I was impressed by their initiative to the extent that I contributed a few memories. I thought you might be interested too:

"I was very impressed to see this Dens Road students' blog celebrating the school Centennial. I spent seven happy years at Dens Road from 1942 to 1949 and am still grateful for some fine teachers who gave me a solid grounding in the three 'Rs' and a love of learning that has served me well over the years. I particularly remember Miss Laing and Miss Macpherson, two fine teachers.

I noted, in the blog, the comment '11th January 1911 – Miss Jane A. Tosh entered upon her duties as an assistant teacher in the Junior Division.' Miss Tosh must have enjoyed teaching at Dens Road, since I was in her class in '44/'45.

Some Dens Road memories:

– My wee brother Mike entered Dens Road the year after I left, and caused quite a stushie by disappearing on his first day. Not quite grasping the concept of mid-morning playtime, he had simply taken off and walked home.

No harm was done since we lived at #2 Fairbairn St about 300 yards from the school. Our mum quickly got over the surprise of seeing him and walked him back to class.

– The headmaster in those days was Mr Allan, a rather distant but kindly man. He once took me and a couple of my schoolmates to Murrayfield in his car to see a Scotland v England rugby match.

He also gave me the belt for climbing over the railing and swinging on the branch of the tree in the garden opposite the Dens Road entrance to the school from the boys' playground (the one with the red leaves in the photo). That branch had been polished smooth by the hands of generations of kids – but I was the dumb one who got caught by the Jannie...

– One final memory.

My time at Dens Road was during and after the Second World War, and the boys' playground had a number
of brick and concrete air-raid shelters (which I remember as cutting down on our playtime football space), similar to the one under construction in the photo. In 1945 I guess, it was clear that they weren't needed anymore, and a group of workmen came in to tear them down.

As you might imagine, this was a big attraction at playtime, and we kids would stand around and watch the destruction. One of the workmen – he must have been a real old crab – told us to buzz off, and when we didn't
move fast enough for his liking, he decided that he would hurry us along by bowling a half brick along the ground.

My buddies were smart or agile enough to get out of the way – but not me! It hit me in the shin, hard enough to make me bleed not to mention cry... My response of course, was to go get my mother (since she was just at the other end of the street and my dad was in away in the army).

I remember her being furious, and after cleaning up my minor wound she dragged me back up to school with steam coming out of her ears, had me point out which workie had done it, then gave him a major earful.

I don't think she actually hit him, but I think that he thought she was going to...

I left Dens Road with mixed emotions to go on to six years at Morgan Academy (actually to Clepington Road School for a few months first, since we were a February intake), but I soon settled, thanks largely to the excellent grounding I had received at Dens Road.

My best wishes to the school for the next hundred years of serving Dundee children."

The Pictures
Bill and Muriel Allan Kidd

D' Ye Mind Ga'en t' the Pictures?

Those of us born between the mid 1930s and the early 1940s spent our childhood and near adult years during Dundee's great cinema boom! The cinemas were distributed in the heart of the City Centre then spread along the tram routes that formed Dundee's arteries. The cinema was the main source of entertainment available to us during those pre-television years of war and austerity and a visit to the "pictures" at least once a week was commonplace.

During the working week the choice of venue was usually determined by where you lived. In the East end of town there was a cluster of cinemas close to the Albert Street tram line but the Victoria/Dens Road line was less plentifully supplied unless you were prepared to climb the Hilltown. The West end enjoyed a similar and possibly more generous scattering of cinemas based on the Perth Road, Blackness Road and Lochee tramlines.

On Saturdays the populace of Dundee, East and West descended on the City Centre to the five bigger and
more expensive venues where they could see the latest offerings of Hollywood and Ealing, weeks and sometime months before they appeared in the local cinemas. The choice of which film to see was a matter of careful judgement. A "good" film would most likely have a long queue seeking admission while a short queue possibly meant that the film was a dud. The deciding factor was often the weather, if it was raining it could be worth taking the risk and join the shorter queue. As a result of following this logic we can claim to have seen some unexpected gems among a whole lot of duds! On Sundays, all of Dundee's cinema screens remained blank because the council would not grant the necessary licence.

During the boom time most local cinemas opened around 6.30pm and had a programme consisting of a newsreel, a cartoon or short, often cowboys or comedy, followed by the main feature. This programme was shown twice without a break, with people joining the audience at any point in the show.One of the great skills that had to be acquired at an early age was the ability to come into the cinema half-way through some drama, watch it to the end, see the supporting films and adverts then watch the beginning of the feature film through to the point that you "came in", then leave. If you sat through the feature to the end a second time it was at the risk of an usherette flashing her torch in your face. Don't
know how, but it seemed that the usherettes knew when everyone in that cinema had arrived!

The inserts show the choice of cinemas/films available to us one week in September 1953 – actually there were more than that, since The Queens, and the two Broughty Ferry Cinemas, The Reres and The Regal, are missing.

Normally, the City Centre cinemas opened around 1.00pm for three continuous performances. During the
week when it was not very busy the informal rules about sitting through the programme twice, or even three times were relaxed. However, if it was a very popular new release you were expected to leave at the appropriate point. When a really BIG film came to town all the rules changed, no more continuous programme but three separate performances, with the cinema being cleared after every showing regardless of when you arrived! This was a source of friction between the cinema management and the disgruntled patron who had not realised it was not a continuous showing.

Some of the local cinemas had special showings for children. These were known as Children's Cinema Clubs and they took place on Saturday forenoons usually commencing around 10.30am. The programme always had a cartoon, a comedy short, a cowboy or adventure short, an educational short (mainly by the Film Board of Canada) and the serial. This, along with community singing, was crammed into about two hours. When the showing ended passers-by could easily tell the subject of the serial by observing boys with trench coats as cloaks waving imaginary swords; or cowboys riding imaginary horses and firing imaginary revolvers; bows and
arrows, space pistols and crewing galleons all got similar treatment on the way home.

In 1953 television came to Scotland and within a couple of years the cinema bubble was burst. Gradually the local cinemas became bingo halls or carpet depots. The City Centre cinemas struggled on with innovations such as Cinemasope, VistaVision or ToddAO but television and bingo gradually prevailed and those buildings still standing are a sad reminder of the time when a night out at the pictures, in one of its thirty or so cinemas, was Dundee's favourite activity, it was certainly one of ours anyway!

Ferry, cross the ...
No. Not the River Tay!

Hugh McGrory

I promise this will be my last Ferry tale...

It was a pleasant surprise to my family, when we arrived in Toronto in the mid-sixties, to find that we had a substitute for our beloved Tay Ferries in the Toronto Island Ferry Service.

Torontonians are lucky in that they have a large island, actually a group of 15 islands inter-connected by


pathways and bridges just off-shore in Lake Ontario, and usually referred to as Toronto Island.

Vistors to the Island can walk, run or cycle, walk their dog, visit the 200 year old lighthouse or the trout pond or have a coffee or beer at one of the restaurants. There are lockers at several busy locations, a pier, a boardwalk, formal gardens, playgrounds, artists retreat and even a public grade school. Altogether a wonderful spot to escape the summer heat of the city.

There are beautiful swimming beaches (including a nude beach on Hanlan's Point), sports facilities, bike, canoe and kayak rentals, a boating marina, large grassy fields for picnics, a theatre, nature paths, EMS and fire station, an amusement park and a charming 150 year-old community of 600 people living year-round in cottage-like homes.

Children love to vist Centreville as the amusement park is known, to ride the Antique Carousel, the Log Flume, Tea Cups, Ferris Wheel, Antique Cars, the SkyRide and more... they can also visit Far Enough Farm to interact with pigs, horses, mini ponies, sheep and over 40 different species of animals and birds in the year-round family-friendly petting farm.

But back to the ferries... there are actually three, all running at the same time. They all leave from the terminal at Queen's Quay on the Toronto waterfront, but head to three different spots on the Island: Hanlan's Point in the west, for people who want to spend time on a beach; Centre Island, most popular with families in the summer and


Ward's Island for residents who are lucky enough to live there.


The ride across takes around 13 minutes, and ferries leave every half hour from 6:30 am to 11:30 pm. It's approximately 5 kms from Ward's Island to Hanlan's Point so you can take the eastern or western ferry over, take a three mile stroll and return on the opposite ferry. And the views of the Toronto skyline from the ferry and the island are spectacular.

Toronto Waterfront from The Island.

So we ex-Dundonians are still able to enjoy the ferry experience – only drawback is that the trip is too short
– roughly half the time of the old Tay ferries. But if you thnk that's too fast....

There is actually a fourth ferry servicing the Toronto Island – specifically for the Island Airport. The ferry service runs from about 5:00 in the morning to midnight – the trip takes 90 secs to cover the 121 metre (400 feet) distance...

Vehicular use of the ferry is for the many necessary airport services. Air passengers can park on the Toronto side and take the ferry, or use the recently completed pedes-
trian tunnel (a six minute walk). Of couse, ex-Dundonians of a certain age wait for the ferry...

Only a 90 second ferry ride – but still....

D.B. Stewart 2
Gordon Findlay

As I related in an earlier Anecdote, D.B. Stewart was not only a familiar teacher at Morgan, he was also a nearby neighbor on Shamrock Street in Dundee where he occupied – as a lifelong bachelor – a neat bungalow just 50 yards from our own home.

My encounters with Cheesie usually took the form of being trapped into walking back home with him ... something I tried hard to avoid since to be seen walking and chatting to a teacher was like fraternizing with the enemy. But since my father and Cheesie were friendly (and were each keen movie camera buffs) I had to make the best of these occasional homeward walks together.

But my feelings about Cheesie the teacher underwent a sea change one late spring afternoon when I was again 'trapped' into walking back home along Shamrock Street with D.B. When we reached Cheesie's neat little home, he stopped and said: "Gordon, your father told me you have cousins in South Africa." I nodded (they lived in Johannesburg and regularly sent us each year a dazzling fold-out photo-postcard showing the sights of South Africa). Cheesie smiled and added: "I want to show you something." He unlocked his front door and beckoned me in.

I had never been inside his home and had never expected to be, so I was unsure of what Cheesie wanted to show me. But as soon as I had taken two steps inside his home, I was completely and utterly transfixed. It seemed that every wall, every table and every corner was filled with the artifacts of his travels around the world, with the majority of the pieces from various parts of Africa.

There were spears of every size and colour plus native clubs called knobkerries. Beside them was a display of hunting shields of stretched skin painted in bright reds and yellows. Above one doorway there was a 5-foot long blowpipe complete with a couple of fluffy darts neatly attached to it.

"The natives use these blowpipes for hunting, Gordon," Cheesie explained. "They dip the point of the dart into a poison. Once they hit a monkey or a bird with a dart it is paralyzed almost at once."

Down another wall stretched a collection of native robes and blankets, some with intricate stitching and laced with bright beads. In another corner, neatly arranged on a stand was a collection of native footwear made from animal skins. There were strings of native jewellery, nose rings, pendants and bracelets mostly of bone but some of brass and silver.

One entire wall was covered with African knives in every conceivable shape from short stabbing knives to elaborate ceremonial blades with intricate handles. In pride of place hung an impressive Zulu war axe with a large half-moon blade.

It was a stunning display – a small museum of natural history in the three small rooms of his house. Cheesie led me through it, pausing to touch a favourite object here and there, and giving me a short account of where each came from and the colourful history of the natives who had created it.

I remember he lifted down one beautifully-
fashioned object from the wall. "This is called an assegai, Gordon," he mumbled quietly, holding up the sharply-tipped spear. "They used them for hunting animals – or their enemies in time of war."

Even more impressive, under each object or beside it was a small sign bearing Cheesies neat handwriting, describing it briefly, and telling of its origins in Africa. It was obvious that during his holidays Cheesie had travelled extensively throughout Africa and had made a point of adding to what was an impressive collection. In his own quiet way, D.B. Stewart had covered thousands of miles across a continent that obviously fascinated him and had faithfully recorded the local artifacts and weapons he acquired along the way.

I was absolutely gob-smacked with it all, and before I realized it an hour had passed, and Cheesie was patiently explaining the significance of the intricate carvings on the sides of a set of large wooden mixing bowls. He veered off a few times to tell me of some particular tribes unusual habits. "Now then, with regard to that tribe, you might be interested to know that ..." and off he'd go with a titbit of knowledge he'd learned on his travels.

Of course when I went home I couldn't wait to tell my parents and my brothers of what I'd just seen and heard. For me it was all part of the growing-up process – catching a glimpse of the person behind the image they present to the world. In Cheesie's case, that glimpse helped me see the deeper layers of a quiet and brilliant mind who sought that knowledge in his own special way.

The Fifies 4
Voith Schneider

Hugh McGrory

So what the heck is a Voith Schneider, many of you are wondering (or maybe not, but I'm going to tell you anyway) (and by the way, Voith is pronounced Foyt in German). Here's a question for those of you who have seen the Tay Ferries 'Craig' motor vessels in action. Do you remember how they would come in to the pier bow first, and, after taking on new passengers, reverse out again? Then, before setting out on the crossing, they would turn around, almost in their own length. Did you ever wonder how they could do that? – it certainly never occurred to me at the time, but it really is quite unusual. Well that's where the Voith Schneider propulsion system comes in.

In 1825 a young man named Johann Matthäus Voith took over his father's locksmith business in Heidenheim in Southern Gemany. The firm employed five master locksmiths, skilled in precision metalwork, and they branched out to specialise in the repair of water wheels and paper mills. As early as 1830 the company constructed a wood grinder for paper making. In doing so, the foundation was laid for what was to become the large, international engineering group, Voith.

In 1922, Voith built, for the first time ever, a Kaplan turbine, a huge propeller that was rated at 1,100 HP, and also began to design and build gear drives. In 1927, the engineer Ernst Schneider and Voith at its location in St. Pölten, west of Vienna in Northern Austria, registered a patent for the Voith Schneider Propeller, which was built in the previous year on the basis of plans by the Viennese engineer. Its special feature – the ship propulsion system, which also assumes the steering, and allows a previously unreached degree of maneuverability for ships. This is the propulsion system that was bult into the MVs Abercraig and Scotscraig and that gave them their unusual agility.

Kaplan TurbineVoight Schneider Propellers

The illustrations below show the difference between the Voith Schneider and the standard marine propellor.
The traditional approach is a propeller for propulsion and a rudder for steering. The Voith Schneider propeller system combines propulsion and steering in one unit. Also known as a cycloidal drive, it can move the ship in any direction through 360 degrees. It's particularly suitable for work boats such as tugs and ferries.

The functionaliy of the Voith system worked well in providing the Abercraig (1939 ) and the Scotscraig (1951 ) great maneuverability, but the system was relatively new, especially for the Abercraig, and this caused some spare part and reliability problems. With the with- drawal of the Sir William High in 1951
the remaining steam paddler the B L Nairn, which was very reliable, was called into service quite often right up to the end of the ferry service in 1966.

In the past fifty years, the Voith Schneider Propulsion System has come a long way and is used throughout the world for ferries, tugboats (The Water Tractor), oil rig tenders and fire-fighting boats. See this video if you're interested.
Two Voith Schneider-Powered Ferries Doing Synchronised Pirouettes mid-Bosphorus, Turkey.

Things Ain't What They Used to Be
Bill Kidd

Far be it from me, a Harris FP, to question Gordon Findlay's judgement of what constitutes the truly memorable dishes of our childhood and adolescence! While I can relate to all of his choices there is one
glaring omission. I still miss, Barrie's American Cream Soda. I can still recall that sweet, subtly perfumed taste, the perfect accompaniment to a white pudding supper or, in times of pecuniary embarrassment, chip shop fritters!

Even after the sixty years since I left Dundee the memory still stimulates my salivary glands.

I know that one can still buy ersatz American Cream Soda but those currently on the market are merely a fizzy, inadequate copy of the real thing, totally incapable of cutting through the grease of a Dundee white pudding supper. Alas, I suspect my dream of finding a modern equivalent is just a dream and as unlikely as finding one of the four inch diameter Wagon Wheels biscuit of my youth.

Not only did Gordon's article set me thinking about our Dundee food heritage but it stimulated some thoughts about evocative Dundee smells! How many of us can recall the smell of hot chocolate that wafted through the centre of the City from Keiller's factory. How many of you deliberately walked down Castle Street to catch the scent of roasting coffee from Braithwaites and further down, the appetising smell of baking pies and bridies?

Less salubrious was the rather greasy odour of frying fat and vinegar that prevailed across the Mid Kirk
Style market located behind the City Churches. There, for a few pence, you could buy a buster consisting of hot peas and vinegar with chips that had been cooked over a brazier. I never could bring myself to try this delicacy having already observed an elderly lady serve
the chips by hand after first making sure that her hands were clean by licking them! Whar wus yer Health and Safety in the 1940s?

The more perceptive among you will realise that I have failed to mention the real smell of Dundee. I don't mean the gasworks at Peep o' Day Lane or the foundry smells that emanated from the Blackness Foundry but the all pervading smell of jute. You could smell it at the docks where bales of the stuff were unloaded on an


almost daily basis. You could smell it within half a mile of a jute mill, which effectively meant anywhere along the main roads of the City. You could smell it on the trams and buses that carried the mill workers home, at times you could even smell it in the cinema!

Anyone who cannot clearly remember the real smell of Dundee can easily rectify this by picking up a new jute Bag for Life from the nearest Tesco. Just put your head in it, then take a deep breath to be instantly transported back to the Dundee of your childhood.

But remember, I attended Harris Academy.......!

D.B. Stewart
Gordon Findlay
D.B. Stewart – 'Cheesie' to all of us – was a long-time fixture on the teaching staff at Morgan. In my day I
believe he was Head of the English Department, but I think he also taught History.

Cheesie was a soft-spoken, gentle man and a lifelong bachelor. He taught English with the air of a charming old uncle so obviously in love with his subject he would lead the class cheerfully down through the thickets of language to expound on some rich and fruitful passage which had caught his fancy.

And always – always – these charming voyages through the language of Chaucer, Swift or Bacon would be prefaced by his favourite catchphrase, 'With regard to...'; and he'd be off, leading a class
through lines of English prose to the sheer beauty of a polished phrase which Cheesie would then recite with the half-dreamy smile of a true believer.

His use of 'With regard to' became Cheesie's personal hallmark, and the catchphrase was sprinkled liberally through each and every one of his classes. So much so that one enterprising group of Fifth Formers set out to chart his use of the phrase throughout one full term, to see just how many times Cheesie would use it during a single class.

As I recall, those dedicated students' heads would bob up the instant 'with regard to' rolled out, and a quick mark would be made in a special notebook. They then compared notes at the end of class to see if their numbers matched. If my memory serves me correctly, Cheesie set his all-time record for the phrase one warm day in May when he managed to mumble it out 27 times in 45 minutes.

For me personally, Cheesie was more than just a teacher: he was also a neighbor, living in a neat bungalow just four houses away from our own home on Shamrock Street in Maryfield. Although I tried hard to avoid it, I would occasionally be on my way home when I would hear a soft voice behind me: "Hello, Gordon. Shall we walk home together?"; and we would walk slowly together back along Shamrock Street. He would ask after my mother and father, and brothers, then inquire gently as to how I was doing at school.

I should have realized what a privilege it was, to have an exclusive conversation with Cheesie, one of Morgan's senior teachers. But at that time in your young life your mind and your personality are still forming, and you give far too much attention to the views of your peer group. So, to be seen walking home, chatting with a teacher was – in schoolboy eyes – seen as sucking up, of toadying with the enemy . . . it was virtually an act of treason. So I tried to avoid these meetings at all costs.

My father was a keen amateur movie-maker, and he shared tips and hints on home movie-making with Cheesie. I can remember my father telling us that Cheesie had just bought himself the latest Kodak 'Brownie' 9 mm movie camera.

Cheesie was to make full use of his Kodak 'Brownie'. He filmed events at the annual Sports Day. He took it to Morgan's forestry camp, getting all the activity and the high jinks recorded on film. Cheesie shot bits of rugby games, field hockey games and cricket. He occasionally roamed the school playground, quietly recording groups of students strolling around or draped over the stone balustrade that separated the upper grounds from the front lawn. (I know that, because I appear in just such a scene on the video disc made from Cheesie's large collection of footage).

Yours truly (4th from the left) at 'The Balustrade' c. 1947.

Here was a man who loved the teacher role, who loved the subjects he taught, and who also loved the institution of which he was a part – so much so that he made it his business to record as much of it as he could on film. Which is why former pupils such as I – thanks to the 'Cheesie Tapes' (available on DVD from the Morgan FP Association) – are able today to go back in time and see ourselves at that special age.

Me again c. 1952/53 at Forfar Road after the annual PP v FP rugby game.

All thanks to the one and only: Cheesie.

The Fifies 3
The Motor Vessels
Hugh McGrory
There's no doubt that, when considering the lives of the 'Four Ferries' after they left the Tay estuary, the most interesting story, by far, is:

The Scotscraig

The MV Scotscraig was built in the Caledon Yard in Dundee, launched 1951. In Malta, like the Abercraig, it was used for various tasks around the island from collecting the onion harvest to having its car deck outfitted with strung lanterns, tables, chairs and umbrellas to take friends of the owners on a cruise to the adjoining island of Comino.

It would probably have met its demise in the same manner as the Abercraig if fate hadn't intervened in the form of Robert Altman who, in 1980, decided to make the movie 'Popeye' on location in Malta. It starred Robin Williams (in his first major movie role) as Popeye and Shelley Duval as Olive Oyl. Altman had a whole, wacky village created at Anchor Bay on Malta. (This was retained as a tourist attraction and still operates today.)

Many of you probably saw this movie, and may remember the opening scene when Popeye arrives in Sweethaven for the first time, rowing through the harbour to the jetty. The photo shows a clip from this scene – recognise the superstructure in the background? The Scotscraig itself was used as a filming platform for many of the water scenes, and also provided showers and toilet facilities for the movie crew.


When it came to shoot the opening sequence (it must have been towards the end of filming of the movie), the Scotscraig was sunk until the water level was roughly halfway between the car deck and the upper level. This enables Popeye to row right over the car deck. See the scene here.

You can just see the vague outline of the boat under the water, and note the Scotscraig flagpole sticking up to the right of the rowboat and the in-character buoy warning the workboats to stay clear of the lifeboat davits on the Scotscraig's prow.

Some of you may remember another scene in the movie, where Popeye sings "I Yam what I Yam" in the casino/brothel (what Popeye refers to as – "a house of ill re-pukes"). The photo shows a clip from this scene – recognise the poles, the bench seat, the row of windows? This is, of course, the passenger saloon on the Scotscraig's upper deck – seen in the photo above. See the scene here.


Any possibility that our ferry might have a big career in the movies was dashed, unfortunately, by subsequent events. The Maltese authorities decided to construct a protective breakwater across the mouth of the bay, and the Scotscraig was refloated and drafted into service – it finally had its superstructure removed, was up sunk up to deck level, and used as a construction platform.


On completion of the work, the boat was taken under tow to be moved to another location (presumably to a breaker's yard), a tow rope snapped, the ferry tilted and sank. The good news is that This one remaining of our four beloved ferries may still be visited – about two miles south west of Anchor Bay – the bad news is that you have to be able to scuba dive to a depth of 21 metres to do so.

The wreck is a popular diving site, and below are some underwater photos:


As can be seen the Scotscraig is relatively intact, and scuba divers who make the dive often see moray and conger eels, groupers, octopi, and the occasional stingray. The video here shows a dive (the commentary begins in Maltese but switches to English at about the 2 minute mark) and the divemaster shows a reasonably good knowledge of the history of the ferry.

It's rather pleasant to think that one of the four ferries that many of us grew up with is still known and providing a service to people – but I think most of us will prefer to remember the MV Scotscraig the way she looked on the last day of service, 18 August, 1966...

Scotscraig Dressed for Last Day of Service Last Crossing – Recognise Anyone?

Gi'in' the Belt
Marion Mackay Clubb



My twin Isobel and I were in the playground at lunchtime when Joan Kilpatrick came along to join us. She had a balloon with her. It was turquoise and had cost seven pence. She had only blown it up once, so it was smooth and unwrinkled.

We crowded round. It was something new to us in 1947 when luxuries were scarce. She blew it up quite tight, then made to blow it up again! "Don't Joan, you'll burst it" we said – and burst it she did!

"Not to worry"; she said, "look", and she took the ruined balloon and tore it into bits. One portion she stuck over her middle finger, sucked it off, twisted it and 'voila', a tiny cherry. She handed out the four remaining bits and we all had a go.

Then the bell went, we lined up, climbed the steps into the school building along the corridor and into the classroom, second on the left.

It was a dull day not made any brighter as Miss Chalmers announced we would be having an extra Arithmetic lesson. She spoke as if this was a treat, but no one cheered. She was a good teacher in that she managed to get most of the class through the 'qualifying exam– that gave entrance to the senior secondary education.

Forty-six pupils in our class of girls. With Miss on the far side of the room explaining a problem to a classmate, I took out my scrap of balloon and, following earlier
instructions 'sooked' it off my finger, twisting it into a tidy little cherry. I gave it a tiny turn more and that was not a good idea as it exploded!

Not only did I get the fright of my life so did everyone else! All eyes were on my guilty red face. Miss Chalmers , commanded me out to the front, The tirade began and went on, eventually ending with the directive "Go straight to the Rector".

I was shocked. If you went to the Rector he belted you and he was an expert. "Please don't send me to Mr Robertson" I whimpered.

"Go", she said, and snivelling, I reluctantly went along the corridor to the Rector's
room. I stood trembling – a be-gowned Peter Robertson opened the door to my knock. He looked down and said, "And what has a Mackay been doing that brings you here?"

"Miss Chalmers sent me."

"What were you doing?"

In between sobs, I told him of my misadventure with a cherry balloon during an arithmetic lesson. I had the remnants of the ill-fated balloon in my hand, as a visual aid.

He then asked "Are you sorry for what you have done?"

"Yes, oh yes".

"Will you ever do it again?"

"No, no, never", I said, wondering was I to be belted outside or inside his room.

"Then go back to Miss Chalmers, tell her you are very sorry to have disturbed her class and tell her you will never ever do it again."

I looked up in amazement. I was being dismissed!

"Off you go" he said. Was it my imagination, or was he smiling? I sped along to the classroom.

"Well?" Said Miss Chalmers.

"I am very sorry I disturbed your Arithmetic lesson, I will never do that again", I rattled off.

Miss Chalmers turned to the class, "She didn't go to the headmaster but I'll go and tell him!" With that she marched out off the room and along to the Rector's study.

As soon as she was out I was asked, "Did you go?"

"Yes" I said "I went all right."

Back came Miss Chalmers with a face like thunder, "Go to your seat Marion. Isobel, you are to tell your parents about your sister's outrageous behaviour". How Miss Chalmers expected one twin to clype on another I don't know!

We went on with our arithmetic problems, but the dull afternoon had definitely brightened ...

The Fifies 2
The Motor Vessels
Hugh McGrory

Last time I spoke of the fate of the Tay Ferry paddle steamers – today it's the MV Abercraig (Aber refers to the mouth of a river, craig refers to sea-rocks, cliffs – c.f. crag.)

AbercraigScotscraig
Tell them apart? Abercraig's upper deck windshield has 2 large windows either side, the Scotscraig 5.

Both boats sat in Victoria dock for more than a year, then in 1968, along with a huge stock of spares, they were sold to a Portsmouth company for £15,000, then sold on to Salvatore Bezzina of Malta .

As you know, Malta is a tiny island in the Mediterranean (see the map) south of Sicily, East of Tunisia and north of Libya. The Maltese are a seafaring nation and Malta is one of the larger 'flag-of-convenience'


nations. There are many boats around the coast of the Maltese Islands, amongst these local freighters of various shapes and sizes. The photograph below is an example, a boat called the DePoala – ugly, but a practical vehicle carrier – basically just a rectangular box ...

De Poala

The Abercraig

A steel motor vessel with fore and aft screws the Abercraig was built by Fleming & Ferguson, Paisley, and launched in 1939. After retirement from the Tay, and arrival in Malta in 1969, she was used for general local services for many years going through a conversion in 1986.

Take another look at the DePoala above, does it remind you of anything? Perhaps the paired photos below will prove to be a better aide memoire... Look at the Abercraig. Imagine chopping off the bow, removing the funnel and wheelhouse, chopping off the superstructure to just abaft the rear ramp, then replacing the wheelhouse.

The Maltese De Poala is our Abercraig after conversion in Malta. Sic transit gloria mundi...

AbercraigDe Poala

The vessel was finally taken out of service, and was often seen by Dundonian tourists lying in Marsa Harbour. Indeed, in 1994 a public meeting was held in Dundee to try to raise funds to bring the Abercraig home, but nothing came of this. and the boat was scrapped in 1995, because the owner was under pressure to clean up his part of the harbour.

The Scotscraig story is the most involved of the four – next time I'll tell you how she fared after leaving Dundee for Malta.

The Golden Eagle
Gordon Findlay

Growing up in Dundee, I was familiar with the city's claim to industrial fame: the three 'Js' – jute, jam and journalism. The Eagle Jute Mill (and several others like Caldrum Works, Halley's and Camperdown) were a familiar part of the city. Janet Keiller had reportedly invented marmalade in 1797 and Keiller's jams and marmalade were produced at one site near our home in Maryfield.

And then, of course, there was D.C. Thomson, the largest independent publisher in the U.K. and a longtime fixture in the city with a large downtown plant and offices at Meadowside.
Working as a journalist had always been in my sights, and after saying goodbye to Morgan in '49 with my treasured 'Highers' I applied to and was accepted as a junior sub-editor at D.C.'s.

The company was fiercely independent. In union-strong Scotland that might have seemed a difficult path for a publisher, many of whose employees were hourly-rated pressroom workers. But D.C.'s owners were very canny. They matched the union rate for these workers to the very penny, installed modern equipment and offered them good working conditions, free of the petty rules and regulations which afflicted their unionized brethren. D.C. Thomson's was a sought-after place to work ...

As a junior reporter I, of course, worked in the offices stacked above the ground floor printing presses. By today's standards, the offices we worked in were laughably cramped and ancient. The desks and the chairs were all wooden, and most of them had seen better days. The old-fashioned incandescent lighting made things murky on winter's days. You needed a senior reporter's OK to make a long-distance phone call. You sharpened pencils down to the nub. Plus, of course, you wrote on BOTH sides of sheets of paper. And I loved every second of it ...

The highlight of the week was, of course, Friday. Pay day. Golden Eagle Day. My own kids have collapsed in fits of giggles when I have told them how we were paid. Here's what happened ...

Some time around four o'clock on a Friday afternoon a low whisper would flit around the newsroom. "The Golden Eagle's on his way!" Most people would quietly take a fast look through the glass wall to see if they could catch a sighting. Then, magically, he would appear, the Golden Eagle in person. And back then, at D.C. Thomson, we had a paymaster who was really golden in his own way ...

He was a youngish man, in his late 30s, and I've long forgotten his name, but he was graced with a full head of curly red hair. He was officially D.C. Thomson's Assistant Cashier at Meadowside, but his mop of unruly red locks was unmistakable – and on a sunny day with the light behind him, he became positively incandescent...

He would appear every Friday afternoon like some golden Greek god, on one floor after the other in our building, balancing a large wooden tray in his hands. On this tray were racks and racks of small paper envelopes. On each envelope, written in careful longhand, appeared your name and most important of all – the pounds shillings and pence to which you were entitled. .

The 'Golden Eagle' would stop at your desk and would demonstrate his perfect memory for every face – new and old – in the building by sounding your first name. As you nodded, he would then hand over your envelope with a quick smile, before he looped away to his next happy client.

Like most everyone else, I tore open my envelope and slipped the notes and coins into my hand to fully relish the look and feel of them, and the power they gave me. I could take my girlfriend to the pictures. Buy a pint with the lads. Put petrol in my bike. I was rich again, at least for a wee while.

I know D.C.'s payroll system was slow, labour-intensive and old-fashioned. But at the time it seemed completely sensible in that steady, reliable and common sense Scottish way. And the joyful flight of Meadowside's 'Golden Eagle' was a ritual I've never forgotten.

PS from Editor

Gordon's description of the Eagle with the sunlight behind him, reminded me of something – I tracked it down to a painting of Gordon Lightfoot by Ken Danby, the well-known Canadian painter renowned for creating highly realistic paintings – see it here.

The Fifies 1
The Paddle Steamers

Hugh McGrory

If you grew up in the Dundee area in the 1940s/50s/60s you'll remember the four ferries – two, the MVs (Motor Vessels) Abercraig and Scotscraig in regular use, and the two older PSs (Paddle Steamers) Sir William High and BL Nairn, which saw only occasional use, when either the Abercraig or Scotscraig were pulled from daily service for maintenance or repairs.

I had only a vague idea of the life history of these four well-loved ferries, which came to an end in 1966 when the new road bridge made the ferry service obsolete. At that time the craft were moored in Victoria Dock and advertised for sale.

I decided to a bit of research to see what actually happened to each of the four:

The Paddle Steamers

BL NairnSir William High

The BL Nairn

Built in the Caledon shipyard in Dundee, the very last paddle steamer to be built there, the BL Nairn was launched in 1929, and, like its older sister the William High, was a side-paddle steamer with independent paddle wheels (making it easier to steer than coupled wheels). The engines were made by the Lilybank Foundry Works, Dundee. After trial runs in the Tay, it was certified for 780 passengers in winter and 1107 in summer.

It had a reputation as being "The most hard-worked and most reliable vessel ever built for passage on the Tay ferry route" – but it didn't have a perfect record... One evening in 1934 it got stuck in the mud for nearly three hours at Craig Pier. The steamer arrived from Newport at 7:45 pm, landed and embarked passengers, and lay at the pier until she was due to sail again. However, the Captain misjudged the tide, and when the engines were started the boat couldn't move, the bow being stuck fast.

The passengers had to come ashore again by the gangway. Some crossed the Tay by train, others waited – being the later part of the evening there was only one boat on the run. Fortunately, the Sir William High, was lying in deeper water at the west side of the pier with steam up. The boat was quickly manned and resumed the service about nine o'clock.

Only one run – the 8.15 was missed, the Sir William High making two crossings to and from the Fife side. The B. L. Nairn was refloated on the rising tide at 11.15, just as the Sir William High arrived at the pier to tie up for the night.

The BL Nairn was named after Boswell Nairn who was a local ship-owner, in a small way, between 1886 and 1908 when his company became shipping agents. Later it amalgamated with The Den Line, which had been established by Captain David Barrie when he left the sea. The new company was named Barrie and Nairn – it still provides freight forwarding services in Dundee.

While the two MVs were the work horses through the '50s and '60s, the Nairn was quite often called into service.

The BL Nairn was acquired by Hughes Bolckow Shipbreaking Company and broken up in their yard at Blyth, Northumberland in 1967/68.

Sir William High

The William High (named after a Lord Provost of Dundee) was launched from the Caledon yard in 1924, with a certificate to carry up to 1,100 persons.

It was re-named the 'Sir William High' in 1929. In 1948 it managed to become stranded on Fowler Rock off Dundee harbor, on a falling tide and in fog. It was refloated in damaged condition, repaired for £8,000 and fitted with Radar for a further £3,500.

It was laid up in 1951 (replaced by MV Scotscraig) and the following year it was sold to the Ojukwo Transport Co., Ltd, Nigeria for £15,000. It left Dundee under tow by the Panamanian-flagged Steamer "Santelena" – rather ignominiously towed stern first, unmanned, with a deck cargo of two small tugs.

After stops in Dakar and Abidjan to discharge tugs, it arrived in Lagos late December 1952. The Dundee Registry was cancelled and it was renamed the "Ojukwo" with a Lagos registration.

It was fitted for river service on the Niger, and proceeded under its own power some 400 miles up-river to Onitsha to provide a general cargo service. Regretfully this didn't work out since the side-loading feature proved unsuitable.

I got to thinking about why the boat, apparently, wasn't fit for purpose. The photo to the right may provide a clue. This shows a stretch of waterfont in Onitsha in 1950. If the Sir William had been a bow or stern loader, it would have taken up the width of perhaps three of the boats shown – as a side-loader, it would probably have displaced five times as many local boats. I wonder if that was the issue...

Our old Tay ferry was returned to Lagos and laid up. Presumably it was eventually sold for scrap.

Ironically, the towship, the Santelena (originally The Allara), returned to Scotland after delivering the Sir William High and was itself scrapped in 1954 at Charlestown, Fife.

Santelena/Allara

Next time I'll tell you how our two 'Craig' ferries fared after they left the Tay.

Flying
Murray Hackney

Hugh's flying tales gave me an instant nostalgia hit.

In 1951 a few Morgan pals joined the Air Training Corps instead of school cadets, and we were taught to get haircuts, press trousers, and say yes sir! All useful in later life...lots of flights were on offer in those days, from Tiger Moths to Ansons and even the famous Lancaster.

Ronnie Duncan and I did a gliding course at Grangemouth. Heady stuff for 15 year olds – we were flung into the air on the end of a long cable with a whacking great engine at the other end, and eventually flew solo. We were given a certificate and a badge, which I have to this day.

One memorable trip I had was in a Hastings from Lyneham to Gibraltar (6 very noisy hours). Just before I went deaf I found that the Station Commander's Vauxhall Velox on board was unlocked, so I spent most of the time in peace and quiet. So I suppose I can claim to have flown to Gib. in a car!

As a Sergeant cadet In 1953 I won a Flying Scholarship at Scone, using Tiger Moths (this is the actual one I soloed in, G-AHUV). It's 80 years old and still flying in Scotland. At the end I found myself in the unusual position of being a 17 year old schoolboy with a Private Pilot's Licence but no driving licence! Naturally I couldn't afford –2.50 an hour, so no flying for a while...

By this time I was determined to be an RAF pilot, but first an engineering degree seemed a good idea, so I signed up with St. Andrews University Air Squadron which flew Chipmunks from Crail. Heaven! A flying club but with pay (a little)! We were taught aerobatics, formation and navigation. We thought we were the bee's knees – uniform with the White Officer Cadet shoulder flash, and full RAF gear – flying suit, boots, parachute, Mae West, helmet goggles, oxygen mask and the ultimate poser's white cape leather gloves! Having flown before I was able to solo quickly. No airways, few regulations and we flew pretty well where we liked. Not today, many more rules and less fun.

This is one of the St. AUAS Chipmunks (beautiful aircraft) at Leuchars.

Maybe I spent too much time flying, but Meg Leitch's forecast came true, I failed maths in a big way and was asked to leave! Plan A was put into action and off I went to RAF selection tests. I had done it all before, so it should be easy. Well it wasn't. "No thank you, your eyesight is not good enough."
At this point I realised there was no plan B, and H M govt. invited me to do National Service, or else! After a year training I was posted to Malta as an Airborne Radar Technician for the second year. Sounded ok but it was the radar that was airborne, not me! I had a few test flights to check intermittent faults in Meteors and Shackletons, but not many. Despite everything, I enjoyed my stint before returning to real life.

In 1970 I was hit with the bug again and joined the Angus Gliding Club, and became an instructor for some years. The Company I worked for had a club for Rallye aircraft enthusiasts so I renewed my licence in 1973 after being required to do 10 hours, cross country and all the written exams.

Also for a few years I was in a syndicate which owned a Scheibe Falke (semi aerobatic) motor glider, and had a lot of fun with that. To this day I detest flying in airliners, but like small planes which can be turned upside down!

I managed to fly on and off until 2005, when I failed the annual medical, and now design, build and fly only radio controlled model aircraft (which is much more difficult)!

Ferry, cross the ...
No. Not the Mersey!

Hugh McGrory
Ian Gordon who has written several entertaining stories for our collection suggested that 'The Fifies' would be a good topic – which got me reminiscing – I hope this little story will bring back happy memories for many of you.

My Dad's brother, my Uncle Barney, died too young, just 42, in 1945. His widow, my mother's sister, my Auntie Ev, continued to live in Lower Methil, Fife, for a few years (before they moved to Dundee) with her children, my cousins Mike and Frank.

The sister's were quite close, and so in summer, in the late '40s, the two families would take a holiday together for a week or two, either at their house or ours.

Methil was a foreign country to me. The Methil folk spoke quickly, in an accent that I sometimes had trouble understanding, and used words, from time to time, that I didn't know. But I loved being there – and our trip was exciting, an adventure.

A wee bit of geography first, for those of you 'wha're no from aroond here'... we're talking about the East of Scotland. If you refer to the map, Dundee is on the north shore of the River Tay, Edinburgh is further south, on the south shore of the River Forth. Fife County is the land mass between the Tay and the Forth, as shown in the map, and Methil is on the north shore of the Forth, just east of Buckhaven. (The red line is not significant – it shows the Fife Coastal Path.)

We would take a bus 'doon the toon' then walk along Dock Street and down South Union street past the lineup of vehicles waiting to board one of the vehicular ferries (known locally as the 'Fifies') that crossed the River Tay to Newport-on-Tay, Fife, then take another bus to complete our journey. I loved the ferries – hated the buses. My problem was that I was very prone to travel sickness when on a bus or a car (tramcars and trains were fine...).

One of our parents would buy tickets at the old Booking Office (at some point, this old building was demolished and rebuilt, and the entrance moved to the other side of the building). We'd then walk through the gates onto the pier itself. It had a sloping boat ramp surfaced in what we referred to as cassies, actually granite setts – like dressed cobblestones (the word cassie comes from causeway...).

The river is tidal at Dundee, so depending on whether the tide was in or out, the waterline might be quite close or further down the slope. We kids would edge closer to the water (until our parents spotted us), and sometimes, when the boat arrived the bow wave would sweep up the ramp – anyone not paying attention could end up with wet feet.

We'd have to wait until the vehicles and passengers had disembarked, then we could traipse on and our parents would try to get a good seat (with a view, but sheltered from the wind).

We kids would have lots to see of interest – how the deckhands handled the hawsers, how they lowered and raised the access ramp, how they organised the vehicles as they boarded, squeezing them together to get the maximum load – and, if you stood by the door to the engine room, which was often left open, the smell of hot oil and the sight of massive crankshafts going back and forward was mesmerising.

The crossing took approximately 20 minutes, with 10 minutes allowed for boarding/disembarking. This regular service on the hour and the half-hour required two ferries to be on duty and a feature of the crossing was seeing the 'other' ferry passing in mid-river. Since the Tay is tidal at Dundee, the route varied somewhat depending on the tide level. At high tide, the ferry could plow straight across in about ten minutes, but at low tides, the many sandbanks in the river required a more varied path. (The ferry service ended in 1966 with the completion of a road bridge – during the last two years of the service, the road bridge construction lay across the ferry route, so for the last two years the sailings were tidal).

When we reached Newport Pier, the passengers would all rush off onto Boat Road before the vehicles disembarked, some to walk home, or to their parked cars, some to seek refreshments at the Brig O'Tay Restaurant (F. McGrory, proprietor – no relation) others to traipse up the hill to Windmill Park,
for a picnic and to let the kids run around and play on the slides and roundabouts, (the old photo shows the view from Windmill Park, which some of you will remember, high above Newport, to the Tay Rail Bridge).

Many, like us, would head for the bus stops to catch a bus to somewhere in Fife. The buses were usually double-deckers, local, not express, and seemed to stop at every little village and every second farm-road end. I
would usually last until the village of Kennoway – on a good day I might make it another couple of miles to Windygates – then I'd have to get off the bus, throw up in the gutter, then stagger back on and sit, comatose, until we arrived in Methil.

I know that some of you good people reading this are feeling sorry for the wee lad who had to endure this epic cross-country journey to this foreign land – and it's appreciated – but I probably should state, for those of you that don't know, the distance door-to-door as the crow flies is about 20 miles, by road, 30...

The River Tay is a mighty waterway – 180 miles long, 7th longest in the UK, longest in Scotland, and 1st in the UK in terms of volume of water discharged. There have been regular ferry crossings from the Dundee area to Fife for centuries. From the early 1800s a passenger and vehicle ferry service operated across the River Tay between Craig Pier, Dundee and Newport-on-Tay.

I used to love the ferry ride, the views up and down-river, of Dundee and the Fife coastline, the distinctive sound and rhythmic vibration of the engines in the background – and the refreshing sea-air – just what I needed on the return trip to get rid of my travel sickness...

PS
Writing this got me wondering what happened to the four ferries that were so well loved by Dundonians. I had heard vague stories about Africa and the Mediterranean, and decided to do some research to see if I could come up with the real stories. I'll share the fruits of my labour with you next time.
Scrumping
Gordon Findlay

The idea was floated by the smallest member of my group of pals, Colin Barclay. Colin was definitely on the short side, even at 10 years old. The rest of our 'gang' were all at least a head taller than wee Colin who made up for his vertical shortage by having just about the reddest hair in Dundee.

No doubt about it: Colin was our Mafia don despite his shortness – or maybe because of it. His fiery nature matched his hair: he was a terrier on the fitba' pitch, he would take on anyone of any size, and always had a fast answer ready in his mouth. We didn't call him a wee nyaff – but many others did ...

But on this October day, Colin had apples on his mind. In particular, the apple tree that belonged to Mr. Mathieson on Shamrock Street, where we all lived.

It seemed that Colin's mother had been talking to Mrs. Mathieson and in the conversation, the good lady had mentioned that their apple tree was about to produce a bumper crop. "The tree is just full of them this year. Donald (her husband) is fair excited about it."

And now Colin gathered our wee gang together to hear his latest plan – a raid on Mr. Mathieson's apple tree while the fruit was ready and ripe.

We were all expected home about half-an-hour after the street lights came on at night. That would be lots of time, Colin said, for us to get to the prize tree. We'd gather in Brucie Davidson's back garden (he was one of our gang) and from there we'd squeeze through one privet hedge, then up on to the wooden fence that ran down one side of Mr. Mathieson's garden.

The apple tree grew close to this fence. We'd be able to reach out and help ourselves to the fruit, fill our pockets, and go back the same way. "We'll be eating apples for a week!" Colin said rubbing his hands. Elated by the prospect of excitement, danger and free apples, we were all for it.

The night came and at first all went well. We eased through Mr. Davidson's hedge, scooted across the next garden, then one by one, got ourselves up on to Mr. Mathieson's big solid wooden fence.

This was going to be a cakewalk ... There was an air of bravado as we pulled ourselves along the top of the fence towards the laden apple tree, seeing the lights on in the house behind their curtains, knowing we were about to pinch a pile of their juicy apples.

We reached the tree and it was easy. The fruit was hanging thick. We reached over and filled our pockets , two in each. (Why didn't we bring a wee bag? Good question.) Then Norrie Anderson (another one of our wee gang) got greedy.

He swung out from the fence to try to get one last, huge apple. And lost his balance. The next thing we saw and heard was Norrie falling on to a little metal chair sitting under the tree. It broke his fall but he hit its edge, yelled in pain, and the chair went crashing onto the metal table beside it. And on the table were a selection of flowers in metal pots.

The crash and clatter and Norrie's scream would have wakened the whole street. The side door burst open, spilling light on to the garden, the fence, Norrie – and us, cowering on the fence. Mr. Mathieson himself came walking out. The jig was up.

And here was where I learned a great lesson in compassion and good humour. Mr. Mathieson surveyed Norrie, nursing a bleeding knee and a sore arm. And the
rest of us, now down off the fence, cowed and nervous, our pockets bulging with his apples. He carried it off beautifully.

"Well, lads," he said, "I see you've been pickin' meh apples for me."

His wife quickly cleaned off Norrie's knee and Mr. Mathieson told us to put all the apples on the table.

"Now", he said, leaning in toward us. "I've seen you all on the street. I know who you are, and I know your folks. I'll be round to have a wee talk to them."

With that ominous threat hanging over our heads, we gloomed away back home without a word spoken. Our parents were going to kill us. The horror! The shame! Our lives were over.

But you know what? Mr. Mathieson never did. Bless his heart: that decent man never said a word to any of our parents. And we never went near his place again.

The Great Shamrock Street Apple Robbery passed quietly into history.

Mr. Cool – 2
Hugh McGrory

It's the early '60s. The stage is in darkness. A spotlight comes on focused on the side curtain, stage right. A lantern appears attached to a staff – then a foot followed by a head, looking around.

There's a pause then part of a human torso and a second leg – then a third leg – and, amid gales of laughter, Peter Cook hippity-hops onto the stage to perform a hilarious three-legged man act. (Rolf Harris made this famous some years later with his Jake the Peg act.)

If you haven't seen the three-legged man shtick before here's an example from a street magician.

There's an American magician named Rudy Coby who does a variation – The Four-Legged Man.

However, all of the above is background to introduce the fact that I have actually done... a five-legged shtick.

This happened in the early '70s. At the time I was managing the computer department for a firm of Canadian consulting engineers. I tried to cultivate an informal atmosphere in the department – we were, after all, oddbodies, trying to bring the world of computing into a conservative engineering company.

We worked weird hours – sometimes into the wee sma' oors on things that no one else in the firm really understood (sometimes we didn't either – hence the long hours), and I was reading 'the book' one day ahead of the rest...

On this particular occasion I had something I wanted to say to them all – some type of group behaviour, high-jinks, that they had fallen into and that I wanted to nip in the bud; so I wanted to project a friendly, but firm, mien – a certain gravitas to get the message over...

I asked them – there were about 6 or 7 in the department at that time – to gather in the programmers' area. I walked into the room and noticed a chair just inside the door which surprised me – not the chair itself, but the fact that it was empty – usually it held a pile of computer paper – from a few inches to a couple of feet deep – the continuous, fan-fold, 15"x 11" paper from computer print-outs.

To digress for a moment. When I joined the firm, in 1966, there was no computer (the story is too long to go into here, but I was tasked with bringing in a computer and creating a department). I scrounged around
the firm to pick up some furniture, desks, chairs etc., and discovered a store room with some pieces gathering dust from way back in the firm's history (founded in the 1910s).

The chair was one of those, probably 60 years old, perhaps a lot more, with cane webbing in a round seat – rather like the one in the photograph.

The staff were standing around in the room in a rough semi circle, and when I saw
the chair, it seemed like a good idea, for some reason that escapes me, to grab it, turn the back away from me, put my right foot on the seat and lean my weight on my knee. So far so good...

As I began to speak, though, the long-serving cane reached the end of its life – my foot went through the seat (I was wearing my usual oxfords) but stuck against the rim halfway through with my heel jammed and my toes pointing, rather painfully, up into the air.

Not a major problem – yet – but since I was leaning forward at the time, the sudden downward movement of my foot threw me off balance and my weight, moving forward, began to tip the chair. To counter this, I very quickly swung my left leg forward and to the right.

While this was a good idea, I was a little too enthusiastic about it, and caused a rotational movement which forced my right leg, chair attached, into the air. For one adrenalin-filled moment, I was a five-legged man gyrating in some kind of wild polka...

My back was now to the assembled crew, and I felt myself falling back towards them, about to land on my ass. Fortunately, two of my guys grabbed me, an arm each. At first I thought I was going to take them down with me, but they held on and steadied me enough that I was finally able to stand on my own five feet.

While they held onto me, I tried to pull my foot out – no go. They tried to pull it out – no go. I tried to push it through, almost breaking my toes – no go.

Finally, one of them said "OK, sit on the floor". I did. He then sat facing me, his two legs facing my five. He grasped the legs of the chair, put the sole of his foot against my sole and pushed – and my foot popped out, shoe attached.

The chair looked rather like the photo (but it continued to hold printouts for us for many years); the toe of my right shoe stuck up at about a 25 degree angle (took a bit of work later to get it back into reasonable shape).

In any event, I managed to achieve the initial purpose of my meeting, and get my message across – they weren't likely to forget that meeting in a hurry! But gravitas?... not so much!

PS
I believe that Peter Cook performance I saw in the early '60s was on TV, not in a theatre, though I've never been able to find confirmation anywhere (including Google searches).

If any reader remembers seeing it, please let me know to confirm for me that I'm not making it up – it's bugging me...

What's in a Name?
Anne FitzWalter Golden
I have always, as long as I remember, been fascinated by words and their meaning, such as how a town or street or house got its name, what a particular name meant and so on. From an early age if we did not know the meaning of a word father made us look it up in the dictionary, complete with its origin.

As a teenager, although I was a duffer at Latin....with Miss Eadie and Ma Ramsay...and did not enjoy all those Roman wars etc, it is such a brilliant language for our understanding that I wish I had paid more attention. It was such a help too for French and that I did enjoy, especially with Ma MacDonald.

I should point out at this stage that I am an enthusiastic family historian. Thus another of my wishes is that I had paid more attention to Miss Stewart, alias Kipper Feet, as I had to attend adult education class for many years in my retirement in order to put my family history in to context...not that she taught any English history!

So what about us FitzWalters! It is little wonder that I investigated this name and then became hooked on family history. Identical twins Anne and Christine FitzWalter joined Morgan Academy in 1948 from Downfield Primary. We had moved to Dundee in 1946, at the end of the war from the Scottish Borders. Now I can tell you, if you did not already know, that we are....descended from...bastards!

Fitz is of Norman origin and was the designation for bastards of the royal Dukes (Kings) of Normandy. One of our ancestors is described as Walter FitzWalter, dapifer regis (Steward of the King's Household).

Walter meant leader of a great army. I have traced the FitzWalters back through Norman Kings to the Vikings, to Rollo who conquered Normandy, then back through the Vikings and Norse legends to the Kings of Knevland 165AD. Then forward to us.

Our FitzWalter ancestry originates from the bastard Uncle and guardian of William the Conqueror, whose son fought in 1066 at the Battle of Hastings, alongside his cousin William, also a bastard (not much hope for us!). The FitzWalters have been fighting ever since .. Christine and I argue all the time!

They were always royal supporters and close to the Court at least up to the end of the Tudors. They have changed sides from time to time! Once they were supporters and battle commander for Maud, daughter of Henry 1st to whom they had pledged allegiance when she fought her cousin Stephen for the crown. She secured it for her son Henry 2nd.

Henry 1st's favourite bastard, of about 20 plus, and only surviving son after his son William was drowned in the White Ship disaster when returning from France, was Richard of Gloucester who he fathered with Nesta, the Princess daughter of Llewelyn of Wales who just happened to be married to Gerald FitzWalter, the Keeper of Windsor Castle.

The most famous or infamous FitzWalter was Robert, 1st Baron FitzWalter who led the Barons' revolt against King John, forcing the signing of Magna Carta in 1216. I got two articles published on that! and of course I lived quite
close to Runnymede in 2016 at the 800th anniversary.


Another FitzWalter changed sides and was beheaded by Henry 7th for supporting the usurper Perkin Warbeck's claim to the crown. However his son showed such prowess at jousting that Henry 8th brought him back to court and blessed his marriage to his cousin Elizabeth Stafford. Henry then sent FitzWalter to fight in the wars with France and promptly took Elizabeth as his mistress. To keep FitzWalter on side he allowed him to carry the salt (above the salt and all that!) at the baptism of Henry's only son Edward, the poorly child-King who succeeded him to the crown. He also created him Viscount in 1527 so FitzWalters were both Lords of Essex and Earls of Sussex, titles they held until the titles went into abeyance in 1756 with the death of Earl Benjamin FitzWalter, who died without heir.

I could tell you many interesting stories throughout the centuries.. e.g. if you are ever in Canterbury cathedral you will find the tomb of Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury 1198-1204. He dropped the Fitz...not good to be an archbishop and a bastard!!!

The title was in abeyance until 1924 as it was thought than another possible claimant had not come forward. My grandfather got interested but did not pursue a claim. The earldom was discontinued but the barony was then awarded to a descendant through marriage to a sister of the 1756 Earl FitzWalter.

The current Lord FitzWalter is Julian of Goodestone Park near Canterbury. I had been in correspondence
with his late father and Christine and I went to Goodestone Park to meet him, but unfortunately he had been called away that day to London. My daughter and family did manage to meet him and his wife, Margaret nee Deedes, sister of the late Bill Deedes. You may remember that he accompanied Princess Diana to minefields. I also heard that Princess Diana had stood up Julian's brother George when she got engaged to Prince Charles, as she was supposed to be going to the ballet with him that evening....a decoy perhaps.

Lord Julian FitzWalter, a direct descendant to Baron Robert De FitzWalter, generously contributed to the conservation fund to enable the Magna Carta Baron's display at the The Beaney House of Art and Knowledge, Canterbury's cultural hub. Post conservation, The Beaney welcomed him to visit his namesakes sculpture in the exhibition room.

Few can claim such prolific lineage, tracing their family history back from the time of the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215. This continued throughout the Tudor period where the Fitzwalters were leading courtiers and politicians, later becoming the Earls of Sussex.

That's a little look into our ancestry and our very rare FitzWalter name. I should tell you that we, our parents and grandfather were the only FitzWalters in the Scottish records 1535 until the 1960 s when a father and son turn up in Glasgow. They were from a branch of FitzWalters who settled in Devon – I am in contact with them and I believe they have now returned south. ( I now live in Devon, Christine in Inverness...keeping easyJet in business!!!). No FitzWalter has ever died in Scotland.....question is, should I now return?

I conclude by telling you that we are mostly English! We were born in Scotland because our grandfather Wilfred FitzWalter MBE, of the Army Service Corps, who was decorated both in the Boer War and Great War was posted to the Scottish Borders in 1903 to open up Stobs Army Training Camp, known as the Aldershot of the North. He married there in 1907... Stobs Castle, where the officers were billeted, given as his place of residence.... our father was born in 1908 in Hawick.

After various army postings and the Great War they were in Ash Vale near Aldershot when his mother died. Our father was sent back to Scotland to be brought up by his Scottish Granny......and the rest is history.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this little dip into our family history and that it may make you think of the meaning of your family name and your history.

Miss Appledaisy
Hugh McGrory

I'm pretty sure that, if asked, most of you could still name the teacher(s) who had the most impact on your life.

I suspect that many of these would be primary school teachers. For me, despite having many excellent secondary school teachers at Morgan Academy, and a few at university, the two I remember most are Miss Laing and Miss Macpherson, my early primary teachers at Dens Road School.

In the late 70's I tracked down Miss Laing's whereabouts – she was retired and living in a small house in Victoria Street, Broughty Ferry. I sent her a summary article about a teacher, Miss Appledaisy, and thanked her for efforts to educate the wee me.

A little background – I spent 10 years managing college teachers (or as the saying goes, herding cats...) as a Department Chair and Associate Dean. It was an 'interesting' time, with much management/faculty interaction (think strike) regarding workload, class size, salary levels...

One argument put forward by the faculty union regarding remuneration was that teachers' salary scales should increase from early education through secondary, college, and university.

I argued the exact opposite – that kindergarten/early-primary teachers should receive the highest salaries – they have the most difficult job (herding kittens?) and have the most impact on pupils' futures. This was a perception on my part, not based on objective fact. (I believe that, sadly, post-primary teachers are often asked to manage the stable after the horse has gone – too late to have a major effect on their students.)

Then I read about Miss Appledaisy – I've told her story often since then, describing her as a Primary 1 teacher in the Catholic School System in Montreal, Quebec. In doing some further research for this story I realised that she actually spent her working life teaching in a Protestant school, the Royal Arthur School, in one of the poorest districts of Montreal.

Her name was Iole Appugliese, (pronounced Yolly Appul Yazy). The Grade 1 kids couldn't handle this, hence 'Miss Appledaisy'. She taught the youngest children at Royal Arthur for 34 years.

She was just five feet one inch tall, but she didn't have discipline problems – her pupils responded positively to her obvious affection and interest in them as individuals. She had a major objective for her Grade 1s – that they leave her class knowing how to read – and she spent after-class hours with those who needed extra help. Many of the children at Royal Arthur lived in poverty, and she was known to share her lunch with students, from time to time, when she saw the need.

Miss Appledaisy retired in 1971 at the age of 58 when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She could still address former students by name after 30 or 40 years. She died in 1973.

Eigil Pedersen was a pupil at Royal Arthur – he was not one of Miss Appledaisy's students. He later taught at the school for five years and eventually became a Professor of Education, and VP Academic, at McGill University in Montreal.

One of the early areas of research that Dr. Pedersen undertook with two colleagues was the exploration of the impact of early teaching on the achievement of pupils in later classes and in life after school. The methodology was to use records of Grade 1 students at Royal Arthur together with interviews of some of these students as adults.

At the school, Primary 1 students were allocated to one of three teachers with no attempt to stream into ability groups. It was found that students of Miss Appledaisy performed better in later primary school years than those in the other two classes – they showed greater effort, leadership and initiative.

It was concluded that a major reason for this was that Miss Appledaisy gave them a greater sense of self-worth and self-confidence because they could read better than the students of the other two teachers.

In each of the following six Grades their average general standing as a group was higher than for the other two Primary 1 classes, and these findings were statistically significant.

To assess whether this effect carried through into later life, the researchers conducted interviews with former students who had been in those classes. They measured adult status by assessing information such as length of schooling, occupational status, annual income, type and condition of housing, personal appearance, and interactions with the legal system...

They grouped the former students into three status levels, high, medium, low. The statistically significant results showed that Miss Appledaisy's pupils performed better – 2/3rds of her pupils were in the top group and the rest were in the middle group – not one was in the lowest group, which was populated by adults who had been taught by the other two teachers.

Miss Appledaisy's pupils were much more successful and prosperous than the others. Another interesting insight emerged from the interviews – all of Miss A's pupils remembered correctly that she had taught them – some of those who had not been in her class remembered, incorrectly, that they too had been in her class...

Dr. Pedersen was able to share these findings with Miss Appugliese before her death, telling her that the positive contributions she had made to her pupils so long before could still be measured objectively, thirty years later.

"This", he said, "was a teacher!"

Miss Laing responded warmly to my letter. She said that she had shared it with her friend Miss Macpherson and "in discussing it we even used the sentimental expression" 'a glow in the heart'...

She said, "The article was very interesting. I tried to be a good teacher, and have always thought that the influence might be very great but doubted that it could be measured or appreciated."

I was surprised that she still remembered me after some 35 years and more than a thousand students. She said "I remember a wee Hugh McGrory, –slim, tidy (a compliment to my mother), pleasant-mannered, dark-eyed, one hand in pocket, a roguish smile, scoring high marks in exams. It's so nice to remember."

About a year later I was in Dundee. Miss Laing, was now living in a pleasant little caretaker's cottage at the Taychreggan Hotel (I believe she was related in some way to the owner at that time), and I arranged to visit her.

When I arrived, she had a pleasant surprise for me – her friend Miss Macpherson was there too., and we had a very pleasant couple of hours together over tea and cake.

Miss Laing said that she remembered asking our class on one occasion to tell her what we wanted to be when we grew up. She still remembered my response... "I want to be an Architect." Apparently, though, I didn't say '(Noah's) Ark-itect, I said (The Golden) Arch-itect. Ironic that I ended up as an engineer – in many ways the opposite of an architect – influenced, no doubt, by those two fine teachers who set me on the right path...

PS
Many of you, I know, were teachers – if you want to read more about Miss Appledaisy here is a place to start. This 'Letter to The Editor' by Eigil Pedersen will also be of interest.

It Began in Caird Park
Jim Campbell
Dundee's Caird Park figured large in my very early memories. On one occasion walking in the vicinity with
my mum and sister and some friends (next door neighbours?) we were challenged by some soldiers who seemed to be guarding the approaches to Den o' Mains!
Luckily one of our party had a bag of sweeties (I seem to remember she worked at Keiller's) which, shared out, seemed to act as some sort of pass! Looking back I think that the said soldiers were evacuees from Dunkirk...

One of my uncles, not old enough at that stage to be conscripted, was an aeromodeller. I remember going with my Dad to watch him and his mates fly their creations at Caird Park. They used elastic to power the propellors.
The wings were tissue covered & attached by elastic bands.

I was impressed by the use of hand drills to wind up the multiple strands – some seemed too thick to fit within the flimsy tissue-paper covered body.

(To see a modern rubber-band model being powered up and flown under radio-control click here.)

On one momentous occasion my Dad and I were walking through Caird Park when we were 'attacked' by a group of Spitfire aircraft. They were so low and close to us that my Dad had to grab his hat to avoid it being blown off his head! (Many years later I read a war memoir by a Sergeant Pilot Smith who had trained at RAF Tealing. He and his colleagues were being trained there to become part of the Second Tactical Air Force for operations following the D-Day landings.)

I think that those Spitfires my ambition to become a pilot. As soon as I was old enough I joined the 1232 squadron of the Air Training Corps at Craigiebarns. I don't remember being a particularly good cadet or whether I got reasonable marks for studying Meteorology, Aircraft Recognition etc. But I did qualify for Gliding Training at RAF Grangemouth.

We would travel to Grangemouth in a RAF vehicle driven by Flight Lieutenant Silk who was the local RAF
Recruiting Officer. He drove us on a Friday evening in a 'Standard Vanguard' truck (half-tonner?).

On one particular occasion I was detailed to occupy the rear tray under the canvas canopy.

The gliders – tandem 'Slingsbys' and side-by-side 'Sedberghs' were launched by means of a truck-
mounted winch via a 1,000ft or so cable. I was pretty sure I would be allowed to fly 'solo' that weekend.

On Saturday morning I awoke with a splitting headache. It was so bad I could hardly bear to put one foot in front of another. I certainly was not 'fit to fly'...
That put an end to my hopes and ambitions of becoming a pilot. I submitted to all sorts of tests and physical examinations but no reason could be found. I was formally declared unfit to fly. Still had to do my National Service, of course, but not even allowed to go abroad and therefore ineligible for officer status...

Many, many, years later, in another country, I self-diagnosed the cause. Carbon-monoxide poisoning from sitting in the back of that wretched truck!

Even more years later in that other country – this is my aeroplane!


My Friend Joe - 3
Hugh McGrory

In 1986, one of Joe's daughters was graduating from a university in California, and he flew out for the occasion. After the ceremony, on Saturday, December 20th 1986, they set off to fly back to the east coast. The first leg of their journey was from Long Beach Airport, California, to Garden City Airport, Kansas.

At 17,500 feet, they ran into cloud and freezing temperatures and the engine failed. Joe was unable to restart it and had to make a forced landing descent. The plane hit the ground at an elevation of 6100 ft.

Presumably through a combination of skill and luck, the plane, though suffering substanial damage, was not completely destroyed on landing. It came down quite close to a highway near Flagstaff, Arizona – they could, apparently, see the headlights on a nearby road as they came down (possibly the old, fabled Route 66).

Joe's daughter was not badly injured, and she survived – because of the location, help arrived relatively quickly. Despite this, my friend Joe died at the site.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is an independent U.S. Government investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. The NTSB report stated that the air induction system was totally blocked by ice, and that Joe had not followed proper procedure in that he failed to switch to the secondary induction port.

From a mutual friend I heard that the cause of death was a throat injury from impact with the yoke. Apparently, Joe's seat belt was found to be open – it's not clear why – perhaps he was trying to reach for something?

I really want to believe that Joe was conscious immediately after the crash – long enough to know that his daughter was not badly hurt...

He was 59 when he died...
Favourite Foods
Gordon Findlay

Have you ever caught a scent of something in the air, a whiff of some delightful aroma which, for a second, transports you back to the time when you sat with brothers or sisters or parents – or all of them – and ate that irresistible dish?
For me, it's stovies. It may have had another name in different parts of Scotland but in Dundee they were stovies. A pot of chopped potatoes with lots of onion and some beef or sausages thrown in, all simmering gently on the stove. I can still remember walking along Shamrock Street and starting to salivate as I walked towards our back door with the warm and inviting smell of stovies coming from our kitchen window.

Mind you, I'd have a hard time choosing between a plateful of stovies and that other staple of the Scottish menu – tatties and mince. When it was ladled on to your plate beside a steaming white mound of mashed tatties (a large dollop of butter melting gently down the side) you had a tummy-filler that could match any other dish, anywhere.

When I left to come to Canada my mother handed me a small envelope. Inside there was a small sheaf of pound notes, a couple of addresses of Dundonians living in the Toronto area – plus her original recipe for mince written out in longhand. I'm happy to say it's in our recipe box to this day and still produces mince that is dark, rich and delicious.

For some reason when I think of stovies or mince I also think of Irn-Bru ' that lemonade with the distinctive taste, and colour. Nobody else in our family liked the stuff, but every so often my father would come home, give me a conspiratorial grin, and show me the bottle of Barr's Irn-Bru he had brought home for me. Even a day after it had been opened and the fizz had long disappeared I still loved the rusty-coloured stuff.

But let's get back to those hot comfort foods – and what could compare to a hot mealy pudden' wi' chips? That was the perfect capper to a night at the pictures. We'd duck out of the cold air and into the fish and chipper where the air was always heavy with the grease and smoke of frying chips. But once outside again, you could feel your hands grow warm around your poke of hot greasy chips (slathered with vinegar and salt, of course!). And there, stuck right in the middle was a princely feast in itself: a mealy pudden encased in its shell of crusty golden batter.

That combination took away the nippy air of many winter nights as we walked our way home re-living the action scenes from the latest Western epic we had just seen.

I was later to be lured away from white to black puddens – there was something rich and solid in them that appealed to my taste buds. (I was later to learn that a prime ingredient in black puddens – and something that gave them their distinctive flavor – was pig's blood, of which there was doubtless a surplus in the slaughterhouse).

As I grew into a fully-fledged teenager I developed a taste for those other prime products of Scottish gastronomy, the Scotch pie and the bridie, the latter supposedly invented by Forfar baker in the 1850s.

There was something very simple but delicious in siting down to the table and seeing in front of you a hot Scotch pie with a pile of baked beans smothered over its top. They probably had too much saturated fat and way too much salt in them, but they were simply great eating. I seem to recall that Wallace's Bakery made some of Dundee's best.

About a month ago, my wife and I decided to visit a new bakery which opened up near us. No sooner had we walked in the door and sniffed the warm, yeasty air than I was whisked back to Dundee. Early morning – ready for breakfast – hungry as a horse – and suddenly my father was carrying in a plateful of morning rolls (baps) just delivered and still warm from the oven.

The sheer joy of tearing one open, slapping on some butter, then a nice wee spoonful of raspberry jam, and – into the mouth. Sheer heaven!
My Friend Joe - 2
Hugh McGrory

Joe and I were both in Florida attending another of our regular meeetings – he had flown down, and one afternoon he asked if I'd like to take a flight to see Florida from the air, and of course I did. We first flew over Disney World – he tilted the plane so that the right wingtip was pointing at the ground, and circled above The Magic Kingdom.

Sitting in the cockpit felt rather like sitting in a VW bug – although the leg room in the Mooney was fine, Joe and I were almost touching shoulders, and my right shoulder was almost touching the only door.


Despite the fact that I was well strapped in, as we circled, my heart was in my mouth – I was looking straight down, and had visions of the door opening and me falling out, landing on Mickey Mouse and killing him in front of hundreds of kids...

The other thing that struck me was that Disney World seemed to have been cut out of the Everglades (in fact, my geography was more than a bit off, since the northern edge of the Everglades was more than a 100 miles south on the southern edge of Lake Okeechobee).

As I remember it, it looked something like the photograph to the right (a tight grouping of buildings surrounded by wild country), but when I looked at it recently on Google Earth, the whole area around seems to be very urbanised – of course it has been over 40 years...

We then continued eastwards, and Joe contacted air traffic control at the Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral and asked for permission to fly over and along the runway that the Space Shuttles used to land.

Permission was given, and we flew south to north very low along the glide path of the Shuttles, and leveled out at about 200 feet perhaps. Shuttles usually landed south to north (designated as runway 33) – the photo
shows a north to south approach (same runway – designated 15). I know that as we approached the runway, we passed the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) on our right and we were looking up to see its roof – over 500 feet high. You can see this huge building in the top left corner.

The VAB is where the Shuttles and the Saturn rockets were assembled – it's one of the largest buildings in the world by volume, the largest single-story building in the world, and is the tallest building in the United States outside of urban areas.

If you'd like to experience, vicariously, our flyby, this video comes close (you should skip the portion between minutes 1:00 and 3:00) – we came from the other direction, and we flew right up the middle of the runway to simulate the glide path of the Shuttles. (You did know that they were gliders on the way down, no engine power – which means they had to get it right first time, because there was no 'go-round'.) If you'd like to see what it was like for the Shuttle pilots during a real landing on runway 33, this video is the real thing.

That flight with Joe, was a great experience that I've never forgotten.

Playing in the Street
Norrie Henderson

I enjoyed the recent Cardross Street anecdote from Dave Lowden and Jim Howie!

I don't have any memories of the incident they describe (after all, I was one of the Barnes Avenue mafia which, though a short walk away, was literally on the other/wrong side of the tracks due to the old coal-carrying rail line which ran parallel to the Cleppy (i.e Clepington Road.))

The story of child-unfriendly residents did, however, stir a memory of a sortie into Cardross Street by a group of us at Hallowe'en sometime in the late 40s.

Our local scouts mentioned a certain local lady who apparently lived alone and was felt to be disapproving of children. After some discussion, we decided to see how she would react to our solicitations . So we rang the bell and waited; when the lady appeared we asked ( as politely as kids could manage) if she 'needed ony guisers.'

She seemed rather surprised but not displeased. I can't remember any details of our 'performances' or even whether we actually went inside but I do remember she gave us our best cash reward of the evening!

I don't remember who else was in the group but perhaps there are others who do recall this.

Playing in the street was familiar to most of our generation. I'm reminded of a delightful Glasgow poem by Edward Boyd:

In Barnes Avenue, however, we had the good fortune to live adjacent to the sports field at Graham Street which could be easily entered at any time by scaling the fence between it and the gardens behind houses on the south side of the street.

As counterpoint to the Glasgow street shown above, I thought I'd include a couple of my own pics from Dundee. These were taken in April 1963 in a street near the west Port and long demolished to make way for university expansion.


My Friend Joe - 1
Hugh McGrory

I was chairing a meeting sometime in the '70s in Washington DC, and I had two friends and colleagues sitting either side of me, Joe and Vinnie. We were all there because of our professional interests in computers and engineering.

I had to introduce them to the audience and began by saying "These two guys sitting beside me have 20 children between them, ten each" (not often you can say that...). There were a few gasps from the audience and one or two "Wows".

"But don't worry", I said, "I had a little chat with them both before the meeting and explained what's been causing it..."

But to my story –

For about fifteen years, mostly through the '70s, Joe and I, together with many able professionals in engineering and computing, dedicated untold hours to an organisation dedicated to promoting the use of computers in engineering. Joe was an innovator who could get things done – and if he liked an objective that you were pursuing, he would work hard to help you make it happen. I'm truly glad that I had the opportunity to know him, professionally and personally.

He was a multi-talented individual, and one of his skills was flying. He had his own plane, a Mooney M20, one of a family of four-seater, piston-powered, propeller-driven, general aviation aircraft, with low wings and tricycle landing gear.

The M20 was manufactured by the Mooney Airplane Company of Kerrville, Texas – it was the 20th design from Al Mooney, and his most successful plane.

Joe had the M20K (like the one above) which was a medium-body and was marketed as the Mooney 231. It was produced between 1979 and 1998 and had a turbocharged six-cylinder engine.

After the meeting, Joe and I had to meet with some people from IBM in New York State – we wanted support for a proposed National Centre for Computing in Engineering in the United States (we were unsuccessful...). Joe flew us there and back.

I sat in the right hand seat, of course, and Joe and I both had headsets on so that we could talk easily to each other, and I could listen in to traffic between Joe (and other planes) as the pilots talked to various air traffic controllers.

The Convention on International Civil Aviation requires that all civil aircraft must be registered with a national aviation authority (NAA) using procedures set by each country. (Every country has a NAA whose functions include the registration of civil aircraft.) The NAA allocates a unique alphanumeric string to identify the aircraft, which also indicates the nationality (country of registration). So Joe's plane had a registration number like N1234A , and he used this each time he used the radio.

As we flew, I could hear the chatter from other pilots and air traffic controllers using these unique identifiers when giving or receiving information. Knowing very little about airplanes or flying, this was all very interesting to me. Then I heard a pilot seemingly breaking with protocol – a very English voice saying something like "JFK Tower, this is Concorde."

Joe said "Very few flights aren't required to use registration number identification (Air Force 1?) and Concorde is one of those..."

I flew several times with Joe, and I was impressed at how disciplined and yet how casual small plane flying could be. Disciplined in the way that the pilot follows regulations regarding filing of flight plans, pre-flight checks, communicating with flight control etc, but casual as in, "You hungry?" "Yes I am." "OK, there's a small airfield up ahead that serves a great all-day breakfast, let's drop in" – just like pulling off a highway into a service centre...

Stay tuned for a couple of further stories on Joe and his Mooney.

Hucky Duck
Gordon Findlay
I wonder if any ex-Morgan types out there remember playing 'Hucky Duck' in the schoolyard? Now that I suffer from a very creaky back, I wonder if some of those hard-driving games of Hucky Duck put a couple of dents in my discs. But it was too much fun at the time to worry about stuff like that.

My memory of the rules is a bit fuzzy, but first naturally, we chose sides, usually five or six on each team. You did 'rock, paper, scissors' to see who started, and the game began.

The team that lost the draw had its players crouch down level from the waist, holding on, one behind the other a bit like a rugby scrum, until they had formed one long line of boys presenting their backs.

Then, one by one, the opposing team ran towards them, jumping at the last moment to land as far up the line of backs as possible. They all did this – thump! thump! thump! And then came the last, savage part of the game.

This clump of boys on top then all humped up and down as hard as they could, chanting "Hucky duck! Hucky duck! One two three!" They did this three times. The idea was to make the line of suffering lads beneath them give way and collapse in a heap.

If the line held up (and it was tough when the opposing team had a couple of heavyweights to thump down on you) then you had survived. And now it was your turn to leap on to their backs and let loose the Hucky Duck chant as you humped up and down on their backs as hard as you could. See it live here –

There–s no doubt an orthopedic surgeon today would be appalled at this schoolyard game. But when you're 10 or 11
years old, full of energy and high spirits, it was marvelous fun.

<PS
This game has been around for a long time. Take a look at this painting, Childrens' Games, by Pieter Breughel, The Elder, dated 1560. It shows more than 80 games that children played 450 years ago – can you spot the one of interest? If not, click on the painting.

The game has many names:
– 'Bok-bok', South Africa
– 'Booleroo', Australia
– 'Buck Buck', USA
– 'Bung the Bucket'
– 'Finger, Thumb and Rusty Bum', Sheffield
– 'Hi-Cock-a-Lorum' , Kent
– 'High Cockalorum', RAF Officers' Mess
– 'High Jimmy Knacker', East London
– 'Hucky Duck', Dundee
– 'Hunch Cuddy Hunch', Scotland
– 'Husky, Fusky, Finger or Thumb', Notts
– 'Jack Upon the Mopstick'
– 'Johnny on the Pony', USA
– 'Jump the Knacker 1-2-3', Watford
– 'Polly on the Mopstick', Birmingham
– 'Stagger Loney', Cardiff
– 'Strong Horses, Weak Donkeys', Monmouthshire
– 'Trust', Lancashire
– 'Wall-e-Acker','Warny Echo', NW London.

In parts of Scotland and in Newcastle it's 'Mount A Cuddy', and this has such variants as 'Montakitty, 'Mont-a-Kitty' in Middlesbrough, 'Multikitty' and 'Muntikitty'. Still played around the world, today by kids, and adults.

The Fife Coal Miners - 2
Granda McGrory

Hugh McGrory

My grandmothers gave birth a total of 26 times – 17 of these on my father's side. Of course, as was not uncommon around the beginning of the 20th century, quite a few of the babies died very young. (Around
1900, in Scotland, about 20% of all deaths recorded were infants less than one year old – 13% of babies died before reaching their first birthday – today in Scotland it's about 1.4%.) When I was a preschooler I had 8 uncles and 8 aunts, 10 having died before I was born.

The photograph on the right shows my Granda McGrory and his five sons (or 'The High Forehead Gang' as I've come to think of them...).

Back row from the left: Hugh (my Dad), Mick (aka Uncle Mick), and Wullie (whom you've met before, and who died at sea during the war), and front row: Barney (father of my cousins Mike (aka Big Mick), and Frank who was at Morgan a year ahead of me), Granda (aka Auld Mick), and James.

Granda, James, and Barney all worked in the Fife coal mines, my Dad was a bricklayer, and Mick was the local barber in Lower Methil, Fife, where this photo was taken around 1936/37.

The McGrorys first came to Scotland from Donegal around the time of the Irish Famine, settling first in Hamilton. They moved to the Methil area to work in the mines just before the outbreak of the First World War, living in Buckhaven, Denbeath, then Lower Methil.

All of the above is background to the story I want to tell you about Granda and Uncle Barney:

The Fife Mining Community

Fife miners had a long history of fighting for their rights. In 1870, by means of a stay-down strike, they were the first in Europe to win the eight-hour day. The Buckhaven and Methil miners, most of whom would have worked at either the Wellesley or the Michael, were particularly determined. So when the British miners were betrayed by the TUC and the General Strike ended, they were in the forefront of those who continued to defy the mine owners.

Note: Comments below in quotes, are taken from the recollections of John McArthur, a parish councillor from E. Wemyss, and one of the local miners' leaders. The word strike is used a lot, but technically it wasn't a strike, since the owner's had locked the gates to the collieries to keep them out. Excerpts below are from 'The Militant Miners', edited by Ian MacDougall, published by Polygon Books, 1981.

John McArthur:
"The strike in the Methil area was 100 per cent solid. Not one man was found wanting. Not a vehicle moved."

Note: The General Strike Committee set up a system of sub-conveners each responsible for departments – Transportation, with a strict system of permits without which no vehicle could pass through the picketed areas; Defence and Organisation of Pickets; a Youth Committee; Communications, which made use of the Leven Motor Cycle Club's volunteered services as couriers and despatch riders; Entertainment, to counteract boredom; Publicity and Propaganda, for speaking engagements and publications.

"On the other side were the police under the command of an Inspector Clark who was notorious in our area for brutality, and he had under him a Sergeant Park who was equally of this type. Almost every conceivable avenue that he could think of he was always threatening to use against the strikers, and particularly against the strike leaders."

Note: The authorities preferred to use policemen who were strangers, and they drafted in personnel from all over the country – some were rumored to be Black and Tans brought over from Ireland along with their vicious reputation.

"The whole system of control over transport by the union was most complete and effective. Even if an ambulance was needed to take a special case to Edinburgh Infirm- ary, or hospital locally, they had to apply for permits. Permits were not readily granted by the Transportation committee.

On one occasion a runner came down from Station Road, one of the main road junctions, to say that there had been an attempt to stop a beer lorry from getting through and the police had carried out a baton charge and three of our picket were arrested."

Note: At one of the pickets set up by the Buckhaven and Methil miners, a McEwans brewery lorry driver had decided that he wasn't going to be stopped from delivering his beer. He had prepared his lorry by creating a wire cage aound the cab and had already driven right through the pickets at Lochgelly, Bowhill and Dysart. When he got to Muiredge and the Wellesley Road, the pickets couldn't stop him, but several of the miners mounted the lorry and threw every one of the barrels into the gutter. Despite the fact that none of them had had a beer for some time, their discipline was such that none of the beer was drunk... The police couldn't stop the miners, but, as stated earlier, they
arrested three.

McArthur again:
"When I proceeded to the scene, men, women and children were running towards the area in hundreds, grasping whatever weapons they could get their hands on – some with fireside pokers, some with sticks, some with pickshafts, stones, or bottles. There was a building site adjoining and the police that were left were getting stoned and were running for their lives. One policeman cleared a six-foot wall round the slaughterhouse non-stop. He would have been suitable for the Olympics.

There was an immediate demand that we assault the police cells in order to get the three lads out. This raised an issue that was new to us but which we felt we would have to cope with. So it was arranged that we would have a meeting immediately at the big strike centre in the Co-operative Hall. The hall was packed to suffocation. Our meeting was taken charge of by Davie Proudfoot, who was convener of the Methil Central Strike Committee. He said, 'Well, we've now got to meet force with organised resistance. The picketing must be carried out, the strike must go on. We're in this strike for the purpose of winning it. We're not going to be diverted by police baton charges. That is a feature we'll just have to face and overcome."

So we agreed to get some form of organisation. We in the strike leadership started off by saying, 'All right, every man look at his neighbour sitting beside him. If you can't volunteer or vouch for him let him be questioned to prove he is a genuine striker.'

Then we set about setting up a properly disciplined organisation. We asked everybody who had had army or navy experience to move to one side of the hall. Then we asked if anybody had been an officer. We did not run to the extent of having an officer. But we had two sergeant-majors and they were made corps commanders.

Everyone who had been an N.C.O. in the army was given charge of ten privates, and each private was given charge of ten men who had had no army experience. These ex-servicemen had complete control of this Workers' Defence Corps. There had been a lot of the youth committee and others in a loosely formed picket or Defence Corps before the baton charge, but its ranks swelled to about 750 or 800 afterwards.

We said, "Well, you can arrange now the main points where picketing has to be done and decide how many men you require in order to make picketing continuous, with men held in reserve.' We organised cyclists who could act as couriers, and particularly valued were young lads who had motor-cycles.

At that stage the most fierce discussion took place; what were we going to do to get the three men out who had been arrested? There were immediate demands that we should march up to the police buildings and forcibly rescue these men."

Granda and Uncle Barney

This is where the McGrorys come in – one of the three men in the cells was my Uncle Barney.

McArthur again:
"I am not sure what would have been the outcome of that discussion but for the intervention of the father of Barney McGrory, one of the lads who had been arrested. The family was Irish Catholic and they were active militants in the labour movement. The father was old Mick McGrory.

He got up to say, 'Look, we're in a strike which is equivalent to a battle for our lives and our livelihood and all that we hold dear. You can't have a battle, unfortunately, without casualties. But if the battle is to continue then you must accept the casualties and carry on. My son happens to be one of the first casualties. I am very, very sorry that that is so, but he along with me would wish that we don't do anything that would prevent us from carrying out the strike. So we carry out the strike and they'll bear the consequences of having been arrested.'

That had a tremendous effect on the meeting and I think was mainly responsible for getting our policy accepted at that big meeting of men. So each man then went home, had a meal, and reported to the strike headquarters. I remember going back down to the headquarters when the first company were going to resume the picketing. As they came up with the sergeant-major in front, he saw me coming along and he shouts, "Eyes left" You could see the arms swinging. The arms were rigid because they were concealing pokers, hammers, and what have you.

The important thing is they went back to the scene where the baton charge took place. By that time there had been busloads of police drawn in from every area. But the picket took up its post and I remember watching them working. There were three roads converging on to this corner where the baton charge had taken place. The non-commissioned officer in charge of the picket put twenty men on each road, twenty men stopping the main traffic, with push-bikes running back and forward in advance, so that they could get timeous notice of any vehicle that was proceeding in that direction.

And then they had something like fifty men standing by in reserve in case they should be needed. In spite of the fact that there was a big contingent of police, they stopped every vehicle that came along and continued this activity. It was a marvelous display of organised, disciplined activity. They did their work without looking at the police. Everybody knew, including the police, that if anything untoward had happened they would have had a real struggle on their hands; and while there might have been some casualties amongst the strikers there equally would have been a number amongst the police.

I have heard it said that in some areas there was collaboration between the workers' pickets and the police in order to keep order. There was no such arrangement in the Methil-Buckhaven area! There the pickets went on duty armed with whatever they could secure: pickshafts, pokers, railway distance pieces, and anything that would be useful in a dust-up. They all also were under instructions to wear their pit boots – they also would be handy in a dust-up. A number of them even used the hard hat they had in the pit at the time, but this was not common. From the time that the Defence Corps became an organised body there was no more police interference with the pickets.

But that night the midnight or overnight arrests started. Proudfoot was arrested, and one or two others. These arrests were carried out at two o'clock in the morning. And that became the fashion. If you were going to be arrested, it happened when they thought everybody else was in bed. So that double precautions started to be taken, and those that were recognised as leaders had a protection squad allocated to them.

I remember an amusing development. The lads would approach you and say, 'Look, make sure you're not going to be arrested at night, make sure you're not sleeping in your own house.' Ordinary miners would come forward and give you a key to their house, and you had to put their name on it. I had a pocketful of keys for houses that I could go into without warning."

The photo below, taken at the railway station, shows the three miners who had been arrested – judging by the way they're dressed, they may be going to or coming from court – my Uncle Barney is on the left. You can see that they are unbowed. In my imagination they are saying to themselves 'You decreased our wages; you increased our hours; but we'll decide whether or not the beer lorries get through...'


The miners maintained resistance for a further six months after the TUC gave up. In late August, the
Nottinghamshire Miners Association broke ranks, and negotiated a deal with the local mine owners (the Notts miners were strikebreakers again in the 1984 strike).

In some mining areas, strikebreakers were ostracised in their communities for the rest of their lives, and some were still being referred to as scabs at the time of the 1984-85 'Maggie Thatcher' strike.

By the end of November, 1926, most miners had been starved – literally starved – back to work. However, many were black-balled my the mine owners, and remained unemployed for many years. Those that were employed were forced to accept longer hours, lower wages, and district wage agreements. The strikers felt as though they had achieved nothing.

So how did the miners and their families fare in the years following the strike? The following paragraphs were written by a journalist who visited unemployed miners in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, in 1933, seven years after the strike:

"With his wife and two children he lives in one-half of a house, which costs him seven shillings a week in rent. The house has not been repaired for fourteen years. Its windows do not shut tight, and it is damp. The lavatory is thirty yards away from the house, at the top of the adjacent yard. There is one water-tap for both families. This family's income is the father's unemployment benefit of 27 shillings and thruppence; after paying rent they have roughly a pound left to live on. Coal costs them half-a-crown a week.

This is their normal daily menu:
Breakfast – toast, margarine, tea.
Dinner – a few pennyworth of meat and potatoes, an onion, bread and tea.
Supper – same as breakfast.

Fresh milk is unknown in this family, who consume four tins of a cheap brand of skimmed condensed milk a week. It is not surprising that the eldest child was found to be suffering from malnutrition and was developing tubercular glands."

On the bright side, in case you're worried, it seems that the mineowners were able to maintain their standard of living very nicely thank you, despite the hard times.

The Dundee Vernacular
Ian Gordon

Gordon Findlay's article on the Dundee accent set me laughing and reminiscing about days gone by. It's been over 50 years now since I was in regular contact with the ever-so-familiar vernacular (the Dundee language is much more than an accent.) Every time I hear a word or two I get that comfortable feeling like I was back home in Dundee.

I've travelled a lot over the years and have experienced many accents–in languages such as Spanish, French, German, Afrikaans and Portuguese–spoken with different accents in the many different countries and individual cities–but none come close to bringing back lasting memories like these...

A few scenes from the Dundee I knew:

The Clothes-Drying Green

The wimen git left t' dae the washin an ir hingin' thir claes oot on the greenie
The bairns are in their feet an' nippin' at their peenies.

(Competition is keen on the quality of the wash and newcomers' claes are usually classified as no awfy clean.)

Enter a dark-skinned man carrying bunches of onions aroon his shidders.'Oh, look wha's here – it's Ingin Johnny. Jist in time– ehv only got a couple left fae last year. Gie's a dizzen big anes. Ah'll need tae gie them a good waash the night. That'll gie me a good greet!

THE FISH & CHIP SHOP

They don't look so great anymore, but in our day as teenagers, and even beyond, it was exciting (cool?) to finish off your Saturday night activities with fish and chips (a fish supper!) – accompanied by mushy peas.

In our day, Dundee had many fine fish and chip shops – remember The Deep Sea in its original location? Our favourite shop was always the one on Victoria Street, near the junction with Albert Street (couldn't find a photo). The shop was proudly owned and managed by Joe Delano, one of the many Italians who ran the Fish and Chip shops and Ice Cream parlors in Dundee. Joe and his wife Dora, who attended the customers while Joe fried the fish, were both remarkably bilingual in Italian and in the Dundee vernacular. I never heard them utter a word of English!

A bunch of six or eight of us would come in about 9.30 pm and order
to take back to the small sitting room. Maria would always find it difficult to control eight hungry teenagers, all struggling to get their meal first. "Jist a meenit, jist a meenit", Maria would cry out to the melee. Then Joe would come to his wife's rescue – "Whit's a goin' on? Look you, yer skelling yir peas a' ower mi bliddy coonter!

Joe's stentorian tones (I think he would have made a great opera singer in another life!) calmed everybody down. During the rest of the evening, when things got a bit noisy in the sitting room, we would hear Joe call out: "A'm hearin' yis. –Nither squeak 'n yer oot on yir bums."–"

I've been dreaming for years about fish and chips at Joe Delano's. I've dined in some very elegant places during my life–but I never dream about any of them.

Shakespeare in Dundee

It was a real jolt for some of us when we were introduced to Shakespeare–if my memory serves me right it was in our 1st year at Morgan. We were fast casting off the remnants of the vernacular and learning to speak proper. It took longer for some than others! Shakespeare was something else again!

Anyway, the Scottish syllabus of these days had us reading A Midsummer Night's Dream in our first year. The plot, if you have any memory of it, is one of the most unlikely and complicated of Shakespeare's works–so the verbiage coming out of the mouths of 12 year-old Dundee pupils was decidedly more vernacular than Shakespearean. However, the enthusiasm of Cheesie, our English Lit teacher, was such that he had us play the parts as we went along.

I think Hugh got the role of Puck, because he was always busy arranging things, but I would get sued for disclosing who played Bottom – even after 70 years! The role of Snug, the joiner, was given to Islay Robertson, that sweet guy with the permanent toothy smile. Now, the intricacies of the plot provided for Snug being transformed into a lion and announcing regally that he was king of the jungle, in strident Shakespearean tones.

Drama was at a peak in the classroom, as the lion came forth to deliver his only, but earthshattering, lines:

"And the lion doth roAAAr"

Islay's words resounded over the classroom, which by now had dissolved into an uproar of laughter. For all present, all of Pyramus and Thisbe's problems were forgotten, none of Shakespeare's grand words were relevant. Islay had relegated Shakespeare's words to second place and would forever make him the star in our eyes (and ears).

The vernacular may well withstand the test of time.
* This is a big year for many of us – we are reaching our 80th birthday. My big day was Thursday the 13th of April. I sincerely hope that all of you octogenarians are blessed with good health and the support and love of your family. Happy Birthday!

Yours Aye, Ian.
The Fife Coal Miners – 1
Background

Hugh McGrory

I intended to post a story, set in 1926, about my Granda and one of his sons, my uncle, both coal miners.

However, as I began to write it, I realised how woefully ignorant I was about the period between the Great Wars, and only when I read some of the history did I better understand what it was like for my Dad, his parents and siblings in a mining community in Fife through the '20s and '30s. So at the risk of boring you all to tears, I'm going to lay out, first, the historical background to my Granda's story.

The Lock-out of the British Mineworkers, and the General Strike of 1926.

Coal was vital to the war effort in 1914-18. In the early years there were coal shortages and hoarding – coal production slowed and a coal famine was reported. Shortages at home were caused by transportation
difficulties, and by lack of labour availability, many miners having volunteered to serve in the forces (some for patriotic reasons, some because anything would be better than working in a coal mine). Also, France's industries had been hit hard by the invading German troops, and the country was importing coal from Britain to aid its armament production. This added to the shortages at home.

In February 1915 the Government decided that it had to take control of the mines, declared mining
a reserved occupation, and improved miner's wages and working conditions.

In 1918, British men returned from the war to find food scarce and prices rising so that their wages were being devalued (the coal industry employed 10% of all British working men). They saw a high demand for coal enriching the Government and the mine owners, while their own pay and conditions worsened.

At the time, working conditions were awful – there were few mines with showers for the workers, many of whom had no bathrooms or toilets in their houses. A miner was killed on average every five hours throughout the year and 20% of the workforce suffered injuries every year – around 500 were injured or maimed every day.

Can you imagine working a long day in a colliery, with coal dust in every pore, having no showers available at the mine and going home to a house that often had no inside toilet or bathroom and sometimes only an outside tap for water. The photos below show how a miner got rid of the coal dust (these photographs are actually from West Virginia in the 1940s, a miner name Milong Bond – but typical of many UK miners of the '20s and '30s).
When injuries were caused by work, most pit managers would sanction compensation, but when war veterans were injured, the managers often claimed the responsibility lay with the armed forces. The forces then counter-claimed that the injuries were the fault of the mine owners and thus the men who fought the Great War 'for civilisation and freedom' were left unable to work and unentitled to any support.

With the mines returned to private ownership, the mine owners wanted to maintain and increase profitability. This turned out to be difficult for a number of reasons:

•   The heavy use of coal during the First World War had depleted the rich, easy coal seams.

•   Since Britain exported less coal during the war, other countries filled the gap and Britain lost future overseas customers.

•   Coal production which had been falling since 1914 was at its lowest ebb in 1926. Output per man had fallen by 25% since before the war reflecting the fact that the more difficult seams now had to be mined.

•   As part of their reparations for the First World War, Germany had to export "free coal" to France and Italy.

•   Winston Churchill had reintroduced the gold standard in 1925 which made the British pound too strong for effective exporting. It also raised interest rates and hurt the profits of some businesses.

Mine owners turned again to their favourite strategy – reduce wages and increase the length of the working day – in order to maintain their profits, and they found it only too easy to reduce the wages of their workforce. They told the miners to accept a pay cut of 13% and an increase in hours from 7 to 8 hours per day. The miner's weekly pay had already gone down from £6.00 to £3.90 in the space of seven years.

The cartoon on the right – entitled "The Subsidised Mineowner–Poor Beggar!" was published by the Trade Union Unity Magazine in 1925.

The MFGB, the Miners' Federation of Great Britain, rejected the terms: "Not a penny off the pay, not a minute on the day."

At one point and to his credit, King George V tried to stabilise the situation and create balance by saying, "Try living on their wages before you judge them."

The owners announced that the miners would be locked out as of May 1st, 1926.

The General Council of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) called a General Strike to begin May 4th, 1926 in
an attempt to force the British Government to act to prevent wage reduction and worsening conditions for the 1.2 million locked-out coal miners.

Some 1.7 million workers were out – the locked out miners were supported by some half million workers who went on strike across the country, principally from the transport and heavy industries.

By May 4th over 4 million workers were out and Britain was virtually closed down, public transport ceased and people had
to walk to work – the working class was in charge. The Government enlisted middle class volunteers to maintain essential services. There was little violence.

Then, the TUC, which, without informing the miners' leaders, had been holding secret talks with the Government and the mine owners, after nine days, said that they would call off the strike if there was a guarantee that there would be no victimization of strikers. The Government stated that it had "no power to compel employers to take back every man who had been on strike."

The TUC folded and ended the strike anyway without a single concession made to the miners' case. (One theory for the TUC 'seizing defeat from the jaws of victory' is that they were persuaded that it was not a justifiable strike, but rather an attempt at a Communist takeover of the country. History has shown that this was nonsense.)

The miners, understandably, saw this as a huge betrayal, which left them worse off than before, and vowed to continue their defiance and fight on alone.

The Fife miners were amongst the most militant of Britain's colliery workers, and in a couple of weeks I'll tell you how they handled themselves and of the part played by my Granda and my Uncle Barney.

Morgan FP Rugby
Alistair Mackay
In 1959 I was invited to start training with Strathmore Rugby Club I accepted and thoroughly enjoyed travelling to Forfar three times per week to meet with all the players. I was delighted when I was selected as tight head prop for the first game of season and asked to lead the scrum.

The first game at Forfar was progressing well when the Captain playing at scrum half was injured and was not able to continue. When we returned to the changing rooms after the game the Captain was lying on a bench presumably waiting for the Doctor.

Returning to training on the following Tuesday we were informed that the injury was more serious than we thought, and that unfortunately his leg had been amputated. If medical treatment had been more readily available the outcome might have been more favourable. His rugby playing days were obviously over but he was a regular spectator at all Strathmore games thereafter.

A sad story but medical services are now always in attendance at all contact sports.

Later that season we had an away fixture against Morgan Academy and I must have played well because Ian Norrie the Morgan Captain asked me to play for Morgan which was my home club. I quickly accepted as the Morgan had a better fixture list than Strathmore and were recognised at that time to be a better club. This was before leagues so Rugby although highly competitive was purely social.

I was selected for their next game at tight head prop a position that I retained for the rest of my playing career. The backbone of the team included senior players Frank Stott, Bill Kydd, John Paul, Gus Sim and Ian Norrie. There were also my contemporaries, Dave Meechie, Sandy Duncan, Laurie Mitchell, Jim Ritch, Tom Burt, Alex Gouick, Ian Lindsay and Dave MacKenzie – they all made me very welcome enjoying regular social evenings at The Breadalbane Pub in Constitution Street and the dances at the Chalet Dance Hall in Broughty Ferry.

Training on Tuesdays and Thursdays was at Forfar Road ground or during winter in the school hall. The circuit training in the hall followed by 5-aside football was the favourite as it was warm and chance of a quick wash.

We had excellent fixtures but the memorable games were in Aberdeen against Aberdeenshire who had Ken Scotland, Gordonians , Aberdeenshire, and Aberdeen Grammar School. We would leave Dundee by charter bus at 11.30am in plenty time for a 2.30pm kick off. Playing 35 minutes each way with a short break at half time we were generally finished without the need for floodlights which all the Aberdeen clubs had available if necessary.

The facilities at all the Aberdeen clubs were excellent so after we all enjoyed a leisurely shower then a buffet with pies, sandwiches and biscuits with plenty of tea, coffee and orange juice. We all then socialised for the next hour and a half before the bus arrived to take us to the Douglas Hotel where we had several welcome pints of beer.

The next move was to the Diamond Street Palais. The bus was leaving at a pre-arranged location at sharp 11.00pm for our return journey to Dundee so we all had to leave the Palais in plenty time. On one occasion one of our party missed the bus but he did turn up for training on the Tuesday so all was well.

Winner to Wimp in 24 hrs.
Hugh McGrory

As Britain moved towards the Great Depression of the 1930's, the government was increasingly worried about the health of children from deprived areas in cities. This was the infamous era of the Glasgow rickets and other indicators of malnutrition.

In a very enlightened piece of legislation, the Camps Act of 1939 was passed. This set aside a sum of money (over £100m in today's terms) for the construction of around 25 Centres in England and Wales and a further 5 in Scotland. This was a Department of Health initiative and the intention was that young people from the cities would spend some weeks at these Centres, eating well and enjoying the fresh, uncontaminated country air.

Completion of the buildings in late 1939/early1940, coincided with the start of the Second World War. The centres were constructed using high quality Canadian cedar and had a capacity of around 250 young people, plus other accommodation for staff and teachers. The government retained the Centres to be used for evacuees and, in addition to large numbers of Scottish children, the Centres had substantial groups from the continent – notably from the Netherlands.

It wasn't until January of 1947 that the government was able to set up the organisations that were originally intended to operate the Centres. The Secretary of State for Scotland established the Scottish National Camps Association.

Currently the Scottish Outdoor Education Centres (SOEC), an Approved Voluntary Organisation and charity since 1987, has three outdoor education centres across Scotland and describes itself as the country's largest provider of residential outdoor education. The Centres are: Belmont (Meigle, Perthshire), Broomlee (West Linton, Edinburgh), and Dounans (Aberfoyle, Stirling).

*
Many of you will remember spending time, in the late 1940s, at Belmont Camp, in the beautiful, 100 acre estate around Belmont Castle in the valley of Strathmore.


I was there with many of my classmates from Dens Road School, probably one of the first groups in 1947. I can't remember much about the experience, but I enjoyed the two or three weeks we were there. I think our teachers tried to do some teaching from the curriculum in the mornings, though I think the usual rigour was somewhat missing. The afternoons were given over to healthy outdoor activities.

One day our teacher said that we were going to play Pin the Tail on the Donkey. Lacking pins, and indeed, something suitable for pinning to, she decided that we would use the blackboard.


It was like the one in the photo, free-standing and could be spun on its horizontal axis to allow both sides to be used. She drew the rough outline of a donkey, then she asked for a volunteer. The kid was blindfolded, given a piece of chalk, spun around a couple of times then pointed towards the board. He/she held the chalk in front of them, and when it touched the board made a small 'X'.

One by one my classmates did the same – some were fairly close to the right spot, some were way off.

Now in those days, I wasn't big on volunteering or being on public display, so I kept my head down – I thought after a few had tried we would move on to something else – but no way. The time came when everybody but me had taken a turn...

So I got my blindfold on and my piece of chalk, was spun around and pointed at the board. Being right-handed, I put the chalk in my other hand and held out my right in front of me. When I touched the board, I felt around the edge until I located the hinge, and having previously figured out that the spot I wanted was about three hand-widths to the left and two up, I measured this out and made my mark.

The blindfold was taken off, and I saw that my mark was almost right on the spot. The teacher said "Hugh wins" and the class began to cheer... At least that's what I thought, until I realised that they were saying things like "He's a cheating wee get...".

The teacher, to her credit, knew a teachable moment when she saw one. She said, "The rules were that you had to wear a blindfold and make your mark on the board wherever you chose – they didn't say anything about how you decide where to put it.

So I won the prize – I think it was an orange (it was just after the war after all). For the rest of the day I felt like a champ!

24 hours later.

The above must have happened close to the end of our sojourn, because the next day was Sports Day. One of my classmates, Bobby, said "You want to run in the three-legged race with me?" I said that I would.

As the time for the race drew near, my enthusiasm waned. I saw the crowd watching the events and I got stage fright – I choked – I wimped out... I told Bobby that I wasn't going to race. He tried to talk me into it, then got mad (rightly so) and said "Fine. Well I'm going to find someone else."

He looked around and saw, in the distance another classmate, and called out to him "Alan..."

To cut a long story short, Bobby and Alan won the race easily. Later, I hung around at the back of the crowd as they walked up to collect their prizes, pretending not to care but really standing on one leg trying to kick myself in the backside for being such a wimp... One of those oranges could've been mine!

From champ to chump in 24 hours!

PS
My thanks to Jim Howie for the reproductions from his postcard collection.
Cardross St Rounders
Dave Lowden
Jim Howie

Definitions :
Rounders: UK – a game similar to baseball; US – various, including scoundrels, rascals.

Cardross Street, Dundee, where we both lived, was a favourite place for children in the Clepington Road/Arklay Street area to gather and play. In the '40s, the street had a tenement block of 4 closes on the west



side overlooking allotments or "plots" across the road with a semi-circle in the middle. As private cars were few and far between, the circle provided an ideal playground for ball games etc.

Little did we (or our parents) realise that a game of rounders would lead to a visit from the police and a visit to court. The Evening Telegraph twice reported the case on the front page and followed up by publishing readers comments. This anecdote may jog a memory for some of your readers!"



We duly appeared in court again on the following Saturday:



Several of the Telegraph readers had their say:





Tales from Our Backyard 3
Angel Wings

Hugh McGrory

I don't believe in angels, but the phrase 'angel wings' seems benign – not always so, as I recently found out...

In an earlier story I wrote of a Canada Goose that had broken its wing. Some time later, one of my neighbours drew my attention to another Canada Goose, on his pond, that was suffering from a malady referred to as 'angel wing', also known as airplane wing, slipped wing, crooked wing, and drooped wing – see examples of Muscovy Ducks below:


Angel wing is a syndrome that affects aquatic birds primarily, often seen in geese and ducks. The last joint of the wing (the carpus or wrist joint) is twisted with the wing feathers pointing out laterally instead of lying against the body. Males develop it more frequently than females. It can affect both wings or only one. Strangely, if it's only one, it's almost always the left – a syndrome that's not, at present, understood.

I found I could understand it better by comparing a bird wing to the human arm – see drawing:

The condition is incurable unless caught very early, and seems to be caused by high-calorie diets, especially ones high in proteins and/or low in vitamin D, vitamin E, and manganese. It seems that this causes rapid growth, to the extent that the carpus joints are retarded in their development and can't support the weight of the flight feathers. The result is a wrist which is twisted outwards instead of lying against the birds back when folded, and unable to perform its usual function. In extreme cases, the stripped feathers can resemble straws protruding from the wings.

Many of us were probably taken to Swannie Ponds as children to feed the swans and ducks with bread, then took our kids there to do the same – a
practice that many ornithologists feel should be abandoned.

Angel wing can be drastically reduced by not feeding birds &ndash people food,– including white bread, popcorn, or crackers. An acceptable alternative would be to substitute food such as seedless grapes cut in half, shredded kale, Swiss chard or romaine lettuce, and grains, including wheat, barley and oats. This could save many birds from this nasty disease.

Getting back to my neighbours bird, it looked very like the one in the photograph below. For several weeks, as I took my morning, before-breakfast, walk around the neighbourhood, I spotted the bird. Usually it was
at the side of the pond, sometimes in a flock of 15 or 20 others. Often they simply ignored me as I walked by, but sometimes, for whatever reason, they took off – not the bird with the damaged wing – it remained by the pond side.

Birds with this condition can't fly – this one tried from time to time and would get up a few feet above the ground for a few yards, but couldn't sustain the effort.

One particular morning the sun was just coming up, there was no wind, and the surface of the pond was like glass. The bird was all alone at the
water's edge, and it made me feel very sad.

Later that day I thought about it some more, and realised that, since the condition is congenital, the goose had never flown, so perhaps it was accepting of its condition. It grazes, and seems quite content. Of course it doesn't know either, that such birds typically don't live very long, dying from malnutrition or from the winter cold, or perhaps taken by a coyote or a red fox.

Then, one day, the goose just wasn't there. It was another beautiful morning, and the sunlit pond was shared by a Muskrat family, a mother with two youngsters swimming around busily, doing whatever muskrats do in the morning, and a Little Blue Heron, standing knee-deep in the water, absolutely still – it does this for minutes on end until a small fish, or frog gets too close when it stabs its beak forward and down, very quickly, and then enjoys breakfast.


I stopped to watch, and I could hear the words of Max Ehrmann "... whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should."
The Cadet Corps
Gordon Findlay

Like many Morgan pupils 'way back in the 1940s, I was a keen member of the school's Army Cadet Corps. I enjoyed every aspect of it from marching and drilling to field craft and especially, weapons training.

My mother, who had lost three brothers in World War I, did not share my enthusiasm. "They're training the next generation of cannon fodder," she sighed to my father as I marched off in my uniform.

Within the Morgan detachment there was keen competition for 'stripes'. We all wanted to have something to show on that plain expanse of khaki stretching down our arms: to rise from lowly private to lance corporal, corporal, then – a fervent wish – the dizzying height of sergeant.

It was a thrill when a sergeant from the real Army was brought in to demonstrate the Lee-Enfield No.4 Mk I rifle. He walked us through the proper way to tuck the rifle into the shoulder, how to aim, how to adjust the range-sight, how to load and unload the magazine.

The sergeant also demonstrated how to attach the bayonet, and of course, the proper way to oil and clean the weapon after firing. We all got a chance to hold it and to look down the sights. It felt heavy – and it was, weighing in at a hefty 8.8 lbs.

Then came highlight of his visit (to me at least). This sergeant said: "I'm going to show you a wee trick. Ye may never have tae depend on it. Ah hope not. But in case ye're ever in a situation where ye have tae get yer shots aff as fast as ye can – here's how ye dae it...

He had us gather round the Lee Enfield. Then he put his middle finger around the trigger with his thumb and forefinger hooked around the bolt.

"Squeeze the trigger wi' yer middle finger. Then flick the bolt open and back wi' yer thumb and forefinger. Like this!" And, with an empty weapon, he quickly rattled off five imaginary shots using the technique, his hand a quick blur. We were totally impressed.

(You can see this in action in this video. The quick-fire technique begins at about the 4 minute mark).

The highlight of the cadet year was the summer camp, held near Carnoustie. We were housed in ancient wooden huts which leaked when it rained. Grimy and naked light bulbs hung overhead. Our beds were typical Army-issue metal frames strung with ancient chicken-wire. On top, a stained and lumpy mattress. The lavatories were primitive and filthy. The food was dull and badly cooked. And I loved every minute of it.

Near the end of the week we were marched down to the Barry Buddon Training Area rifle range, situated near the famous Carnoustie golf course. We were ushered into the butts – sunken trenches beside the targets. We were to be target spotters for a regular Army firing practice.

We stood looking up at the large paper targets which were mounted on a metal frame. This in turn was attached to a counterbalanced pulley system. You had to concentrate on the target because British .303 bullets didn't make a particularly large hole. And of course, you had to be alert to complete misses.

We'd hear the sudden crack of the .303 as it zipped over our heads and splashed into the butts or sand mounds beyond us. At the same instant a hole would suddenly appear in the target. Then it was time to raise the long spotter's pole. This pole had a large metal disc on the end; one side black the other white.

You moved the pole with the black disc showing and held it against the hole to show the shooter where his bullet had hit. If my memory serves me correctly a miss meant you flipped the pole over to show the white disc and waggled it from side to side.

Once firing stopped we wound the targets down, and with paper and glue, pasted over the bullet holes so the targets were clean and ready for the next session of shooting.

I'm certain that today's generation of Army cadets would be equipped (sensibly) with good ear protection, and probably helmets as well to avoid bashing heads on metal and concrete down in the butts. But back in the 1940s things were simpler – and, I suppose, a wee bit more dangerous.

Many years later, in 1974, now the father of two girls and two boys and a Canadian citizen, I brought our family back to Carnoustie on a warm and sunny July day. We walked around the same firing range and climbed down into the sunken butts where targets were marked.

Things didn't seem to have changed much at all; the whole area was just a lot rustier and in some spots the concrete was starting to crumble. We drifted through it, picking up the odd brass cartridge case now blackened with age. And I led them to the high sand mounds where we dug out a few mangled bullets from the sand.

Pure and simple nostalgia for me . . . transporting me back to my happy days as a keen young Army cadet.

The photos below show the modern Barry Buddon rifle ranges, targets in the lowered position.

What the...? #2
The Answer

Hugh McGrory

Do you remember MacGyver? I used to love that show (not the 2016 version which I don't like) the one that ran from 1985 for seven seasons. Richard Dean Anderson played a somewhat nerdy adventurer (first name Angus) who got himself and friends out of sticky situations by using everyday articles or materials to create unorthodox solutions.

I think most men have a touch of MacGyver in them – that's why we have drawers in our workshops with odd nails, fasteners, used switches, pieces of metal/plastic tubing, old pulleys etc. – because one of these days...

That series was popular enough that the word MacGyver is now in the Oxford Dictionaries (for the meaning, re-read the first paragraph above).

Well I needed to MacGyver myself through the front door, and in the story I was sitting on the front step, head in my hands, knowing that, to get inside the door, I first had to be inside the door to take the chain off...

Well I couldn't be both – on the other hand, though, I could be outside with my hands inside – That's why I scoured the garden to see if I could find a piece of wire – a coat hanger would've been ideal. I figured I could hook the wire onto the chain, stick my other hand through the letter box, then swing the wire until I caught it, close the door, then pull the wire to release the chain. Only problem – no wire...

Finally I came up with a modification of that approach, an idea that was born from the way my mother brought me up. She came from a decent working-class Scots/Irish family, and had been imbued with the ethic that said people judged a mother by the way her kids looked. The result was that she always made sure that my brother and I were dressed well before we left for school each morning – in clothes from stores like The 'Sosh', in Peter St., and Burtons, for shirts and pants; Marks and Sparks, for underwear and socks; and Birrell's for shoes.

As I sat on the step looking down I saw my shoes – the kind that my mother bought for me when I got my first pair of long
pants, and the kind that I've worn all of my working life (except when I was on construction sites) – Oxfords – like the photograph. It's hard to believe, without thinking about it, but the lace in such a shoe is about 40 inches long. Aha!

So:
– I took the lace out of one of my shoes;
– I unlocked the door and pushed it open as far as it would go – about three inches;
– I held the lace in my left hand and put that hand through the letter box;
– I put my other hand into the opening at the side, below the chain, then swung the lace back and forward until I caught it;
– Then the most difficult part – I tied the lace to the chain – not easy with one hand;
– I then closed the door and gently pulled on the lace.

The chain slipped off – nae bather at a'!

I opened the door, entered, closed the door, reattached the chain, and toddled off to bed.

PS
Door chains, of course, don't really provide much security – good peepholes are more useful since you can keep the door closed while deciding whether or not to open it.

I searched the Web for a photo to illustrate the type of door chain – came across this one and couldn't resist using it – It's supposedly an actual photograph of a hotel room door.

See how effective that one is here '

Health and Safety?
Murray Hackney

I was one of the boys who went all the way from the primary annexe to 6th year, so a fair chunk of my life was spent at The Morgan. Never a sporty type, I considered footie, rugby and cricket perfect ways to get hurt, so became clever at avoiding them. I notice now that most of my sporty friends have limps and various arthritic problems, which I seem to have avoided. Coincidence...?

Strangely though, I enjoyed physical training (PE) in the hall, (you remember Mr. Sorbie?) and could scoot up the 30 foot ropes no bother. Letting go up there would spoil your day if not kill you! Then there were the wall bars, beams, and other things designed to maim you.

I don't think I'm making this up, but I also seem to remember an occasional game of thugball. No rules, both teams just had to get the ball to the other end of the hall by whatever means. Any injuries resulting from that game drew nothing but ribald insults.

During a tour round the new school, I noticed the science labs had safety boxes for experiments. Who remembers Bill Dow's experiment to demonstrate metal expansion and contraction? He had a bar with a wing nut at one end and a hole at the other. A cast iron pin was dropped through the hole, and a solid frame held things together. While heating the bar with the Bunsen, he tightened the wing nut to take up the slack, then left it to cool while he got on with something else. A few minutes later, without warning, there was an almighty bang and bits of shrapnel flew around, usually just missing the nearest pupil... Can you imagine getting away with that now?

Of course we also brewed up all sorts of toxic gases without the benefit of extractor fans, and I'm sure some of us sniffed them up just to see what would happen. I discovered in a quiet moment that the science lab gas pressure was quite low, and I could easily blow down the pipe to purge out the gas. Bill Dow had a little trouble lighting his Bunsen! A hiccup at the wrong time might have made me an addict!

Despite the dangers, we all survived and today's school kids probably would too. Although today's H&S police would, for sure, take a dim view of all that...

What the...? – 2
The Break In.

Hugh McGrory

My thanks to those of you who sent in your answers to my previous "What the...?" story, the one about the clock. I thought I would try you with another teaser.

My first job after leaving university was in Westminster, London, and I lived in digs in Beckenham, Kent. My landlady had lost her RAF husband during WW2, had quite a large house to keep up, and three teenage kids to look after, so she rented four of her bedrooms.

One evening I returned rather late – in the wee sma' oors. I wasn't worried, since we all had our own key. I stuck mine in the lock and the door opened – a few inches – then stopped. The #$%^& chain was on!

This wasn't supposed to happen since we usually decided at breakfast who was going to be home last and the rest of us knew to leave the chain off. Some numpty had got it wrong and I was locked out.

I could have just banged on the door, but it didn't seem fair to waken the whole house. What to do...?

I could get one hand in the opening to about mid-forearm, but that, of course, made the chain tighten up – as you know, the door has to be closed, or very nearly so, in order to slide the chain off.

There was a letter box in the middle of the door – it let me get a hand in up to my wrist but that didn't seem to do much for me either.

I looked around to see if there was anything I could use as a tool to somehow, maybe, hook the chain, or something... Unfortunately I couldn't come up with anything. I sat on the front step, my head in my hands – there may have been some drink taken earlier in the evening – was there anything I could do?

Then I got an idea – I thought, "It's worth a shot", and gave it a go. It worked. I was able to open the door as I normally did, making almost no noise, walk in, close and lock the door again, and head for bed.

The next morning at breakfast I waxed indignant, we figured out who the idiot was and he apologised profusely.

I graciously forgave him, then one of the others said, "Wait a minute, how did you get in if the chain was on"?

I said, "You tell me..."

Well, can you?

Wur You Brocht Up in Dundee?
Ron Duncan

My wife and I got quite a chuckle out of Gordon Findlay's recent submission on the above subject. It reminded us of an item we received 10 or more years ago from our niece in Dundee. This poem seems to have been around since the '60s, but the author seems to be unknown.

For you Dundonians, if you haven't seen it before, or even if you have, I hope it brings back fond memories from your childhood.

Fae Dundee and Proud O' It!

See when Dundee fowk sit doon thegither, hiv ye noticed, in among a' ther blether,
That those magic words of yesteryear have slowly begun to disappear?
So, for tonight, let's reminisce on some Dundee words that's taen a twist.
It's a cupboard now, that once was a press, and a mirror was a lookin' gless,

A purn is now a cotton bobbin, and pilfering, we ca'd it dobbin.
A launderette was aye a steamy, and a coverall was jist a peeny.
Repairing yarn was a caird o' worsit, stys were things that 're now called corsets.
House slippers – mind when they were baffies, street orderlies are still but scaffies.

Slightly aff – we just said foosty, and weather-worn was bluddy roosty.
Half a penny was a maik or a hupnay, sixpence a tanner, and half that a thrupnay.
Under stress was just plain trachled, ill fittin' shoes – yer feet were bachled.
The Tansad's noo a baby buggy, and it's sparrow now that once was speuggie.

The pigeon tho' remains a doo, but the watery's changed – it's now a loo.
Breaking wind, we yased tae ruft, and a broken date pal, you were duffed.
For training shoes, oor word was sannies, and school caretakers were only jannies.
Tight-fisted now – we just said gruppy, and it's kilos now, no' half a luppy.

A paper bag was aye a poke, and nauseated meant you'd taen the boke.
Well-dressed, mind was awfy tricky, and a little drop was just a tickie.
Didn't cotton on means you didna twig, and a little sip was just a swig.
A metal fastener was a safety peen, conjunctivitis, scubby een.

Pimple, mind when it was a plook, swimming we aye gaed fur a dook.
Dirty feet were deemed as barkit, and coordy-custard's chicken-hearted.
False teeth were aye a set o' wallies, and pucks are whut we ca'ed prallies.
A piler's noo a four-wheeled cart, a scratch was nothing but a scart.

The lobby has now become the hall, a fitba' tube is now a ball.
An it bounces now, it disna stott. and "let me try" wiz "geize a shot".
Pen and pad, we yased a scailie, and half a mo' was jist a wee whiley.
A hangover – yer heid wiz nuppen, a baby diaper wiz a huppen.

A wall tae us was aye a dyke, and a mattress yased tae be a tyke.
At great speed was an awfy tek, redundancy, we got the seck.
It's take a look now, no hae a gander, take a walk was aye a dander.
Fowk now jibber, whaur we did haver, imagine "fly" instead of spaver.

Truancy – oor wurd was yited, soft in the head, we ca'd them dited.
A dog-end yased to be a doupie, Riverside Drive was aye the Coupie.
But I'm glad to say that in Dundee, a manhole cover is still a cundie.
There's many words I must hae missed, in fact I've still hundreds on meh list.

A Half-sliced Loaf
Hugh McGrory

Years ago, on my way home from work in Toronto, I used to call into a particular bakery – maybe once every week or two. It was one of those stores that sold mouth watering sweetstuffs – little cakes, large anniversary-type cakes, tarts, trifles, lots of different kinds of biscuits (cookies as they're called in N. America) – just desserts of all kinds...
Though tempted, I never once bought any of those – honest! The store was one of a small chain, the owner was local and it was staffed by several pleasant, middle-aged women. The reason for my visits was that they also baked bread every day, and had a machine to slice a loaf for you if you wished.

One day, there was a new server. I asked her for my usual order, "I'll have one of those loaves and would you please cut it in half and slice one half for me."

"What?" she asked, in a rather crabby voice, with a frown on her face.

I said, politely, "Just cut the loaf across the middle, put one half into the bag and then slice the other half and put it into the same bag."
She retorted "We're too busy for that."

I said "It's never been a problem before – it only takes a few extra seconds and the shop isn't that busy, is it?"

She said, "Do you want the bread sliced or not?"

"What I want now, is to speak to the manager."

"The manager's not here".

I said "OK, then I don't want the loaf", and I walked out – and picked up a loaf from another bakery on the way (so that management wouldn't be annoyed with me when I got home...).

I decided I would call the owner to see whether or not he wanted my business, but it was a week or ten days before I got to it. I explained the situation to him and asked if he was happy to have a customer treated in this way.

He said, "Would you mind telling me why you'd want half a loaf sliced."

I said "Well, when I get home, my wife and I have fondue for dinner, and we use the un-cut half – we then use the sliced half over the next day or two for toast or sandwiches."

He said, "Oh – that makes sense. I apologise for the way you were treated and I'll make sure that it doesn't happen to you again."

I thanked him, and a few days later I visited the same store. One of the long-term employees served me and I made my usual request. As she was attending to my order, one of her colleagues said to me "Oh, it was you wasn't it?"

"What was?"

"You complained about one of our staff."

"Yes, that was me", I said, "is she on tonight?"

"No", she said, "she got fired!"

"Oh. Well I certainly didn't ask for that. I just wanted her to serve me the way the rest of you ladies always do."

Thinking about it now, I still feel that she wasn't suited for the job, and the architect of her own misfortune – a case of 'just desserts...'

Tramcar Coolness
Gordon Findlay

As Dundonians of a certain age, who can forget those double-deck yellow and green tramcars that were a
fixture in our city for so many years?

Wooden seats, glass windows that slid down halfway, no heating – they rattled around Dundee streets swaying beneath their lifeline, that flexible pole which pulled in the electricity from the overhead lines and powered the tramcar along the metal tracks.

Although he had a little round pole-seat beside him, drivers mostly stood upright gripping the swing bar which acted as the throttle. Rising out of the floor beside his heel was a round metal disc. This was the driver's 'horn'. When he hammered down on this, a long metal shaft clanged repeatedly on the rail, warning cars and pedestrians out of the way. Under the foot of an expert it could set up quite a racket.

But to me, back then, the coolest part of tram travel was the unlawful descent. In other words – hopping off the tram while it was still under way. You had to pick the right conditions. Rain-slicked streets were a dangerous no-no. And slippery leather-soled shoes could be a problem.

There were, of course, notices posted at the exit reminding passengers to 'Please wait until the car stops before descending.' But most conductors were pretty laid back. The older ones had seen it all and mostly they just ignored us. To young bucks, that official notice just made our cool move more of a challenge. Here's how it was done.

You came down the stairs to the open exit and waited until your stop came into sight. Next, you moved down to the lowest step and hung on to the railing with one arm, feeling the wind rush past you. Then, at the first indication of the tram slowing down, you leapt out and away from the tram.

The secret was to lean backwards to help overcome the forward momentum as your feet hit the road. As they did, you did a frantic sprint-step with both legs for about ten yards until you could slow down to walking pace. And then there you were, walking past your stop as the rest of the passengers slowly climbed down in the proper way.

My pals and I did it all the time, but every so often things could go wrong. It happened once to a good buddy, Murray Lamond. Two of us had successfully completed our high-speed dismount, but as Murray leapt away from the tramcar his foot struck the ground precisely where a local dog had deposited its business. His foot shot out from under him and a second later he was tumbling head-over-heels in front of the Dundee worthies on the sidewalk. He rose, somewhat battered and bruised, his jacket torn, and smelling rather unpleasant. Then he also had to endure the hoots and jeers from the rest of us.

Of course, the ultimate was to perform this high-speed dismount with one hand casually stuck in your pocket, and with a fag in your mouth. This manoeuvre was only to be attempted under perfect conditions. But it was definitely supercool.

With thanks to The Dundee Museum of Transport – visit their website here.

Tales From Our Backyard – 2
The Deer

Hugh McGrory

At the far end of our backyard we have a small woodlot-covered rise which abuts the field of a neighbouring farm. The guy who built our house, and from whom we bought it, cut a gap through the wood so that he could install a garden shed at the back, hidden by the trees – actually a 40' insulated trailer which used to truck oranges from Florida – you can see one end of it at the foot of the large Scots pine in the photo.

White-tailed deer use the woodlot to travel round the back edge of our property – we rarely see them, since it takes them only a couple of seconds to cross the gap, though in the winter we often see their multiple tracks in the snow. (One thing I've never understood is how the deer, with their thin legs, manage to traverse the woods when they are deep with snow. The ground is covered by fallen trees, tree limbs, bushes, vines etc. – I find it quite a challenge when there's no snow on the ground – yet they never seem to break a leg...)

A few years ago, in the autumn, we had the whole mishpocha over for Sunday dinner, about a dozen of us. Most arrived mid-afternoon, and we decided to play various games of skill in family competitions. The last game we played was Bocce, in the middle of the backyard, and when we got called in for dinner, we left all the balls in place – the match to be continued...

In the middle of the meal, my oldest daughter glanced out of the window and said "WOW!" We all turned to look at the view you see in the photograph, and there were three deer, a doe and two fawns emerging from the woodlot and walking towards the house. This was very uncharacteristic behaviour – never seen before or since!

We all got up to the dining room windows to watch, wondering what they were up to, then realised that they had been attracted by the brightly-coloured Bocce balls. All three came right out to the middle of the backyard and inspected the balls up close – of course they knew immediately that they weren't apples – they walked back into the woods and went on their way.

The whole incident lasted little more than a minute, but none of us have ever forgotten the thrill of seeing those beautiful creatures up close...


(They looked very like this, but this is a stock photograph, not 'our' deers – by the time we'd finished oohing and aahing and decided to grab cameras/phones, the deer were gone.)

Evacuation
Gordon Findlay

Shortly after Great Britain declared war on Germany on September 3rd, 1939, urban mothers around the country had a decision to make. Do I send my children away from the city to safety, or do they stay home?

Plans had been drawn up by the government for the evacuation of children from cities around the country to rural areas. Enemy air raids were expected and major cities would be the obvious target.

From September 1st to 3rd more than 1,500,000 British children were moved from urban centres to country locations. It was recorded as the largest single migration of people within Great Britain in the history of the country.

On one particular day – September 1st – around 70,000 children and some parents, left Glasgow. From Dundee around 10,000 children headed for Kincardineshire, to be housed in small communities in that area.

Children evacuees leaving Dundee and arriving in St. Andrews.

Parents who decided to evacuate their children were allowed to make their own arrangements. Our mother had a longtime friend in Carnoustie: an older lady who was a widow and who lived in a small house not far from the sea. My mother got in touch with her, talked at length, and a deal was struck.

Next day, at lunch, our mother gave the news to me and my older brother David. We were going to have to leave home in Dundee and go to live with Mrs. Fraser 'for a little while.'

That was the bad news. But there was good news as well. It seems that before she had married, Mrs. Fraser had served an apprenticeship with a Dundee bakery. Following that, and before her marriage, she had gone into service in the kitchens of a local Earl at his estate in Forfarshire.

Our mother assured us that Mrs. Fraser was a lovely person, was looking forward to having us in her home, and would feed us well. David and I weren't too sure about all this, but the fateful day arrived, and all too soon we were being ushered into a tiny stone cottage by a grey-haired old lady who – to our young eyes anyway – looked to be around 100 years old. (I believe this was in Ireland St., shown as it looks today, in this photo.)

It says a lot for Mrs. Fraser's kindness and patience that she was willing to take two energetic young schoolboys, an 8 and a 10-year-old, into her quiet little home. I would guess she was around 65 years old at that time, so it was no small undertaking.

Mrs. Fraser and her late husband had never had children, but as we were to discover, she adored youngsters and took us in as if we were her very own. She had a warm and loving heart and hadn't lost any of her skills as a cook and a baker.

Rationing hadn't yet started to clamp its tight fingers around Scotland, and Mrs. Fraser took it as a personal challenge to fill up her two young refugees with good food.

She baked her own bread. She made morning rolls. Her home-made jams were delicious. Her savoury stews were a joy. I even loved her creamy morning porridge.

And her reputation in the neighbourhood for making the best fruit pies on the East coast was well earned. They were a joy to behold, crisscrossed with delicate strips of pastry and stuffed with local berries. They were an even greater pleasure to eat.

For me and my brother, evacuation was like a happy holiday. We'd scoot out of Mrs. Fraser's in the morning and spend hours on the beach, roaming the dunes and exploring the rocks by the sea shore. Then, there was the added joy of walking back to her little cottage and smelling the sweet aroma of a freshly-baked pie just out of the oven.

She had one peculiarity, although looking back on it, I imagine it was for her own sanity. Mrs. Fraser insisted we stay out of the cottage all afternoon. She served us lunch at noon, and after that it was: "Awa' ye go, now. I'll close the door, and Ah'll see ye at dinner time.

Rain or shine, that was her wish. I suspect the poor woman lay down and had a well-deserved nap in the afternoon, and who could blame her?

We didn't stay evacuated for long – my memory tells me it was no longer than three or four months. Fears about a German invasion had subsided. Air raids on Scotland had been concentrated on Glasgow and the Clyde dock area.

My parents sent word that we were to come home. On that day my brother and I stood on Mrs. Fraser's doorstep with our little suitcases, ready to return to Dundee. Then, all at once she pulled each of us in turn towards her and hugged us hard.

We weren't a hugging family and I looked up at her in surprise. To my amazement Mrs. Fraser's face was awash in tears. She was shaking with emotion. She stood there, hankie held to her face, as David and I walked away.

I never saw her again.

A Nun's Story
Hugh McGrory

Sister Beatrice, as the family referred to her, was my wife, Sheila's, first cousin once removed – and a good friend of her mother when they were growing up. She was a nun in a convent in the Maritimes and would occasionally come to Toronto to visit family and friends.

On one of Sister Beatrice's visits, for Christmas and New Year, Sheila, announced to me that we were going to take her out for dinner one evening. I was a little apprehensive ' as an atheist who had never before even spoken to a nun...

Learning soon afterwards that she was actually the Mother Superior at the convent didn't help – the term Reverand Mother didn't exactly flow off my tongue. (Although, and I may have gotten this wrong, I got the impression that this was a rotating position – sort of like in some university faculties where taking a turn as Dean for several years is seen as a penance, the job being likened to herding cats.)

I remember when we sat down to dinner, I wasn't sure if I should ask her if she'd like a glass of wine – but I did and she did. She turned out to be a frendly, warm person with a sense of humour, and as the evening progressed I grew quite comfortable talking and joking with her.

Around dessert time, we were getting along just fine, and so finally, I couldn't resist – I said "May I ask you a question?"

"Yes" she said.

"Say a nun has a brother who is a priest."

"Yes?"

"Would such a sister call her brother, Father, Mother?"

She laughed, and afterwards I felt, that she thought, that I was a very funny guy.

Looking back, it was probably the wine...

That Unmistakeable Accent...
Gordon Findlay

In all honesty, Dundee can't lay claim to much that is famous around the world, although the city did raise the inventor of the adhesive postage stamp (James Chalmers) and the first working incandescent lamps (James Bowman Lindsay). We also lay claim to launching marmalade on the world (Keiller's).

We did build Antarctic explorer Robert Scott's research ship 'Discovery'; we have the largest teaching hospital in Europe (Ninewells); and we should own up to having raised the world's worst poet, William McGonagall, whose doggerel lives on to this day.

"Beautiful railway bridge of the silv'ry Tay
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath Day of 1879
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

You get the picture.

But we do have something unique. Over the years Dundonians have perfected an accent which has been delicately described as 'quite distinct.' It certainly is that. Others might label it ugly, harsh, grating, grotesque, or simply incomprehensible. But to the trained ear, it has a certain lyric rhythm to it.

Let–s start simply with some key words of the Dundee alphabet. To wit:

BAFFIES – Slippers.
CUNDIE – A drain cover.
DOWP – That part of one's anatomy we sit upon.
EHRUM – Upon which your hands are affixed.
ERSE – See DOWP.
FLOOERS – Given to girlfriends and spouses on special occasions.
GANSIE – One's undershirt.
JEHKIT – An item worn outdoors.
KEEKER – A black eye, inflicted for forgetting the flooers.
LEHN – A loan. As in "Geez a lehn o' a fehver." (Give me a loan of 5 pounds.)
LUG – That through which one hears sound.
NAIKIT – Undressed.
PEECE – Jelly or jam are favoured, but peanut butter is also popular.
PEELY WALLY – To look unwell. As in "She wiz lookin' affy peely wally."
SANNAYZ – A foot accessory now overtaken by Reebok and Nike.
SKELP – To strike a blow, as in "Ah'll skelp yer lug furr ye!
TULLY – The local newspaper, available in the evening.

Another couple of expressions which seem to be made-in-Dundee, are:

FLEH CUPPIE – meaning a quick cup of afternoon tea, and
SAIR FECHT – meaning a sore fight or a hard life.

And I doubt that many would decipher the meaning of a Dundee tenement housewife who might tell a friend: "Ah'm hashin' fir a hingie." She would mean that she was rushing through her housework so she could lean out the window to talk to other housewives doing the same thing.

Anyone from our fair city could quickly understand the following short, sad story: "Eh fell doon the Wellgate steps, an' mah peh went skeh hegh.' Or even a slightly more advanced sample, given to the proprietor of a bake shop: "Twa pehs, twa plehn bridies, an' an ingin ane an' a'." ("Two pies, two plain bridies, and an onion one as well.")

And thus, employing our distinctive 'eh' intonation, any Dundonian could swiftly understand the words of some kind matron, saying to a nicely-dressed young man: "Oh, meh – whut a bonny teh." Once you get the hang of it, it's quite simple.

Anyone else out there who can come up with a few more favourite, Dundee-only words or expressions? Let's share . . .

What the...?
The Answer

Hugh McGrory
A few weeks ago I spoke of the time when I thought my face was stopping a clock – see the story below. My thanks to those of you who responded with a variety of clever suggestions – but no one figured out what actually was happening. For the non-responders, here's the answer:

I remember at Morgan, in physics class, learning the whys and hows of pendula. As far as pendulum clocks
are concerned the pendulum, along with the escapement, regulates the speed of the clock and keeps it relatively constant. Traditionally, power comes from a descending weight which is raised up again, periodically, by a key.

My bewilderment at what had hap- pened with our clock really arose from the moment we first set eyes on it.

We said somethng like "What a nice little pendulum clock...", and over the years we always referred to it, and thought of it, as the "pendulum clock" (such as the one on the left above). The problem is that clocks such as the one in question (on the right), are not pendulum clocks...

They are battery powered – typically the time mechanism is based on a vibrating quartz crystal. An electro magnet gives a pulse to a magnet on the horizontal pendulum arm, which gives the pendulum a natural-looking swinging motion – but the pendulum is really just a decoration.

The time mechanism operates independently of the pendulum movement and the pendulum has no effect on it. When the battery begins to get low, the pendulum, which requires more power than the time mechanism, stops swinging, but the clock continues to keep time for a bit longer.

So the first day when I thought the clock had stopped, it really hadn't – only the pendulum. When I flicked the pendulum with my fnger and it began to oscillate, I assumed that it then continued to swing – in fact it probably stopped again a minute or so after I left the room.

After the second day, I replaced the battery, and the pendulum began to work reliably again. So there you have it.

At this point, some of you may be saying to yourselves, "Nah – it was his face" – but I'm sticking to my story!

My M.G.
Gordon Findlay

After I finished my two years of National Service, I went back to my sub-editor job at D.C. Thomson in Dundee. Being single and living at home, I had cash to spare, so I indulged my young self by buying a nifty little M.G.

It was a 1945 MG-TC. Bright, fire engine red. Rear-wheel drive, 54 horsepower, 4-speed gearbox, wire wheels, cable brakes, and of course, a drop-down front windshield if you really wanted to feel the wind in your face.

The manufacturer claimed a top speed of 80 miles an hour. However, that must have been when it was brand new, factory-tuned, and maybe with a good following wind. Still, when you were sitting low down in the car and practically on the road, you felt like you were flying along at 150 miles an hour.

It had cable brakes with fairly small drums, so you had to allow for a fairly lengthy stopping distance. Even more so if it were raining, since the water got into the wheels and the drums. Suddenly you had to allow a good 100 yards to come to a stop. It made life interesting at times.

I bought my little MG in 1953, so the car had been thrashing around Scotland for some eight years, and I suspect that a couple of previous owners had bullied it around a bit. The dashboard was definitely showing its age. Being all wood (walnut, I think) the impact of sun and rain had aged it badly.

Fortunately, my older brother was a skilled mechanic and while he set about rejuvenating the sturdy 4-cylinder engine, I tackled the dashboard. Once removed, it was relatively straightforward to sand it, have it re-waxed and polished, and to fit it with an upgraded tachometer and a couple of new switches.

The drop-in side windows of Perspex had clouded slightly, and the canvas top kept the rain out – but the whole wet weather arrangement had become – let's just say – a lot looser over the years. Rain spray from the road or from other (much taller) vehicles going past came sifting in both sides. I tried to tell my girl friend at the time that it was good for the complexion. Don't think she bought that line.

But these shortcomings are minor when you're young. The car was thrifty on petrol, the engine was unbreakable, and the bright red beast was great fun to drive, especially on a warm summer day with the top down.

Then, in 1955, I decided to emigrate to Canada, so I advertised my car for sale. Amazingly, I sold it to another MG enthusiast within a week, and for the same price I had paid for it. So, I figured I'd had a grand time with licence plate US 7906, for only the price of petrol and oil . . . plus some labour of love in sprucing it up.

Fast forward now to June of 1959. I have returned on holiday to Scotland with my new Canadian bride, to introduce her to my parents and to show her something of the land where her husband grew up.

We are in Edinburgh on a fine sunny day. We tour Princess Street and nip in to a nice restaurant for a bite of lunch. We come out afterwards, and stand on the sidewalk figuring out the easiest way to get across the street and over to Edinburgh Castle to continue our tour.

And that's when it happened. Just like a scene from a Hollywood movie.

I'm looking up Princess Street to get my bearings when suddenly my eyes are attracted to a flash of bright red coming down towards us. I look more closely. Surely it can't be! This is unbelievable! But a second or two later there's no mistake: here it comes – licence plate US 7906 – my shiny wee red MG-TC bouncing down towards us, with a young man driving it. He has a young woman sitting beside him.

I grab my new wife, point at the little sports car and yell like a madman: "Look! Look! That's my old car! My old MG! The one I sold before I left!" We stood there, laughing together at the sheer unlikeliness of it all. Then we watched as a happy piece of memory went gliding on past us, down Princess Street, and out of our lives forever.


What were the odds?

My Uncle Wullie
(7 Feb 1909 – 10 June 1941)

Hugh McGrory

Inspired by the recent Remembrance Day ceremonies, I want to tell you about my Uncle Wullie.

I spoke in a previous story, of the death, in a plane crash in Iceland, of my 21-year-old Uncle Frank, my mother's brother. Wullie, my Dad's brother, also died, at sea, serving his country – he was 32 years old.

He lived in Methil, Fife – I'm not sure what he did for a living – I was only four when he died in 1941 – I think he may have worked in the coal mines, probably the Wellesley or the Michael, and/or at Methil docks. The only thing I remember about him is once hearing the statement "he was a bit of a lad, wis Wullie...".

I decided to see what I could discover about how he died, and almost immediately
came up with a puzzle. I found his death commemorated on the war memorial in Upper Methil honouring local men who had died for us in two world wars:



I also found his name on the War Memorial in Point Pleasant Park in Halifax Nova Scotia, honouring Canadians who, having died at sea during the war, have no other marker:



So I set out to find how this came about, and came up with much more information than I expected. Before I tell the story though, I want to set it in it's historical context,:

Background – June 1941 – Battle of the Atlantic

Britain

By mid 1941, U-boats had had great success against Allied convoys travelling back and forth between Britain and N. America. The British were beginning to understand how to better deal with the undersea


menace, but still had a long way to go before supremacy at sea would be achieved. There weren't enough escort ships to protect the convoys all the way across, so for roughly the middle third of the voyage, the convoys dispersed, and the individual, poorly-armed, if at all, merchant ships separated and had to fend for themselves.

Norway

The Norwegian Campaign of World War II refers to the invasion of Norway by Germany and the brief campaign that followed (9 April to 10 June 1940) against a British and French expeditionary force that came to Norway's aid. Despite some success in the north, Germany's invasion of France in May eventually compelled the Allies to withdraw and the Norwegian government to seek exile in London. The campaign ended with the occupation of Norway by Germany, and the continued fighting of exiled Norwegian forces from abroad. The only nation that withstood the Nazi Blitzkrieg longer than Norway (62 days of fighting) was the Soviet Union.

With the German invasion of Norway, the question of control of the Norwegian merchant fleet became critical, and the Norwegian government, the British government and the Germans were the main contenders. Around 15% of the total fleet was within the German-controlled area and was lost to the Allies; the battle would be for the remaining 85% sailing worldwide.

The British contemplated confiscating the Norwegian merchant fleet as they did with the Danish fleet, but decided against it because the Norwegians continued to fight and because of intervention by the Norwegian ambassador in London. The Germans and their Norwegian collaborator, Vidkun Quisling, radioed to Norwegian vessels to sail for German-controlled waters, but the Norwegian masters ignored the orders and instead took their ships to Allied harbours such as London, England and Halifax, Nova Scotia.


The Norwegian King and most of the Norwegian Government landed in England on June 8, brought over by the heavy cruiser, HMS Devonshire. At that time the Bank of Norway and merchant ship owners together with Norwegian Naval personnel had gathered in England and Norway and had managed to convince Britain that it was to her advantage that Norwegian ships come under Norwegian management since Norway, at that time, had the 3rd largest merchant fleet in the world. NORTRASHIP, NORwegian TRAde and SHIPping Company, a conglomerate, was formed by Norwegian ship owners and the Norwegian Government in Exile in London.

For the first three years of the war, Norwegians transported more than half of the supplies, food, fuel, munitions etc. to Britain, in fact some of the Norwegian ships were already doing this in 1939. More than 9,000 non-Norwegians served on Norwegian Merchant Navy vessels during the Second World War, of these about 2,000 were Canadians (the youngest Canuck was 14 years old).

Records show that 694 Norwegian ships were sunk during the war, representing 47% of the total fleet. At the end of the war in 1945, the Norwegian merchant fleet was estimated at 1,378 ships. More than 3,700 Norwegian merchant seamen lost their lives.

Germany

The German Navy was no match for the mighty British fleet as far as surface vessels were concerned – which is why the U-Boat fleet was so important in the first four years of the war.

One of the U-Boat 'Aces' was Kapitänleutnant Klaus Scholtz, commanding U-108. In June 1941 U-108 was
on patrol in the Mid-Atlantic attacking Allied Shipping – by then, Scholtz had sunk 6 ships (40,000 tons) out of his grand total, by war end, of 25 ships sunk (128,000 tons). As you can see from the yellow on the graph above,
1942 was the heyday for U-Boat captains like Scholtz – but it was also the beginning of the end for them...

Uncle Wullie

So how did my uncle who lived in Methil end up as a merchant seaman in the galley of a Norwegian ship, the Christian Krogh, in a Canadian convoy from Oban to the St. Lawrence? A clue may be found in the partial ship's log on the right.
As you can see, the ship was a frequent visitor to Methil, and my theory is that Wullie probably got to know the crew in one of the many pubs in Methil. He was probably going to be conscripted anyway, so when the ship had an opening for a galley attendant – called a mess boy – he may have decided to go off to see the world.

Convoy EC23 departed Southend on 22 May 1941, northbound for the Clyde. On 24 May, the D/S Christian Krohg, Captain Ingvart Hagen, left Methil, bound for Oban. The ship joined the other 80 or so ships of convoy E23 and arrived safely in Oban on 26 May. (The convoy continued to the Clyde arriving 28 May).

The Krohg joined convoy OB329 (38 merchant ships and 7 escorts), and left Oban on 1 June bound for Canada – the St. Lawrence.

At this stage in the war, such convoys were only escorted as far as longitude 20W, at which point the escorts turned back and the convoy was left to fend for itself. Since the only point of convoys
was to group ships together so that the escorts could protect them by acting like sheepdogs, the formation was no longer of value, and so ships were ordered to disperse. The Krohg stayed with another Norwegian ship for a day then on the 5th set off alone.

U-Boat 108 had left its base in Lorient, Brittany on 20 May to prowl the Atlantic convoy routes. It came upon the Christian Krogh late afternoon on 9 Jun and began to manoeuvre into a firing position.

The merchantman was a small ship – the average size of ships in convoys was probably around 5,000 tons, and the Krohg, at 1992 tons was the second smallest in convoy OB329.



Like most merchant ships at this time it was probably quite defenceless – it might have had a Lewis gun or two at best.


On that afternoon most of the crew would have been attending to their various duties – my uncle probably washing dishes or preparing vegetables in the galley – and some who had night watches were probably asleep.

Apparently, not one of them saw the wake of the torpedo that was fired at the ship around dusk – perhaps it simply missed, or since defective torpedoes were not uncommon, it may have been a dud. In any event, no signal of an attack was sent from the ship. So the unaware crew was given one more night of relative serenity...

The U108 followed the ship all through the night and sent another torpedo at dawn on 10 June. This one hit and the Christian Krohg went down, with all men lost, at 47°N 41°W according to reckoning by the U-boat as noted in the ship's log.

The submarine had not managed to identify the ship, but with common German exaggeration had estimated it to be 3,500 tons. Analysis of U-boat reports and lists of losses show that this was indeed the Christian Krohg. Seventeen Norwegians, one Swede, two Englishmen, one Estonian, one Newfoundlander and my uncle were lost.



The submarine resumed its patrol, and before returning to its base in Lorient on July 1941 it sank three more merchantmen:
The map below shows how the 108 roamed around the Atlantic on this patrol looking for prey (the markers indicate the location of 'kills' – the Christian Krohg was 'D') before returning to base in Brittany:



So it would seem that, since he served in a Canadian convoy, my uncle's name appears in the Canadian Virtual War Memorial and on the Memorial for Canadian Merchant Seaman lost at sea, in Point Pleasant Park, Halifax, Nova Scotia, as well as on the Buckhaven War Memorial.

Not bad for that "bit of a lad" from Methil, eh?

This story was put together with information from many sources. I owe particular thanks to the Norwegian Consulate, Toronto; Berit Pittman of the Camp Norway Foundation, Nova Scotia – read Berit's story here ; Siri Lawson for her website; and Johanne Neville, Canadian Agency, Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Celebrities – 6
Hugh McGrory
Sometime in the '70s I had just landed in Lexington, Kentucky and was walking through the terminal towards the luggage pick-up area. I saw two guys that looked like cowboys walking towards me – they weren't wearing stetsons, but had fancy shirts, jeans, and high-heeled cowboy boots – actually they looked a bit more like Rhinestone Cowboys than the Marlborough Man... As they passed I looked at the shorter one and thought I vaguely knew the face, but...

I got my luggage and went outside to get a cab, and I saw in the parking lot a large bus of the type that entertainers use to get around the states, and it had Loretta Lynn written across one side in huge letters – which should have been a clue...

When I got to the hotel and settled in, I was leafing through a 'Whats On' publication and realized who I'd seen at the airport when I read that Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty had brought their country and western show to town.

This duo had huge success in the '70s and '80s, and Twitty was referred to, by some, as The Uncrowned King of Country and Western. If you'd like to hear one of their greatest hits, click here. I listened to this again just before I posted this story, to remind myself of how much I've always disliked C&W...

To be fair though, I have enjoyed some of the crossover, C&W/Pop music which began in the '50s when country performers were seeing their audiences wane and began to drop the banjos and fiddles, and pop artists began to appear on the C&W charts... In the '70s, '80s and '90s – artists like

Anne Murrray, 1970, "Snowbird".
Kris Kristofferson, 1970, "For the Good Times".
John Denver, 1974, "Annie's Song".
Olivia Newton-John, 1974, "I Honestly Love You".
Glen Campbell, 1975, "Rhinestone Cowboy".
Crystal Gayle, 1977, "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue".
Shania Twain, 1999, "Man I Feel Like a Woman", and many others, had hits that climbed both the C&W and Pop charts.


As you may know, Crystal Gayle was Loretta Lynn's baby sister.

There is a story, possibly apocryphal, that Harold Lloyd Jenkins chose his stage name when looking at a road map. I went looking and found the area shown below – the Texas Panhandle east of Amarillo – which may lend some credence (though not Clearwater...) to this story.
I guess he could have called himself, "Pampa McLean" or "Panhandle Wheeler" or "Claude Goodnight " or...

Damn Cassies!
Gordon Findlay

Pride comes before a fall, they say – and 'way back in '53 I proved it in spades.

I was working as a junior reporter at the Dundee Courier & Advertiser and drove to work each day on the apple of my eye – a 350 cc B.S.A. B31. A single banger, 4-gear foot-change, racing seat, totally reliable. Black and silver, with a handsome green 4-gallon gas tank. Just like the one below.

I kept the chrome parts free of oil and grease and polished the rest of my bike till it shone. When I parked it at Meadowside I'd throw a rain cover over it and tie it down. Parked it on the street beside the building and walked away with my 'skid-lid' under my arm. Nobody ever touched my pride and joy. Those were the days, eh?

Now, back then, many of Dundee's streets were paved with rectangular blocks of black granite. We called them cobblestones or 'cassie blocks', and I'm sure they were wonderfully durable, but they did have one serious deficiency. A sprinkle of rain turned them instantly into greasy, slippery slime patches – as I was to find out

On this summer day, I had popped home for lunch, then headed back to work. Down Forfar Road , then Albert Street and on down to the long right-hand curve of Princes Street, with Menzies and Sons store on the left-hand side.

Where it happened (as it looked in 1984), Black's Camping Store where Menzies used to be.

I'm humming along, happy as a lark, leaning gently into the bend when I saw to my horror that the shop-keeper had washed all his store windows and had covered not only the storefront and the pavement but also the entire left-hand side of the road, with lots and lots of soapy water.

My front tire hit this, and it was like suddenly nosing on to the Dundee ice rink – at an angle – and at 30 miles an hour. I just had a split second to pull my right leg up and out of contact with the road before my beautiful B.S.A. began a thumping slide across those damned cobblestones towards that soggy pavement.

I can still vividly recall being on my back, hanging on to my sliding bike and looking up to see a large woman leaning out of a top window above the store, staring placidly down at me as I performed my ignominious glissade across the road.

The upshot? A dent in my tank, a long scrape down the front teleforks, one pair of grey flannels shredded up to my buttocks, a very sore bum, plus one severely bruised ego.

I've never felt quite the same about cobblestones since...

Brussels
Hugh McGrory

Around 1980, the president of the consulting engineering company I worked for called me into his office and
said that he'd like me to go to Brussels for him. The background was that the company had been invited to go on a Trade Mission to Europe organised by the Liberal government. My boss's plans had changed and he wanted me to fill in.

I of course agreed – it beat work...

The trip was organised i.e. we all travelled together. I remember two things about that flight over, the first, meeting the Agriculture Minister, Eugene Whelan. I always thought he was from Alberta or Saskatchewan, somewhere out west, since he always affected a green Stetson, but I just learned that he was born in Amherstburg, Ontario – albeit in a log cabin.

He was a plain-speaking farmer, very bright, and got to know Mikhail Gorbachev a few years after our trip when Gorbachev visited Canada as the Russian Agriculture Minister.

At this point I must digress briefly:
The Russian Ambassador to Canada at the time was Aleksandr Yakovlev. He had democratic ideals, and had been "banished" to Canada some ten years before because of this. He and Gorbachev took a long three-hour walk together on the Whelan farm one evening, and apparently 'hit it off'. It seems they talked about the failure of the Russian dictatorship and the need for a democratic government. Two weeks after his chat with Mr. Gorbachev in Amherstburg, Yakovlev was invited to return to Russia to take charge of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations. That walk has been referred to as "the walk that changed the world..."

As soon as Mr. Gorbachev became the head of the Soviet Union, following the death of Konstantin Chernenko in March 1985, Mr. Yakovlev became of one of Mr. Gorbachev's key advisors and worked closely with him in implementing perestroika and glasnost.

The second thing I recall about the flight over was meeting one of the McCain brothers (I think, Harrison). He was another farmer, from New Brunswick who, with his brother Wallace built the hugely successful international frozen food (french fries) business. Another really interesting guy to listen to.

I honestly don't remember the official part of the trip – there really wasn't any specific reason for us to be there – we agreed to go just to support the government of the day, since they were often clients of our engineering company. Two things stick out in my memory though:

I joined up with another fellow to go out one evening to have a meal in the old part of town. While wandering, we came upon the famous statue the Manneken Pis. (I understand that this is pronounced very similarly in French and in Dutch – "Mannekin Piss".)

As you probably know it's a fountain featuring a bronze statue of a little boy having a pee. The original statue apparently goes back to the late 15th century – visited by thousands of tourists every year, it's a tribute to the Belgian's ability to laugh at themselves. The thing that most surprised me about it was how small it is – only about two feet tall.

The fountain is located on Rue du Chêne/Eikstraat (Oak Street) at the corner of Rue de l'Etuve/Stoofstraat (street of the Oven). We then decided to eat and my memory says that it was in a small bar/café on the Rue de l'Etuve which is a narrow one-way street. The establishments on the street had small frontages, and were long and narrow premises.

We sat at a small table, he with his back to the street, I facing him. Over his shoulder I looked across the narrow street into a pub which had a bar at right angles to the street.

The photo below sets the scene with Rue du Chêne/Eikstraat running left to right, and Rue de l'Etuve going off into the distance,. The famous wee man is on the corner, and the café we were in was near the top on the right.
You'll have realised at this point that I don't really remember a great deal about that trip. I don't remember the name of my companion, or where he was from in Canada, nor the name of the restaurant, or what we ate or drank, but the evening was memorable for one thing.

As we chatted, I would, from time to time glance over his shoulder into the bar opposite. There were tables on the left with a few people sitting at them, and a few more sitting on stools at the bar. In particular a couple, a man and a woman, the man half-turned towards her, and she half-turned to face him (and me).

Timing is everything so they say, and I happened to glance across the street just at the moment that the man cocked his fist and punched the woman right in the face, knocking her off the stool onto the floor. Then people in the bar reacted, crowded around and I really couldn't see anything more of significance.

I enjoyed Brussels, the little that I saw of it, but left (to fly to Madrid – but that's another story), apparently with only two real memories – a wee boy peeing and a poor woman being assaulted...

PS
Quirky Brussels has given the Manneken a sister and a dog over the years. See here if you're interested.

Tattie Picking
Sir Galahad

Tom Burt
Our group of young boys and girls got on the bus at some unearthly hour in the morning and set off to the farm. This was a great time for the boys to become more familiar with the girls, and I was no exception.


Joan Kilpatrick was my close friend and we both settled in the back seat next to the window, where else, for the journey. It was becoming an enjoyable time and potato picking was not uppermost in my mind. As we went along my thoughts were interrupted by, of all things, a wasp. Joan got a bit excited and of course I stayed calm thinking of what to do. Then it dawned on me that I could kill the wasp with my haversack and get back to being nice to Joan.

My haversack was an old army gas mask holder, like many others at that time, where you could fit a bottle of lemonade down one pocket and the lunch down the other. So there we are with a wasp interrupting our socialising, it was time for the kill.

I picked up my haversack and as the wasp settled on the side window at the back I pushed my haversack hard on to the pest and crack, this rear window suddenly had four or five cracks in it going from top to bottom, fortunately the glass did not fall out.

Yes, you guessed it, in my hurry to be the saviour I hit the window with the bottle side instead of the lunch side. Silence followed as you would expect, and the bus continued until we got to the farm. Being a bit anxious about what was going to happen I admitted my stupidity to the driver, after all I had to impress Joan by telling the truth.

So there we are, probably the only Morgan pupil ever, who broke a bus window in an act of chivalry, what a claim to fame...! As it was, neither I (nor my parents), had to pay for the replacement.

Happy days.

What the...?
Hugh McGrory

Some of you, after you read this little story will probably say "How could you be so dumb" - all I can say is that I was really puzzled for a couple of days...

You've heard the expression "A face that could stop a clock". There was a time, about thirty years ago when I began to wonder if I had such a face... At the time, we lived in a 'side-split' house. I would park in the car-port and enter the house by a side door onto a floor which had two bedrooms - one of which I used as my office, the other was a guest room. I had gotten into the habit of using the guest room to change from my street shoes to my baffies.

Sitting on a dresser in the room there was a clock, a present that someone had given us years before. It was
the type that has a horizontal pendulum - similar to the one in the photograph - and it still kept good time. I glanced at the clock and noticed that it had stopped. I looked at my watch and back at the clock and realised that they showed the same time. I thought to myself, "I guess it just stopped as I walked in - what are the chances...", then sat down to change my shoes. I then restarted the clock by pushing the pendulum - watched it for a moment to make sure it was going, then left the room.

The following night I worked later, and when I did get home I followed my usual routine. I sat down to take my shoes off then remembered the clock, glanced at it and saw that, though it was showing the correct time, it had stopped again...

It was at that point that I began to wonder about my face... Why would the clock stop two days running exactly when I entered the room?

Some of you, smarter than I, are probably saying "That's obvious", but it wasn't to me...

Just for the hell of it, if you know why it happened and are interested enough, send me an email in the next ten days or so and tell me. If you're puzzled too and would like to know the answer, drop me an email and I'll send you a link to a page with the answer.

Upper Crust Adventure
Pete Rennie

Having left my years at Morgan Academy behind I went on to study Architecture at Dundee College of Art. Having successfully navigated the first year of the course I was eagerly looking forward to summer weeks of freedom.

My complacency was deflated when I was informed that during this interval we were expected - nay obliged - to source a suitable building of Architectural or Historical significance and prepare measured drawings of it for submission on our return to College for second year.

Like Hugh's recent selection of poetry I sought a building that would not involve too much time or effort to complete this task. One of the senior students came to my rescue by suggesting I choose Inchyra House near Glencarse, I had his assurance that it met my not too stringent requirements.

One Sunday subsequently armed with my sketch pad, measuring tape etc. I got a bus which dropped me off at Glencarse. I made my way to the Lodge House which stands at the entrance gates to Inchyra House and knocked at the door. I explained the purpose of my visit to the lodge-keeper who helpfully suggested that I make my way up to the main house and that he would inform Sir Derick of my arrival.

I was somewhat taken aback by this since in my naivety I had not considered that the house which was to be the subject of my task might be occupied, even less so than by a 'Sir'! Fools rush in etc.

I rang the bell at the front door of Inchyra House, it was duly answered by a gentleman I took to be Sir Derick, I explained again my reason for being there and apologised for not having asked for approval in advance. Sir Derick (for this was he) was very good humoured about the whole thing, suggested I should carry on and left me to it.

My intention was to measure only the frontage of the house which was nicely symmetrical, so I got on with my sketching and measuring for about two hours, suddenly the front door opened and a lady appeared and asked if I would care to have tea with the family, I gladly accepted since a cup of tea was just what I needed at that time.

I was ushered into the rather grand dining room where a large table was laid out for afternoon tea. The family was assembled, Sir Derick, his wife, two daughters and a governess.

I sat down and my tea was poured by a maid after which I was offered a slice of fruit loaf which, as is usual, had several burnt raisins around the edge, at home I would have picked these off to avoid eating them but here in such grand surroundings and in the presence of an upper crust (no pun intended) family I had no option but to eat the bread, burnt fruit included!

Polite conversation ensued and eventually tea was over I thanked them for their kindness and took my leave. I made subsequent visits - by that time the family had returned to their home in Eaton Square, London - and I was always invited into the kitchen for tea and cake by the cook.

Some time later I discovered that Sir Derick was in fact Sir Frederick Robert Hoyer Miller and he was, at that time, British Ambassador to Western Germany - which must have been tricky in the days of a divided Germany and Cold War Politics. He later became Lord Inchyra and is shown below escorting his older daughter, Elizabeth, at her wedding in 1965.

The other photograph shows the same Elizabeth Anne Hoyer Miller after her marriage to William Euan "Billy" Wallace, a former escort of Princess Margaret in the days when the British press followed her excursions into London's nightlife as avidly as the American press now follow the Kardashians - see this article.



So much for my brief spell mixing with the upper crust. Happily, my drawings met with approval on my return to college.

Give the System What it Wants...
Hugh McGrory

When I first joined the workforce, post-education, it took me a while to get my 'sea legs'. At first, I thought that everybody around me knew it all, and that I didn't know much of anything. This changed as I began to realise that none of them 'knew everything' and that I just had to do what they did - apply whatever knowledge and skill they had to each problem that came along, seek help if necessary, then make a decision and deal with the results.

At that point I developed a tendency to 'kick against the pricks' as the ancient Greek proverb puts it. When 'Authority' asked me to do something a certain way that I, in my wisdom, considered to be the wrong way - or perhaps asked me to provide some information, which I believed they never actually used, I would protest - 'take up arms' as it were - and sometimes get myself into a 'sea of troubles'.

Over time, with, if not wisdom, at least enlightened self-interest, I developed a new approach that I think of as 'Give the System What it Wants'. If the issue isn't a crucial one to me, doesn't involve an important point of principle, or create a load of useless work, it's often more productive to simply provide what was asked and move on.

Let me give you two actual examples:

1. I decided to take a course in 'Problem-solving Techniques' at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute (this later became Ryerson University.) As a prospective student, I had to sign up for the course, and, since there was often limited space and a big demand I went down on the evening of the first day of registration.

The room was a long rectangle - it had a counter about 25 feet long and the space for customers was about 10 feet deep. It was packed with would-be students, and there were only three clerks behind the counter. So I had to squeeze into the room then slowly merge my way towards one of the clerk positions. Eventually I was second-in-line and there were as many students behind me as there had been when I arrived.

I was right behind the fellow being attended to, using my elbows to protect my turf and keep others from cutting in - I couldn't help but overhear the whole conversation between the clerk and the would-be student. The young clerk was asking questions and filling in the information on the appropriate form. She asked him ,"What is your SIN?"

The SIN is the 9-digit Canadian Social Insurance Number - in those days higher education institutions were entitled to ask for it - not any longer. The young man stuttered began to search his pockets then said that he didn't have it on him. She said "Sorry, you'll have to come back". He protested saying that he'd been there for almost an hour, and that the course might be filled when he got back, etc., but she was adamant, and the very unhappy lad finally pushed back from the counter and left - allowing me to slide into the space and begin the process.

A few minutes later the clerk asked me "What is your SIN?" I politely said 253-867-954 - a number I made up - she carefully wrote this in, I paid my money and I was registered. I figured if it was important I'd correct the information when it came up.

Nobody ever asked.

The system wanted a number and I gave it one....

2. One day my wife received one of those notices from the Post Office saying that they had been unable to deliver a registered letter, and that it could be picked up at a local sub-office. She asked me if I'd pick it up for her on the way home from work.

The next day I stood in a line of about six people waiting my turn to be served by a lady of indeterminate age, with the lined face of a lifetime smoker. I gave her the information slip - she looked at it then in a loud, penetrating and sarcastic voice she said "Is your name Sheila?" I, of course, explained the situation and handed her my driving licence to show that I lived at the address - to no avail. I was told, rather rudely, that my wife would have to come herself, or supply me with authorisation.

I went out to my car, tore a piece of paper out of a notebook and wrote "Please accept this as my authorisation to allow my husband, Hugh McGrory, to pick up my mail." I signed it "Sheila McGrory".

So ten minutes after my first visit, I was again standing in a line of six people...' Soor Dook' saw me as I joined the queue, and I saw her eyes narrow - as Shakespeare would have said, the game was afoot... The queue slowly dispersed, and I could see her continually glancing my way - each time I gave her a pleasant smile.

Finally I reached the counter and said "Hello again", and handed her the information slip and 'The Authorisation'. She took it, and studied it, and I could see her trying to decide how she could prevent me from getting the letter. She finally came up with " We keep these on file you know."

I said "That's a good system - you can't be too careful."

She didn't say anything for a moment, just looked at me, and I could see several different expressions flit across her face. We stared at each other for a few more seconds, then her shoulders slumped and I knew she was done. She handed me a form and said through gritted teeth, "Sign here." I did and she reluctantly handed me the letter. I smiled pleasantly and said "Thank you". As I left the building I looked back and she was still staring at me.

The system wanted a piece of paper with a signature and now it had one...

Sometimes simply "Giving the System What It Wants" is the best way...

PS The Postal Service has since changed its rule, and will now allow you to pick up a letter in such circumstances by showing photographic ID that includes the same address as the letter.

Mosport Fun and Games
Gordon Findlay

Hugh McGrory's delightful Anecdote of his love affair with the Mini brought back memories for me. Although I never managed to own one, I loved the look of that cheeky little car - both on the road, and on the race track in its souped-up versions.

The Mini was innovative in many ways, and if you're interested, the BBC did an interesting two-part film on how they were manufactured. See both parts here.

The Minis, Austin and went on sale in August, 1959, and the early batches had problems - principally water leakage resulting in wet interiors and water-logged distributors. The first Minis arrived in the US in 1960, and while the American public was intrigued, it was used to big flashy cars - and gas was cheap...

In 1961, in an effort to create interest, BMC decided to stage a race at Lime Rock Circuit in Connecticut with several well-known race car drivers competing - all in Minis, of course. The drivers included the great Juan Manuel Fangio, arguably the best ever, who had retired from Formula 1 just three years before. See film of the race here.

Also that year, as it happened, a new Canadian car racing circuit was opened on 450 acres of land north of Bowmanville, Ontario. It was named Mosport (from Motor Sport) and soon it attracted thousands of car racing enthusiasts to picnic, party, and enjoy the sights and sounds of world-class racing in every category.

BMC decided to hold another demonstration race at Mosport, and when I heard that Fangio would be there I had to attend... Now, from a social standpoint there was an early problem at Mosport. Ontario's tight liquor control laws in those days did not permit 'open' drinking. A bottle of wine was OK but cases of beer or bottles of Johnnie Walker were out of bounds. However, since the rolling hills around the circuit were perfect for picnicking, most of us made a day - or a weekend - of it on the grounds.

We'd set up our 'camp' then flock to the best vantage points to watch each race. The poor Provincial policemen charged with security - and liquor law infractions - faced a hopeless task. Most of us had prepared 'milk' bottles (a short bottle painted white on the outside) which contained our tipple of choice for the day.

The other gambit was for some of us to hold up a 'privacy' blanket while the others took a long pull at their bottles of beer. Then they would return the favour for us. Of course, as soon as the loudspeakers announced the next race, there was a mad scramble for the best vantage spots (the tight and dangerous double-bend of Moss Corner was always a favourite action spot).

The race was great fun, and all eyes were on these famous drivers as they jockeyed for position and flung those brightly-coloured Minis around the track.

I loved the sound of those finely-tuned British machines as they howled down the Mosport track; the sudden staccato whine as they changed gears for a bend, then the banshee roar as they blasted down the straightaway. Close to the track, you were immersed in the hot, sharp smell of racing fuel and the smell of burning rubber as those tiny 10-inch Mini wheels whipped round corners. Happy days indeed around the marvelous Mini!

As soon as the last race was over for the day at Mosport, what usually happened was that everyone within the circuit grounds headed for the exits, and of course, EVERYONE was infused with what they had been watching all afternoon! Cars went peeling down Highway 2 or through Bowmanville, doing their own imitation of the race drivers, cutting in, overtaking like madmen, and flying into corners at crazy speeds. It was a wild and wacky way to end the day!

Mosport is still going strong, now owned by Canadian Tire a large Canadian retail company. The introduction to its website includes the following:

"More than 50 years ago the piece of land that we know today as Canadian Tire Motorsport Park was a farm. At that time, standing on a hill, looking over the fields and groves of trees, who could have imagined that the best drivers and the fastest cars in the world would come to this pastoral place and race on what would be named as one the most challenging tracks in the world and provide the best excitement and entertainment that motor racing has to offer.

But they did come: racing legends like Stirling Moss, Gilles Villeneuve, Bruce McLaren and even stock car king Richard Petty. No fewer than 16 Formula One World Driving Champions – men like Juan Manuel Fangio, Jim Clark, Jackie Stewart, Mario Andretti and Niki Lauda have raced here. Some 10 Indianapolis 500 winners including Rodger Ward, A.J. Foyt, Al Unser, Bobby Unser, Rick Mears and Gordon Johncock have also raced at Mosport.

There have been Formula One cars, Indy cars, Can-Am, stock cars, World Endurance, Formula 5000, Formula Atlantic and Super Vee. Add Formula Fords, GT cars of every description, Superbikes, karts, snowmobiles and off road machines. Throw in a couple of rock concerts, some air shows, and sky divers and one begins to wonder if there is anything that hasn't been seen at Mosport. Anyone standing on the hill in 1959 would not believe what has transpired over the last 40 years."

Its great to know too, that enthusiasts can still see Mini Coopers racing at Mosport today.

--------------------
Thanks are due to Jeremy Sale who bolstered my failing memory. Jeremy edits Pit Signals for The Vintage Racer, the magazine of VARAC (The Vintage Automobile Racing Association of Canada).

Jeremy was educated at Gordonstoun, and at 73, is still racing his 1962 Lotus Super Seven!


You'll Never Take the Two of Us Alive, Coppers! - 5
Hugh McGrory

Many of you know Arklay St. in Dundee. It's a steep brae that runs almost exactly north-south - from Clepington Road at the top end south to Dens Road, passing the end of Tannadice Street, the home of Dundee's two senior football clubs, and Gussie Park, where the carnival used to set up every year. From the tap o' the brae there's a lovely view across the River Tay to the Fife shore at Woodhaven Pier.

The photograph shows the bottom end close to Dens Road with the Rashiewell Weaving Mill, now the Dens Road Market, on the corner to the left. This intersection was the hangout for the Bottom o' the Hill Gang, a name I just now made up, better known as Billy and me. Billy's home is shown by the 'Z'; I lived in the ground floor flat marked 'Y', the single window to the left of the Y is the room where I was born, #2 Fairbairn St.

The X marks the scene of the crime...

Most of you will remember, I'm sure, the street games we used to play for hours every day until it got dark (do kids today still play any of those games?) The boys of that era will remember pinner. Pinners were pieces of steel, usually about two inches square and half an inch thick, scavenged from scrap metal bins at the back of factories. There were a number of rules (see them here), which had to be followed, but the main purpose was to throw your pinner at the other guys' pinners and try to hit them.

On this particular occasion, I think it must have been during the school summer holidays, Billy and I were hanging around in the street, our pinners in our pockets, but not actually playing with them. We were probably about eleven at the time. My mother had insisted that I look after my wee brother, he would have been four years old, and we had given him a pinner which he was throwing around, practising.

Suddenly a figure appeared round the corner - our nemesis, the local Bobby. He proceeded to give my wee brother a lecture about how people could be hurt by these flying pieces of metal, then made him take his pinner over to the cundie in Arklay Street near Dundonald Street (marked with the 'X') and drop his pinner in.

My poor wee brother immediately burst into tears and went running to find my mother. She came storming out of the house with steam coming out of her ears looking for the copper (who had made himself scarce, no doubt congratulating himself on how well he had dealt with that four year old, ne'r-do-well, Dundee scruff...)

My mother, not wanting to waste her righteous indignation unleashed it on me, wanting to know why I hadn't stopped the policeman from doing that to my poor wee brother. My reminder to her that I was eleven didn't help any...

Finally the dust settled, and Billy and I congratulated ourselves on not having to give up our pinners still safely ensconced in our pockets.

I visited that corner recently and took a photo of the very cundie - still providing yeoman service after sixty years. Maybe the pinner was still there!

Actually it wasn't. As soon as the coast was clear, that day, Billy and I lifted the grate from the drain, then I held onto Billy's legs while he lowered himself in, recovered the pinner and gave it back to my wee brother.

I like to think that the wee lad not only got his pinner back, but also a life lesson on giving authority the respect it is due...

Bottom o' the Hill Gang 1, Boabbies zero.

Yes!!!

Morgan Primary
School Desks

Anne Ogilvie Close

One day that stands out in my memories of P7 is when we came into our classroom in the morning to discover that the old desks, which used to be screwed to the floor and had bench seats accommodating two people, had been removed. In their place were brand new oak tables and separate chairs.The photographs below show desks very similar to the ones I remember.


The top of each table lifted up and below was a space which could hold all our books and jotters. Bliss! No longer would we have to carry everything every day in our school bags. We need take home only what was needed for the homework of the night.

Unfortunately our joy lasted about two weeks. Too many of us forgot to take home the books and jotters required so we were told to empty our desks and from that day everything would be carried in our bags to and from school.

I think we were allowed to leave paint boxes and gym shoes but nothing else. We really felt hard done by but in those days you did not complain out loud. Those school bags weighed a ton containing as they did three or four jotters, text books for Arithmetic, English, History and Geography plus an atlas and not forgetting Schonell's Spelling book.

I wonder if the problems we have with shoulders and backs stem from those days?

Tales from Our Backyard
The Goose

Hugh McGrory

My wife, Sheila, and I live in the country north of Toronto. It's a little more than 50 kms by road from Toronto City Hall - 45 minutes in off-peak and twice that during rush hour - roughly the same distance as Dundee to Kirkcaldy. So we have the pleasure of country living but still easy access to the city when necessary.

There is a pond at the edge of our property, and each year we have a pair of Mallard ducks move in and also a pair of Canada geese. We look forward to seeing the ducklings and goslings each spring.

There are quite a number of other ponds around us, perhaps fifteen or twenty in a one mile radius, and so from spring to fall we see flocks of Canada geese flying in and out and lots of baby birds wandering around under
the watchful eyes of their parents. From time to time some of these geese visit our little pond, but the resident geese usually see them off in fairly short order.

A couple of years ago I noticed one goose that seemed to be behaving strangely, and realised that it had something wrong with one of its wings. We wondered if this was a temporary condition; it hung around the edge of the pond, near the little windmill in the photo - it seemed to be eating, but never flying, and I realised that the wing was broken. We decided we'd have to do something about it.

I made several calls to appropriate bodies but didn't get much help until I tried the Toronto Wildlife Centre. They said they couldn't help either as they only operated within the Metropolitan Toronto area. I wasn't sure what to do - I didn't see any way I could catch the bird, and figured that even if I did I'd be like the dog that said to itself "Now what", after it caught the car it was chasing...

However, I got a call back from the Centre about an hour later saying that they had a rescue van on the outskirts of the city that day, and the crew had said that they'd be willing to come and see what they could do.

Later that day a van showed up with two young fellows manning it. They armed themselves with large nets on extendable poles, and we tracked down the goose on the edge of our pond. They approached it cautiously, but it saw them coming and ran into the pond, swam across to the other side and took off running.

I figured that it was heading for another pond about quarter of a mile away, so we set off to see if my hunch was correct. Sure enough, we saw the goose in the middle of the pond with a flock of about twenty others. I thought to myself "Good luck trying to cut that goose out from the flock, guys" as the birds moved to the opposite side of the pond from where we were.

The young lads didn't seem at all fazed, however, and went over to their van to get their nets. They then unloaded another piece of equipment - a radio-controlled model speedboat (looked something like the one in the photo) - and I said to myself "Well I'll be damned...!"

They put the boat in the water, and steered it at low speed over to one side of the pond then cut it's engine. They then went to the opposite bank and stationed themselves behind some bushes, with their nets at hand. The flock eyed them warily and drifted over to the opposite bank near to where the speed boat was sitting.

Then all hell broke loose - the speedboat burst into life, and was it noisy once it got going! The flock took to the air and the poor injured goose paddled away as fast as it could. The operator guided the boat just like a collie gathering sheep, and the goose headed for the shore and took off up the slope past the bushes just at the right spot. In a flash, the net swung and the two rescuers grabbed the bird, immobilised it and calmed it down, then loaded it into the van.

They refused any payment and said that the Centre would no doubt contact us to see if we wanted to donate - something we were happy to do.

I wish I could tell you that this story had a happy ending, but when I called the next day, they said that the injury was too severe to repair and the bird had to be put down.

At least it didn't suffer a lingering death - that's something, right?

Wull Kelly
Pete Rennie

Hugh's anecdote, some time ago, about Wull Kelly brought back memories as I also had him for maths soon after he arrived at Morgan Academy.

I remember he had on a very badly-fitting suit and always seemed to be covered in chalk dust and Hugh is correct in that he did throw chalk at miscreants - like me!

I recall one time when two girls appeared late for his class and he made both stand on the floor in front of the class for the whole period. On another occasion someone dropped a tennis ball on the floor and it rolled out in front of him. He picked it up and drop-kicked it into a fireplace which was on the back wall of the room, no doubt a relic of older days at the school!

I also came up against him during the Staff v Pupils football match and one time as the ball fell between us I was aware of a booted foot coming up and just missing my nose! He was just as uncompromising on the pitch as in the classroom...

I must say though that my maths marks improved under him, caused I am sure, by fear.

He was to be respected.

Two Brief Cases
Hugh McGrory

Early in my career I worked in Perth for a couple of years, but lived on the outskirts of Dundee - so every day I travelled the twenty or so miles back and forward on the A90.

My car was a Mini, one of my all-time favourite vehicles. Actually, it was the van version - since this was classified as a commercial vehicle there was no sales tax, so I was able to afford a new one.

It was 1956 when Alec Issigonis sketched out his idea for a car that would carry four adults in comfort and yet fit into a 10x4x4ft box. By 1959, what was to become one of the world's most famous cars, The Mini, was in production. Surprisingly roomy, though small and easy to park, it had a number of innovations that contributed to its success – a transverse, front-wheel-drive engine, with the gear box underneath in the sump, rubber cone suspension, small (10") wheels positioned at the outside corners...

It was wonderfully sporty to drive - being so close to the ground made you feel that you were going faster than the speedometer said - but also, like the TARDIS, it seemed to be bigger on the inside – and the van version was great for carrying all the paraphernalia that came along with our new baby.

It really was a remarkable vehicle, and was put to all sorts of uses over the years:

I loved driving my Mini, though it used to cut out and stop in the rain because the distributor was right at the front (I later got a plastic cover designed to keep the distributor dry - it worked well). I remember, when I first go it, I felt rather intimidated when pulling up beside a double-decker bus and realising that the top of my head was pretty well aligned with the top of the bus wheel...

The Mini's legacy endures. There are more than 450 Mini clubs in the UK and at least another 250 world-wide. The car is continually voted one of the most favourite cars of all time and it was recently voted as Britain's favourite car ever produced.

Mine looked like this - it was Whitehall Beige, if I remember correctly, and my father found someone to custom build a roof-rack for me, rather like that shown, which came in handy many times...

But I seem to have gotten a little carried away with nostalgia, so...

Case 1

One morning, I was driving to work and a few minutes along the Perth Road a car came up behind me and flashed his lights. I looked in the mirror at him but couldn't figure out what he wanted. He pulled out and drew level with me then gestured at my roof. I still had no idea what he was on about - maybe my roof rack had come loose - in any event, as he sped up, I looked for the first opportunity to pull over.

I got out and looked at my roof, and there was my briefcase, standing up, looking as if it belonged there. I couldn't believe that it had stayed in place – it was standing with the narrow sides fore and aft, so I guess it was heavy enough that the wind pressure on the narrow end wasn't enough to push it off, and the weight kept it from falling over on the turns...

For most of my working life I carried that briefcase back and forward to work. It was second nature to me to pack it, when leaving the office, with any work that I intended to work on or look over at home that evening.

Next morning I'd do the reverse - though quite often I hadn't gotten around to actually opening it, so it didn't need to be re-packed - and I was in the habit of putting the case on the roof while I dug out my key...

Case 2

When I moved to Canada, I continued the same briefcase habit. For the first few years, I wasn't senior enough to get a parking spot in the basement of the office building, so I had to find street parking each morning.

The car I was driving at the time was a two-door, what they call in North America a coupe. To access the rear seats it was necessary to fold the front seatbacks forward. Each time I got in I would tilt my seat and place my briefcase in the footwell of the back seat.

One evening I got home, reached for my case and it wasn't there. I checked the boot – not there either. I checked my mind – did I leave it at the office – no, I remembered carrying it down the stairs when I left the building.

My habit when I got to my car was to put the briefcase on the ground, in line with the rear seats so the door had room to swing open, then get my key, open the door, swing the seat forward and put the case in.

I realised that I had probably done this as usual but forgotten the last part – so I had driven off leaving my briefcase in the middle of a residential street about six feet out from the kerb.

Cursing my stupidity I got in the car and drove all the way back to where I'd parked. Every thing looked normal, but no briefcase...

I decided I'd better go door to door, up both sides of the street, asking if anyone had seen it. I began with the house that was closest to where I'd parked, and knocked.

The door opened, and the lady of the house said "You wouldn't be looking for this would you", and in her hand she had the briefcase! I happily marched back to my car and put the case in its proper spot. Dodged the bullet again...!

Driving home, I'm sure I heard a testy little voice behind me saying "That's twice..."

The Royal Arch
Sandra Moir Dow

Here is a new memory of something I did with my eldest son Ken that stirred up nostalgia for old Dundee.

Those of us who who grew up in the '40s and '50s in Dundee will remember well The Royal Arch. It was
built between 1849 and 1853 to commemorate the 1844 vist of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to Dundee. Loved by some and detested by others, it was demolished in 1964 as part of preparatory work for the Tay Road Bridge. The demolition proved to be difficult - it was built very solidly and had to be dynamited, as can be seen in the photo.

Back in May, I spotted in the Courier that a company wanted volunteers to help build a replica of the Royal Arch (on its original location)... out of cardboard. Ken visits me each Saturday - he lives with paranoid schizophrenia, and while he is doing well on modern medication, he tends to lack much initiative for anything new. I'm always on the lookout for activities to introduce him to some variety, so he and I headed up to Dundee to help build the Arch.

The re-creation of the Arch was to be one of the high points of the Ignite Dundee 2016 month-long festival of culture and creativity. The creator of the replica Arch was French artist Olivier Grossetete, who has been responsible for helping design similar Peoples' Towers all over the world.

It was amazing - about a hundred citizens of all ages moving 1,200 cardboard boxes into position on the
direction of a very able crew. The top was done first and then raised, on a whistle command, to push the next layer underneath. Guy ropes stopped it toppling and sticky tape held the boxes together.

The finished product looked ridiculously like the original. See a time-lapse video here.

If you click on the photo on the left, and have good eyesight - and a magnifying glass - you can just see me, with Ken behind. It was great fun.

We then discovered that Slessor Gardens had some paving etchings recording the history of the Royal Arch right to its demolishing. Finally, I got a souvenir booklet of the history of the 114 years of the Arch - a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon's adventure!

The next day, as planned, staff toppled the 16 metre by 16 metre structure to the ground, and Dundee's children were invited to destroy it.
The kids went at their task with gusto - see them in action here.

By 4:00 pm Sunday, the scaffies had left with the remains, and the site was back to normal.

How to Get Your Own Back
Hugh McGrory

In a previous story I talked about one of the trips my wife and I took with my kids in the early '70s when we went down to the Florida Keys dragging our tent trailer. (I just checked and that's a return trip of about 3300 miles - what was I thinking...?).

On the way back, heading back to Canada via Detroit, we saw in a guide book that there was an Indian Museum and Village, and the kids (and Dad) decided they really wanted to visit. So we diverted from the I75 freeway, after we passed Chattanooga, into the Great Smoky Mountains and the town of Cherokee. (One guess as to which Indian tribe we were going to see...).

We arrived at the village, Oconaluftee, and spent several enjoyable hours there. I remember speaking to a Cherokee man, and we ended up comparing their clan system with Scottish clans.

When it was time to hit the road again, the kids wanted, as usual, to visit the gift shop to get a souvenir. We ended up with a feathered headdress, a rubber tomahawk (this led to a fight in the family - see it here) - and finally, a boomerang – Don't ask - I suspect I tried to talk them out of the boomerang, but to no avail...

Back home, the kids had fun with the toys for a few days, and then lost interest – "The boomerang doesn't come back, Daddy..."

Some time later, I picked it up, probably to put it in the toy box, and took a look at it. I had assumed that it was meant to be what is called a 'throwing stick' or a 'rabbit stick', used to hunt small game. They looked like boomerangs, but Native Americans never invented a returning stick.

Our toy was red, made of plastic, and when I looked at it I realised that it was shaped in cross section – one
face was plain, while the other was curved like an airplane wing. It also had chamfers along opposite edges –

This got me wondering, so I did some research (as I write, I'm thinking 'Googled it' – but this was the early 70s – I probably looked it up in an Encyclopedia – can't really remember) but it sounded like it was shaped like a real boomerang.

I read up on the technique for throwing (see how to do it here), then asked the kids if they'd like to try getting the boomerang to fly – they were all for it, of course. The following Sunday morning, earlyish, we drove to Sunnybrook Park, not far from where we lived, and where I played field hockey. This is a huge park, and at that time in the morning we were able to find a people-free area to try out our toy.

I gathered the kids close behind me, checked the wind direction to align myself, then threw the boomerang as per the instructions I'd read up on. I didn't have any real expectations, and I'd told the kids that this probably wouldn't work. Was I wrong!

First throw, the boomerang, spinning rapidly, climbs into the air turning left across the wind, then heads back towards us. The kids and I are shouting "Wow", and I shout, "I'll try to catch it", then, a moment later, "Duck!"

We all hunkered down and it sailed over our heads and landed some 40 ft. behind us - almost took my head off...

And that's how you get your own back...

Tattie Howking
Gordon Findlay

As World War II progressed, most of the young men disappeared into the forces. By the mid-1940s, farmers all round Britain had lost many of their workers, but crops still had to be picked. And that's when school children across Scotland became farm hands.

At Morgan the announcement was made and it was straight to the point. "Our potato crop is vital and it must be picked. Morgan has agreed that our pupils will be part of the effort to bring in the crop."

Potatoes in Angus are picked in October, so for three weeks of that month we Morgan pupils were pulled from the classroom and became part of the country-wide effort to bring in the spuds. . . at the princely reward of 8 shillings per day. The 'Tattie Holidays' were under way.

We showed up at the school somewhat bleary-eyed at 6.30 a.m. carrying our jelly sandwiches and maybe a bottle of lemonade in our haversacks. Buses were waiting in the back of the schoolyard for us, and off we went to the farms and fields around Dundee.

October can be cool at that early morning time, and we shivered as we waited in the farmer's yard. Then the farmer's head man (too old to serve in the forces) arrived and marched us out to the potato fields.

He had marked each row of bushy potatoes with long sticks about six paces apart. These were our 'bits' which we would pick once the digger came along. He marched us along, one drill after another, dropping one of us off at each stick.

Then the action began. A grinding drone announced the farmer aboard his tractor. Behind the tractor he towed the digger: a simple device like a large metal wheel with thick radiating arms which spun around and dug down into the potato plant.

The force of the whirling wheel threw the spuds against a heavy mat hanging off to the side and they cascaded all over the drill as the tractor roared on. Now our job began.

Being small (I was around 10 at the time) we school kids had one advantage over adults. We didn't have so far to bend to pick up potatoes and farmers quickly discovered that our nimble hands were good at gathering the crop.

As you picked, you tossed the spuds into a wide wicker basket which you dragged forward up the drill. As you can imagine, the fuller the basket became the heavier it got - and the harder it was to heave it forward.

When picking, the goal was to pick your 'bit' as fast as you could. Then you could have a wee rest before the roar of the tractor announced that the digger was churning up the adjoining drill where your next 'bit' was already marked out.

Cold early mornings were the worst. You shivered out in the field. You could see your breath, and fingers were quickly frozen by the cold ground. It was easy to break a nail or cut a finger on a jagged stone. You prayed for the sun to come up and warm you.

Around 9.30 the roar of the tractor died away: it was time for your morning 'piece'. It was only 15 minutes, but it was blessed relief. You dug into the sandwiches your mother had made, opened your lemonade, and eased your back against the farmer's stone dyke.

We gathered spuds until 5.30 or 6.00 o'clock when the shadows began to gather. Finally the roar of the tractor died away and after a long day of grubby, tiring labour we were able to make our way back to the farmyard where our bus was waiting.

At most farms there was a water tap. Now and then a friendly farmer's wife would add a chunk of hard soap, and we would queue to take our turn washing the dirt off our hands.

This photo is not from my time, but a few years later:
After that, came the best time of the day. The farmer produced a heavy box, and one by one we walked up to get our 8 shillings of hard-earned money.

Then, what a joy it was to climb aboard the bus, sink into a seat and lean back. We often had sing-songs on the way home. 'Pack up Your Troubles' was always a favourite, and although you were dog tired, you joined in and belted out the words.

Hey – after all, we told ourselves – we were part of the war effort!

You'll Never Take the Two of Us Alive, Coppers! - 4
Hugh McGrory

The Spangie

For those of you who aren't familiar with the word Parkour, one definition is –the activity or sport of moving rapidly through an area, typically in an urban environment, negotiating obstacles by running, jumping, and climbing.– My definition of Parkour, as practised by many, would include – "an equal blend of athleticism, courage and stupidity."

No doubt many of you have seen Parkour in movies and on TV, but if you' re interested in seeing the ' athleticism and courage' in action, see here.

If you' re interested in seeing 'courage and stupidity' , see here.

David Belle, a Parisian, is usually considered to be the originator, in the late '80s, of Parkour. The Urban Dictionary states:
"Le Parkour (also known simply as Parkour, PK, or free running) was invented in 1988 in the Parisian suburb of Lisses by a group of teenagers including the legends David Belle and Sebastien Foucan, who formed a clan called the "Yamakasi", or new (modern) samurai.

It is a sport in which practitioners, called traceurs, run, jump, climb, and roll through rooftops, gaps, pipes, practically anything in an urban environment. It demands great physical agility, and masters of PK, such as Belle, are able to jump over cars, leap 9-meter distances from one rooftop to another. It has been described as "obstacle-coursing" or "the art of movement".

The fluid art of parkour is sometimes combined with the smooth flow of such arts such as capoeira and Xtreme martial arts. An example of such hybrid practitioners is Team Ryouko, the famous Toronto martial arts stunt team."
However that may be, and with all due respect to Monsieur Belle, my buddy Billy and I beg to differ – we would suggest, respectfully, that we were practicing parkour in the late 40' s. We didn't call it that, of course, and what we did bears little resemblance to any of the videos above, but we did run, jump, climb up drain pipes and walls and run over rooftops in an urban environment. We didn't demonstrate much courage, but there was, from time to time a few acts of stupidity - in our defence, they did seem like good ideas at the time...

One of our sometime haunts was the roof of the Rashiewell Weaving Works at weekends, playing in the
peaks and valleys. The Rashie- well weaving sheds are now the Dens Road Market situated at the foot of Arklay Street between Dens Road and Dundonald street (see photo on left - click photo to enlarge).

In the photo, Arklay street runs almost due north - our approach was always made from Dens Road a bit east of
the buckie at the corner where we believed that the night watchman hung out. We waited until there was no traffic on Dens Road, then shinnied up a drainpipe. I just checked, and it looks like the original drainpipe is still there (see photo on the right) just to the left of the peeling Dens Road Market sign.

The last time we carried out this exploit, we were having a game of 'tig', and, Billy, being Billy, ran over the corner of one of the skylights and cracked the glass so that a chunk fell down into the factory. Fortunately, he didn't get his foot caught, nor, heaven forbid, fall through.

We stared at each other wide-eyed - even if the Watchie was asleep he must have heard the glass coming down! So he would probably call the bobbies and then set out after us.

We took to our heels and headed northeast with the plan of getting to Dundonald street where the Cash & Carry store now sits (see photo - The Rashiewell roof is on the right just behind the trees).
This is opposite the pub that was then called the Airlie Arms (at the corner of Clepington Street, which happens to be next door to the wee but and ben where my Gran and Granda lived).

You'll see from the plan photo above that once outside the works property there still is a conglomeration of huts, sheds and small buildings, a bit different from, but similar to what was there 60 years ago.

We came to two small buildings, both with flat roofs, separated by about 5 or 6 feet, ours about 4 feet lower. In Parkour, this is a common situation (over much bigger gaps) and is dealt with using what is known as a cat leap (see photo)..
Billy and I stood at the edge of the gap and Billy said "we'll have to spangie it". Now a spangie was our version of the cat leap (spang pronounced as in "the bell rang"). Identical to the cat leap as portrayed above - except for the landing... Instead of grasping the edge of the target roof with our hands and absorbing the impact with our legs and feet, we landed flat against the wall with our arms bent so that our elbows were out horizontally and our hands were underneath our chin.

In a properly executed cat leap, the traceur uses the impact force and the elastic muscles of the leg to immediately rebound in a jump up onto the roof and continue apace. Our technique was to hang there winded, then try to get one leg up onto the roof and gradually edge up onto it. It could be quite awkward to do, but encouraged by the alternative of dropping some 10 or 12 feet to the ground, we managed it - sometimes with a little help from a friend...

We then shinnied down a drainpipe and out to Dundonald St, then took off via Wolseley, Tannadice and Neish Streets into Fairbairn St, and via the backyards, home. We never heard anything about our escapade - and we never played on that roof again...

Did any of you use the word 'spangie' when you were kids? Spang is a good old Scottish word.

Recently, and quite coincidentally, I was looking for a Netflix film to watch, and stumbled on "Brick Mansions", a sock-schlocky movie starring Paul Walker (in a posthumous performance, he having died in a car crash before it's release).

The first action sequence in the movie featured Parkour, and after I'd watched it for a few minutes I realised that I was watching a tattooed David Belle, now in his forties and pursuing a career in the film business.

If you' re interested in seeing Holywood's take on Parkour, see here. Staged though it all may be, you have to admire the courage and skill of the man! 

Morgan Primary
Wireless Days

Anne Ogilvie Close
I wonder if any of my primary classmates remember listening to Schools' Broadcasts on what we knew as the wireless? We didn't refer to them as radios then, and they looked like these:


Our Primary 7 teacher (it was Primary 5 in our day as our first two years at school were spent in 1st and 2nd Infants) was not a great supporter of new gimmicks so we were only allowed to listen to these programmes on very rare occasions. Normally it was a Nature programme or Music and Movement which was not one of my favourites. The music was fine but having to pretend to be a tree or waving branches on a tree did nothing for me. I just thought everyone looked very foolish trying to pose or act out this type of situation.

When we were told that we were to be given the treat of a wireless programme, a feeling of excitement would ripple through the class. We were thrilled to have anything that would break the normal daily class routine.

The radio was carried into the classroom and placed on the teacher's table. There were no electric sockets in our room so in order to get power, our teacher, Miss Chalmers, had to climb onto her chair and from there to the table. From this height she was able to unscrew a bulb from one of the light fittings and in its place attach the cord running from the radio to the socket.

This done and after getting herself back onto terra firma, we waited with baited breath while she twiddled with the knob in an attempt to pick up the correct station. Why this was so difficult I do not know as I am sure there were only two stations in 1949 - Home and Light programmes. After a great deal of hissing and crackling we eventually managed to get tuned in and we were ready to listen to the programme.

Once the programme ended the whole rigmarole of disconnecting the radio from the light fitting had to be gone through before the machine was carried reverently back to whatever secret cubbyhole it had come from and normal classroom service was resumed.

I wonder what present day pupils would make of this ancient technology accustomed as they are to all the electronic gadgets they have at their finger tips. But then, the wireless was modern technology to us in the forties. Happy Days!


 Poetry - 2 
Hugh McGrory

My last story may have given the impression that I am a poetry fan – actually, I' m not – I never read poetry if I can help it. I prefer technical subjects, with numbers and statistics (probably explains why I ended up in a career in engineering), or mystery fiction for relaxation.

There was a brief period in primary school though...

I' m sure you remember, as I do, being introduced to poetry. I recall reading, amongst others, Wordsworth, Masefield and Tennyson, in Miss Laing's, or was it Miss Stewart's class, at Dens Road School. We were told that we each had to choose one poem from a list of three, memorise it, and then recite it in front of the whole class (which created quite a lot of consternation, I can tell you...)

The first on the list was Wordsworth's Daffodils:

"I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils; ..."

It didn't do much for me.

I remember I did enjoy our second poem, though, John Masefield's Cargoes which begins:

"Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,"

I particularly liked the third verse:

"Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack,
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,
With a cargo of Tyne coal,
Road-rails, pig-lead,
Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays."

However, the third on the list, and my choice, was The Eagle, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson:

"He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls."

After I had finished my recitation, the teacher said,

"That was very good, Hugh – you chose the shortest poem, of course..."

At that age, I didn't have the nerve to respond to this put-down, but I remember thinking:

"What were the rules, and what information did I use to make my choice?"

Oh yes...

"Pick a poem to recite from memory" and,

Daffodils, 4 stanzas of 6 lines each – 24 lines;
Cargoes, 3 stanzas of 5 lines each – 15 lines;
The Eagle, 2 stanzas of 3 lines each – 6 lines;

"Duh..."

Homage to D.B. Smith
Lawrie Mitchell

"Does anyone speak any goddam French?" This was from an Ottawa-born surgeon at 2 am in the emergency room in Ottawa, a supposedly bi-lingual city, when the surgeon had a French-Canadian patient with severe abdominal pain.

I had just started work there and hesitated, waiting for native-born Ottawans to come forward. None of the staff volunteered, so this Dundonian, with Higher French only, came forward to translate, struggling with the strong Quebec accent but managing to help with the diagnosis.

Two months before this, we foreign graduates had to re-sit exams for Ontario registration. My clinical case was an elderly Francophone lady with a chronic skin condition. I had no idea of the diagnosis, but again, D.B. to the rescue! She spoke no English so I explained my exam situation, and asked her if she knew her diagnosis. I was so relieved when she obliged with chapter and verse - no problem then with the examiners!

Next benefit from D.B. was on an assignment for UNHCR (The UN Refugee Agency) in the Chadian civil war. (Although I didn't know it at the time, the beginning, for me, of many years spent in West Africa)..
I headed a small medical team from the UK, but with typical UK insularity, I was the only French speaker in the group. Chad is a francophone country and we were working with the French army and the International Red Cross. I spent as much time as an interpreter as with medical cases!

My next French exercise was ten years later starting at the airport in Libreville, Gabon, where the departing doctor gave me a very short briefing and then left to go back to France. I had spoken no French for ten years and was now working in the ELF/Shell hospital in Port Gentil and Gamba in southern Gabon. There were no roads, and we usually went by air between the two locations - one above the equator and one below. I spoke French there 80% of the time.

This was followed by a spell as Médecin de Barge in a large oil pipe laying barge in offshore Congo, Angola and Nigeria. It had a crew of 400, Senegalese and French - no English spoken...

Back in Gabon with an Oklahoman drilling company near Lambar'n' I was with an American drilling team and again was used as an interpreter as the Americans spoke no French. This was a magical experience deep in the tropical rain forest - and I even got paid to be there!

Life as a medical gypsy then brought me to the oil rigs offshore Côte D'Ivoire. My brief was to do a medical audit of the local clinic in Abidjan and on the rigs we flew in those micro helicopters - a nightmare for someone like me with a fear of heights - plus the French pilot usually had a strong smell of Ricard on his breath!

Finally, my wife Eme and I now live in Portugal, and have several rental properties that we rent to tourists as a base from which to explore this beautiful country. As 50% of our rental guests are French, I still rely on D.B.'s tuition.

You can see that my time with D.B. Smith was not wasted. My only regret is not telling him before he died...
 Poetry 
Hugh McGrory

Watching The Andrew Marr Show on television this morning, in Dundee, I learned that Frederick Forsythe, whose many works of prose have sold millions of copies around the world, has turned to writing poetry, inspired by the many recent commemorations of those who fell in war:

"Sleep in peace, Fallen Soldier,
where your kinsfolk here have laid you
While we who are left tread so safe above
You are home from the fight
from the clamour, from the danger
Laid in the breast of the land that you love
We should have told you more how deeply we loved you
We knew not how short was the while
To kiss and to hold, to cherish your presence
The sound of your laughter, the sun of your smile
When you first marched to the colours
You were young and oh so handsome
You pulled on your badge, standing straight, standing tall
And you gave us your promise, your sworn word of honour
And in your last moment you gave us your all
So sleep Fallen Soldier, here in your homeland
Wrapped in our flag until when
On some far distant morn you hear his last reveille
Then you and your comrades will march once again."

This reminded me that, when I was a child, my Gran had a little framed copy of that famous verse from Laurence Binyon's "For The Fallen" on her mantelpiece. I think that someone probably gave this to her in 1942 after she received the news that her son, my Uncle Frank Ryan, Aircraftman 1st Class 1341600, 612 Squadron, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, Artificer, had been killed in the crash of an RAF plane near Reykjavik, Iceland. He was 21.

I was impressed enough as a primary school kid to memorise it:

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them."

There is a Canadian author, Maureen Jennings (actually born and grew up, in Birmingham, England) who has had great success with her series of books, 'Murdoch Mysteries', and the TV show based on that series which is seen around the world (recently confirmed for its 10th season).

I thought you might be interested in an email I sent her a few years ago, and her gracious and amusing response:

Me:

"For some time, my wife and I have been enjoying the Murdoch TV series, and I just finished your book 'Season of Darkness'.

I enjoyed the book, but feel compelled to point out (and I suspect that others have too), that you have, I believe, misquoted the verse from Binyon's 'For the Fallen'.

My uncle was killed early in the Second World War, and someone gave my grandparents a small plaque with this verse, for their mantelshelf. I was very young then, but it made a big impression on me, and I memorised the words and can still quote them some seventy years later.

I just checked a number of sources on the Web, and they agree with my memory - and it's the fourth verse, not the second..."

Ms Jennings

"Thank you so much for your email. The man responsible for that error was of course, Sir Percy Somerville. He read what sounded more natural on his tongue even though it was INCORRECT, and his memory was faulty about which verse it was. Sigh. That's what happens when characters get the bit between their teeth.

Thank you for pointing out the mistake. I shall make sure it is corrected in future editions."

Big Jock Wilson
Gordon Findlay

My father's pub (Caw's Bar on Panmure Street) could be a busy place on a Friday or a Saturday night. The work week was over and like people everywhere, Dundonians went out to enjoy themselves.

Away back then - in the mid 1940s and 1950s - pubs closed at 10.30 p.m. It's hard to believe that hour today, but in those days Dundee's night life was largely confined to pubs and the firm hand of the Calvinists and the Presbyterians was still in evidence. All of which meant that from 6.00 until 10.30 p.m. there was some serious drinking going on.

The problem occurred when the "Time gentlemen, please!" call was made by the barman or the pub owner. There would be a chorus of groans, and often a quick plea for "Just anither wee nip'. Ah'll drink it doon fast!"

Most of the regulars took the news cheerfully. They'd timed their nips and their pints to neatly coincide with closing time. They gurgled down the last of their drinks and slowly made their way out of the pub, often to gather for a few minutes outside to finish a story or to make plans for the next day.

But - and there's always a 'but' isn't there? Every now and then my father, or his barman Bob, would come up against someone reluctant to leave the cozy confines of Caw's. "Hey look - Ah jist got in. Ah've only jist started ma pint! Ah'm no leavin the noo!"

Or occasionally, a group of pals had been refreshing themselves liberally for the past few hours. They were feeling wonderful, on top of the world, and they had no intention of going anywhere. "Wha's gonna make me?" might be tossed out as a verbal challenge.

And that's when my Dad's secret weapon showed up in the form of Sergeant Jock Wilson of the Dundee police force. And what a form it was.

'Big Jock' Wilson stood six feet four inches in his stockinged feet. In his black duty boots and with his hat on, he towered above the world: a huge and impressive figure with hands like bunches of bananas.

He had a large, rough-hewn and impassive face; one that had watched over the gritty streets of Dundee for over twenty years, had seen every kind of boozy bravado or thuggish behaviour. A cool, unblinking gaze which had stared down a thousand toughs, drunks, thieves and trouble-makers.

A few minutes after the "Time gentlemen, please!" call had been made, the massive shape of 'Big Jock' would quietly appear in the doorway of Caw's Bar. He never had to say a word. His mere presence was enough to encourage even the hardest of hard men to gather up their jackets and make their way outside.

Sgt. Wilson simply stood there, silent and massive, the epitome of overwhelming power in his dark blue uniform, nodding now and then impassively to people he knew. Big Jock's reputation was well established around Dundee. He no longer had to prove it to anyone. All he had to do was stand there.

In five minutes Caw's Bar was empty.

That was when the other side of 'the arrangement' took place. He'd walk over to the corner of the bar and my father would pour him a generous double of his favourite Scotch.

"Thank ye, Muster Findlay", he'd murmur.

With a smooth sweep of one massive hand, the glass would be tipped back and the Scotch would disappear. The glass would quietly click back down. Then Sergeant 'Big Jock' Wilson would stroll out into the night.

A fine example of commerce and law enforcement working seamlessly together.

 Valentine's Day 
Hugh McGrory

Around 20 years ago, I was at a business meeting in a high-rise office building in the heart of downtown Toronto. Around 5:00 pm the meeting was drawing to a close and I was about to head for the basement parking, get in my car and drive up to Ryerson University where I taught a business computing course (for about 25 years - you may imagine how much the course changed over that time...).

Just I was leaving the conference room I overheard a remark and realised that I had forgotten that it was Valentine's Day - suddenly some very negative brownie points were looming in my future...! I fessed up to this problem and one of the clients said that, just round the corner and a city block away up Yonge St, one of the main thoroughfares in Toronto, there was a little flower shop.

Relieved, I headed out of the building, taking my rather heavy briefcase with me since it was no great distance, and walked to the shop. It had just gone out of business! At that point I had a choice, go back for my car or find another flower shop - I decided to walk north a few large city blocks to a large mall known as the Eaton Centre.

The Centre is a huge mall but I got lucky - as I walked in, I saw one of these 'boutiquey', cart-type thingies in the entrance hallway selling flowers. But there was a small queue and I thought I'd walk into the mall and would surely find a bigger flower store - I asked a passer-by and they confirmed there was a store at the far north end of the mall.

Ten minutes later I got there - and found a queue of about 40 last-minute-males.... By this time, I was actually closer to the University - but I needed my car. I turned tail and headed south to the boutique. My bad knee (this was before I got my new one) was beginning to complain, and I was a little worried about the time. As I got back to the store I realised that the queue was now about twice as big. I waited impatiently and finally was back out on Yonge street with a large bunch of flowers wrapped in silver paper and tied with coloured ribbons.

I was slightly self-conscious, hirpling as fast as I could down the street, seeing all the knowing glances from passersby, but finally got to my car and set off through the rush hour traffic on Yonge street, got to the university parking area, grabbed my briefcase, locked the car and headed for class. I was a few minutes late but explained to my students the emergency situation I had faced and they forgave me.

After class I headed to the parking area feeling pretty pleased with myself. Arriving at the car I clicked to open the trunk saying to myself "Don't crush the flowers when you put the case in." I didn't crush them - because they weren't there. Obviously I had put them inside the car - though I don't usually like to have anything in my parked car that might encourage someone to break a window...

I looked in the front seat, not there - tried the back - not there either! Where could they be? That's not a rhetorical question - I'm asking you - where could they be... because I never saw those flowers again!

Thinking about it, I remembered having the flowers when I entered the parking elevator - the best I can figure it, I opened the trunk to put my briefcase in and to facilitate this probably put the flowers on the roof of the car next to mine. In the ensuing 8 seconds I managed to forget that I'd put them there and drove off!

I later constructed a scenario in my mind where the owner of that car left his office that evening knowing that he'd better get flowers somewhere on the way home, got to his car and - "No way. ..!"

Driving home up the Don Valley Parkway it occurred to me that I would soon pass a large grocery store - it was about 10:30 pm but I had a feeling that it was open 24/7. I peeled off the highway, it was, and it had flowers. I was saved...

When I got home, I told my wife the whole story - and still came out smelling like roses - for two reasons:.

1. I had gone to all that trouble to ensure that she got Valentine flowers, and

2. I had confirmed, once again, her long-held theory - that she married an idiot...

Ernie Landsman - A Tribute
Clive Yates

We probably all had a favourite class teacher and there were probably many and varied reasons for that. My favourite was Ernie Landsman who seemed to follow me around through successive years. He was an encourager and I found myself responding in my English studies to that encouragement! However, there was another side to his teaching methods!

I was in his class for so-called Religious Knowledge (or whatever it was called in early 1950s.) I sat next to a friend - Colin G-------, who lived near me and was a Catholic, (who did not exercise his right to exempt himself from this class!) Ernie's teaching method for his RE-class was to settle the class down. (For settle, read SILENCE!)

We all got our Bibles out. Ernie would then enquire where we had got to last week. Some bright spark would remind him – "I read CHAPTER so-and-so, sir!" As we always sat in the same seats, Ernie would then say "CHAPTER Y verse N, read ten verses each (or whatever) starting from Bloggs! -- When you think you are ready, Bloggs!"

The class would then quickly settle down either to work out what portion of text they might have to read by counting forward to their anticipated verses, or, if you were seated behind the first victim (having read last week,) you got out your homework books and used the time for preparation.

Meanwhile, Ernie immersed himself in some other task of preparation, or marking some other classes work, or whatever took his fancy. To all intents and purposes, the class just carried on, reader and teacher seemingly totally oblivious of the other.

"But to our tale, ae winter's night....". (Quoted from Burns: Tam o' Shanter; proof positive of Ernie's skill at making things stick!) My desk-neighbour CG correctly stood up at the appropriate moment to take his turn at reading his appointed ten verses. Here the story became memorable.

His ten verses were from the book of Joshua, reading Chapter 8 into 9 including verse-1. Colin's voice droned monotonously on and ever onwards to that inevitable encounter with Joshua's enemies, namely:

"When all the Kings who were beyond the Jordan in the hill country and in the lowlands all along the coast of the Great Sea towards Lebanon; the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites the Perizzites, the Hivites, THE CHEESEMITES and the Jebusites all heard of this, they gathered together with one accord to fight Joshua and Israel..."

Around the class, a smothered ripple of suppressed laughter from those who had happened to be listening, and some hushed talk began to erupt only to be extinguished by a command from Ernie who did not appear to even look up from his own work!

"G-----l ! Would you read that last verse again please?" said Ernie enquiringly.

CG did what he was told but on this second occasion, he omitted the words 'the Cheesemites.' He finished and an awkward silence ensued. The class were suddenly all attentive!

"I thought I heard the words 'Cheese mites' in that last verse," said the laconic Ernie - still not lifting his head from his task. We all waited, watching CG closely. How would he handle it?

"Cheesemites sir? There is no reference to Cheesmites in verse-1, sir," exclaimed CG triumphantly, believing that the danger had been averted completely.

"Exactly! said Ernie: "I think you should write that out 500 times for next week, CG."

To my own recollection, 'Cheesemites' never appeared again whilst reading about the Tribes mentioned in the Old Testament.

 Oh, Shit... 
Hugh McGrory

Around 15+ years ago I asked my GP if he would refer me for a colonoscopy. I duly had this done, and the report said that no polyps were evident and that I should have another one done in 10 years time.

Ten years later I asked my GP again for a referral, and he said that, given my age and family history he didn't think I needed one, and that I should take the Fecal Occult Blood Test instead – through a program run by the Ontario Government. They send you a kit every two years which you use to take three consecutive poop samples, send them into the lab and get the results, a few days later, by mail.

I did this, got a negative result (i.e. no blood detected) and repeated this two years later, with the same result.

Two years after that, I got the test again, took the sample and sent it off. In due course I got the test result - it said "No report – sample degraded". I was, of course, by now, an expert on this procedure – I'd done it the same way as before and couldn't figure what had gone wrong...

So I called them up and got another test sent. Repeated the test, sent it off, and got the result – it said "No report - poor quality sample".

Now, like most people, I've suffered rejections in the past - from team selectors, prospective employers, women... and bounced back with no problems - but to have my poop rejected as being of inferior quality - whoa!

So I decided to go back to square one – I'd re-read the instructions... I hadn't looked at these since I first did the test – I didn't really need to, of course, 'cos I'm so smart – but it seemed like the place to start my investigation.

One of the first statements that caught my eye was – "Discontinue vitamin C supplements and eliminate citrus fruit and juices for three days prior to and during collection of stool..."

At which point I said 'Oh, shit!' I'd forgotten about that restriction, and given that I start each day with a glass of orange juice, the problem was obvious.

So I contacted the authorities again and had another test kit sent out (number three in case you've lost count). When it arrived, I wanted to make sure that I got it back as quickly as possible - which meant no orange juice for three days then doing the test the next morning and for the two days after that.

The kit comes in an envelope inside of which there is a stamped, addressed envelope which contains the test materials, and which is used to return the samples to the lab when completed. I took out this inner envelope and after three days without orange juice I put it in an obvious (as I thought) place so that it would remind me the next day.

On the first test morning, my wife had gone to work and I remembered I needed to do the test - I looked around but couldn't see it! I began to search in the obvious places with no result, then scoured the not so obvious. I went through the whole house three times that day since I knew it had to be somewhere within our four walls. I finally gave up...

That evening my wife came home and I said "I just spent the whole day looking for that poop test - couldn't find it anywhere – I'm baffled..."

She said "Don't worry about it, I found it."

"Oh, good - where is it?"

"What do you mean, where is it - I posted it for you!"

So, yet again, I call up the authorities and they send out another (the fourth) test kit. I duly completed it - and got the all clear a few days later.

In the end - if you'll excuse the pun - no real harm done, though I suspect in some government medical database there is now a notation on my file - 'Coprophiliac'!

Oh, Shit...
Hail the teachers, every one
Gordon Findlay

Even today, more than seventy years later, I still remember the opening verse of Morgan's school song. I would guess that most former pupils of our school find the words still spring easily into mind.

"O'er the bridge that spans that spans the river . . . Moving slowly to the sea . . . Looks 'The Morgan', stately, splendid . . . Fairest school in all Dundee ..."

Then there's that rousing chorus which begins: "Hail 'The Morgan' stately, splendid . . . Hail the teachers, every one."

Surely we can all remember the times, when, huddled together in a sniggering little pack in a corner of the schoolyard, we gave vent to the amended version: "JAIL the teachers, every one!" It was our tiny little bit of defiance against an adult-governed world. And thereby hangs a tale.

One memorable year when I was around fourteen, I was attending a music class. It was close to the end of school before summer break. I believe the teacher was Miss Millin, who normally ruled her music classes with a very firm hand.

But on this day, with around five minutes before the end of period, she announced that it would be a good idea if we sang the school song. She passed out printed copies of our song, walked to the piano, struck the opening chords, and away we went.

I rather enjoyed the exercise because I like the Rev. Blair's stirring words and Mr. Bewick's music. But, to be honest, we really didn't put our hearts and souls into the song. We sang it rather drearily, droning through it without much enthusiasm.

But then Miss Millin sprang her surprise. And won us over forever. "–"Right," she said. "I'd like you to sing our school song with some real spirit!" A slow smile took shape on her face. "And I'll let you sing your version of the chorus. YOU know the line I mean, don't you?"

We all looked at each other. We could sing THAT line! Openly! Encouraged by a teacher? This is grand!

So with that incentive, she walked back to the piano, launched into the opening chords and led us into the song. This time we sang with gusto, waiting impatiently until that second line of the chorus when we fairly bellowed out:

"JAIL the teachers, every one!" We fairly rattled the windows of the old school.

Definitely a highlight of the year.

 Travel Travails - 3
They Always Picked On Me!
 
Hugh McGrory

We're all very aware of the growth of terrorism in today's world. This is not a recent phenomenon. International terrorism had begun to grow not long after we left Morgan, and by the late '60s, hijacking had become a favourite tactic.

In July 1968, for example El Al flight 426 from Rome to Tel Aviv was hijacked by Palestinians and diverted to Algiers. The Munich Olympics attack was in 1972. In the US, home-grown groups like the Weathermen were becoming violent.

The chart below shows the exponential growth in terror attacks in Europe through the 1970s:


The FAA began more aggressive security requirements in the late '60s and early '70s after more than 130 successful and attempted airplane hijackings. For example, airport staff began to use the FAA's hijacker psychological profile to try to determine if passengers were a threat to the skies.

Flyers who exhibited odd behaviour, such as lack of eye contact or inadequate concern for their luggage might be subjected to additional scanning. This background sets up my story...

In 1974, I was travelling with an American professor of engineering, visiting national engineering computing centres in France, Holland, Germany and the UK.

Each time we arrived in a new country, the immigration people looked at him, thought to themselves something like "A fine young All-American lad", said "Welcome to our country.", and waved him through.

They took one look at me, thought to themselves something like "Oi, Oi - what 'ave we 'ere then...?", said "Over there," then proceeded to grill me, and go through my luggage before, reluctantly it seemed, admitting me to the country to join my colleague waiting patiently (and laughing at me) in the wings.

Each time he was treated like a welcome guest, while they seemed to think that I was some kind of disreputable character not to mention a possible terrorist.

Not even my Scottish accent charmed them...

I couldn't find a contemporary photograph of my companion, but on the left is what he looked like in later life – actually, he hasn"t changed much – just add a lot more fair hair...

The photo on the right shows how I looked at the time.

So why was I always the one picked on?

Beats me...
Travel Troubles
Richard Crighton

While working for a local coach company I frequently drove holidaymakers to north-east Spain. There were always two drivers for these trips. We would leave the depot near Perth at 1 o'clock on Tuesday morning and make many stops throughout England to pick up passengers on our way to Portsmouth for the P&O Ferry. The ship would leave at 8 p.m. on Tuesday and arrive at Bilbao at 7 a.m. on Thursday. The two night sailing after our long drive south was a welcome break before making the two day journey to Catalonia.

However, things did not always go as planned - surprise, eh? On one of our trips, while we were still on our way through England, we received a phone call from the tour company informing us that the ferry, the Pride of Bilbao, would be late arriving at Portsmouth.
It would then have to offload before we could embark. There wasn't anything we could do about that, of course, except to let our passengers know that there would be a delay. There was near chaos at the port as the passengers from a dozen or so coaches, other holidaymakers and truck drivers all clamoured for information. Not wanting to have a coachload of hungry, grumpy passengers on our hands I suggested that they be taken to a motorway service station near Southampton for a meal break. I remained at the ferry terminal to await any further news of the ferry's progress.

Word came through from the ferry operators that a gentleman on board Pride of Bilbao had suffered a heart attack when the ship was well out of port on its way out from Bilbao. A helicopter was called in but the ship had to wait as it was almost out of range for the aircraft. Once the patient had been airlifted the ship resumed the voyage, but so much time had been lost that it was impossible to make up time.

Unfortunately, because it was late, the ship had missed its scheduled time for its allocated berth and could not dock because another P&O vessel was there. The Bilbao just had to wait in the Solent until the berth was clear. But, there was another problem. When, eventually the Bilbao was being unloaded, two coaches on board refused to start and were blocking the service door for removing the laundry. There was a further delay because a mechanic had to be sent for before the lifeless vehicles could be moved and the laundry taken off.

We set sail at 2.30 a.m. by which time the restaurant staff were all off duty.

The captain was a greatly relieved skipper when we arrived at Bilbao on time on the Thursday morning.

P&O no longer operate between the UK and Spain.

Celebrities - 5
Hugh McGrory
The peak of my career of not actually meeting celebrities took place around 1971. I was in Houston, Texas, attending another computer/engineering conference with my buddy Sam - he was actually the Conference Chairman, Houston being his hometown. Our meetings were held in a high-class hotel attached to the Galleria, a very upscale mall – stores like Tiffany and Bulgari.

We had finished work for the day and were headed for the hotel restaurant to have a leisurely dinner with colleagues when I remembered something I wanted from my room. I told them to grab a table and I'd be back in a few minutes.

I walked over to the elevator, which was just descending and as the doors opened I realised that there were people inside. I stepped aside to let them exit, and out walked:



I hadn't known they were in Houston - for the opening of their movie Catlow - so it was, to say the least, quite a surprise!

As an aide memoire for all you older folks:

Jo Ann Pflug – she was a real dish – that's Lieutenant Dish to you – the nurse who was Hawkeye's love interest and who saved the dentist from suicide in that famous scene in the MASH movie.

Richard Crenna – an actor that most would recognise but perhaps not remember the name. He played Rambo's commanding officer in several of the Sylvester Stallone movies.

Yul Brynner – needs no introduction, of course – everyone knows him and his major contributions – from The King and I and the chief good guy in The Magnificent Seven, to his posthumously shown anti-smoking commercial.

Potato Rogues
Gordon Findlay

Now that school was finished... how to make some money during the summer? Away back in time - I'''m talking 1949 - this was the burning question my pal Kenny MacGregor and I faced. Our years at Morgan were over. University loomed, but in the mean time we wanted to earn some money. The question was - how?

After tossing several ideas around, we eventually hit on potato roguing, since we learned that a qualified roguer can earn between 3 and 5 quid an hour. Back in those days, that was big money!

Neither of us were farming types, but we knew that SRUC- the Scottish Rural University Colleges - were looking for candidates to rogue the seed potato crops of farmers. The 2-week course was offered at the Elmwood Campus in Cupar, Fife.


In order to win official accreditation, students at the end of the course had to be able to swiftly identify 30 different potato varieties (the common varieties, not the Scottish heritage potatoes shown above) and to accurately spot 7 different diseases which affected growing potatoes. Only then would they be turned loose to rogue the seed potato crops of Scottish farmers.

Why is roguing vital? Well, a field of potatoes being grown for seed might contain a lot of unwanted other species or 'rogues' within it, and would thus be condemned to cattle feed only - bringing the farmer only 5 quid a ton, rather than the 150 quid a ton that first quality seed potatoes would bring on the market.

Farmers in Scotland grow about 80% of the seed potatoes in the U.K. - around 400,000 tonnes a year - and around a third of this crop is exported around the world, since Scottish spuds are highly prized for their quality.

Thus it was that the pair of us duly showed up on a May morning in Cupar, paid our SRUC fee, and launched into the testing world of potato roguing.

Soon we were staring intently at rows of bushy growing spuds which to the untrained eye all looked pretty much the same but were in fact Arran Banner, Arran Pilot, Hermes, Pentland Dell, Lady Rosetta, Majestic, King Edward, Maris Piper, and many more.
(Hover your cursor over photos.)
All potatoes grown in Scotland could be attacked by a variety of enemies - bacteria, viruses, fungi, insects - diseases such as black leg, leaf roll, severe mosaic, wart disease, or even the dreaded Colorado beetle could appear. We knew, of course, that, once we qualified, our main task would be to look for 'rogue' potato plants growing in among a farmer's crop. These rogues grow as weeds from a previous crop, or from a few of the
wrong variety of potato planted by mistake with the intended seed crop.

One of our instructors, a laconic ex-farmer, gave us a priceless bit of advice early on: "Afore ye start yer roguin', lads, here's a wee bit o' advice. Tak' a guid lang look at the tatties in the field first! Ye just might find somethin' nasty in there. Naethin' worse than roguin' all his tatties for seed quality, then findin' a lot o' black leg on the last day. ALL his tatties will be doongraded to cattle feed! An' you'll no get tuppence for a' that work!"

For the final exam we were led to a special area of the campus where a mass of different potatoes were growing, almost all different and some diseased. With our exam paper in hand, we had to correctly identify each plant and the disease - if any. We were given 30 minutes to mark down all our answers.

Kenny and I were both thrilled when we passed the test. We were now officially potato roguers! We could start making our calls on local farmers.

When we tackled our first roguing job, the pair of us walked up the furrow between two rows, checking the spuds on each side. Then slowly, as we got used to the look of that potato variety in all light conditions, we began to check two rows on each side, up and down the field for hours on end. Walking and looking. Walking and looking.

We each had a walking stick in our hand, and if we spotted a rogue, we'd slash at it with our stick, snapping the plant over. A farm boy, coming behind us, would then dig the offending rogue potatoes out of the ground, toss them into a sack or basket, and the job continued.

Roguing continues in rain or shine, and as you all know, it's been known to rain a bit in Scotland. We quickly discovered that it was wise to dress in shorts, shirt, PLUS a light waterproof jacket on top no matter how warm the day. The reason was simple. A rain shower will always hit you when you're at the farthest point away from shelter. And unless it was torrential, you simply slogged on.

When you're clumping down the fields on those wet rainy days, you begin to gather great clods of mud on the soles of your boots. It was like glue and as you walked you rose in height. Soon, you'd be teetering along on ugly stilts of thick and heavy mud. We were like some soggy Frankenstein of the fields until we stopped, sat down and laboriously hacked off the offending lumps.

Once the fields were rogued, the Department of Agriculture inspector was called and an examination of the farmer's fields was scheduled. Provided Ken and I had done our job correctly, the farmer had some nice seed potatoes ready for market - and we were entitled to a nice payday. But that's where it sometimes got interesting. Most farmers paid us quickly and cheerfully. But - there's ALWAYS one.

When we got confirmation that this particular farmer's field had been graded for A quality seed, we drove up to his farmhouse and knocked on the door. "Oh," said his wife when she came to the door, "he's oot." "When might he be back?"She looked a little sheepish and said: "Ah dinna ken." We left our bill for roguing service with her, and said we'd be back the next day.

This cat-and-mouse game went on for over a week. He was always 'oot.' And his wife didn't know where. That's when we got creative. The next morning we drove up at the crack of dawn and circled his property on foot until we spotted him in one field working on a fence. We closed in.

When we reached him he looked up and his face fell. "Ah wis waitin' tae pay ye," he muttered. "But Ah wis aye oot whin ye came by." We glowered at him, but soon were back at the farmhouse where the old tightwad grudgingly forked over the money he owed us. A real old Potato Rogue he was...

And what did I do with all that hard-earned roguing money? Put it in the bank? Bought myself a long-term bond? Stuck it under the mattress for a rainy day? Of course not.

I bought myself a shiny new 350 c.c. B.S.A. motorbike. But that's another story...

Angus, Me and the Film Star –
Hugh McGrory

I've spoken before of my great friend, Angus. He was once told by someone that he resembled a certain actor, and while he, himself, didn't really see it, he was prepared to accept it, with a pinch of salt, as fact.

He liked to tell the story of the time he was in a bar having a quiet pint, and became aware that a couple of women, sitting at a nearby table, seemed to be talking about him. One of them got up and walked towards him...

Angus said "I expected to hear her say, are you –?"



What she actually said was "Are you –?"



As I grew older, the Canadian winters began to remind me that I was losing my hair. I finally decided that I needed to wear a hat when it was really cold outside, and bought one from Tilley's the Canadian firm that
makes clothing for outdoorsmen and travellers. It felt a bit weird wearing a hat for the first time in my life, but it certainly kept the heat in, and I began to think that it was quite stylish, and reminded me of a similar hat in a movie that I'd seen.

The first time my son saw me in the hat, I asked him if it reminded him of a film star...

He took a good look and said "Actually, now you mention it, it does."


What I was going for...

What he actually said...

Sic transit gloria mundi...

First Tee Encounters
John Russell
I've had plenty of good and bad golfing experiences, one of the latter being a raid at our club-house by an armed gang in São Paulo, Brazil, when I was lucky enough to be far from it, on the 13th hole, and unusually had gone there without my family that day.

I once played in a Morgan team against Harris Academy at Downfield. There was no organised draw - each player had to choose his opponent. I was beside a taller Morgan boy, who shall be nameless... and two of the Harris team were standing nearby, one about my height called Sandy Gray (if my memory doesn't fail me), who had formerly been at the Morgan, alongside a much taller opponent. I was too slow to approach Sandy and was left to play against the other one, and from the start I could see he wasn't much good and I won by 9 holes up with 8 to play, my biggest ever match-play result. In the other match, Sandy won, so it's not always 'he who hesitates is lost'.

In 1970, I was in Dundee on holiday from Angola. One sunny day, I went to Caird Park to find a long queue at the starter's box. Soon I spotted a golfer alone on the 1st tee and asked if I could join him, but he said a couple of friends were joining him on the 4th. On returning to the starter's area, a fellow asked me if I was looking for a game so I played with him and his friend. Noting my tan, one of them asked where I was from, etc., and when I then asked them, they said they were in 'show business'- a Scottish band that travelled
round the world in winter.

Before finishing, they said they were planning a round at the Camperdown course two days later and suggested playing together again. I had bought a season ticket for Caird Park only (cost: £3) but they said I could trade it in for another for both courses paying an extra ten bob, which I did and played a few more enjoyable rounds with them. When I returned to my sister's home in the Ferry, I mentioned casually to her that I had played with two golfers called Arthur Spink and Dennis Clancy, she told me the former was one of Scotland's best accordionists at the time, and Dennis, a well-known singer. Later, they kindly gave me a number of tickets for my family to attend a show their band staged in Dundee.

Another unbelievable 1st tee encounter, however, occurred here in the Algarve in 1990. As a part-time golf writer, I was invited to the opening of a new course, Pine Cliffs, and the programme included an informal
practice round before the official one. I went along to the first tee when three friends about to tee off invited me to make up a foursome. I apologised and told them that I had arranged to play with another writer who was there, so they drove off.

There was a couple I didn't know standing nearby with their golf equipment and they, called Jimmy and Nikki Smith, kindly suggested we play together. His accent was obviously Scottish, so when walking down the fairway I asked him whereabouts he was from, to which he amazingly replied "Dundee". I said that I had spent most of my youth there and went to the Morgan. "So did I", said Jimmy, but he was a couple of years ahead of ours,
and we didn't recall having met at school, if at all. We became good friends and they lived on the Pine Cliffs complex for several years, but left a few years ago to live in the UK.
As a footnote, after the round, Nigel Mansell - who had been nominated honorary chairman of the club - turned up at the practice green where we were practising putting, and Jimmy told him that I had putted well during our round, so Nigel said to me: "Let's shake hands to see if some of your luck rubs off on me".


Celebrities - 4
Hugh McGrory


In the early '70s I was in New York City pursuing my two interests - computers and engineering. A great friend of mine, Sam, from Houston, Texas and I decided to pay a visit to MOMA, The Museum of Modern Art, in the old buiding on W. 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.

As we wandered from gallery to gallery, there was a tall, slim guy doing the same – I knew I should know him from somewhere, but – I finally enlisted Sam's aid, and we figured out that it was:


This would've been around the time when he was on TV every week playing the police lieutenant boss to Angie Dickinson's Sgt. Pepper Anderson in Police Woman.

The name Earl Holliman may not be well known, but you will all have seen him on the big screen. Now in his mid-80s, he is best known in the US for Police Woman, but he also won the Golden Globe Award for his performance in the 1956 film The Rainmaker, with Burt Lancaster and Katherine Hepburn, and appeared in many other films such as Broken Lance with Spencer Tracy, Giant with Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson, and was one of The Sons of Katie Elder with John Wayne.

My Father's Dundee Pub
Gordon Findlay

My father earned his living as a publican. He owned and operated Caw's Bar in downtown Dundee (at 25 Panmure Street, close to the Wellgate).
As a youngster I never thought much about how we earned our living. For we three brothers it was just a fun place to go down to with our parents, in the quiet hours of a Sunday (when pubs back then were closed) and help them to sweep out the bar and the lounge, and re-stock the shelves with bottled beer.

McEwan's and Tennent's and Younger's Scotch Ale were popular. So were IPA, Bass Worthington and Double Diamond. Many ladies preferred Mackeson's stout (because, of course, it was good for you) .


One of the other pleasures of our visits was watching the fresh barrels of beer coming in to the basement of Caw's through a hatchway set into Panmure Street. In those days our draft beer was made by a local Dundee brewer - Ballingall & Son, in their Lower Pleasance and Park St. breweries.

Their truck would pull up beside Caw's, and the two burly delivery men would open up the sidewalk hatch. Wide wooden planks were placed from the lorry down to the hatch. One man placed hefty ropes around one of the barrels, and it was slowly and carefully rolled down the planks and into the hatch. The other man would be in our basement where he would also have a rope around the barrel, slowly guiding it on to the racks set in the floor.

The photograph below shows a modern day beer delivery showing, in the background, the Wellgate/Murray-gate/Cowgate intersection, and a lorry that has apparently come all the way from Australia.

Once settled on the racks, the barrels would be ready for tapping by my father. He'd drive the round wooden bung into the barrel with a mallet, then quickly slip a metal spigot into the hole before any beer foamed out. Plastic and metal hose lines were then attached to the spigot and from there up to the bar above. And another barrel of fresh beer was ready for business.

But the real joy for me, in those quiet hours on a Sunday, was to quickly explore down the sides of the comfy chairs and sofas which dotted the lounge, where men could take their ladies and enjoy a quieter and slightly more refined atmosphere than the stand-up bar. Here was the hidden secret of that comfy furniture: it often held money!

When the patrons of our pub were sitting down with their friends, enjoying a pint or two, or three, they became very relaxed - and sometimes a bit careless. When one of our waitresses handed them back their change from a drink order, they would stuff the bills and loose change into their pockets as they sat there. But - every so often they missed - and instead of slipping the money into their pocket, they stuffed it down the soft side of the chair or sofa they were sitting in.

When our parents drove us down to Caw's to help clean up and re-stock my older brother David and I always raced to the biggest and most comfortable sofas and chairs. We'd plunge our hands down the sides, with hopes high of finding hidden treasure. Usually all we'd come up with would be the ancient crust of a pie or a bridie, a couple of broken old cigarettes, or a ratty old handkerchief.

But every so often . . . Oh, the joy of feeling your hand close over a tight little cluster of coins, wedged in the deep recess of the sofa. We'd drag them out into the light of day to see what our mining exploration had yielded. Hey - a florin, a shilling and two sixpences! Wow! Let the celebrations begin.

On one memorable occasion, I went alone with my parents to help clean and re-stock. And, naturally, I spent the first five minutes checking all the likely chairs and sofas. It was when I stuck my hand down one of the big soft chairs near the fireplace that I hit the jackpot. My fist closed around a clump of coins - and they were embedded in a one pound note! (A quid back in those days was a small fortune to a youngster.)

I raced over to my mother to show her my newfound treasure. She took one look at the money in my hands and removed it from my care. "You realize, Gordon - you'll have to share this with David. That's only fair." She gave me one of the sixpences. "You can buy yourself a treat on the way home."

I think I probably moaned a little at having to divide my treasure. But hey - I was rich. At least for a little while.

Mr. Cool
Hugh McGrory

In the 1970s I was managing a computer department for an engineering firm in Toronto. Every now and again two of my programmers, our computer operator and I would take a ten minute walk to a good fish and chip shop for lunch. Afterwards we'd go next door to a small cafe that had two pool tables, where we'd have a couple of games before heading back to the office.

One cool day in early spring as we approached the chip shop, we saw four hogs at the kerb - powerful beasts - and stopped for a moment to stare at them in awe. They were still there when we emerged (the kind on the right in the photo).

The frontage of the cafe which was our next stop, was quite small, but it extended quite far back. After passing the counter, there were chairs and tables on both sides of a long aisle, and, right at the back, the two pool tables.

As we began the long walk to the tables, we realised that one was in use - by the owners of the bikes - four bikers, in their leathers and club colours. We all slowed down, each of us with the same thought, "Uh, Oh!".

As the leader of our 'gang', I decided that I had to show that I wasn't intimidated. The bikers had paused their game to stare at us approaching and as we got closer, I kept looking steadily at the one I took to be their leader, casually stripping off the rather nice pair of leather gloves that I was wearing - a Christmas gift.

Just before we got to the tables there was a garbage can - like the one in the photograph but older, with the flap missing - and I casually flipped my gloves onto the top. At least that's what I intended, but my aim was poor and the gloves disappeared into the can. For a moment I couldn't decide which would make me look less dumb, pretending that was what I'd meant to do - obviously ridiculous, or rooting around in the garbage to retrieve my gloves - to say the least, ignominious...

I chose the latter, and to make matters worse, the bin had recently been emptied, and I couldn't reach them. I had to take the lid off and two of my guys upended the bin to dump the gloves onto the floor. By the time this farce had played out, the bikers had obvously written us off as a bunch of clowns and no threat, and had resumed their play.

On the plus side, my strategy worked - we played side by side for the next 45 minutes or so, and they were perfect gentleman - they totally ignored us...

Sadly, not the only Mr. Cool moment of my career...

Berry Pickin'
Sandra Moir Dow

Some time during secondary school I went 'Berry Pickin' too. Not in a common field where you were paid by the weight, but at The Scottish Horticultural Research Institute, at Mylnefield, in Invergowrie (now part of The James Hutton Institute) - we were paid by the hour!

I went by bicycle and one day, on the way there down the Kingsway West, I spotted 2 or 3 boys that I recognised as Morgan pupils without knowing their names or well enough to shout "Hello".

They watched me too and I heard them discussing who I might be. After a few names one said "She's more like Sandra Moir" and the other said "Definitely not, she couldn't be here" So I chuckled as I continued.

Maybe one of them remembers too and is reading this!!

You'll Never Take the Two of Us Alive, Coppers! - 3
Hugh McGrory

You've met by boyhood pal Billy in previous stories. In case you thought that he was a figment of my
imagination, it happens that my brother recently turned up a couple of snaps showing Billy and me which I thought I'd share with you.

In those days, cameras weren't as ubiquitous as they are today, but for some reason my Dad had two, both manu- factured in the 1930s.

The first was a Kodak Six-20 bellows type; the second, which came a little later, was
an Agfa Karat which I made some use of in my teens. They didn't get used a lot, and truth be told I don't think my parents knew very much about photography. One rule they took to heart though was "keep the sun at your back", and I remember on many occasions having to stare towards a blazing sun and going all
squinchy-eyed to prevent from going blind.

I'm guessing the two photos my brother found were taken using the Kodak. It had to be held at about waist level as the lady in the photo is doing. It used what is known as a brilliant view- finder - basically a cube with a lens on the top that you peered down through onto a 45° mirror then out through another lens in the front to the subject. Very hard to see exactly what you were framing, and difficult to keep the camera steady when you pushed down on the release lever.

The results often looked like the photo on the right above - two thirds of the field filled with background wall, and the poor wee fella in the front, whoever he was, lost to history. The next photo, appropriately cropped, shows the two of us, Billy on the right - not sure what age we were - what would you say, about six maybe? Looks like we went to the same barber - seems to have used the same chipped bowl for both of us.
Not a great photo, but you can see that butter wouldn't melt in our mouths... (apparently sugar would though, because, I think, the pokes had sugar in them and we had little stalks of rhubarb to dip in - a wartime treat).

So one day, Billy and I were playing, as usual, in the backyard, and we ended up by the wall and railings that separated us from Sibbald Street, a little cul-de-sac that runs SW to Dens Road .

We decided that we would go exploring across Dens Road to our fort at the corner of Hillbank and Dens Roads by climbing over the fence - my memory is that it was about fifteen feet high. In a previous 'Billy and me' story, below, I described our 'railings' technique - getting up to the top with our feet on the top bar between the uprights then jumping up and out to the ground below. Now admittedly, my technique needed work, but in this case that didn't really matter - the railings were too high to jump off anyway, so we had to improvise.

Our new approach was to get up to the top, then with straight arms on the top bar swing one leg over, take all our weight on the near arm then reverse the other and bring it close to our body which enabled us to swing the other leg over - we were than in the same position as we started the manoeuvre from but on the other side of the fence. It wasn't until we were carrying out this swingover part that we realised how dangerous this move was - for boys that is... However we both managed it without losing any of our dangly bits, and we were home free, sliding down the railings to the wall below and jumping to the ground.

It was at that exact moment that we heard 'The Voice', from the side we'd just left - "What do you two think you're doing?". Oh nuts - it was the local bobby again! We both immediately said "Nuthin" and looked at each other to see who would be the first to run....But then he said, " Don't even think of running - I know where you live" - we felt he made a good point...

As we hesitated he said "Get back over here". I couldn't believe that he would ask us to do that - presumably he was going to tell us that we shouldn't be risking life and limb by doing that exact thing! I said "We can't climb over that...", but realised before I'd finished the sentence how stupid that sounded in the circumstances.

So we had to go through the whole process again until we were back standing on the grass (fortunately neither of us did any harm to our (future) manhood, on the spikes). We had to listen to him reading the riot act and promising that he'd be coming to see our mothers (which didn't bother us since they always said that and never did) before he sent us on our way. We lost interest in visiting our fort that day.

Recently I re-visited Sibbald Street (on Google Earth) and copied this photograph. I was amazed to see that the wall and fence that I remembered as soaring fifteen feet into the air was probably under ten feet...
The Rainbow Bus
Richard Crighton

When I was teaching at Milnathort Primary School the police used to visit and give the children instruction in cycling safety. One of the policemen, a part-time coach driver, suggested that if I was also interested in driving buses I should try it. I was frequently in touch with Earnside Coaches for hiring buses for school trips so knew the owner quite well. After a bit of training and passing my test I did weekend and holiday work for about 18 months. Then the chance came to take early retirement from teaching and I became a professional bus and coach driver. I have never looked back and, at the age of nearly 72, I retired from that job with many happy memories.

Once, while driving a coach full of Senior Citizens on a tour of the West Highlands I was urged to make a stop so that my passengers could take photographs of a rainbow. That's not particularly remarkable but what caused some of the folk to want me to stop the coach was that the rainbow was on the opposite side of the loch against a dark sky while we were in bright sunshine. We had noticed the increasingly strengthening colours as we travelled south alongside Loch Maree in the late afternoon one summer's day. The sun was fairly low in the sky on our right and there was heavy rain over the hills and on the loch on our left.

Now, it's all very well for everyone to call out, "Dick, stop the bus! We want to take a photo of the rainbow", but have you ever tried to find a lay-by long enough to park a 40 foot long vehicle weighing about 15 tons and travelling at nearly 50 miles an hour? Each place we approached was occupied by at least one car, parked right in the middle of the space, of course! I could hear some of the camera-clutchers becoming almost frantic as we passed lay-by after lay-by until, at last there was an empty space. We came to a fairly rapid halt (I would have failed my test on that one) and I was first out followed by a busy flow of amateur photographers.

The picture that I knew I wanted meant I had to cross the road and run through some thick heather to position the coach under the rainbow. This was in the days before digital photography and I was using slide film. One shot was all there was time for because my passengers were already climbing back on board. Fortunately, the photo turned out quite well and a print of it has been in the garage office ever since.

Years later there was a surprise for me when I was looking through the 25th anniversary book of Kinross Camera Club. There on the inside back page was the photo of 'Dick's Bus'.

Celebrities 3
Hugh McGrory

I once took a photograph of the back of a guy's head - "Why?" you may well ask - here's the story...
Around 1970, I bought a tent trailer, and with the family began to drag it around Canada and the States. In 1972, we decided to take the kids to Florida, and being daring - or stupid - we decided to go all the way south to Key West, in our Buick Skylark, pulling the tent trailer.

At the time, it was a two-lane road, with narrow bridges, which made it a hair-raisng trip for me. The tent trailer stuck out a little either side of the car, and, as you can see in the photo, I had added wing-mirrors which stuck out even further. Several times on the narrow bridges we met trucks going the other way, and I felt like I had an inch clearance either side, and sweated bullets every time.

It was a great trip though, and we never forgot the experience of driving mile after mile and looking out to the Atlantic side and seeing sparkling blue water, then to the Gulf side and seeing emerald green water.

We had promised the kids a week in Disney World on the way back and had booked a campsite in Fort Wilderness(which of course was neither a Fort nor a wilderness...).

The camp was on the edge of a lake at the other side of which was The Magic Kingdom. After a couple of days trudging around we had a family vote and decided to spend a day at the beach a few hundred yards from our trailer.

Some time during the day the kids and I wandered down to the beach and and saw one of the small rental motor boats (like the one in the photo) approaching the jetty with one occupant who got out and hung out on the jetty chatting to some of the bystanders.

I recognised him, an American dancer, singer and actor, and I knew that he was the entertainer in the Top of the World night club that week. I had the kids wait for me, ran back to get my camera, and then we walked down to the edge of the jetty to get a souvenir photo.


At which point... I just couldn't bring myself to take one - it seemed so intrusive, not to mention gauche - so I just didn't.

That's why I have, somewhere, a tiny photo of the back of a man's head as he motored back to the Magic Kingdom! (Francis wasn't with him...)

Have you figured out who the head belonged to?


I'm sure you all remember him, an all-round entertainer - singer, comedian, dancer - one of the last movie stars who had actually worked and honed his skills in vaudeville. He appeared in his first movie in 1937, an important date for many of us, and his last in 1997. Well known for the series of six movies with Francis (The Talking Mule). The first of those was released in 1949, and the last in 1955 - again signifcant dates for many of us.

Maths and Me
Marion Mackay Clubb

The story about Mr. Kelly reminded me of my Maths teachers. They were a lively lot and left a big impression on my memory, though sadly not on my mathematical ability.

There was Anna Mackie, her teaching made Algebra understandable and the whole class had good passes, despite her despair of our results. She was heard to say "Never, never have I had such a poor set of pupils..."

Then there was Ray Stevens, whose enthusiasm for his subject was shared with every pupil, however weak they were. He had no problems with discipline.

Bill Kelly did – he had a Glasgow accent and he was fairly loud whilst he was teaching. He didn't sit down but moved around the classroom. Belted the boys but not the girls. I can still hear him bawling at me, when he caught me talking to my neighbour "Miss Mackay, 10 times Pythagoras for you".

In other classes I might have managed to acquire pre-written sheets, but our class was not so organised, so I paid my punishment in full and it was one theorem I really remembered!

My last long-suffering teacher was Jimmy Angus. He made Maths interesting. To begin with, we felt he was very solemn, but gradually we found he had a good sense of humour.

Despite all his good teaching, he broke the news that I would not be presented for the Lower Leaving Certificate in Maths. When the results came through, all pupils presented passed. "If you had let me sit I might have passed", I remonstrated.

"Miss Mackay, today I have had a great shock seeing all those names of pupils who have passed. If your name had been on that list, I would be laid flat out on the floor!" So I guess I saved him from that indignity!

One lasting memory of his class was the time he asked us to make a sketch to illustrate some geometric point. He then drew the answer and asked "Miss Mackay, is your figure anything like mine?"

Shocked, I replied "I certainly hope not" and the whole class collapsed, including Mr. Angus!


"Yerwasawa!"
Hugh McGrory

When I was a wee lad growing up in No. 2 Fairbairn Street during the war, my Dad was away in the army.

There were three constants in my life - two of these were my Mother, and her mother, my Grannie, who both looked after me.

These photos were taken in the late '30s. The one on the left shows my mother holding me, looking out of the living room window into the front garden. The second photo shows my Gran in the garden surrounded by our privet hedge.

As you can see it's a terrible photo; I chose it because it also shows the third constant of my early childhood, the wall in the top right hand corner. This was the dominant feature at the east end of Fairbairn St., and loomed
over our home from across the street - the first thing we saw when we looked out of the window or walked out of the close. In fact, if you look at the window, you'll see that, above our heads, the reflection changes from the sky, at the top, to the reflection of the wall further down.

Built of brick (my Dad was a bricklayer in real life and I know he considered the brickwork inferior), the Wa' was an imposing presence - over 150 feet long, about 27 feet high at the Arklay St. end, opposite No. 2, reducing to about 20 feet opposite No. 6. Because our home faced north, it never got the sun, but at certain times of the day, the Wa' caught the sun and reflected a soft warm light onto the street. The Wa' wasn't just there - it served many useful purposes for me and the kids I grew up and played with 'roond the doors'.

For example we made continually-refreshed chalk outlines of football goalposts and cricket stumps which together with an old tennis ball and a few kids created an instant game of football or cricket. If other kids weren't around on any given day, the Wa' and a ba' were enough to let a solitary kid spend time kicking or hitting the ba' against the Wa' and it would be patiently returned every time. A variant of this was to stand close to the wall with a tennis ball and practice our heiders.

The girls also had a game using a tennis ball in an old nylon stocking. They stood with their back against the wall then swung and banged the ball against the wall either side of them chanting some rhyme, regularly lifting one leg or the other and swinging the ball under it against the wall. I never tried, but some of the girls were very good at it, and I liked to sit on the kerb and watch them for their grace and agility and to catch the occasional flash of their knickers...

The Wa' served as the mark for games of pitch-and-toss, for real pennies, played with one eye out for the local bobby (our nemesis of whom we have spoken previously...)

There was another game we played with cigarette cards - I've forgotten the finer points of the rules but basically two or more players took turns holding a card against the Wa' at a specified height and letting it fall to the ground - if it landed on another card you were allowed to pick up that card and your own.

The 1945 movie Back to Bataan starring John Wayne and Anthony Quinn inspired us to invent a game called Bataan. One kid stood on the pavement opposite the Wa', and all the other kids gathered at one end then walked along in single file to the other end, turned around and walked back to the start. The kid with the ball would zing the ball at the line of kids the object being to hit (and hurt) a kid - any kid - though the game could be a way of settling past grievances if your aim was good enough. The kids in the line would duck and dive to avoid being hit, but once one was, they took over the ba' and the former thrower joined the line (and discovered, on occasion, that "what goes around comes around"!)

I had a close encounter once, with the Wa'. One day when I was about nine or ten, alone, bored, no kids around to engage with, I noticed that some construction material had been left in the nursery grounds adjoining the Wa'. I had one of those "it seemed like a good idea at the time", moments.

I decided to clamber up onto the Wa' and try to get all the way along to the high end - just to see if I could. I didn't walk along the coping stones at the top, of course, rather I bummed along with one leg down each side of the wall.

I completed the journey, then figured that, since there were about twenty flats with windows facing the Wa', and I was, at the high end, roughly level with the third storey windows, someone would have seen me and would clipe to my mother (heaven forbid - I was going to be in real trouble). But no one ever mentioned it - I got away with it.

Now for those readers who are saying to themselves - "Really?", I'll share something I learned halfway through my adventure. Bumming along a wall begins by sitting on the copestone, as described earlier with a leg hanging down either side. Then putting both hands on the stone a few inches in front of your pelvis, with arms held straight you lean forward and without much effort you slide your butt forward a few inches. Repeat this a million times and you eventually reach the other end.

I got into a rhythm, and towards the end, though tiring, was making a decent speed. Once the outbound trip had been made it was just a case of reversing the process - or so I thought...

When I tried it, I realised that human anatomy and simple geometry makes the forward movement easy and stable - in reverse, the same factors make the movement difficult and rather unstable - the latter being of some concern when you're 25 feet up in the air. Try it and you'll see what I mean. I found out that I didn't have the strength to make it back, and the instability was rather terrifying. After a few feet I knew I was in trouble. There was one obvious alternative - turn around...

That was easy for me to say, but in practice it involved bringing one leg up and over so that I was facing at right angles to the wall with both legs on that side and my back facing the other way with my butt peering downwards into space. Then of course, repeating that move to get my second leg switched to the other side at which point I'd be facing back the way I'd come and in good shape.

The copestone was only about 10 inches wide, and my initial attempts to pull this off terrified me - it must have taken me a good five minutes of sitting there steeling myself to carry out the manoeuvre. The only other alternative was to shout for help - eventually someone would have heard and my mother would have come out and looked up - then died on the spot. Or, she wouldn't have collapsed, would have summoned the fire department, they would've got me down and delivered me to her loving arms - and then I would've died on the spot...

I finally decided to take the least risky alternative, and steeled myself to turn around (I had never been so scared in my life), managed to pull it off, turning very slowly and deliberately, and successfully bummed back to the starting point. Like I said, it seemed like a good idea at the time...

The Wa' was always there for me until I was a young teenager and we moved house, and I still have fond memories of it. You can imagine how sad I was when Jimmy Howie sent me an email saying, "Yer Wa's awa!".

When I visited Dundee recently, I went down to the corner where Fairbairn, Arklay and Dundonald streets meet to check it out, and sure enough, as the photos below show, the proud massive companion of my childhood had been reduced to a pile of rubble and replaced by a puny green metal mesh fence with only a few courses of the original wall left standing.


Meh Wa' really wis awa' - and part of my childhood with it!

Berry Picking
Gordon Findlay

I wasn't exactly a willing berry picker, but when I was around 9 or 10, my brother David convinced me we could each make some decent pocket money. "They're looking for pickers at all the Carse of Gowrie farms. Dad's going to drop us off. Wear old clothes."

Back in the late 1930s and early 1940s the Carse was a well-known centre for soft fruit growing: apples, plums, pears, strawberries, raspberries and some blackberries too. In that lovely protected valley of the river Tay, on the north side, in those 25 kilometres from Invergowrie to Perth, the soil was deep and rich, and there was lots of sunshine.

On a nice summer morning David and I joined a ragged band of pickers who assembled in the farmyard, a mixture of young and old, experienced and totally raw.


We sat up on a flat trailer and a tractor drove us out to a field of raspberries which, to me looked gigantic, stretching off into the distance.

We were given the option of using our own metal pails or baskets, so long as they were not too deep. Too deep and the berries on the bottom were squashed together making them harder to wash. Most of us chose to use the small wooden punnets the farm provided.

Then came the 30-second lecture on how to pick raspberries. "Only reid yins. Nae yellas or pinkies. Ye git paid by weight, so bring yer punnets up when they're fu'. Off ye go!"

The field boss assigned us to separate drills and reminded us again us to bring our berries up to the weigh station when we had several filled punnets. There, they'd be weighed and credited to our name which he'd write down in the tally book. "Dinna wait ower lang," he said. "Ye'll find out why."

It was only later when I realized the reason for this warning. Wasps! The little yellow devils were all around, attracted by the sweet and rotting berries which had dropped to the ground. So, if you kept too many full punnets beside you, there was soon a squadron of wasps hovering around.

There was one obvious benefit to berry-picking: you could eat on the job (when the field boss' back was turned). I took full advantage and I stuffed myself with the sweetest and juiciest berries. But there are only so many raspberries a stomach can hold and after an hour or so of gluttony I discovered a truism about berry picking: the faster you eat the sooner you sicken. By noon I couldn't look at one without gagging.

By late afternoon my enthusiasm had ebbed. My back ached, my arms were scratched from the rasp's thorny branches, and my fingers were stained purple. It was at that point I came face-to-face with a dark secret about soft fruit picking paid by weight.

I had lugged an armful of our filled punnets up towards the weigh scale. To get there, you had to walk back through the field of rasps where the canes towered well above my height. You were well hidden from the weigh station.

As I walked between the canes I came upon a pair of the grown-ups who'd been picking beside us. They had used their own metal pails, and a couple of them, full of berries, were sitting in front of them. As I approached, I heard the distinctive tinkling sound of someone relieving himself. Oh yes... right into their buckets.

I stopped in disbelief. Seeing me, one of the men, now finished, buttoned up his pants and gave me a conspiratorial wink. Then he hefted his buckets up and walked them up to the station. It was a pay-by-the-weight system... and he'd just added some handy excess weight to his berries.

After that, when I'd see bottles of raspberry jam in the store I'd think: "I hope they gave those berries a good boiling."

"What are the chances?" - 3
Hugh McGrory

We emigrated to Canada in 1966 and I joined a firm of consulting engineers. A couple of years later a fellow named John joined the firm. He and I, an Indo/European and an Irish/Scot hit it off - we were both field hockey players, me in Dundee and he in Darjeeling (though he was a better player than I).

He was an amusing, interesting guy to hang out with - used to dress in the dark each morning so that his wife could sleep in a little longer - he would show up from time to time with different coloured socks - on one occasion he outdid himself by spending the whole workday wearing one black and one brown shoe - when I complimented him on his fashion statement, he said he had another, similar pair, at home...

John was married to an English girl, Pat, they had three kids and so did we, and we would sometimes meet up for family outings, picnics, etc. After a few years, John and family left for the UK. In 1974 I spent a couple of days at their home in East Sussex. After this, they moved around the world on various engineering projects and we lost touch (pre-email, of course).

With the advent of the Internet and the WWW, I would make periodic attempts to find him, but since I had no information to go on, I didn't have any luck. Then, around 2005, I did another search and found a John and Sharon had won a golf competition at a course in Spain. I was pretty sure that this was 'my' John, since the surname is not very common, and Sharon was the name of one of his daughters.

There was no contact information, of course, so I found the email address for the course secretary in Spain and sent an email explaining my search, gave a few details and asked that my email address be passed on to this John, if the facts warranted - the mail seemed to be received, and then - nothing! So I gave up again. (Sadly, since these actually were the correct John and Sharon).

In the summer of 2007, I was in Dundee on one of my quite frequent visits, and my brother asked me if I'd drop into the bookstore at the Verdant Works museum to pick up a book he wanted. The young person serving me said she wasn't sure where that book would be, but another staff member who had gone into the museum for a few minutes would know. She pointed across the courtyard to a small room by the entrance and said that the staff member in there was just starting a tour, and if I told him he'd send the other person down to help me.

So I went across to where the staff person was doing his spiel for a couple of tourists, waited for a break in his discourse then started to explain what I wanted when the male tourist said "Hugh McGrory?". You've guessed it - it was 'my' John and his daughter Sharon, now in her 40s, whom I hadn't seen since she was a preschooler.

They were on a world tour together, he having retired, and on this leg they were camping around the UK and heading for St Andrews to see the 2007 Women's British Golf Open

We had dinner together that night, played a round of golf the next day - in Forfar - had lunch together afterwards then went our separate ways. The following year on their world tour they came to Canada and stayed with us for a couple of days. John still lives in Spain, and we're still in touch by email.

I ask you - what are the chances?

The Balance of Nature
(–and how Heide set it straight!)

Ian Gordon

As soon as we arrived in North Carolina, Heide was happy to see we had big rivers and an ocean nearby...
even if they were on the other side (the East) than in Naples (the West.) So she's still able to take me on boating trips, just like we used to in Naples, and Cape Town, and we do make some great trips from time to time. I've matured a bit, and I've dyed my hair white, but Heide does not lose
any of her youth as time goes on. Anyway, going to the beach isn't part of our lifestyle and we have rediscovered Nature in the beautiful natural surrounds to our home
which is situated in the Fairfield Harbour community of New Bern, about ten miles from downtown New Bern. There are about a thousand homes, mainly single-family-units, in this friendly, active community so there's lots of socializing and bridge to occupy our time. But our daily lives, and especially Heide's, are taken up with our contacts with Nature and its inhabitants – a dazzling array of beautiful birds, bees, trees and flowers and a marauding army of deer, moles and the incredibly mischievous squirrels. Keeping a balance (or a level playing field) for all these participants is almost a full-time job for Heide...

Now, of all Nature's inhabitants around us, the ones most demanding of attention are the birds. They come in summer full of hope – food is bountiful during the day (even if it's only the tasteless worms the moles dig up) and at night they disappear to high places. But come wintertime food gets a bit harder to find, and at night they come down to keep warm, making themselves prey to the many scavengers who hunt at nighttime. One of the beautiful red cardinals clearly saw that we were new to the area and that made us a soft touch...
so he decided to move in with us last winter and is still with us. He has become our lodger and he feels perfectly safe at nights on his perch right outside our front door. Heide has fixed up bathroom facilities close at hand and a shivery bite for him when he needs a snack. He is quite demanding and hates to be disturbed after he has settled in (just after dark.) So, friends coming for bridge or dinner in the evenings just have to enter and leave by the garage door. ("Sorry, we can't disturb the lodger.")

But life, in nature at least, is never quite so simple. The squirrels keep on in their marauding ways and there are always a host of them, and others, feasting on the produce of our front and backyards. The birds had no chance – so Heide had to find a way of providing for our lodger and his friends.
As the potted plants offered no protection from the cunning squirrels, Heide looked to modern technology in an attempt to outwit the squirrels. She called on our German branch (our daughter, Tania) and so we imported a squirrel-proof bird feed all the way from Germany, designed by the world's best engineers. The lodger
watched it being constructed and did in fact try it out. But you could see he was wary – expecting a squirrel would materialize at any moment.

And so they did – they climbed the pole like trapeze artists and we spent most of our time rushing out to shoo them off. Our lodger and his friends got scared and backed off. Back to the drawing board, Heide.

Not to be undone, Heide had to find a solution. We couldn't harm the squirrels 'cos this is their natural habitat and they have every right to be there. So Heide purchased some very slippery grease, not toxic or harmful in any way, and coated the supporting pole with it top to bottom.

Gee, those pesky squirrels got the shock of their acrobatic lives. They couldn't get even halfway up the pole
before they came slithering down. It was a joy (and a good laugh) to see!

Now we are all fine, until the next crisis! Our lodger is happy with his new restaurant. Indeed many of his friends fly in to have lunch with him. The squirrels continue, cussin' under their breaths, ravaging – but on the ground and in the trees.


He Really Knew How to
Hurt a Guy

Hugh McGrory

Those of you who were in my class at school may remember when we had Wull Kelly for math - I think it was either second or third year. I liked Wull, he was a very good teacher, and he helped develop my liking for mathematics. He was also a strict disciplinarian, and I seem to remember that he used to throw chalk at miscreants - or was that another teacher?

Funny how some things from schooldays stay with you while others fade away over time. I still remember one lesson I learned in Wull's class - and it wasn't really about mathematics...

I must have been late getting to class on the first day of term, since I ended up sitting in the front row. It turned out that when he wasn't writing on the board, Wull liked to stand close to the front row so he could cast his eagle eye over our motley crew and make sure we were paying attention. It happened that his favourite spot was right in front of me, so that I spent much of that year with him towering over me. I used to try to keep still so that his attention would be focused outwards and not down.

At the end of each class, Bill would assign homework which we had to complete, or at least attempt, for the next class. One evening, for some reason, I didn't get around to doing the assigned work. Next day in class, Wull asked us to open our workbooks and he took up the assigned work.

He never said a word to me all class, and so as class ended and we headed for the door, I was congratulating myself on getting away with it. I got to the door when I heard that word that we all dreaded to hear issuing from a teacher's mouth - my name...

"McGrory," he said, "come back here," then, "you didn't do your homework, did you?"

"No sir."

"Right', he barked, "write it out five times for next class."

So that evening, as well as doing my other homework, I had to spend quite a long time on the boring task of writing several pages out five bloody times. Next class I had the work ready for him, but he didn't ask for it. At the end of class, I thought that he had perhaps forgotten and I almost walked out with it - but then common sense kicked in and I went over to his desk. I held out the papers to him, thinking, philosophically, "I did the crime and I've done the time - at least it's over." Little did I know that the real punishment had still to come...

Wull stared at the papers with a blank look. "What's this?" he said. I thought to myself - he did forget, I could've gotten away with not doing it...

I said "It's the five copies of yesterday's homework that you asked for."

"Oh", he said, then reached out his hand and, with one continuous movement, grabbed the papers and...
DUMPED THEM IN THE WASTEBASKET...

I've never forgotten that little incident.

He really knew how to hurt a guy!

Our A.A. gun
Gordon Findlay

Our home occupied the south-east corner of Shamrock Street and Mains Loan and was divided from our neighbours by a common wall. Just before the breakout of World War II, the older couple next door to us
moved away. My brother David and I immediately scouted around their property, but nothing of interest had been left behind outside, so 'the house next door' just sat empty and we waited to see who would move in.

These thoughts were interrupted by the outbreak of war, with rationing, the prospect of building an air raid shelter, and thoughts of invasion. Then, all at once there was a sudden flurry of activity next door to us.

A crew of workmen arrived. For a week we
could hear saws ripping through wood and the workers – hammers pounding. Electricians strung new cables into the house. Portable bed frames were delivered and carried inside.

Then, one day, a large British Army truck came lumbering along Shamrock Street and stopped at the far entrance. Out came a small crowd of soldiers, each with a kitbag and rifle, followed by an elderly officer. He came over to my parents to introduce our new neighbours: a detachment of the Black Watch, one sergeant and six other ranks.

In some ways they were ideal neighbours. They kept to themselves and only showed up together when, around six-thirty in the morning, they all lined outside the house on Shamrock Street for early parade. The officer gave them a desultory inspection, called out a list of orders-of-the-day, then dismissed them. They vanished inside.

A couple of weeks later, in chatting to the sergeant, my father learned that 'very soon' they would be installing weapons for the defence of this part of Dundee. For my brother David and me, this was thrilling news.

Wow! Our house was going to be part of Dundee's defences, whatever that meant. Maybe we'd get anti-aircraft guns. Perhaps even a searchlight. And we'd have a ringside seat at all the action . . . the scream of air-raid sirens. . . the searchlight probing the skies for German raiders . . . . the thunder of guns. We could hardly wait.

Soon after that, some of the soldiers began to dig a shallow pit in the centre of our lawn (it was a common lawn shared by both homes). Into this they poured cement which hardened into a nice flat square.

David and I watched all this with rising excitement. Now we're getting somewhere.

We're going to be one of the strongpoints for Dundee's anti-aircraft defence. They've made the pad. Surely the big guns can't be far behind!

It all came into place a few days later. Two sturdy members of the Black Watch carried down a tripod to the concrete pad and set it in place. Then, as we watched, two sturdy soldiers lugged out a huge wooden box.

It was carefully pried open and from it the soldiers lifted . . . one single ancient Lewis machine gun. It was plain black and very ordinary looking. They then lifted out one round ammunition pan, and snapped it down on top. The job was done.

My brother and I couldn't believe it. This was it? Surely not! Where were the huge Vickers– 3.7-inch guns which could blast a 28-lb. shell 30,000 feet into the air? Where, at least, were the Oerlikon 20 mm cannons which could blast those low-flying German planes as they swooped in over Dundee?

But no, all we had was a puny wee (and pretty ancient) Lewis gun of World War I vintage which could spray a few .303 bullets into the sky.

Once the Lewis gun was installed on its mount, the soldiers draped a black waterproof tarpaulin over it, tied it down, and disappeared back into the house next door. The mighty air defence system of Maryfield was now in place.

What a letdown.

Celebrities - 2
Hugh McGrory

In the late 50s, early 60s, I worked in London in an office just off Victoria Street, not far from Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament. Across the street from our office was Caxton Hall Registry Office and from time to time as we went in and out there would be a celebrity wedding with crowds waiting to see the couple.

For example, Bernard Bresslaw married dancer Betty Wright there in 1959 (you may recognise his mates...)
But I digress - the litttle story I set out to tell is as follows - I got to and from my digs in Beckenham, Kent, using the Southern Electric from Victoria Station. Sometime in 1958 or 1959 I decided to take in a film after work, at one of the cinemas on Victoria Street, very close to the station – it might have been The Metropole, but I think it was probably The Classic Victoria – not sure – but I remember it had a long narrow hallway entrance from the street.

As I walked in I saw a man walking towards me, leaving the cinema. As he approached I knew that I should know who he was... a few minutes later it came to me:


This would have been around the time he appeared in some episodes of The Army Game and the movie Carry on Nurse (Bernard Bresslaw was in both of those too).

Michael is still alive at the age of 92.

Flying Adventures
John Russell

Hugh mentioned some of his flying adventures in his anecdotes, and I've also had a few.

In the fifties, when I went to live in Angola, we travelled by a passenger liner. Long distance piston-engine plane flights then were infrequent and took about 18 hours from Lisbon with stopovers in Nigeria or Niger.

We lived in the capital, Luanda, where my father had a friend, Senhor Raposo, a keen amateur pilot who invited my two brothers and myself for a baptism-of-flight experience in a 4-seater plane. Raposo went through the usual preparations at the hangar and then headed for the runway. When revving up for take-off he happened to glance at the fuel gauge and - oops! - it showed practically empty, so he returned to the hangar, red-faced, to be ceremoniously mocked by his fellow flying club members. So that could have been both our first and last flight!

My wife had a cousin who was a TAP (Air Portugal) pilot who often stopped over in Luanda and visited us. Once, in the sixties, I had booked a flight to Lisbon, on business, the day after he was due to fly there so he suggested I switch to his flight instead and he managed to upgrade me to 1st class. I was also invited to the cockpit for take-off with him at the controls of the Boeing 707, and also during a later part of the flight.

Years later, following the revolution in Portugal in April 1974, there was chaos in Luanda that led to independence in late 1975, with infighting amongst three political movements including in the streets of the city. I made another business trip to Europe in April 1975 and returned from Lisbon on the 30th. On boarding the 747, I bumped into a dentist friend and fellow golfer, and we managed to find adjacent seats as the plane was far from full.

After some time chatting and enjoying a couple of beverages, we were somewhere over the Sahara when the captain asked whether there was a doctor aboard. We carried on relaxing for some time until the captain asked again - this time more urgently - so my friend, who had been required to qualify in medicine before specialising in dentistry, told me he'd better offer to help.

Some time later, the passengers heard via a stewardess that a baby girl had been born aboard! It went well and he was invited to have dinner in 1st class, had to sign the flight logbook, and was later in the cockpit for the landing in Luanda around midnight. When he saw what he thought were fireworks over the city to celebrate the 1st of May, the crew told him the truth - they were actually mortar shells and tracer bullets!! We landed safely but an overnight curfew had been declared so most of the passengers were stranded at the airport until daylight.

My last flight from Luanda was in an RAF VC-10 to evacuate mainly Brits in July 1975 (and I had to pay more than a 1st class flight) but it was dangerous to stay behind, the British Consulate was closing down and my boss was going, so I didn't have much choice. The plane had backward facing seats for the troops - probably for them to disembark faster. There was one problem though - the plane had insufficient fuel to reach the UK as it was in short supply locally. This was easily solved - they flew to re-fuel at Ascension Island - a dot in the mid-Atlantic (more than halfway to S. America) with little more than an airbase and a BBC station.

I stayed some time in London but a few weeks later I visited my family in Dundee and got in touch with Murray Hackney and went to the Yacht Club in Broughty Ferry where Bobby Barnett was as well. The latter asked me if I'd been in touch with the local press and although I insisted I didn't want any publicity, he had a reporter turn up to interview me and wrote a piece entitled "Dundee man dodges bullets in Angola".

Years after, a light plane landed successfully on the 18th fairway of the golf course where I played in São Paulo, Brazil, due to bad weather. It was a 'crop duster' en route from the factory to a farm in the south of the country. Thankfully it didn't happen at the weekend and very few members golfed on working days. The plane had limited navigational instruments and depended on good visibility and it was there for a couple of days until the weather improved.

WW II - Gas is Dangerous
- then there were Gas Masks...

Hugh McGrory
Several mentions of gas masks in the stories below brought back memories for me. I had a Mickey Mouse gas mask at the beginning of the war but by 1944 had graduated to a big kid's mask (which I think was the same as the adult, civilian version - it had a large perspex window instead of the two eyes).

My Dad must have come home on leave in June 1943, since my wee brother was born in March 1944 - I was six, almost seven at the time. Because of this new arrival, the family got a baby gas mask - I'm sure that some of you will remember them - but for those who don't, instead of putting the mask on the child, you put the child inside the mask. Then the bottom of the mask was laced up between the babies legs, sort of like a diaper, and the parents then had to use a hand-pump to provide air to the baby.

I can remember trying on my gas mask, and not enjoying the feeling at all; I can also remember my baby brother being put in the baby mask when it first arrived, so my mother would know how to do it, if needed.

One ten year old boy from London remembered:
"One annoyance was the gas mask. You had to carry it all the time..... Although I could breathe in it, I felt as if I couldn't.... The covering over my face, the cloudy Perspex in front of my eyes, and the over-powering smell of rubber, made me feel slightly panicky, though I still laughed each time I breathed out, and the edges of the mask blew a gentle raspberry against my cheeks."

Memories from another ten year old from Tyneside:,
"Babies had gas masks, horses and dogs had gas masks... ..Young children had gay blue-and-red ones.... Soldiers had very grand hideous ones with round eyepieces and a long trunk. Ours had a short trunk and a large window for our eyes. The moment you put it on the window misted up, blinding you. Our mums were told to rub soap on the inside of the window to prevent this. It made it harder than ever to see and you got soap in your eyes.

There was a rubber washer under your chin that flipped up and hit you every time you breathed in. You breathed out with a farting noise round your ears. If you blew really hard you could make a very loud farting noise indeed. The bottom of the mask soon filled up with spit and your face got so hot and sweaty you could have screamed."
The quoted sections above from an essay done as GCSE coursework by pupil Joanne Oliver.

At the beginning of the war, the governnment and the citizenry were very worried about attacks from the air, explosives and/or gas, and so there was a flurry of interest in these masks, probably mostly in the south of England where the heaviest air raids took place. Rules were put in place, and everyone was supposed to carry then everywhere. School kids took them to school, and teachers were trained to help the kids put them on. However, interest soon waned and many people simply stuck them in a cupboard and forgot about them.

Click on any of the photos below to see a larger version.

Fortunately there was never a gas attack on the British Isles. It was just as well - for a number of reasons. The masks, as we've seen, were uncomfortable, hot, sweaty, smelly - it was awkward and inefficient for people to carry out necessary work while wearing them - they were only effective for short periods, 30 mins to an hour or so. With regard to the baby maks, there were reports that during demonstrations babies fell asleep and became unnaturally still inside the masks. It's likely that the pump didn't push enough air into the mask and the babies came close to suffocating. Luckily, they were never put to the test in a real situation.

In hindsight, there was an even more important issue. The filters designed to absorb the poison gases contained asbestos!

Recently, in October, 2013, JUAC, the Joint Union Asbestos Committee, of AiS, The Asbetos in School Group, issued the following warning:

"WWII Gas masks should not be worn as asbestos fibres can be inhaled. No gas mask of WWII vintage should ever be worn. WWII gas masks are potentially dangerous as they can release asbestos fibres. They can also be contaminated with harmful chemicals from previous use in gas drills. In addition some post war gas masks can release asbestos fibres and can be contaminated.

Tests have shown that asbestos fibres can be inhaled by wearing the masks. Asbestos fibres can also be released from handling the masks, filters or carrying bag."

The report goes on to state:
"Civilian gas masks produced between about 1937 and 1942 normally contain chrysotile (white asbestos), although some can contain crocidolite."

There is no threshold exposure to asbestos below which there is no risk. Chrysotile can cause cancer, and crocidolite is up to five hundred times more likely to cause mesothelioma. Children are more at risk from asbestos exposure than adults. It is estimated that the lifetime risk of developing mesothelioma is about five times greater for a five year old child than it is for an adult aged thirty, and about four times greater for a ten year old child.

Two series of tests on military masks simulated the levels inhaled by the wearer. Both tests found similar levels, the first up to 0.01 f/ml (10,000 fibres in a cubic metre of air), and the second up to 0.009f/ml (9,000 fibres in a cubic metre of air. Depending on their activity a person would inhale about 1,500 fibres in a ten minute period. The contaminated bags had up to 2,000 crocidolite fibres in a centimetre square. The levels are unsafe, particularly for children."

Postscript

It would be easy today to criticise the authorities for allowing asbestos to be used in this way, but in fairness, asbestos simply wasn't seen as a problem then. The first firm reports of asbestos-related cancer came from German doctors in the late 1930s. At the time, American and English doctors were still reluctant to make such a claim. In fact, the Germans were so convinced of the carcinogenic properties of asbestos that they made asbestos-related diseases compensable.

Perhaps you remember the 1939 film version of The Wizard of Oz, and the scene in which Dorothy and her companions, sleeping in a poppy field under the spell of the Wicked Witch, are saved by snow falling on them; or Bing Crosby singing White Christams at the end of the 1942 movie of the same name with snow falling all around?

The effects in both cases were created by showering the performers with chrysotile asbestos fibres (probably from mines in Quebec, Canada), which resembles snow, and was often used in those days not only on movie sets and in theaters, but in department store displays and even private homes. From the mid-1930s through the 1950s, asbestos was seen as a very versatile and harmless substance. It was also very inexpensive. Ironically, asbestos use began in the 1920s on the advice of a firefighter who said that cotton wool was a fire risk.

Post Postscript

If you found the photo of the dogs in gas masks amusing, you might like to know that the person in charge, Lt.Col. Richardson was instrumental in bringing trained dogs into the armed forces both in 1918 and 1939.

Some of his work was done on a farm outside of Carnoustie where he lived with his wife, and at the nearby army camps at Barrie and Buddon, where his dogs worked with soldiers in training. The squaddies enjoyed the exercises, as the ambulance dogs carried a small flask of spirits in their saddlebags that apparently needed to be refilled quite often!

The World of Planes
Gordon Findlay


Like many Morgan pupils during the Second World War, I knew most of the famous British airplanes which roamed the skies above the country.

If you're interested, clicking on the photos will bring up an eclectic bunch of stories of these great old aircraft, and the gallant men and women who flew in them.


There were the training aircraft: the Avro Anson, the Oxford, the North American Harvard (with a distinctive droning bellow). There were the observation and special operations planes, like the beautiful high-wing Westland Lysander.

Then the serious planes: the Blenheim, the Hampden, the Wellington (and later the Manchester and the Lancaster). There was the all-wood Mosquito, the ugly but effective Bristol Beaufighter, the Hawker Hurricane and of course, the finest of them all – the Supermarine Spitfire.

Many of us at that time tried carving planes in balsa wood, complete with a tiny Perspex cockpit, camouflage paint, and tiny machine guns or cannons pointing out of the wings.

One of my friends at the time was Ian Brown, who became known as 'Bomber' Brown for his prowess in carving, assembling and painting bomber aircraft in meticulous detail. Compared to our bumbling and clumsy efforts, 'Bomber' Brown's model planes were works of art, correct down to the last detail.

Realistic tiny pilots and gunners sat beneath their clear plastic canopies. Deadly-looking machine guns poked from the top turrets. Undercarriages swung away neatly under the wings, and 'Bomber' even stripped in authentic-looking identification symbols and numbers.

When 'Bomber' showed up at school with a new model in a box under his arm, a crowd quickly gathered. This was a special event, one not to be missed. He would reverently lift his new creation from the box and hold it up to the light - and to the awestruck gaze of the rest of us.

It was during the model plane craze when a real plane - and a real tragedy - made an impression on me and my pals. A group of us were cycling around together on Shamrock Street. It was a late summer Saturday morning and Dundee was quiet. We were trying our hand at bicycle polo: each of us on our bike and equipped with a flat-ended stick, trying to whack an old tennis ball along the road and into a 'goal' between the lamppost and the inside of the pavement.

We were dimly aware of planes flying around Dundee, but most of them seemed to be down by the Tay. At that time the Air Force had established a fighter squadron at Leuchars, so it wasn't unusual to see planes flying and practicing overhead. There was also a Fleet Air Arm squadron which used to fly Fairey Swordfish and practiced dropping torpedoes and depth charges around Carnoustie.

Then, as our game progressed, there was the sound of one plane quite close to us at Maryfield. It sounded like a plane diving, coming in low, and going at top speed. We all stopped playing and looked up to the sky. But by that time, the plane had flashed past us, overhead, and disappeared down towards the Den of Mains.

A second or two later came the deep concussive thump of something massive slamming into the ground. In moments, people came popping out of their houses, looking around and asking each other: "What was THAT?"

For our part, we jumped on our bikes and went racing up the street, past Clepington Road and down towards the Kingsway and the Den of Mains. By the time we reached the public tennis courts on the south side of the Kingsway, a crowd had gathered. A police van was already on the scene, and so was a fire engine.

There was no need for the fire engine. For, just twenty yards past the tennis courts, there was a huge, smoking hole. Surprisingly, there was almost no debris. And almost at once, the word spread around the crowd. "Aye - it was a Spitfire. Dived right down past the houses over there. Flew right into the ground! Poor lad!"

Years later I learned the details - the crash took place on 28 July 1943 and it wasn't a Spitfire. The plane was Hurricane V7725 from 56 Operational Training Unit at RAF Tealing. The aircraft flew straight into the ground in a shallow dive from 22,000 feet and left a crater some 60 feet wide and 20 feet deep. The pilot, 21-year-old Sergeant Roland Douglas Carpenter from Birmingham, was killed instantly.

The instructor flying alongside Sergeant Carpenter's aircraft reported that he had seen Carpenter slumped over the controls, probably having blacked out due to oxygen failure, and that all efforts to contact him by wireless brought no response, right up to the time of the crash.

Seeing that crash site brought the brutal reality of war home to us all.

"What are the chances?" - 2
Hugh McGrory

It was 1971, and I was in Calgary, Alberta, some 1,500 miles from where I lived at the time, in Don Mills, a suburb of Toronto, in townhouse #704 in a row of 12 attached houses. This was where my kids grew up, a cul-de-sac with lots of young families - a friendly, safe environment for children.

I was in Calgary to do a presentation on computer-aided design of sewer networks (hey, sewage may be disgusting to you but it was bread and butter to us...). The occasion was the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering.

I had a young engineer, Glenn, presenting with me, he discussing the engineering and me the computer aspects. The evening before we were to present, we had dinner, then went up to my room to run through our presentation, make sure our slides were in order etc.

Just before 10:00 o'clock, we decided we'd done all we could and flicked on the TV to relax for a bit. It opened up to the CBC, Canada's BBC, and a commercial for one of the programs coming up later in the week. The commercial was being given by the producer, and I said "That's our next-door neighbour!"

Glenn said "Sure it is..." and I said "Seriously, his name is Don Carroll, he lives next door to me, and works for the CBC.

A moment later it was 10:00 pm, and a new program came on, a medical documentary, and the announcer said "We're going first to Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto, to meet one of the country's leading cancer specialists... A man appears on camera, and I say "That's Dick Hasselback - he lives four doors away from me on the other side!"

At that point, if Glenn had been a Scot, he would have said "Aye, right!" As it was, being Canadian, he had his own way of expressing disbelief - best not repeated here...

Seriously - I ask you - what are the chances?

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi
(or was it Tuesday)

Pete Rennie

This morning instead of occupying myself usefully I spent an hour or so indulging in nostalgia! You may ask 'what was he up to?' Well I spent a fair chunk of the time looking at the class and team photographs on the Morgan Academy Intake 1941 - 51 web site so ably compiled by Richard Young.

I felt quite emotional as I trawled through these images, I looked at every one regardless of whether they were contemporaries of mine or not. Many faces I remembered as they gazed at me with their smiling (some not) youthful faces out of the past - theirs and mine! I did my best to put names to faces and had reasonable success even with folk who shared my time at Morgan but of whose existence I had forgotten until I found them again in these photos.

Even then there were many whose names I could not recall; this saddened me and brought to mind similar group photos sent in to the newspapers where the contributor has attempted to name those in the picture but often has to put 'unknown' instead of a name.

What saddens me even more is that many of those whose photos I am looking at are no longer with us! In the fullness of time that will be the fate of all of us and there will be no one left to say, even to themselves, "Oh there's so and so", or "I remember him/her".

Time for me to stop now as I'm beginning to feel a bit depressed, as no doubt anyone reading this may well be - besides, I've just remembered what I should have been doing instead of this - filling pill boxes with my medication!
--------------------
A reminder that, if you'd like to re-visit the class photos for our 'reunion' years, you may do so here.

It's what Happened after the Pictures... - 2
Hugh McGrory
The Plaza
One floor up from us at #2 Fairbairn St lived two brothers, Sandy and Ronnie. They were pleasant lads, but
several years older, so I didn't have much contact with them. One day, when I was about twelve I happened to be talking to the younger brother Ronnie in the close, and he said that he was going off to the Plaza to see some picture that I've forgotten now, but really wanted to see at the time.

I asked if he'd let me come with him – he wasn't overly keen, but said if my mother approved... Surprisingly, she did – probably a tribute to my finely-honed ability to whine...

We saw the movie, which I remember I quite enjoyed, walked up
the Hilltown a few yards to Ann Street and headed home.

Just on the right after we entered Ann Street, there was a house where the roof level at the pavement was only about six feet or so – the entrance must have been from the south side which, being the Hilltown area, would be quite a few feet lower.

(The two photos below show the area then and now. If you click on the older photo, you can see, just past the white van, the low building, still there in the '70s, with someone sitting outside - looks like it might have been turned into a shop? The other photo shows how it looks today...)


It was getting towards dusk, and as we walked by, one of us noticed something on the roof – it was a crumpled English pound note! But it was out of reach – about half way up the roof - darnit!.

We reluctantly carried on towards home, and I remember we picked up 'chips in a newspaper' and ate them on the way - slathered with vinegar and with a couple of those large onions - it's making me hungry just thinking about it...

We couldn't get the thought of the pound note out of our minds, and as it was now quite dark, we hatched a plan. We would go back to the house, wait till the coast was clear and make a lightning raid.

Ronnie would put his back against the wall, entwine his fingers to give me a footrest then hoist me up – I would scurry up the roof, grab the pound and we'd scarper while the people were still heading out to see what kind of animal was on their roof – 10 seconds tops...

We executed flawlessly, I grabbed the treasure, he shouted "Hurry", helped me jump down, and before I could say a word he took off at high speed. I was right on his heels, but his legs were considerably longer than mine, and we were halfway to Cotton Road before he slowed down. Then he stopped to let me catch up and show him the spoils. Which I did...

It was damp, dirty and crumpled, but still recognisable as a –

The Yanks are Coming, The Yanks are Coming - Over Here
Gordon Findlay

The house beside us on Shamrock Street in Dundee was used by the British Army for a while. A detachment of Black Watch came and went and the house again became vacant.

Then, in late March of 1944, a huge U.S. Army truck rolled up. It was a Saturday so my brother David and I were outside playing with our pals on the street. We sidled over to the truck and watched as a group of U.S. servicemen climbed out. To us, they all looked huge, and a couple of them were black. We hadn't been exposed to black people in Scotland in those far-off days, so we were fascinated.

But one of them won us over instantly. He dumped his gear on the sidewalk, looked over at us and said something like: "Hi, kids. Howya doin'?" Then he dug into his U.S. Army jacket, pulled out a handful of brightly-wrapped items, and held them out to us. "Like some candy?" There, in his dark hand was a stack of Tootsie Rolls.

We each grabbed one, stammered our thanks, and raced in to show them to our mothers. The Yanks had arrived - and they had candy! We quickly learned that these men were U.S. paratroopers and it was no secret that they would be part of the massive invasion force which was assembling throughout Great Britain. Trucks and tanks and Jeeps and field guns and aircraft by the thousands were stuffed into marshalling yards and Army bases and backroads, and even in open fields all across the south of England.

Our group of American paratroopers were going to do some last training in the hills of Scotland before they too went south to join the rest of the invasion force.

They were a high-spirited bunch and why not? Most of them were just kids themselves, 19 or 20 years old. But most of them were big and muscled. To us, they looked like friendly giants.

Our little group: me, my brother David, Bruce Davidson and Colin Barclay, became their willing pets when they appeared outside. "Hey, kid – like some gum?" And a package of Juicy Fruit or Spearmint would be tossed our way. And there was something about that American gum, or candy. It all looked so exotic, so fancy, so perfectly wrapped. We chewed until our jaws ached.

On one memorable day, late in the afternoon some time in May, another U.S. truck rumbled along our street and soon a number of long khaki-coloured metal cylinders were being lowered to the ground. We hovered nearby, wondering what this strange cargo was. It wasn't long before we found out. The lieutenant in charge of the paratroopers snipped the metal straps around one of the cylinders, and the men opened it up. Instantly
there was a cheerful whoop from the other paras, for what they lifted out of the case was a mini-motorcycle, folded neatly together (known as a Welbike).

In a couple of minutes they had unfolded it, snapped the short handlebars out, and filled the tiny gas tank with fuel. The lieutenant got astride the mini bike, his knees sticking wildly out to each side, pushed the kick-starter, and a second later was zooming down Shamrock Street behind a plume of blue smoke.

His sergeant did the same with a second mini-bike and soon the pair of them were looping around each other, like cowboys, the
tiny engines roaring like a bees' nest, while the rest of the paratroopers laughed and dodged out of the way. Neighbours popped out of their houses all down the street to see what all the noise and shouting was about.

For the next half-hour, all the young U.S. paras got astride one of the mini-bikes and roared back and forward across Shamrock Street, hooting and laughing. All of we boys, and the neighbours, were entranced. Reluctantly then, the troopers folded the min-bikes back together and restored them to the metal cylinders. The show was over.

It wasn't long after that when a small fleet of trucks arrived once more. Our cheerful and generous neighbours loaded all their gear in, plus the mini-bike cylinders. They were no doubt destined to be dropped with them over France on D-Day, the morning of June 6th. With a last cheerful wave, they drove off.

I've often thought of these happy young Americans. I hope they all survived.

Granda and me at the Fitba
Hugh McGrory

The story about sneaking in to Dens Park by Dave and Jim reminded me that my friend Billy and I, though not professionals like those two, did manage it a few times, at both grounds, when we were around eleven years old.

Since it was usually cold and often damp, as noted by D&J we needed to approach a man in a raincoat. Our mantra, if I remember, was "Tak is in mister, eh?" - sometimes we only had to ask once, other times it took a few minutes of standing around near the entrance, looking forlorn, before some punter would take pity on us. We would crouch down in front of their legs and slip under the turnstile while they engaged the money-taker in conversation as they paid, so as to divert him from the nefarious act of larceny being perpetrated under their noses. There were some stewards and policeman around, and if you were blatant about it you'd be chased off, but many a kind, blind eye was turned to our antics.

However this story doesn't involve Billy, but rather my Granda, Frank Ryan, whom you've met before. He decided one day to take me with him to the fitba - my memory tells me that I was on the youngish side for that, maybe six or seven (Granda died when I was ten). I think it was Dens Park, but it could have been Tannadice...

Things went well at first, we joined a longish line and shuffled forward until we were close to the entrance. All I had to do then was slip under the trunstile at which point he'd pay the man and push through himself. Easy peasy? Not quite as it turned out...

The essence of the problem is shown in the photo below (actually a minor league ground in England).

The turnstiles that Granda was used to were like the one on the left - easy for a kid to slip under. What I was faced with was more like the one on the right - the bottom of the gate came down almost to the ground - next to impossible to slip under! I guess I might just have managed it if I'd lain on my back and sort of limboed under, since the dirt path underneath had been worn down somewhat by the countless feet over the years. But - there wasn't enough room to spread out since Granda was close behind me - and in addition, the ground was very muddy and I had to go home to my mother eventually...

So what to do...? There was a bit of a gap between the booth and the vertical bar of the turnstile, so I tried to get around the side. I did get my head in - the rest of my body, not so much...

By this time,the holdup was getting everyone mad (at me)... Granda, in his helpful way, was kicking me in the arse, the queue behind was getting impatient, the money-taker meanwhile had released the lock with his foot to allow the regulation one quarter turn of the turnstile, and Granda was trying to push through.

At that point I was in danger of decapitation - having failed to kill me with the granny sooker, Granda had come up with a new approach... I screamed bloody murder, and for a moment everything stopped. Then Granda uttered some words from his Irish heritage - I think it was some kind of Celtic blessing - grabbed me, turned me horizontally then slid me upwards till my head cleared the vertical bar, lifted me over and dumped me on the other side. The ticket-taker seems to have ignored the whole thing - he didn't even get a granny sooker for his forbearance.

Fotunately for Granda, there were no visible marks by the time I got home, so he escaped retribution from the matriarchy...

The Final Hurdle
Dave Lowden and Jim Howie
As boys in short pants in the 1948-49 season, we were keen football followers. Dundee needed to win against Third Lanark to pip Rangers to the League Title.

Our preferred means of entry was the tried and tested "Giz a sneekie-in mister" [notice the hyphenated 'sneekie-in' – Morgan class – but not telling which one!]. Used by all boys of that age and era, this meant finding a friendly adult who was willing to allow us to crawl under the turnstile while he paid the operator, the adult would preferably be wearing a voluminous raincoat which afforded us better concealment.

The best raincoats at that time used to be of the bell-tent variety which were all the rage post-war and some were probably ex-officer army surplus possibly from Millett's in the Cowgate.

Of course, once through the turnstile, we would run like mad so as to quickly mingle with the crowd in case the stewards had spotted us and put a stop to our little game!

As the football season wore on and we became more successful and almost 'seasoned' at this 'under-the turnstile' technique of getting into the ground, we became ambitious and decided we should go 'up-market' and try to get into the enclosure, underneath the stand, where we could get a much better view of the big game.

This was of course our undoing. Having successfully cleared the turnstile and broken into a sprint, JH
shouted "We've been spotted!!!!"

"Where are they?!!!!" said DL turning his head to see how closely the stewards were behind us. At which point he ran smack into one of the stanchions supporting the stand!

Somewhat dazed and with blood trickling down from the gash above his left eye [or was it the right one?], DL was still keen to watch the match, but JH decided the gash was bad enough to need medical attention so called over a couple of ambulance men to have a look at the damage.

The ambulance men then led us onto the track beside the pitch and up the player's entrance, hallow of hallows, into the first aid room where DL was made to lie down while they cleaned and dressed the wound. JH promptly disappeared back to the safety of the enclosure before any awkward questions were asked, while DL was made to lie there for the whole of the first half! Before the ambulance men returned to their posts, he heard them whispering to each other, "I bet they were sneakin' in."

We'd been rumbled and that was the first and last time we tried for a free entry to the enclosure and the last time we tried to get into any section of Dens Park. The ambulance men came back at half-time to say DL could watch the rest of the game.

This episode didn't even have a happy ending as the match finished Dundee 1 Third Lanark 1 which made DL really angry - he had missed both goals as they were scored in the first half!!

We didn't have that problem again - we became lifelong United supporters...

PS
Poor Dundee FC, despite having a very good season in 1948/49, were never able to grasp a prize that year. They had the top goal-scorer in the league (Alex Stott with 30 goals), but they lost in the semi-finals of both the League and Scottish Cups, Rangers eventually taking both. In the League Championship Dundee were one point ahead going into the final match and a win would have guaranteed the League Flag, regardless of what Rangers did at Albion Rovers, but it wasn't to be...

Granda and the Grannie Sooker
Hugh McGrory

Apparently my Grandfather and I were buddies when I was a preschooler and in early primary – though truth be told I don't remember very much of those days. It was war-time of course, and both my Mum and my Grannie worked - I think that Granda became the de-facto babysitter much of the time.

He was my mother's father, a big man - at least that's the way I remember him - a large man with a big belly, a loud voice, and a rough manner, and always with a bag of the same sweets in his pocket. Called variously Pan Drops, Scotch Mints or Mint Imperials - to us they were always Grannie Sookers, and he and I often enjoyed then together. I still like them to this day - especially without the stoor from Granda's pocket...

His name was Frank Ryan, born in 1878, in an upstairs flat in a close on the Nethergate, to a very Irish family. His father had been born in 1841 in the centre of Ireland, King's County, known as County Offaly since 1920. No doubt the family came to Dundee to look for work in the linen factories.

Granda took me to the pictures one time. His favourite picture house was The Kinnaird - his nephew, Jim Ryan I think, was the manager, and apparently Granda had unilaterally decided that he was entitled to get in free any time he felt like it.

When he got to the box office, he would hold out his bag of sweets and while the girl giving out the tickets was concentrating on this he'd announce "The manager is my nephew..." and march regally in.

I've no idea what was on, but we settled down to watch the show, and, of course, the grannie sookers bag came out frequently. This was just fine by me – until a fresh one slipped into my throat and lodged there. I couldn't swallow it nor bring it up, and I couldn't breathe!

I don't remember the initial hubbub - I assume that panic ensued once Granda realised that he was in danger of dying – either my Grannie or my Mother would've murdered him if he'd gone home and announced that he'd killed the bairn with a granny sooker!

My memory picks up at the point that he, I, and the Manager, my first cousin once removed, all ended up in the foyer, and I remember them holding me upside down and banging on my back for what seemed like forever – the Heimlich manoeuvre it was not, but it was effective, and we were all relieved – especially Granda - when the sweet popped out, pinged on the floor and rolled away...

After things settled down again, I can't remember if we went back to see the end of the movie or not, but I do remember us heading home and Granda telling me that I had to keep quiet about what happened – I promised not to say a word to Gran or my Mum, and I'm sure he must have heaved a sigh of relief that he was going to dodge the bullet. We walked into the house, my mother took one look at me - and our plan was blown. She said to Granda, "What the $%^&*# did you do to the bairn?"

Granda was gobsmacked (if you'll forgive the anachronistic adjective) and couldn't figure out how
we'd been rumbled until he took a good look at me and realised that my face had come out in spots – something like this wee lad's cheeks in the photo, I imagine.

The rash is called petechiae. The red spots are from broken capillaries near the skin's surface - in my case, from the pressure of being held upside down for so long. It wasn't itchy or sore, and didn't last very long.

I think Granda's face was probably red for longer than mine was...

Addendum
With all due respect to modern-day purveyors of Scottish sweeties, in my humble opinion:

(Hover your cursor over the photos).

The Evangelist
Gordon Findlay

One Saturday night I was going to 'the pictures' with my pals Ross Mackie and Murray Lamond. As we got off the tramcar, we were drawn to the 'holy rollers' who established their soapboxes at the edge of the City
Square, in front of the Caird Hall. We were in lots of time to catch the start of our film so, idly curious, we strolled over to take in the action.

As you will all know, these fundamentalist preachers, end-of-the-world fanatics, and harmless cranks, presented a perfect target for the Saturday night crowd of robustly cynical Scots. They looked on this as an opportunity to shoot verbal holes in their arguments, and to have some good-natured sport at their expense. It was, in other words, 'Saturday Night Live'in this
part of the world long before that show burst into prominence across TV screens across North America. It was a chance to see, and hear, cheerful Scottish wordplay and backchat at its best.

If you have ever been to a fitba' match in Scotland and stood among the crowd, and listened to the non-stop stream of advice and pithy comment about the players, the managers, or the owners of the club, you will know what I'm talking about. It is rapid-fire repartee and hilarious one-liners delivered in a constant stream - often profane, frequently sacrilegious, sometimes both - enough to bring belly laughs all round. I'd swear that some of those fitba' park characters sharpened their witticisms on the hapless attention-seekers who set up shop outside the Caird Hall on a Saturday night. It was open air theatre -- and better still -- it was free.

On this evening, Ross, Murray and I walked over to where the largest crowd had gathered. We could hear a clear, but young-sounding voice doing its best to be heard over the traffic and the jocular sparring from those gathered around his platform. But it was only when we got closer and I could focus on the speaker that the shock hit me like a dash of cold water. The young figure on the platform, his voice mouthing the earnest words of his fundamentalist religion, was a fellow classmate from my year at Morgan.

His name was Sandy Forbes, and although he spent time in a couple of my classes, I hardly knew him. I simply knew him to be different from the lads in my group of friends. He was quiet and terribly serious. He rarely spoke up in class, and was known to be the product of a deeply religious family.

But here he was now, standing bare-headed on a step-up platform at the city centre, his hands moving in the air around him, denouncing the evil ways of the world in simple, direct words. The quiet and unobtrusive pupil from my year at Morgan was transformed, standing up in front of a faintly hostile crowd of Saturday-night revelers, giving it his all. I was thunderstruck. I quietly told Ross and Murray who the speaker was, and for the next five minutes we stood and listened to Sandy Forbes' impassioned words as they flew about the heads of the crowd around him.

Inevitably, the local wits and cheerful cynics in the crowd began to have their fun with him. I can only recall one of their ripostes from that evening. Sandy had spread his young arms wide and had declared: "Brothers and sisters - we can all be saved!" Instantly, a caustic voice from the mob yelled: "Hey - tell that tae Dundee's goalie. He hisnae saved onything this year!" It brought a wave of laughter, and I felt immediately sorry for Sandy Forbes, evangelist-in-training, facing the barbs of a Dundee Saturday night crowd on his own. After all - he was just a schoolkid!

I had mixed feelings as we three walked away and headed to the theatre. Sandy's message meant nothing to me (we were not a religious family) but I felt a grudging respect for his ability to do something I'd never have attempted at that age. Before the school year ended, Sandy Forbes' family abruptly left Dundee and he disappeared from my life. I have always wondered what became of the earnest young evangelist.

Travel Travails - 2
Some you lose...

Hugh McGrory
June 2013

Good news – The plane, Air Canada from Toronto to Frankfurt, loaded on time.

Bad news – I get to my seat (in Economy) and find a sign on it saying "–"This seat is not functional – sorry." So with the prospect of 6 1/2 hours in an immovable object I get hold of a stewardess and ask if there's a spare seat – she says "They weren't meant to allocate that seat – the plane's really full but I'll see what I can do..."

The captain asks every one to sit down ready for take off ' everyone else is sitting and I'm still standing in the aisle when she comes back, tells me to grab my stuff and follow her quickly...

More Bad News – Did you know that Air Canada no longer has a 'First Class'?

Good news – They now call it Executive First Class – looked just like this photo - I was in 9G.

My Dad used to say, when there are things in life that you can't control, son, all you can do is grin and bear it – boy was I grinning...

Bad news – We were a bit late in leaving, and at Frankfurt my schedule only allowed 50 mins. to get my connecting flight for Edinburgh. In Frankfurt airport, even if you're in the same terminal you have to go through security again to get to a different 'Area' – it can take a lot of time. So I was probably doomed to wait for the next flight – scheduled to take off 4 hours later...

Good news – When we land, there's an announcement - would the passengers for Abu Dhabi please come to the front, their connecting flight is now loading – and would passenger McGrory please meet with the concierge after disembarking...

I was met by an athletic (you'll see the import of this in a moment) middle-aged lady who said that they had realised that one of their – ahem – Executive First Class people had a tight connection and had sent her to expedite this.

Bad news – I had expected a cart, but no, we were walking – correction, running. Did I mention that she was athletic...? So thousands of people from all round the world probably went home and told friends how they saw a woman running through Frankfurt airport trying to get away from a short, fat, sweating old guy who was chasing her, carrying a bag with a computer that must have weighed 50lbs - well OK, 15lbs.

Good news – We get to the security line up and for once, there was almost no one in front of me – just one guy actually.

Bad news – For some reason they didn't like the x-ray of this guy's bag - or him - or some bloody thing – they ran the bag through back and forward and back and... then they needed a second opinion, then they had to search the bag... I asked the concierge lady if we could hurry them up and she said "Don't say a word or they'll take your bags apart too..."

Good news - They find no problems with my bags and, finally, we're on our way again.

Bad news - Time is getting very tight, and it's looking like we won't make it, but then she slows down and says that B34 is just ahead – and I say "I thought it was C34". She looks like a deer caught in the headlights – runs over to a board and then says that she doesn't see the flight listed on the 'B' board – Oh, Oh...!

There's a huge crowd of people coming the other way, and she darts through them like a gazelle, to check – 'cos if I'm right, we're toast...

Good news – Not only was she right (now in my own defense, the announcement was in German, and with her heavy breathing in my ear – no – wait a minute – that was my heavy breathing ), but the crowd turned out to be my flight-mates – the Lufthansa plane had a technical problem and they were all being sent to a new gate and a new plane.

So I caught my flight at the expense of leaving about half an hour late.

More Good News: – I got on the Edinburgh flight, closed my eyes for a quick nap and wakened up as we landed – I don't remember a single thing about the 1 hour flight!

... some you win!

Will Danie Do It Again?
Ian Gordon

Recent reports from the Rugby World Cup are showing that the next game of Scotland Vs South Africa is
going to be one of the most exciting and important in the whole tournament. I'm sure everyone reading this will be cheering for Scotland to come out on top and in any other sporting event, that's what I'd be doing too. But probably none of you met (or have probably never heard of) Danie Craven. Let me tell you how I became a friend of that great man and why I'd never bet against a Springbok rugby team...

I first discovered rugby when we started our weekly treks to Forfar Road. Ernie Landsman said I was the right size and shape (quick, short and stocky) to be a scrum half, so I took on the dubious honour of becoming the scrum half of the 2nd Year Glamis XV. (My all-time highest rugby ranking.)

I was soon to learn that, in these days, being quick was not enough for a scrum half – you needed to be greased lightning to avoid being clobbered by the big wing forwards before you could extricate the ball fully from the scrum. When I appealed to Mr. Landsman, he shrugged me off and said I should learn from the greatest scrum half ever, a South African called Danie Craven.

Ernie explained Danie was the captain of the dominant world champion Springboks of the thirties and forties and that he had invented the dive-passing technique to help the scrum half get it to the fly half faster. Ernie went on to say that Danie Craven was now the coach of the Springbok team presently touring Britain. They were scheduled to play Scotland at Murrayfield on November 24th...

I don't know how I persuaded my father to take me through to Edinburgh to see the game – he had been a good football player and did not believe in handling the ball, or in kicking it over the bar! But I did persuade him and we appeared in Scotland's rugby citadel on the appointed day to see the Scots battle Danie Craven's mighty Springboks. I don't remember much of the game, most of it was difficult to see through a cloud of tears – and real rugby players are not meant to cry. South Africa won 44 – 0 (62 – 0 in today's scoring rules) and I was completely devastated.

Back home, first thing I did was to write the parody shown below (my nom de plume Earl of Murray) and show Ernie Landsman what his hero Danie Craven had done to the Scots team. Ernie laughed at my schoolboy reaction but he was impressed with my parody composition. So impressed that he took it along to Ian Gilroy, the school magazine editor. So that is how it wound up in the 1952 School Magazine. I suppose I kept a copy of the magazine for some years, but after 63 years you lose and kinda forget a few things – until recently. (Many thanks to Richard Young for retrieving this copy for me from the Dundee City Archives.)
Fast forward 35 years or so and we come to the conclusion of this sporting tale. Except that, from now on, rugby becomes only incidental to vastly more important events of these times. In 1985 I was appointed Managing Director of the Yardley Company in South Africa. This was a very important assignment, since at that time South Africa was Yardley's most important market outside the UK, but it was caught up in the throes of potentially violent political change.

This is not the place to make comments on the many political and economic changes during the years I was there, but I must make it clear that, to its everlasting credit, the Yardley Board in London always deferred to my judgement on the attitude and reaction our South African company should adopt towards apartheid and related social issues. For example, if I wanted to desegregate all canteen facilities throughout the company, which I did in my first week there, I could do so without London approval.

Yardley South Africa had always had a strong colour cosmetic business. In fact many of the popular word-wide cosmetic brands, like ESP, were created in South Africa. However, I soon discovered we had a relatively poor Men's Fragrance (or Aftershave) business. Clearly we were not communicating well with the male population. Internationally, we had just created and launched our new Men's brand, Yardley Gold, to coincide with the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, but since South Africa had been expelled since 1964 from participation in the Olympics it was difficult to imagine South Africans attracted to a product geared to the Olympics. So we had to find an alternative. Despite what I had been told before I arrived, it seemed to me that the only sport which seemed to transcend political and racial issues was rugby.

So I became a regular spectator at Newlands, the second oldest rugby stadium in the world, and South
Africa's cathedral to the sport. Visiting Newlands dispelled all previous doubts I had had that rugby was an exclusively Afrikaner sport – the cheering crowds comprised a real cross-section of South Africa's rainbow society. I decided it was time to visit Newlands on business this time.

I needed to find a sympathetic ear on the South African Rugby Board, one of the most respected bodies in the country, to begin negotiations for Yardley Gold sponsorship (possibly a Yardley Gold Cup?)

When my secretary called to make an appointment for me, I could hardly believe my ears when she came back with the message "Dr. Danie Craven will see you on Monday. – Surely not The Danie Craven?

Danie Craven as it turned out was nothing like I had imagined him to be. Sure he was quick, short and stocky, like Ernie Landsman said he should be – but his tone of voice and demeanor was more like a college professor than a rugby player.

What surprised me even more was that he expressed everything in rugby terms – the believers in the New South Africa were "our team," – if he thought you were wrong he would say "you're offside," and he said that every bad idea should be "kicked into touch" (P W Botha spent most of his time either offside or in touch.), However, we understood each other very well and he approved the Yardley Gold Cup, saying it was wonderful to have a British company have faith in "our team."

Needless to say, the Yardley Gold Cup was a great success and I went on to meet with Danie many times - he invited Heide and me to the South African Rugby Union box at Newlands several times, where he would sometimes talk to me about his early days in rugby. When he asked about mine, I just said I wasn't quick enough.

I invited Danie to our factory in Cape Town, unsure of the reception he would receive from our staff of 50 whites and 350 non-whites – from the moment he arrived everyone was cheering. They were all on "our team."

And so began a very rewarding part of my life – when I was fortunate enough to be there and assist great men like Danie Craven succeed in overcoming both the injustices of apartheid and the shackles of international sanctions. Danie's lifework for South African rugby and society is recognized today in the construction of the great new Danie Craven Stand at Newlands. Danie died in 1993, two years before South Africa's great triumph in winning the World Cup in Johannesburg. I'm sure Mr. Mandela would have thought of Danie as part of "our team."

The Baths
Gordon Findlay
Our parents made sure that, from an early age, my brothers and I were able to swim. Dundee, fortunately, was home to a good facility - the Dundee Central swimming baths.

At that time it was situated on the waterfront, close to the Tay and nearby the preserved hull of HMS Unicorn, a handsome wooden-hulled frigate launched in 1824.

On Saturday mornings, my older brother David and I would set off, our bathing trunks securely wrapped up in a towel and with a 'shivery bite' in a carry bag. I'm sure most of you will remember shivery bites: those welcome snacks you carried with you to eat after a cold water swim . . . shivering slightly as you ate your sandwich.

I can't remember how much admission was. It was quite inexpensive and for kids, your sixpence or shilling bought you two hours of swimming time. As you paid your money your hand was stamped with a purple ink showing the time of entry, and in you went. You found yourself a little dressing cubby, peeled off the clothes, on with the swim trunks, and into the pool.

The water was on the cool side when nowadays we're used to home pools warmed to 82 or 83 degrees F. The Dundee central swimming pool was probably around the 74 degree F. range, but for us in those days, it was perfect. The air was filled with the yells and shouts of a hundred kids like ourselves, all diving and splashing and ducking each other. And, of course, if you really began to feel a bit chilly, you could always duck into the hot showers for a quick warm-up.

The Dundee pool we went to employed a two-man team of supervisors whose unenviable job was to impose some form of order to this public swimming emporium. We got used to their stentorian bellows, over and over again: "Nae runnin'!" "Hey - you! Ah mean YOU! Ony mair runnin' an' yer oot o' the pool!"

Another responsibility of these 'poolies' was to enforce the 2-hour limit on swimming. They had two simple chemical reactions as their guide. First was to check the brightness and legibility of the Dundee Public Swimming Pool stamp on your hand. Faded almost to nothing? Your time was unquestionably up and you would be told so - quickly and forcefully. Second was a quick visual examination of your finger tips. Ridged, and semi-white, with tiny furrows (which clearly told of prolonged exposure to cool, chlorinated water for over 2 hours) and the axe fell instantly. "Yer way over yer time! Get oot o' the pool --- NOW!"

Swim coaches were rare to non-existent in those days. You usually started off with a simple breast stroke, and by watching other older boys, or men, slowly gravitated by trial and error to the side stroke, the back stroke and - that epitome of grace in water - the Australian crawl. I was fortunate in having two older brothers who showed me the rudiments of all these strokes and I gradually developed some ability.

This was the time, at least for me, at which Morgan's annual swimming gala came into play. I think it was staged annually at the Dundee Central Swimming Pool, which was made available to the school for that
occasion. And of course, the spur to taking part was that overlying competitive atmosphere which was part of everyday life at Morgan: the fight for supremacy between the four Houses at that time - Airlie, Cortachy, Glamis and Mains. The thought of winning points for my House (Airlie) was just too tempting to resist, so I signed up for a broad range of events.

Don't recall much about the actual swimming events, but I do remember one event, which might have been called something like 'Gather The Rings.' An official (some
luckless Morgan teacher coerced into working the gala) stood on the end of the diving board with around 20 metal bracelets looped around his (or her) arm. They tossed these rings one by one into different parts of the pool. Contestants had to dive in and try to collect as many of them as possible before running out of breath.

The trick was to try to plot out the best line to take as you stood on the diving board. Then, once you were under water, to slip each ring over one arm in turn as you picked them up from the bottom. All this had to be done without swim goggles, of course, since I certainly didn't have a pair, and I never saw any other swimmers sporting them.

I can remember gathering up these rings, slotting them on to one of my arms, and moving along the bottom with my lungs bursting . . . blood pounding behind my eyes . . . desperate to gather in those last two rings just a few feet away on the tiles . . . finally bursting to the surface, face scarlet, and gulping in great mouthfuls of air. Then, waiting anxiously for the teacher to loudly count out the number of rings you had handed over. Would it be enough to beat the other swimmers from Cortachy, Glamis and Mains?

Celebrities I Have Known
Hugh McGrory
Well not known exactly, actually - I don't really know any... I have been within a few feet of several, though, close enough to touch had I had the inclination. I'm sure you've all had similar experiences - perhaps you'll share them with us?

In 1959, I was working in London, and on the 16th December I was heading to meet a friend to go see a film. The reason I remember the exact date is because the British Premiere of Ben-Hur was being held that evening in the Empire, Leicester Square. Our invitations must have been lost in the mail, and so we were on our way to see a film at the Odeon, Leicester Square.

The affair at the Empire was a glittering occasion, the stars of the movie were there, of course, including Charlton Heston, Haya Harareet, Jack Hawkins and Hugh Griffith, and the Director William Wyler.

Amongst the celebrities attending were Sir Carol Reed, Graham Greene, Leslie Caron, Stanley Baker, David Farrar, Leo Genn, Kenneth More, Robert Morley, Heather Sears, Richard Todd, and Anna Neagle.

We never saw any of those people as we walked past the crowds waiting outside the Empire, then south on Leicester Square towards the Odeon, but then we noticed a couple coming toward us, in evening dress, and obviously heading for the premiere.

The woman was very attractive, in her high heels she was close to six feet tall, and as they were passing us I realised that the man she was with was:



Addendum

Ben-Hur was a huge success, being nominated for 12 Academy Awards and winning 11, and becoming the second-highest grossing film of all-time (Gone with the Wind is number 1).

If you remember seeing the movie you may enjoy this comprehensive article. (Be patient - it's a large .pdf file and will take some time to download.)

Memories of Gilroy's Navy
Ian Gilchrist
In my second year at Morgan I joined the CCF which at that time only had an Army section. A year or two later Ian Gilroy, who had been in the Royal Navy, formed a naval section and I became one of the founder members, eventually reaching the dizzy height of Petty Officer in my 6th year. Many happy memories of hilarious episodes remain.

On one occasion a small section of Gilroy's Navy took part in the Royal Tay Yacht Club Regatta, quite a prestigious event. We crewed a naval whaler commanded by a RN Reserve officer from HMS Unicorn, the headquarters of the local RNVR. We were competing in a race with similar boats and were tacking around awaiting the signal to cross the starting line. The gun fired and off we went at a good speed. After several hundred yards we seemed to be well ahead of our rivals, until we realised that we were sailing clockwise round the course and all the other boats were anti clockwise! Our officer had not read signal flags correctly. As we blundered along we got in the way of a flying fifteen boat competing in another race. This boat was owned by the Duke of Edinburgh with his sailing master Uffa Fox at the helm. We did not win our event or many friends.

On another occasion we manned a larger boat, a cutter to convey a platoon of the Army Section to invade Buddon Beach. We travelled under sail and enjoyed the experience but the best was to come.

Ernie Landsman, quite a tall man, was Officer in Charge of the invasion force with the main Army Section defending the beach as the enemy. Our cutter lowered the sails and gently grounded on the sand in what Ernie thought was about two or three feet of water. Ernie led his troops from the front so left the bow of the boat first. Unfortunately naebody had tellt Ernie that the cutter had a drop keel extending its draught by another two feet. Even Ernie was nearly up to his neck in the sea and led a rather bedraggled force onto the beach. The Navy left them to their fate.

On one of our training weeks on board an aircraft carrier moored in the Solent off Portsmouth we experienced sleeping in hammocks and this was particularly awkward for Neil Shepherd who had a broken arm or collar bone. Try pulling yourself up from a beam and swinging into a hammock with that injury! Do any others from that trip remember the very fat cadet from Whitgift School trying to climb up the hawespipe through which the anchor cable is led? Unsurprisingly he got stuck and had to be rescued. Another memory was seeing HMS Vanguard berthed at Portsmouth with many vessels of the Home Fleet in the harbour.

In my exalted rank in sixth year I was in charge of a small section given the task of berthing HMS Britannia carrying the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh to Dundee. I exaggerate; we were detailed to catch a heaving line, pull the mooring rope and loop it over a bollard. Very simple task. Just watch the matelot on the deck and as he throws it we catch it. Not so. No matelot visible! Suddenly, with this fair sized ship bearing down on us a heaving line flew through the air and we missed. Fortunately a second line was heaved and we succeeded. We were later told that only officers were allowed to be seen on deck as the Britannia carried Royalty so our lowly matelot was crouched invisibly behind the side of the ship.

If any fellow members of the Navy Section can add more memories I would be pleased to read them. Most of you will know that Ian Gilroy retired as Rector of Madras College and had quite a long retirement. I am grateful to him for the work he did with the CCF.

"What are the chances?"
Hugh McGrory
We've all experienced coincidence in our lives, times when we've said "what are the chances... "Here's one I remember:

In the summer of 1958 I worked for William Briggs and Sons as the site engineer for the early stage construction of Tormore distillery on Speyside. At the time the client was Schenley Industries - Long John Distillers, now owned by the French company Pernod Ricard.
It was completed after I left for London, the first completely new distillery to be built in Scotland in the 20th Century. I did get a chance to visit it a few years ago – it has the reputation as being one of the most architecturally beautiful distilleries in the country. In 1958 I had digs a few miles along the road in Ballindalloch, in a small two-story house overlooking the Spey Valley and just a few hundred yards from Cragganmore distillery.

(As an aside, I had a private tour of Cragganmore, the highlight of which was being taken into the buckie
and invited to have a wee touch of the cratur.

My host reached into a cupboard under the sink and brought out a copper jug from which he poured a generous libation. I took a sip, and the whisky seemed to evaporate immediately in my mouth and for a moment I thought I was going to lose the top of my head. After he finshed laughing, he told me that it was cask strength, about 65% alcohol by volume - bottled whisky is usually in the 40 to 45% range - so I was drinking 115% proof versus the normal, say, 70%. He was kind enough to give me a splash of water in my second nip - taken, of course from the Achvochkie Burn, that runs through the site and supplies the water used to make the whisky. I don't remember my third nip...)

But back to my story - at my digs the next room to mine was occupied by an excise officer who was on duty at the distillery - by the way, the total population of Ballindalloch was probably around fifty people.

A few months later, November 26th, 1958 to be precise, I was living in London and went to Highbury to see Arsenal play a friendly against Juventus - the great John Charles played for Juventus that day, and scored their only goal - Arsenal won 3-1.

After the game I lined up with some fifty thousand other fans for the tube, and who was standing right next to me when I finally got on the train – you've guessed it - the exciseman.

What are the chances?

Primary Schooldays
on the South Coast

Richard Crighton
In 1943 our family - Dad, Mum, my brother John and I - moved to Lee-on-the-Solent on the south coast of Hampshire near Portsmouth. Dad was a Lieutenant Schoolmaster in the Fleet Air Arm based at HMS Daedalus (now the home of the Hovercraft Museum). John and I had a very happy three years there once we had overcome the initial shock of being away from our friends and neighbours in Dundee...

Initially we did feel like strangers in a foreign land. Being put in the middle of the front row of the Sunday school choir because we were wearing our kilts was somewhat awkward. On our first school day, as Mum, John and I were approaching the school gate a boy ran past us and asked, "Are we late? Not having had time to adjust to the local dialect, I asked Mum,"Where's the wee light?"

Dad had rented a house in Portsmouth Road on the outskirts of Lee-on-Solent. John and I would walk to and from school every day or if we were lucky, would be given a lift on a horse and cart driven by one of the Land Girls who lived next door.

One afternoon when we were almost home we heard the distinctive deep, rapid beating sound of a V1 flying bomb. We dashed into the house, past our startled mother and on to the mattress under our bed. The bed sat on blocks and this was our air-raid shelter. Mum came through to see what all the panic was about. It turned out that the 'doodlebug' was a passing car with a burst exhaust!

In the days just prior to the D-day landings in 1944 there were tanks and lorries lined up nose to tail on the opposite side of Portsmouth Road from the houses. Mum took trays of lemonade and tea out to the soldiers. There were no houses on that side, just a disused railway track and a steep grassy bank down to an army camp and the shore of The Solent. From our bedrooms we could see so many landing craft and other vessels that it looked as if we could have used them as stepping stones across to the Isle of Wight.

When we woke up one morning everything had gone. What we didn't know at the time was that that was the start of Operation Overlord.

 
You'll Never Take the Two of Us Alive, Coppers! - 2
Hugh McGrory
The Acrobats

The local bobby would, from time to time, take a little saunter in the back yards of Fairbairn St – to keep an eye out for burglars or other miscreants - or maybe just to have a fly smoke... Unfortunately, that meant that sometimes we would get swept up in his net...

Now this wasn't really a big problem, since we never got into any real law-breaking, just mischievous kid-stuff. The big issue for us was that our mothers might get involved - and that could be a real problem for us! (It was always our mother's who scared the hell out of us, never our fathers... In fairness, our fathers were gone for most of five years during the war, so it's not surprising.)

This particular day, my buddy Billy and I were playing in the back yard between #4, where Billy lived, and #6 - we must have been about 6 or 7 years old. Don't remember what we were doing, maybe collecting bees in jam jars into which we put some honeysuckle (as we referred to it - I think it's actually white clover), and closed with a lid into which we'd punched some holes.

Billy spotted the local polisman at the far end of the backyards, and since he would probably be working his way towards our end, we decided to move. We could have gone through one of the closes, but Billy decided we should hop the fence into a neighbour's front garden – that way the bobby wouldn't see us. As you'll see from the photo, this meant getting over the iron railings which were about 3'6" high.

This was something that we'd been forbidden to do by our mothers – probably along the lines of "If you
hurt yourself climbing on those railings I'll kill ye!"

But then our mothers'd never find out, would they –

The big lads could just vault over, but our technique was more laborious and slower. We would put our hands on the top horizontal bar between adjacent vertical rounded spikes and hoist ourselves up to a straight-arm position. We would then put one foot on the bar, and adjust our position until we could get our other foot up as well.

We would then be balanced, precariously, in a crouched position with our feet a couple of spaces apart. Then all we had to do was spring up and out from the rail to land in the garden. (In those days it was actually grass and not paved as shown in the larger photo).

Billy, alongside me, was slightly faster, and pulled it off perfectly, looking like a rather chubby acrobat. I however, turned out to be better at the 'up' - not so good at the 'out'. I came down too close to the fence...

Did I mention that we were, of course at that age, still in short pants? One of the verticals slid up the back of my thigh and lodged in my pant leg, my downward trajectory came to a sudden, screeching halt (actually I was the one screeching...) and I was left dangling from the fence. My first thought was "At least my mother's not here to see this...".

I tried to push myself up again but didn't have the strength. Billy tried to help by pushing me up – same problem - I continued to dangle in this ignominious position. We looked at each other – I'm sure I was thinking "Another fine mess you've got me into, Billy" - he on the other hand was just trying not to laugh...

There was a moment of silent contemplation as we examined the alternatives, then Billy said

"I'll go get your mother..."

Ken's Story
Katherine Justice Brown
I've been happily married to a Morgan FP, Jim Brown, for over 40 years, but this is the story of my first husband, Ken Bell, also a Morgan FP. Both Jim and Ken are a few years younger than me, so not many of you will have known them.

The photo below shows Ken (3rd from left in front row) as a member of the Morgan Sea Cadets. His life-
long dream was to go to sea and he left Morgan at the end of third year to join the Merchant Navy with the Brocklebank Line, coming into Dundee frequently as they carried jute from India. I met him, believe it or not, at a Harris FP dance in the Chalet and we married in 1961.

He studied at Dundee Tech for all his 'tickets' and obtained his Master's in 1966. By then we had two little girls and Ken decided, in order to spend more time with the family, to leave the Merchant Navy and join the RAF as a Flight Lieutenant in the Marine Branch. He was based at Bridlington and our quarters were at RAF Driffield. Ken was a talented officer, a loving husband and father and we
were a happy family until 29th September 1969.

The Rolls Royce pinnaces (or launches) used by the RAF Marine Branch were the most popular of all the
wooden boats and had a well-earned repu-tation for being stable at sea. In 25 years there had been no accidents involving them.

On the Sunday afternoon, after being in the Tay for two weeks exercising with heli- copters from RAF Leuchars, Pinnace 1386 from 1104 Marine Craft Unit was returning to its home base at Bridlington.

Ken was Skipper, having had to stand in for the usual Flt Lt Skipper of 1386 for some reason I can't remember. Ken was normally the skipper of Pinnace 1387.

His crew consisted of two Sergeants, one the Cox'n, the other the Marine Fitter, 3 deckhands and 2 wireless operators. The boat had left Dundee after lunchtime and made good progress south through a heavy north easterly swell caused by a very strong wind the previous day which had meant delaying the return journey for a day. Ken decided to put into Amble Harbour, a popular halfway stop on this regular trip. The harbour is protected by two concrete jetties and as they approached heavy seas were breaking over the northern one.

Ken and the Cox'n were in the wheelhouse, three of the deckhands who were in the foc'sle finishing their tea were given instructions to prepare the mooring lines for arrival at the jetty, Ashton, at 21 the youngest member of crew, was in the galley washing up and the two radio operators were in their tiny radio cabin below.

The swells were long and deep and before turning the launch to starboard to align it with the harbour entrance, Ken and the Cox'n watched the waves closely in order to choose the right moment. They saw a huge wave heading towards them on the port side and waited for it to pass before making the turn. As expected the boat lifted with the wave but began to tilt alarmingly to starboard. Horrified they looked down into a sheer 20 feet chasm. The wave broke above them and the 62 ton pinnace rolled over, giving the crew no time to grab lifejackets.

The local coastguard had been watching from his hut on the foreshore and had a maroon in his hand just in case. When he saw the boat toppling, he immediately fired the maroon and called for a helicopter from RAF Acklington nearby. His log entry was timed at 18:30 hours. Inside the harbour lifeboatmen came running and while two launched the 16ft. inshore rescue boat (IRB), others ran to the lifeboat 'Millie Walton' and sailed at 18:39 hours, 5 minutes behind the IRB.

Also several seine net fishing boats and a coble headed out from the harbour. Within minutes 3 survivors were picked up from the heavy seas, the Cox'n who was struggling to stay afloat in the swelling sea, by the helicopter, and two deckhands who were clinging to the side of the now upturned hull, by the IRB. Moore, the Marine Fitter, had managed to clamber on to the hull after helping these men escape.

Rescuers were told there were four other men in the launch when it capsized, the Skipper, the two radio
operators who had no chance of escape, and Ashton, who was unable to swim and had refused to leave the upturned hull by swimming out from under it as the others had done. The helicopter continued to search for some time for Ken but he had been swept away by the violent breaking waves and, as was discovered later, had sustained a bad head injury. Moore could hear tapping coming from inside the hull – it was Ashton who by this time was pressed into the V-bottom of the pinnace, his legs round one of the struts, in total darkness and with about 4ft of an air gap left.

It was now after 8:00 p.m. and almost dark. By the light of car headlights and floodlights fixed by the
emergency services, the crowd who had gathered at the harbour watched as the wreck was driven on to the rocky shore. Tapping could still be heard. At 9:30 p.m. a naval diving team from Rosyth arrived and the frogmen decided to try and reach the hull from the foreshore. At 11:15 p.m. almost 5 hours after the boat overturned, the frogmen succeeded in climbing on to the hull, hacking into it and pulling Ashton out. He had been lapsing in and out of consciousness but had managed to keep tapping with his cigarette lighter when he could. He was exhausted and sore but otherwise in good shape - a very lucky man.

During the night the ill-fated pinnace was pounded to pieces on the rocks. All that remained the following morning was its wrecked engines, the keel and piles of wood.

The bodies of Ken and the two radio operators were washed up on the rocks the next morning. Thankfully I was able to come home to Dundee to my family, my friends and my faith which all sustained me through a very difficult period of my life.

The pinnace's bell was rescued from the rocks, and Fiona, my daughter, traced it to the RAF Museum in Stafford. We visited there last summer and were able to touch the bell. It had been cleaned, polished and suitably engraved and mounted.


As a result of the accident several RNLI members received awards.  See Amble Lifeboat - History here. The helicopter winchman, Sgt Alan Jones received a Queen's Commendation , and Sgt Bob Moore, who risked his own life helping to save the other crew members before himself, was awarded the British Empire Medal for gallantry.  See Citations here - 5902/03.

I am indebted to Hugh McGrory for carrying out much research into the disaster and for finding out many details that I was never told by the RAF at the time or since, mainly as Alison, Fiona and I were at home in Dundee within two days of the accident.

Ken Bell, b. 1938 - d. 1969

It's what Happened after the Pictures...
Hugh McGrory
I almost never went to the pictures alone while growing up. First, when young, it was with my dad. I remember Snow White - the witch scared me; Bambi - being sad when his mummy was killed; Pinocchio - enjoying his escapades; and, Disney's masterpiece, Fantasia - which monumentally bored me.

Later it was with other kids from the neighbourhood which then changed - for some reason - to just me and a girl... When I look back 60 years or so I have to say that some of the happiest hours of my life were spent in the back rows of the Royal, The Odeon or the Green's Playhouse with my arm round my girl...

The Regent
Once, one evening in my early-to-mid teens, I did go to the Regent on my own - it was just a ten minute walk from home. There were very few people in attendance and when I came out I stopped to look at the coming attractions boards. I'm sure you all remember those.

There wasn't a soul on Main St as I studied the photographs and then I heard a voice behind me.

"Excuse me, son – could you give me a hand? My car won't start and I need a push." Without thinking much about it I said "OK."

I looked for the car but couldn't see it. He was walking straight across the road towards a group of lock-up garages (come to think of it, just where this photograph was taken from). I followed him – he was about 20 feet ahead of me, and as we left Main St and entered the lock-up area, he disappeared!

Well not really, it was just that the area had no light, and coming from the street-lit Main St, it was pitch black – I couldn't see a thing – neither him nor a car. It was at that point that I thought "This isn't the smartest thing you've ever done, McGrory."

There was still no one else around and I considered turning tail and getting out of there, but then I heard him say "Over here", and as my eyes adjusted I saw him standing beside a car. He said – If you go to the back, I'll push from the driver's door and jump in when we get to the hill" – and I did, and he did... He let in the clutch, the car jerked and the engine fired, he braked, rolled down the window, handed me a couple of bob, and took off.

So in truth, the whole incident didn't amount to a hill of beans - but if I were a young teenager today I'm pretty sure I wouldn't even consider it.

I suspect the man, were it today, would think twice about even asking - which is rather sad...

Memories of Morgan
Mid 1940s

Gordon Findlay
Gordon Findlay attended Morgan from 1937 through until 1950. He played for the rugby 1st XV. He emigrated to Canada in 1955, where he worked in publishing and communications. He retired in 1995 and lives in Toronto.

I was not a particularly bright student. Adequate would be the word. Strong in English, geography and art. Deplorable in mathematics and its close relatives: algebra, geometry and trigonometry.. Being the youngest of three Findlay brothers who all attended Morgan, I had to follow the trail blazed by my brothers, and David. in particular had been a star in these subjects: a fact that was brought to my attention frequently and forcefully by Bob Peden, head of Mathematics.

It didn't take Bob Peden long to discover that the last in line of Findlays was not cast in the same mould as my brothers. It became obvious rather quickly. For that reason, on occasion and for light sport, Peden would liven up his class during a heavy session by casting around the class and settling on me, sweating heavily at my desk. "Let's see if Findlay has the answer to this problem, shall we?" he'd say, and the class would relax in anticipation of the fun to follow. I'd rise slowly to my feet and mumble some pathetic nonsense until Bob tired of my ineptness and barked: " –"Oh, sit down, Findlay. You don't have any idea, do you?" And I didn't.

Fortunately, I loved English and for whatever reason I enjoyed the whole process of learning new words and phrases and putting them together. It was also my great good fortune to come into contact with one of the finest teachers I was to meet during my years at Morgan: John Cooper, head of the English Department. It was he who kindled my lifelong love affair with the language. He was a tall, rangy man who seemed to swoop down the school corridors with his black gown swirling behind him like a pair of wings.

I can still remember his signature motto which he repeated often: "Think for yourself. Don't just say or do what everyone around you says or does. If you do, you'll be just like everyone else. Is that what you want? Be yourself." In that vein and unusual for those times, Cooper set aside a few minutes at the end of most periods for an open question-and-answer session. We could ask him anything at all about the topics in the class just ending - or about anything else we were curious about, puzzled at, or angry at. I can remember we asked some obvious questions. Did he like rugby? Football? Did he have a favourite team? "Where did you grow up, sir?" "Did you have brothers or sisters, sir?" "Will you become Headmaster some day, sir?" He patiently and good naturedly answered them all.

One day this session got round to the topic that surrounded us at that time: the war. Someone mentioned that his sister had joined the Wrens or WRNS, the Women's Royal Naval Service, and this pupil thought she really wanted to join a warship and get into action. Cooper nodded, then added quietly: "That's good, since many of them seem to think they're only there to service the men."

His words dropped on us like a bombshell. We all looked at each other. Did Cooper mean what we thought he meant? Immediately, some brave soul in our class asked: "You mean . . . like sex . . .sir?" John Cooper realized he was treading deep water, so he quickly said: "Yes, that's exactly what I mean - and this subject is closed!" Our grasp of sexual matters was almost non-existent, but we knew we had broached a touchy subject and that John Cooper had strong views on it. The topic was never raised again.

Charles 'Chickie' Elder was another personal favourite, perhaps because I was reasonably competent in French. His classes always proceeded at a smooth and languid pace: a reflection of his personality. He was the only teacher I ever saw who managed to strap someone in the most desultory and laid-back way possible. I have forgotten what this transgressor did, but the matter came to a head swiftly, and corporal punishment was the inevitable outcome.

Elder was sitting at his desk at the front of the room, his seat tilted back for comfort, with one foot casually planted halfway up his desk. He sighed gently, then called the transgressor up to the front. Still in his comfy seated position and without removing his leg from the desk he opened the drawer, extracted the strap, quietly gave the order: "Hold out your hand" and administered two solid whacks before tossing the leather back in its place. "Back to your seat", he said in the same even tone - and the class smoothly returned to work. Definitely a pro at work.

D.B. 'Cheesie' Stewart was a familiar figure to me since he was not only a teacher but a neighbour living three houses down from our own on Shamrock Street. My parents were very fond of this brilliant and gentle man, but as a pupil, I dreaded the prospect of having to walk to school with him should we emerge from our homes at the same time. Think of what my pals would say! So, I would always carefully slip over to the other side of the street on my daily walk to Morgan and hurry past 'Cheesie's to avert that possibility.

One Saturday afternoon however, as I was walking past, he was working in his front garden and asked if I had ever seen his weapons collection. Intrigued, I said I had not, and two minutes later I was getting a conducted tour of the inside of D.B. Stewart's home, which turned out to be packed with the curios and mementos of his travels around the world. Exotic native head-dresses and masks.; beautiful hand-crafted pottery; blow pipes and darts; red-dyed robes and loin cloths; shrunken heads; shark teeth - and one wall was covered with a mass of gleaming spears, assegais from the Bantu in southern Africa, bone-handled daggers and curved stabbing knives. Beside me was ' Cheesie' , quietly telling me the story of each artifact and where he had unearthed it. For over an hour I was totally spellbound and I became aware of the other life that this quiet and scholarly man had lived down the years.

I didn' t have Ernie Landsman as a teacher, but I got to know him as the coach of Morgan' s rugby 1st XV. I managed to get my cap in the 1949–1950 season (my final year at Morgan) and we managed to put a strong team on the field, thanks in large part to our captain, Jake Anderson, a wonderfully talented stand-off with one of the most deceptive sidesteps I have ever seen. Coach Landsman was a quiet but forceful presence whose emphasis was on positional play and backing up the man with the ball. Still remember his mantra: "The man with the ball should always be able to look over his shoulder and find a team-mate to pass to. Always!"

Ernie was laid back before being laid back became an integral part of 'coolness' in today's world. Few things - even an unexpected defeat at the hands of a lower-ranked team - disturbed his calm and stoic manner. Which brings to mind a memory. I emigrated to Canada in the summer of 1955 following two years of military service in the Middle East, married in 1959, and decided in that year to take my new Canadian bride back to Scotland to show her where her husband had grown up. One day during that summer visit, I was walking up Forfar Road (now known as A929) when I saw a familiar figure walking towards me - Ernie Landsman.

Now, consider that it has been nine years since we laid eyes on each other. But as we stop and greet each other, it's as if he's just seen me at rugby practice yesterday. Ernie nods and says: "Hullo, Gordon. Where are you off to, then?" We chatted for a few minutes, and I managed to slip in the fact that I was now living in Canada, was married, and was back visiting my parents. Ernie nodded nonchalantly and as we parted, said: "See you soon, Gordon. Bye." Mr. Cool - before cool was invented.

A Date to Remember...
Hugh McGrory
I've heard that many people remember when and where they first heard the tragic news of JFK's assassination. I'm not one of them, perhaps you are - but I wonder how many of you remember the significance of the date Aug 9th, 1974? I remember it for two reasons:

On the morning of that Friday I was sitting in an auditorium at the Georgia Tech in Atlanta. There were some 200 of us in the audience, and the occasion was a meeting of the ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers). The subject matter was, as always for me in those days, 'engineering and computers', and several papers were being given that morning, the session running from 9:00 a.m. until noon.

Reason #1

The significance of the 'noon' was that, not only did it mark the end of our session, but also the end of the presidency of Richard Nixon, who, after two years of desperate efforts to put the Watergate scandal to rest had reached the end of the road, and had announced his resignation, the evening before, to take effect at noon on Friday. This was, of course, the overwhelming subject of interest that morning.

Towards the end of the morning I was in that pleasantly relaxed state that we've all experienced - when you're mostly listening to the speaker, but sometimes drifting away for a few moments now and then. The last paper, on in a few minutes, was a progress report on a large study for the NSF (National Science Foundation) examining the feasibility of a US National Centre for Computers in Engineering.

Reason #2

I was the lead on this study but I wasn't presenting - we had a hired project manager, a Professor from the University of Maryland, and he was sitting right behind me, prepared to give the report. Then –
An arm comes over my shoulder and shatters my relaxed state. The hand holds a file folder, and as I automatically take it, the Prof's voice says "Hugh – I'm ill – I have to leave – give my presentation for me." I said "WHAT???!!!!" but he was already bolting for the door.

So I had to get up on the stage a couple of minutes later and speak for the next 40 mins or so...

Just as my presentation ended, at noon, and we headed for the exit from the auditorium and lunch, so did Richard Nixon's presidency.

A few minutes before, he and his family had boarded the helicopter on the lawn of the White House. He had given that iconic, inapproriate, victory salute that we all remember, and flown into history.

Rugby Trip with a Difference
John Russell
At the Morgan I originally preferred football during the season but when our class had 'Cheesie' as our
teacher, he persuaded us to play rugby. Like others, I made an effort - if only to keep in his 'good books'. As one of the shortest in the class, I was steered towards the scrum-half position, so my main objective was to pass on the ball fast to avoid being mauled by opposing players.

Anyway, I recall playing in our team against Perth High School and for the return train trip some of us chipped in to buy a packet of cheap fags at the station - if I'm not mistaken a strong Turkish brand called Pasha - and with the blinds closed in our carriage compartment to avoid detection we all lit up. Thankfully, the sickening smell and taste put me off smoking for life.

Some time later, a match was arranged in Edinburgh against the strong George Heriot's School team. (In fact - and thanks to the internet - I found it was on 5th February, 1949). We travelled in trepidation, but on reaching the venue, we found that the ground was hard with frost and after a long wait, the game was called off! What a relief all round for our players, and no other date was chosen for the match so we avoided what was obviously going to be a heavy defeat.

After lunch, the trip included an excursion to Murrayfield to see Scotland playing against Wales, but the weather was again a factor. Although the pitch did not yet have underground heating, we were told that frost was not a problem. However, a thick fog had descended on the stadium area, and from our places high in the terracing, all we could see were the tops of the goalposts.

We could hear the fervent singing of the obscured Welsh fans countered by some from the home ones, creating an eerie atmosphere, and there was an air of expectation amongst the would-be spectators who were keen to get their money's worth. With everyone aware of the proximity of the kick-off time, the outcome seemed increasingly bleak but, lo and behold, without about five minutes left, the fog miraculously cleared up and the game went on, albeit a little behind schedule.

The icing on the cake was a win for the Scots by the closest of margins - six points to five, so for us Morganites it was a great trip to the capital! I wonder if anyone else who was a member of our team remembers that day.
Addendum

I dug out a photo taken towards the end of the school dance in 1953, shortly before I left to go abroad with part of my family.

I have no idea who took the picture, but it features the unmistakable Bobby Barnett in the foreground with myself, plus Billy Duncan, Colin Smith(?) and another who all commandeered a milk cart for some high jinks in a corridor.

No 'Beak' hiding round the corner fortunately.


You'll Never Take the Two of Us Alive, Coppers!
Hugh McGrory
The Arsonists

I was born in the bedroom of the right-hand-low-doon-door, #2 Fairbairn St - Gussie Park, where the carnival used to come every year, was on the other side of the street, and 'my' primary school, Dens Road at the far end.

One of my best pre-teen buddies was a kid called Billy, of whom my Gran said "Ther's nae herm in the laddie, he's jist a bit hallockit" – and he was – almost put my eye out with a large stone which he threw at me, in the dark, to miss me he claimed, "Jist t' gie ye a fleg" – we had a love/hate relationship Billy and I!

We had a lot of fun, though, got up to some mischief together, and from time to time ran afoul of the local flatfooot...

One evening after dark, we were probably about eight years old, we were still haikin' around before being
called in for bed and were across the street in the grounds of the Nursery School. They were having some repairs done and there was a pile of bricks in the corner of the yard.

We were clambering around on these bricks when Billy pulls sixpence out of his pocket for some reason, and, being Billy, drops it – of course the coin pachinkoed it's way to some remote corner of the pile.

This was a disaster at that age, so we began to look for it – it was dark, there being no street lights then on that side of the street - and obviously we two weren't that bright either...

I knew that there was a woman who lived in the close across from us, #10 I think, who was a friend of my mother – don't remember her name now but she was very nice. We went over and knocked on her door and asked if we could borrow matches – she, rightly, wasn't very keen, but our whining wore her down and she gave us a box.

We went back and continued our search, determined to find the coin or burn the tips of our fingers off whichever came first. Then we heard the voice and instantly realised that it was our nemesis the local bobby.

He asked us if we were trying to start a fire. Fancying myself, even at that age, as a bit of a comedian, I said "Yeah – we're trying to burn this pile of bricks." I think he caught the sarcasm, 'cause he wasn't too pleased...

He dragged us over to the woman who'd been so kind to us and gave her a talking to, then he told us to get home and said he'd be coming to see our parents later. They always said this and never did, so we weren't too worried – well maybe just a bit...

We went back the next day but we never did find that sixpence. Hey, maybe it's still there...

Wartime School Days
Richard Young
Most of us who were children during World War II have some memories of that time - here are some of mine...

There were no street lights, since the authorities imposed a total blackout to make things as difficult as possible for enemy planes to identify targets. Before you could put any lights on in the house you had to make sure that the windows were properly sealed so that no light escaped. We had large wooden frames covered with black paper and my father put these up every night.

Members of the A.R.P. (Air Raid Precautions Wardens) patrolled the streets and would knock on your door if your windows were showing even a crack of light. The wardens were usually ex-servicemen, too old too serve in the forces. They did this in their spare time as most of them had daytime jobs.

My father was in the Home Guard, a volunteer force set up in May 1940 to back up the army in case of invasion. The Home Guard manned anti-aircraft guns, liaised with police and fire-fighters, cleared rubble, guarded damaged banks, pubs and shops, assisted in rescue work and generally made themselves useful in crisis situations.

The force was disbanded in December, 1944 - at its peak it numbered almost 1.8 million men - 1,206 of its men had either been killed on duty or died from wounds, and 557 more sustained serious injuries.

There were also a number of reserved occupations - people with particular skills or knowledge who were deemed to be needed on the home front. Under what was called directed labour provisions, they were sent to work in various parts of the country. My wife's father, for example, younger than my dad and a coal miner, worked in the mines throughout the war.

Everybody had an identity card during the war, and ration books. Everyone had to register with local shops, the grocer, butcher etc. and when you used those shops, they would tear out the appropriate coupons from your books.

In those days, there were no supermarkets, so our mothers had to visit the various stores in turn, sometimes standing in long lines if rumours had spread that a particular store had just received a delivery of some scarce commodity. There was very little choice in the shops, and quantities were limited - I never saw a banana until the war was over... There were dried eggs and powdered milk - which didn't taste like the real thing. Many people grew their own vegetables, and some kept chickens in the back yard which supplied eggs - and were later themselves eaten.

Goods such as clothes and furniture were in limited supply, of rather standard designs, and all labelled 'Utility' so nobody knew who made the items or where they were made.


Rationing went on until well after the war ended in 1945 - in the years following, various items were taken off the list, but it wasn't until 1954, that meat and all other products were finally derationed. During the war, sweets were in short supply, and although some ice cream could be found, it didn't taste very good - and 'treats' like carrot lollies didn't make a good substitute. I was 15 or 16 before sweets were derationed, and I can remember us all rushing to the sweetie shop during our lunch hour.

Strangely, although rationing was very hard on our parents and other adults, it didn't really have a big negative effect on me or my friends - many of the things that were in short supply we, being so young, never really appreciated in the first place - and we didn't feel that we were being starved either.

The following researched material will help to explain this:

As the Second World War loomed, the government was acutely aware of the German strategy in the First World War - to starve our island nation into defeat by setting up a naval blockade using surface ships, and especially submarines. In 1939, the United Kingdom imported 70% of its food, 20 million tons per year, including more than 50% of its meat, 70% of its cheese and sugar, nearly 80% of fruits and about 70% of cereals and fats.

For government ministers, the worst possible situation would be a total blockade, and perhaps the need to apply rationing by saying, for example, "You will have full rations because of your value to the war effort, but they are old and will only get half rations!"

They needed the answer to the question "Can the British population survive, be healthy and able to work, if Britain was totally cut off from food imports, or would starvation hand victory to Germany?"

They turned to two Cambridge University physiologists, Robert McCance and Elsie Widdowson, seen here with one of their students, and they decided to experiment on themselves. Armed with bicycles and walking boots, and accompanied by four students and McCance's mother-in-law they set off for the Lake District. They would pretend that a German shipping blockade had cut all imports and they had to eat only British food. Everyone would get equal shares of the available produce.

Their science indicated that bread, cabbage and potatoes
contained all the nutrients for healthy survival and they set out to test this over a three month period by living on a diet of little else; while they ate mainly those three foods, they also allowed themselves, one egg a week each; a quarter of a pint of milk a day; a pound of meat and 4oz of fish per week. To test their fitness following this bleak regime, they went on a rigorous course of cycling and mountain climbing.

Their final report to the government was a vindication of their theory – not only would the population be able to survive on this diet, but people would be healthy and fit and well able to work and contribute to the war effort.

The Law of Unintended Consequences came into play in two issues which they noted in their final report:

Meals took a long time to eat. Wholemeal bread without butter took ages to chew. The sheer quantity of potato needed to make up calories also took time to eat. All the fibre in the diet caused them to have more bowel movements, and their poo was 250% larger - they measured it...

The second issue was that eating all that starch caused them to fart more – the consequences could be, in Widdowson and McCance's own words in their report to Cabinet, "remarkable".

This study, which the Cabinet kept secret until after the war, was the basis for the rationing schemes. In the event, their diet proved to be more draconian than required - pigs, chickens and rabbits were reared domestically for meat, whilst vegetables were grown anywhere that could be cultivated – and convoys from America and Canada were able to run the U-boat blockade and flesh out British food supplies.

One further example of unintended consequences that benefited our generation - people's health, particularly children's, improved as a result of this imposed diet, limited, but nutritionally-balanced with little sugar and fat, and deaths from disease and other natural causes were reduced.

Indeed, a recent study by the University of Aberdeen and NHS Grampian has found that children who grew up during the Second World War were far more intelligent than those who were born just 15 years before.

Travel Travails
Hugh McGrory
Get on a plane in Toronto and get off around six-and-a-half to seven hours later in the UK – seems pretty straightforward...

So howcum, on this journey, I've managed to pass through the airports of the following cities over the years, in various combinations:

Detroit, Chicago, Montreal, Newark, New York; and Amsterdam, Belfast, Edinburgh, Frankfurt, Glasgow, London, Manchester, and Paris. Layovers of four hours or so seem quite popular with the airlines – most often in Amsterdam, but in Frankfurt, Chicago and New York too.

Most of these trips are mind- and bum-numbingly boring, but sometimes the airlines throw me a few curves – For example :

January 2013

Good news – I was heading for Durham Tees Valley Airport via Amsterdam to visit my brother in N. Yorkshire. The weather was good, I got to the airport early and Delta boarded the plane to Detroit on time, just after 3:00 pm for the scheduled 3:30 take off.

Bad news – We actually took off at just after 8:00 pm! We sat on the tarmac for 4 bloody hours. (The flight controllers' computer system crashed and they couldn't find our flight plan – not to mention those of dozens of other planes. When we finally took off, we were in the middle of a line I estimated at around 28 aircraft taking off at about 90 second intervals.)

Good news – Lots of the other passengers were calling Delta to see about their connections – some got them, then had to try to change them again as hour followed hour – I just relaxed figuring that Delta and the other airlines would have to come up with new itineraries/connections for everyone – and they did.

Bad news – In Detroit they said we had to go to a specific location to see how they were to going to re-schedule us – it turned out to be at the other end of a very linear concourse.

Good news – When I got there they had my name and said "No problem – you're scheduled on an Air France that's boarding now andyoubettergethereasfastasyoucanbecausetheyareabouttoclosethedoor...!"

Bad news – The gate was, of course, at the far end of the terminal again.

Good news – I got there, and as I approached I could see that there were no passengers to be seen, and the few staff there were looking down towards me - I waved frantically to them - they didn't wave back. Grumbling in that grumpy way the French often seem to affect, (I could hear the guy in charge saying to himself in his Peter Sellars voice, "What does this stupid non-French-speaking idiot want") he indicated that the gate was closed, but one of his female colleagues radioed the plane to see if they'd let me on – they did – I was the last to board.

Bad news – I get settled, and think "not bad" – then "bugger", I realise that the plane is going to Paris not Amsterdam (the only European airport that connects to Durham Tees Valley) – meaning, of course, that I then needed a flight from Paris to Amsterdam...

Good news – This was my first experience of Air France (now, I guess, Delta/Air France/KLM) and it was a pleasant (though long – 8 hrs.) flight. The meal was the best I've had in years on an airplane, I had a three-seat row to myself, I watched the new Jason Bourne movie, and I managed a few hours sleep which I rarely do...

Bad news – As many of you will know, Charles De Gaulle Airport is rather like Heath Row in that you have to walk for ages to get to a bus which takes you, twisting and turning, stopping and starting, to another terminal – and I get car sick rather easily (did I mention there was also a monorail trip in there somewhere)...

Good news – The wait for the Amsterdam flight wasn't too long – a couple of hours – and when I got close to the boarding area, I tried one of their 'help-yourself' kiosks thinking "good luck with this..." It recognised me, no problem, and printed out my boarding pass – so full marks to 'the system' for that.

Bad news – To board the plane I needed another bus ride.

Good news – From there, the flight to Yorkshire was uneventful and I finally got to my destination.

Bad news – My luggage didn't...

Good news – There was one taxi in the rank when I exited the terminal, with a pleasant driver to chat with, and I had a key to my brother's house (he and his wife were away at a funeral), so I could let myself in without waking up my niece – who worked nights.

Bad news – When I got there, I discovered that he'd had a new front door fitted – with new locks, of course. So poor Ana got wakened up after all.

The best door-to-door I've done in the past is around 14 hrs. I thought this trip was going to take about 18 – it actually took a full 24...

And to end with Good News... My luggage turned up 19 hours after me, delivered to the door, while I was sitting having a rum with my brother Mike in his living room. So all's well that...

Six Months!
Ally Robertson
The headline in the Dundee Courier read "Six Months for Man Who Lost Race". This is the story...

I, as a 16 year old and a Morgan Academy pupil, was at the age when large family parties are kind of boring. We were at my aunt's house, just up from the Kingsway on Forfar Rd., for the annual New Year's Eve family get together, and my mother realised that she had forgotten her spectacles and needed them to participate in a card game. I quickly volunteered to run home to our house in Nairn street, across from the "Stobie Ponds", off Clepington road (about a half mile each way) and fetch the glasses. This also gave me the opportunity to have a smoke on the way. Unfortunately smoking was rather prevalent amongst my peers in those days.

On arrival at our front gate I had a strange feeling that the front window drapes looked slightly disarranged. I continued on to the back door and found the door key as usual, under the mat. As soon as I entered the kitchen I heard strange noises coming from the hallway in the middle of the house. My heart "jumped into my mouth" and all sorts of things flashed through my mind as to what I was going to do. I put on the deepest voice I could acquire spliced with some expletives and entered the dark first leg of our "L" shaped hallway to the light switch.

As soon as I put the lights on a man came out of the bathroom holding a towel over his face. He was bigger than me, so I dropped any thoughts of attacking him in the house and told him to get the ---- out of the house. My Granny was staying with us for the festive season and the hall stand was filled with coats, a I frantically searched for the nobbly walking stick. I couldn't find it, but in my haste on the way out, I grabbed the window brush and caught up with the intruder as he wrestled to open our front wooden gate. With the brush head in my hands I smashed him over the head with the brush shaft.

"Ping", I lost about one foot of the shaft so I hit him again and "Ping" it happened again and I was left with about one foot of shaft so I told him to walk down the street with me or he would "feel" the brush head if he didn't. I thought I might be able to push him into a neighbours but when we got there he wouldn't budge and I was starting to lose my nerve. So I ran in and luckily my neighbour was just coming out from checking his skis in his shed. I shouted "burglar" and ran out to find that the burglar was no longer in sight.

Nairn St., takes a ninety degree left turn, 2 houses down from the neighbours house. On looking down the "Second leg" of Nairn St., the only moving thing we saw was a man walking towards us on the other side of the road. It was very dark with poor street lights so we let him pass and watched him enter the property at the corner (the "Elbow") of the street. This property had large square pillars at the entrance that used to support large wrought iron gates, removed for the war effort.

Suddenly, we both realised he had tried to fool us by walking calmly towards us instead of running away. So we about-turned and found him hiding behind one of the pillars. Frank my neighbour, a Morgan FP rugby player, grabbed him and we both walked him down the street, where we sat him on the neighbour's wall while I went in and called the police.

As soon as I walked out the police car arrived and they briskly threw him into the back of their car, where he was flanked by two cops. The third policeman came into the house with me and we realised he had entered the house through an open kitchen window (a common practice in those days) and I must have arrived soon after he had entered.

A couple of weeks later in the Evening Telegraph they reported that he was 45, from Huddersfield, had traveled to Montrose to find an old friend. Unfortunately the friend had emigrated to Canada. The intruder left behind some unpaid bills in Montrose and on his way home stopped off in Dundee where he had broken into a house in Castle Tce., (just a short distance from our home) the night before he entered our house.

He appeared at the Dundee Sheriff Court and admitted he broke into our house. He also admitted to nine previous convictions and was promptly sentenced to six months in jail. Stolen money, the reason for this stupidity, was recovered.

That night after the police completed their efforts, I closed up the open window, removed the key from under the mat, and walked back to my Aunt's New Year's Eve party. As you can imagine I was treated like a celebrity when I arrived and strangely, did not feel the party to be 'kind of boring' at all.

Peanuts
Hugh McGrory
When I was in primary school, I remember my Uncle Jock – that's what we called him, though it was actually Great-Uncle Jock. John Ryan was his name, born in 1876, in the Nethergate round the corner from Tay St., and not to be confused with Francis John Ryan, his younger brother by two years, my grandfather.

Uncle Jock was one of the last horse carters and spent much of his life travelling from the docks up Victoria Road to various places around the east end of the city with jute and other goods. (Do you remember when Victoria Road was cobbled, except for the two smooth tracks for the wheels of carts that were dragged uphill by the patient clydesdales?)

From time to time when he was in the area, he would stop off for a cup of tea with my mother at #2 Fairbairn St. As he was leaving I would get a slice or two of bread from my mother, so I could feed his horse - with a flat hand, of course. I can still remember how velvety soft the horse's nose was - I wish I could remember his name...

One time Uncle Jock appeared in the late afternoon, and on the cart he had a huge sack of peanuts which had burst open. I guess maybe the recipient refused to accept them, or something, because he told me and the rest of the kids playing in the street to help ourselves.

We descended on those peanuts as if we hadn't been fed in weeks, and grabbed handfuls of them, stuffing them in our mouths and filling our pockets.

He died in the '50s, and I remember going to the wake. He and his wife, Aunt Kate, lived in a tenement set back from Blackscroft and looking out on Foundry lane. I guess that was a convenient location for the docks.

The only thing I remember about that occasion is that my Auntie Kate sat by the window puffing away on a little white clay pipe.

Wartime leaves scars...
Hugh McGrory
How much do you remember about Dundee under attack from the air during WW2? Until I began to write this, I thought that the city had been bombed once and machine-gunned once – shows how much I knew! How about you...?

Take a stab at answering each question before you look at the answers that follow.

Q1 - How many times during World War II do you think that Dundee's air-raid sirens ( remember that sound?) were activated in earnest?
Q2 - How many times were Dundee and its immediate surrounds attacked?
Q3 - How many bombs were dropped on those raids?

A1 - Sirens were activated 132 times between 20 Oct '39 and 15 Sep '44 - the worst months were October 1940 and March, April and May 1941, each with eleven. In February 1942 (the month I went into Primary 1 at Dens Road School) there were ten siren warnings.
A2 - Dundee and surrounding areas suffered about a dozen attacks.
A3 - Roughly 70 bombs were dropped (38 within city limits), in total about 60 high explosives and 10 incendiaries.

All of the above activity took place in 1940 and '41, except for the machine-gunning of the streets which happened twice - 24 April '43 and 22 April '44, the last attack on Dundee.

"The first bombs to fall in Tayside came in June 1940 when the Moncrieff railway tunnel in Perth was attacked by one of a squadron of enemy aircraft flying between the Forth and Montrose. The first fatalities came in July when Montrose airfield was bombed, killing two RAF personnel and injuring nine others.

Dundee docks were targeted that same month and the city itself was first bombed in August. The first casualties came on 5th November, when several bombs fell in and around Blackness Road."

Editor's Note: This was thought to be a bomber which had failed to drop its bomb-load over Clydeside, probably because of weather. On its way back to base in Norway it saw Dundee as a target of opportunity and dropped a stick of 8 high-explosive bombs. The first one landed at the bottom of Farington St. at Perth Road, and the last on Queen Victoria Works in Brook St. The worst damage was done in Rosefield Street (see photo, looking north). The second photo (looking south) shows the replacement tenements.

"Three people were killed from those bombs, and seven casualties were taken to the Royal Infirmary, but as former nurse Bunty Smith recalls, "when you went on duty you'd have thought the whole of Dundee was bombed - you never saw such chaos!" Altogether, 41 first aid parties, 26 ambulances, 30 first aid and casualty cars, 26 rescue squads and 6 decontamination squads turned out that night. Although further bombs fell in 1941 there were no more fatalities. Only 3 people died from the bombings in Dundee, compared to about 90 in Aberdeen."

The quoted sections above from The University of Dundee Museum Services.

The only thing I remember about the above attacks is the machine-gunning that took place in April '43. It was a Saturday evening and we kids were playing in the street, Fairbairn St, when we heard, but didn't see an aircraft and gunfire. I can't remember much more than that, except that we later heard what had happened.

The bullets hit Henderson's garage on Strathmartine Rd., crossed the top of the Hilltown, hit Toppings grocery in Caldrum Street and ended at Victoria Rd. No one was hurt, but that stream of bullets must have passed about a quarter of a mile from where we were playing - what a lottery war is...

But we could hand it out as well as take it... On 12 March '41, a Beaufort of 42 Squadron Coastal Command shot down a Heinkel 111 bomber just off Tentsmuir, and the crew were captured.

As you can see from the photo, they were handed over to the munchkin detachment of the Dundee Home Guard and escorted down Bell St. to the drill hall.

But I seem to have gotten sidetracked...

In the back yards of Fairbairn street, we had a mixture of the two main types of air raid shelters.
The Anderson Shelter Conceived in 1938 and so-called because Sir John Anderson was the Home Secretary. Designed to accommodate up to six people, the government supplied them free to low-income families and later sold them to wealthier people. 1.5 million Anderson shelters were distributed in the months immediately leading up to the outbreak of war. When production ended 3.6 million had been produced.

The Anderson was made of galvanised corrugated steel panels, had an internal height of six feet and was designed to be set into the ground four feet then covered with 15 inches of earth. They could accommodate six people.

Communal Shelters These were constructed of double thickness brick walls with concrete roofs, and were meant to hold up to 50 people.

Neither were designed to protect against direct hits, but they did work well against shell fragments and bomb splinters. The Anderson was better against bomb blasts since the construction permitted it to flex with the pressure instead of collapsing.

We were allocated to an Anderson, and I have vague memories as a three/four year old of being carried out to the shelter a few times early in the war. Since they tended to be cold and drafty, sometimes damp, I think that familiarity bred contempt after the sirens had cried wolf too many times, and people began to stay in their homes and ignore them.

After the war, the shelters were dismantled and trucked off - though our Anderson lay in a pile for quite a while before it was finally carted away. This brings me to my cousin Frank whom many of you know. Frank's mum and mine were sisters, and our fathers were brothers; both families had two boys - many people who know us casually are still confused as to who are the brothers and which are the double-cousins.

Frank and his brother Michael lived with their parents in Methil, and we used to go over there for a couple of weeks in the summer. It always seemed like another world to me particularly since the accents were sometimes hard to understand. They moved to Dundee, and Frank came to Morgan around fourth year, I think.

Frank was one year older than me, his brother two years older than him, so when we were together, I tended to hang out more with Frank. Of course he was taller and heavier than me and so in our various competitions he usually bested me - headers with an old tennis ball was a favourite which we used to play on the back yard drying green until our heads hurt.

Sometimes, if I got frustrated at being the perennial loser, I would use my tongue to try to even things up, and once, in the back yard at Fairbairn St when we were around ten years old, I said or did something that infuriated him. I saw his face going red, and having an aversion to being beaten to a pulp, I took off - he followed - I found myself heading straight for a pile of Anderson Shelter panels lying in a heap and could only head straight over them.

It turned out that the top panel was balanced on something such that it sank down as I landed on it, then rose up again as I got to the other end. Unfortunately for Frank - for me not so much - he was only a panel-length behind me, and as I got to the far end he ran right into the raised edge of the panel.

It made a large gash in his shin, obviously extremely painful, and there was blood everywhere. I, of course went for my mother or my aunt, can't remember which, we all trooped off to the hospital where poor, brave Frank got stitched together again. He did have bragging rights, of course, because of the large wound in his shin!

Wartime does leave scars...

Another Butcher's Boy
Hugh McGrory
It was said of the intrepid kids who delivered meat back in the day, "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." Or is that US postmen I'm thinking of... in any event, the Butcher's Boys were a hardy bunch.

If you don't believe this, even after the stories from Ian Gordon and Pete Rennie, take a look at this photograph from the Tele' in 1958. (My thanks to Jim Howie for providing this photo from his archives.)


I don't claim to be one of this intrepid band of brothers, but I did serve in their ranks briefly. Here's how it came about...

Many of you will remember this lad, pictured here in 2aBoys:

Islay was a Butcher's Boy. He worked for a shop in Albert Street - if my memory serves me, which it probably doesn't - it was the shop owned by Ian Dryden's father. In any event, Islay came to me, I guess in third year, to ask if I'd take on his round because he was going with his family to the Continent (do we still use that term?) on vacation for a couple of weeks.

I agreed, and on the first day loaded up the message bike and set out. Things went smoothly until I got to my last call - a house on Mains Loan that was behind a wall and hedge a bit north of the snooker hall.

When I knocked on the door there was no answer - no one was home. I remember being annoyed - since I'd been told that people needed the meat for tea time, they should've been there to receive it! In the words of that other real Butcher's Boy, Pete Rennie, "what to do"?

I didn't want to take it back to the store, since the woman wouldn't get her meat in time, and in any event, when my round was finished I'd been told I could just cycle home and bring the bike back for my next shift.

So, showing the initiative that Butcher's Boys are famous for, I found that by flattening the contents and a bit of a squeeze, I could get the package through the letter box - problem solved - everybody happy.

When I arrived for my next shift, the boss said "Mrs. So-and-so was in today - I asked her if the family enjoyed the meat and she said "Well the family dog did..."

I had been hoping that when Islay came back he would say that he didn't want the delivery round any more and that I could keep the job - he didn't.

Maybe just as well...

What Did I Do?
Tom Burt
It was at the changing of the classes and the ground floor corridors were full of chattering pupils when out of nowhere a voice from way back there, called out BURT.

I turned back, a bit sheep-faced, and as I made my way back along the full length of the corridor through those (I have no doubt) understanding pupils, comments such as, what have you done,? you're in trouble now !! and good luck!

I got to where D.B. Smith was standing at the end of that small corridor where his room was and with a swish of his cloak, turned and said "come with me".

I was still perplexed as we marched into his room - he went straight to his desk drawer, pulled out a bit of paper slapped it on the desk and said "about this team for Saturday" (I was captain of the school 3rd fifteen at the time). I can assure you that rugby was the last thing on my mind as I made that, what seemed like a long, walk back through the crowds.

A bit dramatic but what a great teacher in a great bunch of teachers and a pleasure to be one of his pupils.

May he rest in peace.

Forestry Camp, 1949
Anonymous
This anonymous contribution was printed in the 1950 School Magazine.

At the beginning of July last year the peace and quiet of the lovely little village of Aberfoyle was shattered by a sudden plague of wild, ferocious and altogether uncivilised-looking youths. Aberfoyle was startled. Glaswegians on holiday, yes, but.... Then the news went round that it was merely about thirty boys from Morgan Academy, Dundee, coming to help the Forestry Commission. It became further known that there were teachers looking after them, and Aberfoyle, with relief, sank once more into repose.

Last year was our second visit to Aberfoyle. The year before, the Forestry Commission was so encouraged by our destructive capability as far as bracken was concerned that we were invited to have another go. And we did. We worked, yes, worked, from 8 to 4.30, with breaks for dinner and contemplation. In the evening some went cycle runs to Loch Lomond or neighbouring attractions, and others splashed about in the river (afterwards identified as a much-reduced mainstream of the Forth) which ran just beyond the field across the road.

This amateur forester received a puncture about 15 miles from Aberfoyle and had to be towed home in a manner decidedly unapproved by the Road Safety crusaders. Trivial events like these helped to put a certain 'kick' into the holiday. Another amateur's front wheel came off while he was cycling from work. And did he feel sore!

The work itself comprised the highly-skilled jobs of cooking, weeding, brashing, thinning and snedding. The first duty was carried out by Miss Mackie, Miss MacHardy and assistants, and was certainly the most arduous. We were housed in Aberfoyle School, and the cooks had their kitchen in a little room which commanded an ideal view of coal, washing and clumps of nettles, and no view whatever of King Sol.

We carried out the weeding, brashing, thinning and snedding. For non-foresters they are respectively: cutting-big-nasty-ferns-down-round-about-little-coniferous-trees; sawing-off-the-lower-branches-of-bigger-coniferous-trees; removing-or-felling-big-coniferous-trees, and then lopping-all-the-branches-off-these-trees, leaving just long bare trunks.

Weeding consisted of walking up and down steep hills with back bent in either scorching sunlight or depressing drizzle. Brashing was better. Here the amateur forester had the shelter of a wood to work under, even if beetles, fir-needles, etc., were apt to drop down his neck. Thinning and snedding were better still. In this job the amateur forester could feel the thrill of sending a 6-inch diameter, 25-foot-high giant to its doom. Snedding involved the use of an axe.

Mr. Elder, with Lieutenants Shiach and Landsman, was in charge of the party. Other teachers also came and went, and all worked (from the viewpoint of some of us) really amazingly hard, once or twice. Needless to say, they were among the worst offenders as regards slipping into uncivilised habits. Mr. Elder's cutlery, for instance...

However, we all enjoyed a healthy three weeks and came back with tanned (and/or blistered) countenances and muscles that had grown to be an encumbrance.

Mr. McConnachie
Hugh McGrory


Angus aged 25
on a hockey
tour to Girvan.

This story is one my old buddy, Angus Hill, liked to re-tell against himself, every time we got together over a few pints. Angus was three years behind me at school, but we got to know each other playing hockey together for the FPs and hit it off. In August 2005, Angus, who hadn't been well for some time, was diagnosed with ALS, the motor-neurone disease known as Lou Gehrig's in North America - perhaps Stephen Hawking's disease to you. Angus bore this terrible illness with dignity and died in May 2006. I still really miss him... This tale is a fond memory for me, and I share it here as an homage to Angus. I hope you enjoy it as much as he and I did - every time we re-told it...

Angus at his
6oth birthday
party.
In the late '50s to mid '60s, the FP Men's Field Hockey Club was in its heyday. Angus and I played together during that period, and we went on several hockey tours together with the club – I can remember two to Inverness and two to Girvan.

On one of the Inverness tours, Angus and I went off in the evening after the Sunday game to see what mischief we could get into (good luck with that - in Inverness - on a Sunday...).

We came upon a line-up waiting to sign in for a club – with a bar! This was in the days when locals weren't allowed to drink in their local on a Sunday (doesn't that seem just fundamentally wrong to you) but bona fide travellers were allowed to have a few pints.

So we lined up and slowly moved in towards the table where a bouncer was making sure that we all signed in to show that we weren't from Inverness. (Aye, right!)

Since we really weren't from Inverness, I foresaw no problem. However, just as we were getting close to the table, Angus turned to me, put his finger to his nose and said, 'Don't use your real name!

Did I mention that some drink had already been taken – in the hotel after the game – and Angus' advice seemed very wise (for some reason I couldn't quite put my finger on...)

He gets to the table, the bouncer hands him the pen, he leans over to sign his name then he turns his head and says to me "How do you spell McConnachie?"

The bouncer, who no doubt had dealt with many pairs of idiots in his day, just rolled his eyes and turned away...

Afterthought: I just learned that the opposite of bona fide is mala fide – did you know that? See some Scottish history here.

I guess Angus and I were mala fide, bona fide travellers...

School in Wartime
Jim Campbell
I commenced my schooling in the 'tin' primary annexe and can remember Miss Smith who was I think my first teacher. There was also Miss Dye, who was also at school, Morgan, with my Dad - he called her Jean Dye. And the Misses Macdougall.

I can recall getting introduced to gas masks. During those years we lived in Barnes Avenue and we all went to an air raid shelter on the corner of Woodlands Terrace/Graham Street to receive our issue. I was jealous of my sister's 'cos hers was a 'Donald Duck' one.

We used to carry them, in a cardboard box, to school where we used slates to start writing with. We also had 'rest' after lunch on little cots.

The school air raid shelters were on what is now the front lawn. We used to have practice drills from time to time but I do not remember the sirens sounding during school time...

I remember 'helping' to dig our air raid shelter which was a joint effort with the people next door (the Duncan's – he was a shipwright at the Callie & his wife was a wonderful cook who used to make scones & pancakes using sour milk!). Ours was an Anderson type, dug in and covered with the excavated soil.

One night the sirens sounded and we all trooped down to the shelter (wearing our siren suits) only to find it flooded. The wooden benches were floating!

So we had resort to a brick one built by the people at no 14. One of our neighbours was most incensed as we squeezed in and went to great pains to note down all our names and addresses so he could report us to the authorities (?the ARP?). Well he WAS an Englishman!

One night I remember well was standing at the entrance to the shelter listening to the drone of the enemy bombers flying over. I heard later that Clydebank had been badly bombed and that the searchlights and the local anti-aircraft had been ordered not to intervene.

One dark night (so it was not double summertime) my dad came home from his work and came rushing up the stairs (we lived in the top floor) in a real stew. One of our blackout blinds had not been fitted properly and there was a very bright leak. I am sure that he envisaged our house as being a target for all the enemy bombers. The ARP wardens used to patrol – "Put that bloody light out" was the catchphrase. Obviously they had not been very diligent on that occasion.

When Germany surrendered on May 8th 1945 everyone on the street contributed to a huge bonfire on Balgray Place – probably fuelled by all the tar-paper and pine framing from the blackout blinds. Someone went to the trouble of making an effigy of Herr Hitler and that was ceremonially incinerated.

Looking back, the relief felt by our parents must have been phenomenal. Those who had parents, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts who had survived could look forward to being reunited.

1947 was a particularly snowy winter. Some of the snowdrifts exceeded the height of the (gas-)lamp posts!

It also produced memorable sledging opportunities. I have a vivid memory of sledging all the way from Barnes Avenue down Graham Street only to be stopped by someone from crossing the Kingsway because there was a car coming! I could have got all the way to the Den o' Mains.

What are you planning to remember V-E Day, 70 years on?

--------------------
Editor's Note

In his covering note, Jim said "I am organising an "Aerial Armada" over the city of Perth, W A, to commemorate V-E Day this year - weather permitting of course because we are heading into winter!"

The UK Victory in Europe (VE) Day Celebrations.

My Doctor Livingstone Moment
Jim Howie
Ray Stern and I started Morgan Primary in 1942, and despite supporting different football teams our friendship continued through our adult lives. However in the 1980's Ray went to live in Spain and contact was lost.

In 2002 along with Angus Adam, Jimmy Christie and Ian Nicoll an effort was made to trace our fellow starters from 1942. This was very successful, although a few are still unaccounted for.

Ray was in this category but I did get an email address and exchanged an email before communication ceased. I feared the worst as he had explained his health issues.

In 2007 whilst waiting to cross Fort Street in Broughty Ferry I was astonished to see Ray waiting on the other side. After that meeting he has been coming to our regular monthly coffee mornings.

I'll never forget the looks of amazement from the others when he entered the room - jaw-dropping in some cases.

Tales from a Teacher
Spencer Gove
Background

Spencer Gove was a teacher of English at Morgan Academy from 1949 to 1954. Originally hailing from Montrose, he got his degree from St. Andrews University where he also received a Football Blue. He retired from teaching while at Perth Academy and was Chairman of the Perth and Kinross Retired Teachers' Association.

Spen was a contributor to the FP Magazine and his recent death prompted this reprint of two of his pieces.

--------------------
Annual Forestry Camp, Aberfoyle
Reprint, Morgan FP Magazine, May 2008.

Former Morgan English teacher, Mr. Spencer Gove, provided some interesting information and photographs about the Morgan Forestry Camps, which were held between 1941 and 1954 in various areas of Scotland. These were voluntary work projects attended by the older boys, accompanied by several members of staff.

Mr. Gove spent "five pleasurable years" working at the School under "the capable but benevolent stewardship of Peter Robertson", whom he describes as unequalled among rectors (having himself served under five).

Mr. Gove tells us that "The Forestry Camp, inaugurated in 1941, was the brainchild of Miss Anna Mackie and Charlie (Chic) Elder to help the war effort. The first one took place at Mains Riddle in Dumfrieshire." (It's possible that D. B. Stewart, who definitely attended later camps, also attended this one.)

"The boys and masters were mainly employed in 'snedding' branches of the luxuriant pines which were to be used as pit props."

In 1945, after the war ended, the venue shifted to Aberfoyle and Ben Venue. Mr. Gove has recently rediscovered a number of snaps, which he had taken in the early fifties at these camps, "so marvellously organised by Charlie Elder, with the cuisine and commissariat in the priceless hands of Anna Mackie and Isabel McHardy aided by numerous other female volunteers".

Mr. Gove continues, "The final camp was in 1954, by which time 1 was living in Largs and teaching in Greenock High, but was determined to be there at the final felling so to speak - a very special and at times hysterically joyful occasion."

Mr. Gove not only taught at Morgan, but was, from 1950-1953, the editor of the school magazine (in which some of the photographs appeared).

Mr. Gove adds that, sadly, of the staff who appear in the photographs, he believes that only two still survive - Margaret Landsman (nee Leitch) and, possibly, Margaret Hunt, (school secretary), "and of course my ancient self".


Staff on the Steps. Back- Miss D. Prosser (Primary), Nancy Soutar (PE), David Brown (geography), Mr.Brock, D. B. Stewart (English), Chic Elder (French). Front- Isobel McHardy (Domestic Science), Andrew Baird (Harris Academy) Miss Warrender (Maths), David Robertson, Anna Mackie (Maths)

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Sixty Years On
Reprint, Morgan FP Magazine, June 2010.

Recently it occurred to me that last August marked exactly sixty years since I became a fully fledged member of the teaching staff at Morgan Academy. I say "fully fledged" because I had already spent one month as an un-certificated teacher of English, hired for ten shillings per day by the depute Director of Education, to fill in for D.B. Stewart, who had somehow become trapped in Vienna, then very much a Soviet satellite.

I must have passed muster, for Peter Robertson, the Rector, asked if I'd like to join the staff, to which I gave a rapid affirmative. So I was spared the usual "cattle market" of Training College interviews when I finished my course there; such was the power of the Morgan Rector to hire, and occasionally fire.

But enough about me. What I intend to write about is "characters" who, I am told, in the present educational set-up have pretty well disappeared from schools. And of course D.B. Stewart, Cheesy of that ilk, was certainly one. He was my head of department but had endeared himself to several generations of pupils for his bonhomie, his rabid enthusiasm for rugby and his chess instruction, sometimes in lieu of studying English texts. But perhaps his greatest talent was photography, and I now possess a DVD transcribed from films shot by him over the years, entitled Morgan Memories, which was described by even a non-Morganite friend as so riveting that she could cheerfully watch it again and again. After that, D.B. went up 100% in my estimation.

As for characters in the film, Bob Peden appears surprisingly with a fine head of hair, which I'm not sure he possessed when he played post-war in a staff-versus-pupils football match (I refuse to call it soccer) in which he injured his leg so badly that he was off school for a time, which did not endear him to the boss. He was of course the Scottish Amateur International goal keeper for many years, a stalwart of Queen's Park and an imposing figure of a man as he, be-gowned as we all were, thumped (metaphorically) the mysteries of mathematics into a multitude of brains of varying degrees of numeracy.

Also in the Maths Department was my good friend Bill Kelly, a strict disciplinarian and fine teacher (and incidentally an excellent cricketer) who brought the house down as I was teaching my favourite class, iii A2, when he suddenly opened my door (he did knock) just as I uttered, totally unintentionally while talking of the Romantic Poets, the immortal spoonerism "Sheats and Kelly". He was of course not overly amused by the spontaneous howls of laughter, but was gracious enough to forgive me at 4 o'clock when I explained my faux pas and then he proceeded to hammer me at table-tennis in the staff room

Talking of which, the annual table-tennis doubles competition was a revelation, bringing out the best and worst of gamesmanship from grown men. The star of course was diminutive Charlie (Chic) Elder, he of the impeccable backhand and devilishly cunning spin serve, and in a teaching sense, my model. Not a lot of people know it but, one day, before I joined the staff, Charlie came up the stairs at 9 am alongside the "troops" as they filed through the cloakroom. Marshalling them as they progressed was a Mr. Skinner, head of the Commercial (Business Studies) Department. On seeing one relatively small person straying from the fold, he severely reprimanded the offender who was of course Charlie. The net result was, as he revealed to me, that he thenceforth grew that distinctive moustache, which was one of his hallmarks along with that twinkle in his eyes and a lovely sense of humour, never hurtful.

The staff badminton club, too, produced characters like Jimmy Hutchison and Willie Johnston and sometimes Chic, who insisted on challenging Ernie Landsman and myself in an age versus youth contest. On most occasions the guile of the two elder statesmen conquered the brute force and exuberance of the semi-youthful pair; after which JH, ERL and myself would adjourn to the Arctic Bar (we limited ourselves to one export each) where Jimmy frequently pursued his hobby horse viz. the need of a sabbatical year when one would write a text book or even a learned tome. Needless to say, Ernie and I never did, whereas JH had already produced three with his collaborator, Mr. Donald, a former colleague.

Of course it was a mixed club and the ladies of happy memory, Anna Mackie, the first principal maths teacher in Dundee, Isobel McHardie, with her needlework skills and happy temperament, Margaret Leitch, later to be Mrs. Landsman and happily still with us, and Helen Warrender, all had their distinctive styles and were, more importantly stalwarts on the annual Forestry Camp Commissariat, of which I've waxed enthusiastically before.


From the left:- Chic Elder, Spen Gove, George Shiach and Ernie Landsman, in school uniform at a forestry camp.

No list of characters would be complete without D.B. (Don) Smith, an ebullient, ever cheerful, outgoing Yorkshire man and modern language teacher, still with his distinctive, attractive accent, who brought warmth and enthusiasm to everything he touched, including the starting up of a boys' hockey team which produced some years later a gifted Great Britain Olympic star in the shape of Gerry Carr, once a pupil of mine, later to be a valued colleague as an assistant Rector in Perth High where I spent the final 20 years of my career. Incidentally Gerry is still a very low handicap golfer, though long since retired.

Sadly Don Smith is in very poor health in a nursing home in Angus, something I find so sad, remembering the amazing lift he gave me on his tandem from the night school in the old Harris Academy to West Ferny, and other scary adventures worthy of a former flying instructor at R.A.F. Scone in his beloved Tiger Moth.

Then there was Bert Mackay, art principal who presided genially over the slightly exclusive "Carlton (Coffee) Club" in the little art department base on the top floor, accompanied by Bill Malin (whose shoes would have graced a "Cherry Blossom" advert), Harry Keay, a fine artist, Mary Petrie, Crawford Mathers with his fund of pawkie stories and eventually the privileged youngsters, E.R. Landsman and myself.

Finally mention must be made of a distinguished pupil, and a real character, Dr. Charlie Dixon, part of that favourite class of mine, iiiA2. Sadly I was unable to attend Charlie's funeral a few months ago, but the memory is still fresh of his questioning with his engaging smile why we should study Chaucer, the clinching reply being "because I said so". Much later he was a genial host at open days at Dundee University not long before I ceased to be a pedagogue.

Ah! So many memories, so many characters from that fine school - it nearly broke my heart to leave. So it's a pleasure to see, as I do fairly frequently now, the beautifully restored Morgan.

Sixty years! It seems like yesterday.

What's in the Past Stays in the Past
Pete Rennie
Around the age of 14/15 I inherited a job vacated by a pal as a butcher's delivery boy for Bisset, Butchers, in Victoria Road (located where St Margaret's Home now stands). It was at a time when Dundee was expanding into new areas such as Magdalen, Kirkton, Fintry and St Mary's. Many customers for whom Bissets had been their local butchers moved out to the new suburbs but retained their allegiance to their previous retailers - Bissets included! Consequently my cycle journeys with deliveries often involved long trips to the seemingly far flung (to me) new estates.

One rather wet day I was heading out to St Mary's with my final delivery - a small parcel of sausages wrapped in brown paper which had become rather sodden, the basket on the front of the bike had no cover! My usual route was to go up Eskdale Avenue in West Kirkton and take a path across rough ground which was contoured like a valley and had a small burn trickling down the middle.

So I used to hurtle down one slope splash through the burn and hope that my momentum would carry me up the other side without too much pedalling. Unfortunately on this occasion the front wheel hit a stone and the basket, sausages et al jumped out of the frame! The sausages flew out landing some feet away on the muddy ground, the paper wrapping having disintegrated! What to do? Then I had a brainwave!

I retrieved the sausages and what was left of the brown paper and went to the house of a school friend and asked her mother if she would be kind enough to wash the sausages, which she did. I then wrapped the now clean sausages in what was left of the paper and delivered them, saying nothing to the customer, then pedalling away to the safety of Victoria Road.

Bogey Men
Alistair Mackay
Built usually in the garage or back garden, a bogey consisted of a 24"x24" timber box fixed to a 6"x2"x48" timber plank. Wheels and axles from an old pram were fixed to the back and the front. To enable this machine to be steered the front axle had to be drilled and a large bolt inserted through the axle and the 6"x2" plank with washers top and bottom The driver could then hopefully steer with his feet.

In the '40s it was great fun to have races in Baxter Park with our pals who had constructed variations of the above. One afternoon after school Eric McFarlane and myself were messing about in Madeira Street when two older boys on their way home from school asked to borrow the bogey. We refused as we knew we would never see it again. As a compromise we offered to push them to the end of Madeira Street. They then demanded that we push them along Wortley Place to Dalkeith Road.


Bogey V-1 - 1948.
When we reached the top of Dalkeith Road which is a very steep hill leading down to Arbroath Road we gave the bogey an almighty push sending it hurtling down the hill past Bingham Terrace gathering speed the whole way until they decided to turn into Nesbit Street where I think they lived. The bogey was now going too fast for the sharp left turn. It capsized, throwing the two lads onto the road. They did not appear injured so Eric and myself retrieved the bogey which was not damaged and ran back up Dalkeith Road and into Baxter Park in case they decided to chase us - which thankfully they did not. Just wonder if they may read this and remember?


Bogey V-2 - 1974.
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Editors Note

After extensive research, I can report the following: the 1974 Bogey was a superior vehicle, as can be seen from the photograph above. Team Mackay, consisting of: Daughter (Formula-One quality driver); Dad (Super-horse power); and Grandad (Designer and Constructor), was very successful, taking the Rose Bowl at the Longniddry Gala Bogey Race in 1974, '75 & '76.

The 1976 race in particular was hotly contested - unfortunately, the challenger was unable to finish, being involved in a collision with a third bogey. My research also established that the driver of the third vehicle was the younger brother of the Dad in the winning team. I'm just sayin'...

The generic name for a bogey is a gravity car - in North America we call them soapbox cars - when I had one as a wee lad in Dundee we called it a piler. See History of Gravity Racers.

Memories from Schooldays
Sandra Moir Dow
These stories are great! I remember an awful snowy winter too - I remember it as 1947. We were living in Kilspindie in the Carse of Gowrie where we'd 6 feet of drifting snow and didn't get to school for 3 days till the men had dug a track and we walked between 6 foot high snow walls. My Dad joined the farm men when they rode on the Clydesdale horses to the little town of Errol for supplies.

The wild storm had blown much of the snow off the fields and blocked the roads. Once the storm had subsided I walked with my mother over the fields and up the hills to visit our friends at Evelick. At one point she sunk into the snow and realised she was on top of a fence post.


The road and the miles tae Evelick, the farm and the ruined castle of the Lindsay family.
Looking south from the slopes of the Sidlaws, over the Carse and the Tay, to Fife.

We'd been walking at the height of the roadside fence, the road being completely filled up with the drifting snow.

I liked the memories of Kidd's Rooms. I loved dancing and don't remember who I danced with. On only my second time there I met Bill Dundas with whom I danced almost every dance thereafter. However I also remember feeling alienated if I ever landed on the opposite side from the Morgan corner. This happened one time for me at an 'excuse me' dance. Luckily I spotted Bob Barnet and much to the disgust of his partner, who I don't remember, excused her and was danced back to the familiar place.

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One other story comes to mind - more Dundee idiom than Morgan history. I'd been playing out in the street with my brother so it must have been early in my time in Dundee. This was in Clepington Road and a car stopped. The occupants in somewhat posh English accents asked us the way to the Ferry. We directed them East and down to the river to find Broughty Ferry.

As we related our helpful gesture later to the grownups it was pointed out to us that probably they were really looking for the Fifie - the ferry across the river to Newport. We never found out...

Where I Met My Match
Muriel Allan Kidd
Reading of the macho doings at and around the Aberfoyle Forestry Camp of 1954 set me to thinking of my own summer activities around that time. Summer that year was the hiatus between school and Dundee Training College and my solution of how to fill in this time was to follow the well trodden route taken by many other Morgan students in a similar position. I refer of course to Lindsay's wholesale photo finishing establishment located in Long Wynd between an Episcopal church and the Burns & Harris print works.

Little had I realised that when I pressed the shutter of my Box Brownie (camera not biscuit) that it was only the first step in a complex and sometimes chaotic process! It only took me a few days to realise that I was not going to make my fortune in what appeared to be a refugee camp with at least half of the inmates from Morgan Academy. From a failing memory I can among others recall Gail (Jamieson) Murray, who introduced me to the establishment, Charlie Dixon, Ian Band, Mary Donald, Derek Ruxton, Jean Blacklaws, Roger Welsh, Norma Craig, Maureen McQuire, Jean Anderson and Anne Oglivie all beavering away at some part of the process of translating someone's holiday film into black and white, usually 2" x 3", photographic gems.

After a modicum of training we were each allocated to a particular task. Some worked in the main darkroom developing the films, others made contact prints of the resultant negatives, someone worked on the washing and drying of the prints and a small team concentrated on marrying the print to the correct envelopes and negatives ready for dispatch to chemist shops throughout Dundee.

For the first couple of weeks of July the work was easy with a relatively few films coming in for processing. However, as the month wore on an ever increasing number of orders came in until the climax of the season on the Monday after the Dundee trades holiday when an avalanche of orders was received. This level of activity continued for the whole of August, only gradually slowing to a more reasonable level in mid-September. Everyone worked very hard during these few weeks and all for around £3.00 per week...

Why did we do it? Well to be honest we had quite a lot of fun! We sang the latest hits, told jokes, and collected hundreds of photographs of the Spean Bridge Commando Memorial, even today if I see a photograph of this I immediately think of my summers in Lindsays! When I attend our reunions I often wonder if anyone else remembers their time in Lindsays with as much affection as I.

Perhaps I have more reason to remember if only because that is where I met my husband!

Morgan Primary.
Greed!

Marion Mackay Clubb
All the Anecdotes have revived many memories and Anne Ogilvie's recalling the 'woodies' and the hard packed snow and slides did not seem so very long ago.

Now, Isobel and I are not as alike as we were in our schooldays. Then, as all identical twins know, our similarities caused problems - and lots of fun.

One problem occurred after the arrival of Miss Gordon a young language teacher. We all looked up to her. She was pretty, elegant, pleasant to everyone in the corridor, cloakroom and in the classroom. But that was to change. She wasn't nasty to me, she just looked over my head and was pleasant to others.

Previously, I had been included, now I certainly was not. The following week was the same. It wasn't my imagination. What was going on? Isobel and I discussed the puzzle and she thought she might have the answer. School dinners had two sittings. Because we were in different years, we went with our friends, Isobel to second sitting.

I went to first lunches, where I had the honour of serving the teachers. This task was rewarded with a larger helping, but meant that every time a teacher appeared, I had to serve them. The position had a certain kudos. I saw teachers in a slightly more humane light. They would sometimes give me an opinion of the food, sometimes they thanked me!

Isobel suggested coming and sitting with me for lunch one day, so that's what happened. We weren't half-way through our mince and tatties when there was an explosion from the staff table. Heads were thrown back, guffaw after guffaw erupted, and hankies applied to streaming eyes. No sooner had things settled, than they started all over again. Eventually, peace reigned and I delivered the second course - jam-tart and custard.

Miss G caught me by the sleeve I would like a word with you after we've finished lunch. I slipped back to my place. We felt things were looking up, and we were right.

Seeing me getting ample portions in the first sitting, then having the gall to return for another full round at the second sitting, Miss G put me in the 'very greedy girl' category. She apologised, explaining how angry she had been at my apparent greed and how relieved she was, to know that it was two people eating two dinners, not one person eating for two.

Mind you, she continued, the longer I stay here the more I have wondered how anyone could eat two of these awful school meals!

Winter Snow and The FitzWalters
Anne FitzWalter Golden
Winter Snow

Remember the bad winter of 1948/49 with a foot and a half of snow? That was our first year at Morgan and we lived in Downfield about a mile beyond the tram (later bus) terminus. Our usual journey was a hike to the terminus, a tram to Dens Road and a bus up to school but with all that snow nothing was running.

Our father told us to walk so we did. The snow was up to our knees. We left home at 8am and we trudged the 4 and a half miles arriving cold and bedraggled about 10.30 am. Not wanting to be marked absent we reported to the office and were told to go and join our class, 1a girls.


Remember Mr. Brown the geography teacher who gave us all those handouts to colour in...? It was his class. We went in all ready to explain and apologise but he just took one disdainful look at us and said 'sit down'.

End of story! How we envied all those of you who lived near school.

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The FitzWalters

Those who remember us at Morgan as the FitzWalter twins may not realise that they went to school with the only FitzWalters in Scotland. The Scottish records from 1513 fail to record any FitzWalters until our English grandfather married there in 1907 (he had been posted by the army to open up a training camp at Stobs, known as the Aldershot of the North). Only our family appear in the records until two unknown FitzWalters appear in Glasgow in the 1960s.

Maybe if we had learned more British rather than Scottish history at Morgan we would have realised better the importance of our rare name. My retirement hobby/obsession has been family history and I have the FitzWalter line going back to 165AD.

All FitzWalters are said to be descended from Robert FitzWalter, Baron of Bay and Dunmow, in Essex who was the first to use the surname. He was the leader of the barons in 1215 who forced King John to put his seal to Magna Carta. This year is of course the 800th anniversary and Runnymede is not far from where I now live.

I write articles for Family History Magazines and have had one or two published each year. In June and September I am expecting to see my Magna Carta and FitzWalters in History articles published....family historians watch this space!

More Forestry Camp Stories
Hugh McGrory
Sometimes you Just Have to Stick Your Oar in

At Forestry Camp in 1954, we had a couple of weekends when we didn't have to work. On one of those days, Cleve Yates, John Crighton, Norrie Henderson and I decided to cycle east to The Lake of Menteith – about five miles away.


When we got there, we found that the hotel rented rowboats by the hour. (The white building is, of course, the hotel and you can see several figures standing on the dock where we stood some 60 years ago.) We decided that we'd go across to Inchmahome Island and take a look at the ruined priory.
The Historic Scotland website says of the priory:

"The enchanting ruins of Inchmahome Priory stand on the largest of three islands in the Lake of Menteith. The priory was established around 1238 by a small community of Augustinian canons. Their founder and patron was Walter Comyn, Earl of Menteith, whose residence was on the adjacent island of Inch Talla. The secluded location offered the brethren isolation from the secular world, and tranquility in which to carry out the worship of God.

The island sanctuary functioned for over 300 years, offering solace not only to the canons but also to royal visitors. King Robert Bruce visited three times, and Mary Queen of Scots once, in 1547, when she was four. In 1560, the Protestant Reformation effectively brought monastic life at Inchmahome to an end."

We wandered around the site for a while then rowed back to the hotel jetty, and one of us got out, caught the painter and hauled us in. That's when we realised from the sound of splintering wood that someone – who shall be nameless – hadn't shipped his oar.

I'm not sure why I drew the short straw, but I went into the hotel, told the young girl at the desk (probably a student working for the summer) that we were back, said "By the way, we broke an oar, sorry." Then, while she was probably wondering just how to deal with this, I turned on my heel and walked out. The four of us jumped on our bikes and scarpered. I wonder if they're still looking for us?

Actually, I think we're safe - a couple of years ago I dropped in just for the hell of it, and for some reason they didn't recognise me...

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Denner Time and Shuchy's Wildcat

Funny how seeing a photograph from 60 years ago can dredge up a memory buried for that length of time.

I was reminded of this when my old buddy Neil Thomson sent me, last year, a copy of a photo that I had given him way back then (thanks again Tam). It's a snap that I really liked at the time but had since lost along the way.


I took it during our Forestry Camp adventures in 1954, on the lower slopes of Beinn Dubh above Loch Chon, in Stirlingshire. It shows our work group at 'denner time' having our 'piece', and trying to hide from the stinging/biting insects that were also intent on having a meal.

Actually, I believe that it was a mixture of two work groups, those of Mr. Landsman and also Mr. Shiach – he was just off camera.

You'll see in the photo that there's a fallen tree in the upper left quadrant, truncated (trunkated?) by the top of the photo. I happened to wander up to where it had been rooted and noted, by accident, that the whole tree was balanced over another fallen tree trunk such that when I rested my foot on the trunk, the lower end of the tree moved and the branches rustled.

So we told 'Shuchy' that we thought there was some kind of animal hiding under the tree ("A wildcat, sir?"). He told us all to stay well clear and for the next five minutes or so (until we lost interest) I would rustle the leaves and he would walk back and forward, at a distance, staring into the leaves to see if he could spot the animal.

Memories...

Collections
Jim Howie
Some folks are collectors and some aren't. At school, I collected cigarette cards, football programmes and autographs.

Some of the autographs I have in my album (with the original brown paper cover from 1950), are from the tennis world - Fred Perry, Dan Maskell, Jack Kramer, and Bobby Riggs - collected at The Ice Rink during indoor events. The Courier's Reportage of the Perry/Maskell event.

I also asked Fred Perry and Dan Maskell to sign a new tennis ball which, a few years ago, I sold to The All England Tennis Club at Wimbledon for their museum, along with the programme from the Dundee event.

During my National Service in deepest Cumberland, Donald Campbell was testing his speedboat, Bluebird K7, on Lake Coniston. One weekend, 29th May, 1956, I went there with some fellow 'sodger's', paddled through a burn to the boat area, (no security in those days) took a photo of Donald posing, and helped look after his dog when he went on The Lake with Bluebird.

Another famous sportsman I met was Frank Stranahan the wealthy American amateur golfer whose father was a major shareholder in Champion Spark Plugs. He signed this card for me.

I also have most of the footballers of the late 1940's early 50's.

In 1950, I decided to add Morgan teachers to my autograph collection, and so I went on a blitz to collect as many as I could. Probably impressed by the names already in the book everyone I approached was happy to oblige – I can't remember any refusals.

I thought you might like to take a walk down memory lane with the names – see them here.

Nowadays I collect old picture postcards – many of Dundee in years gone by. You may have seen a selection of these over the past year or two in the Courier's Craigie column.

A Good Decision
Hugh McGrory
It was second year, Mr. Hutchison's French class. If memory serves, we had French every day, and this was orals week which we all dreaded.

The class was large, around 48 boys, and it took the whole week – Bunny would spend several minutes with each of us. He would have us stand up and answer questions – carry on a conversation with him, all in French of course. For most of us it was an exercise in public humiliation...

So first class Monday we're all sitting there dreading what was to come. Bunny gets his marks book organised then stands up from his desk and moves forward – he surveys us through his frameless glasses in silence for a moment then he says "Who would like to go first?"

There was dead silence – everybody looking down at their desk trying to be invisible - and he let the silence last...

Then I had this flash of inspiration and I stuck up my hand - "I'll go first".

"McGrory", he says, "good for you - I never get a volunteer!" He then proceeds to give me a rather gentle quizzing, said "Very good", then wrote a mark in his book.


Then he began to work his way through the class, choosing boys quite randomly. Can you imagine how the 48th kid must have felt, waiting to be called upon, class after class, for a whole week?

I, of course, had a very lazy, relaxing week, and to this day, when anyone says they have good and bad news and ask which I want first, I always choose the bad – works for me...

Shall We Dance
Ian Gordon
Pity that, after such an eloquent invitation, the King of Siam did not become Anna's new romance. A more


direct approach like "Can I have the next dance?" had a more fruitful result for the legions of Morgan fourth and fifth formers who crowded into Kidd's Rooms on Saturday evenings. The unwritten law of the territory said that only Morganites were allowed in that Corner – so all the beautiful gals and the best looking guys gathered there! This was another Morgan rite of passage: we met every Saturday in the Morgan Corner at Kidd's Rooms in Lindsay Street, left side next to the band. Many great, lasting romances started there – many tears were shed and hearts broken – but we had a ball every week and wouldn't miss it for anything!


Maybe it was our age, or maybe it was the times, but we had no problems with alcohol or drugs (that I knew of!) We seemed to get all our good spirits from the music, which was programmed to get us into the right mood at the right time. After a couple of waltzes and foxtrots to get us all reacquainted again, the band would hype up the proceedings with The Darktown Strutters' Ball and When the Saints go Marchin' In. As time went by, and as some romances began to develop and others to fall apart, the lyrics to the music took on more significance than the beat of the music. Songs like I'm Walking Behind You and Your Cheatin' Heart were being accompanied by the strident voices of successful, and unsuccessful, suitors.


Eventually we came to the end of the evening and the main objective of our week's planning (and dreams) "Who's taking you home tonight? I don't believe Bob Barnett had his fleet of vehicles then, but for most of us that meant accompanying our dearest on the last bus, and then a walk home. But what an adventure – and the bragging rights were enormous. Mark you, there were real limitations on what you could achieve (or even dream of) before you could pluck up the courage to ask your dream girl to dance the last dance with you. (And practically guarantee she would allow you to sit on the bus with her!) For example:

– She should not be in the same year as you at school. Here I was sixteen, going on seventeen and girls my age thought me young and immature. I thought Maureen McQuire was terrific, but her eyes were only for soccer star, Duck Dorward. I worshipped Evelyn Neil, but so did everyone else and the competition was too great. She was obviously destined for greater things.
– She should have exercised her privilege of INVITING YOU to dance at the Ladies Choice dance. This dance always proved to be a real lottery for me. Either nobody invited me to dance and I stood around casually pretending not to care, or a girl two feet taller than me would choose me just for the fun of it. Some of us went upstairs for a Coke at this juncture to save ourselves the likely embarrassment.
– She definitely belonged to the Morgan Corner. Our Morgan ladies always protected their territory and looked very askance at intruders from Harris, Lawside, or even worse High School, poaching on their territory. They were right, of course, we had the best!

Ah me! Life got complicated after Kidd's Rooms. Wish I'd taken some different decisions then.

"Till I waltz again with you..."

What I Learned at Forestry Camp
Clive Yates
I was at that infamous, dangerous, Forestry Camp at Aberfoyle in 1954!

It was the first time I had really encountered some of the boys in the Fifth/ Sixth forms as I was part of the 4th form contingent. Even then we were a mix of different streams, i.e. A, B, C, etc.

We all settled down into the daily routine, and were put into groups to work together cutting bracken, and in our "luxurious" rest moments, munching our thick bread sandwiches, we all chatted to each other including our new friends. I must have borrowed someone's bike for I am on one of Hugh's photographs at the Lake of Menteith pier with Norrie Henderson, John Crighton et al.

Then one day, someone offered me a bit of chewing gum. In fact, this "un-named" person was pretty generous; "Take two, if you like!" No need for a second invitation.

Later that same evening, this same, kind person again offered me sticks of chewing gum which I gratefully accepted. That night, my digestive system began to play all sorts of tricks on me (or should I say "IN me"!) So much so that next morning, I urgently had to swop with someone on the Camp "Potato Peeling" roster so that he could have the day off on the hills while I did his boring buckets of spuds --- real close to the Camp facilities!!!

I later learned that the particular chewing gum pieces were in fact a mixture of normal and laxative brands! I also learned other things including the MORALS of this story:

There is no such thing as a free lunch!!!

Beware of Fifth/Sixth form Morgan Greeks gifting chewing gum!!!

Pride comes before a lamb chop
Ian Gordon
This is the true story of a wee lad from the Morgan who let his imagination run ahead of reality – don't we all at one time or the other?

I was always encouraged to develop my entrepreneurial talents. Not that I showed any particular ability at fifteen years old to be a good businessman, but because times were difficult and money was tight at our house. So, thanks to family connections at D C Thomson's, I acquired the distribution rights for Thomson's publications in Baxter Park Terrace, Baldovan Terrace, Morgan Street and Park Avenue. In effect this was just a paper round without a newsagent middleman. My cousin, another Morganite Jack Cook, had a similar franchise for the Maryfield area – so we had the Morgan area covered.

Being a D C Thomson Distributor had some unintended, but important, perks. Firstly, it provided insight into the reading habits of my customers. (Amazing how many elderly folks' only magazine was the Beano or the Dandy; some of the grumpiest customers took Peoples Friend regularly; Oor Wullie was far and away the most popular comic strip; the front page of the Courier was the most widely read page in East Scotland; The Sunday Post was the most popular family publication and its crossword the families' most popular Sunday pastime.)

Secondly my franchise provided me with free copies of the boys' magazines Wizard, Hotspur, Rover, etc. (There was a fourth, but I can't remember it!) (The Editor: "It was the Adventure.") All my superstars, like Cannonball Kid, came out of these magazines, and of course I fantasied I was one or other of them as I did my dreary rounds delivering the papers in the mornings.

In the late afternoons, I was encouraged NOT to walk my girlfriend home from school like Hugh McGrory, but to continue my entrepreneurial endeavors. So, thanks to an ex-Morganite Tom Watson, I took a job as a butcher boy with Robb the Butcher in Park Avenue. Between Mr. Robb and junior butcher Tom, I was taught all the mysteries of making sausages and making fatty meat look leaner. But, best of all, I got to ride the delivery bike with the large front basket. I also got to wear the butcher apron – which unfortunately was far too big for me.

Now Robb the Butcher was not just any old butcher shop – its cuts were famous all over Dundee and we had many customers in the West End, which apart from Harris Academy was always considered the swankiest part of Dundee. I got the job of delivering delicious cuts to these customers both regularly and for special occasions. In particular Friday evening had a very busy schedule, and the Misses Findlay of Magdalen Park Road had to have their lamb chops delivered by 5pm.

It started out like any other Friday. I rode out of Robb the Butcher with a basketful of product for the West End. In full regalia (perhaps too full as the long apron made pedaling difficult) I felt like a winged messenger of Zeus (or one of my superstar heroes from the Wizard.) It was downhill all the way down Albert Street and the first part of Princes Street. No problem. And then, just before you came to the Kings Theatre, was the newsagent/tobacconist owned by my Aunty May. And would you believe it – she was outside looking at her window presentation. I just had to give her a wave – the kind of wave that any celebrity would use to acknowledge the applause of his audience.

Now, I cannot blame the weather. It was a beautiful summer's day. But, in these days there were tramlines all the way down Princes Street – and they tend to jam broad bicycle tires abruptly. I woke up in the back shop of my Auntie's shop. Sausages, lamb chops and fillet steak were strewn all over Princes Street.

I finally had the task of retrieving what I could and in delivering it in less than its original elegant packaging. If the Misses Findlay found their lamb chops a bit grainy, they never complained. Nobody did!

Morgan Primary
Playing in the Woodies

Anne Ogilvie Close
Interesting to read about Alistair's memories of gas mask drill. I remember this well and also of the times we all trooped down to the air raid shelters for air raid drills. Our P.1 teacher, Miss Donaldson had a multi-coloured woollen blanket kept folded up in her cupboard and this always went with her to the air raid shelter in case anyone felt a bit chilly.

I can't remember but presumably each teacher must have had a torch to help light up the shelter. I do remember we passed the time singing songs, including the School Song.

At the end of the war, the shelters were demolished and all the rubble carted away. Potatoes were planted in the area, presumably to clear the ground properly. Once they were harvested, grass seed was sown and the following year we had our school lawn back again.

I am also wondering if any of the girls who came through Morgan Primary remember "The Woodies". This was an area of trees in the girls' playground running parallel to Pitkerro Road. The younger children played here all year round but it was in the winter term that we had most fun.

Wonderful slides were made weaving through the trees and these slides were allowed to remain until a thaw destroyed them. This was unlike slides made in the playground proper which were only allowed to last a day before being sanded over by the janitor. Winters from 1945 to 1949 always seemed to be snowy and there were spectacular hard frosts - or is my memory playing tricks?

We were quite upset when the trees were cleared to make room for two extra classroom blocks. One was for Domestic Science where Miss Agnew ruled with a rod of iron and the other block housed a sewing room and a Primary classroom if I remember correctly. I think those buildings went up about 1949 or 1950.

Heaven, I'm in Heaven...
Pete Rennie
You will have heard the lines from the song 'Anything Goes' - 'In olden days, a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking, but now, God knows, anything goes'.

So to my story - there was a young lady of my acquaintance at Morgan who was the unknowing object of my desires, never could unrequited love have been so unrequited!

So one lunchtime I am heading homewards on the No.2 bus when I spied the object of my affections walking briskly up the road with a friend. Just a second or so before the bus passed them a gust of wind lifted her skirt up exposing a black stocking top, an area of flesh and a black suspender - then it was over!

My journey carried on and although I have no idea what I had for lunch that day, or any other day for that matter, I still recall that moment 60 plus years on!

To conclude, a verse - 'The Devil sends the winds to lift the skirts on high, but God he sends the dust to blind the bad man's eye!'

Thankfully for me that day the dust did not materialise!

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If you want to hear every word of Cole Porter's 'Anything Goes' enunciated as only Ella Fitzgerald could, back in 1965, see this.

Memories of Morgan Primary
1941-1948

Alistair Mackay
I started Morgan Academy in 1941 in 1st Infants with Miss Smith and Miss Gray as my teachers. I lived initially at 38 Kenilworth Avenue and walked to school each day with Gordon Anderson, Alistair Lindsay, David Guild, Eddie Stiven and probably several others whose names I have forgotten.

We walked up Kenilworth Avenue across Arbroath Road through Baxter Park to Pitkerro Road then into the school. There were no 'lollipop men' in those days but I do recollect at least two serious accidents at the Pitkerro Road crossing.

Memories include regular gas mask drills and the 1/3 pint of milk we received each day heated in front of the boiler in the classroom. I also vaguely remember going to the air raid shelters which had been built in the grass field in front of the school in case of air raids which never actually occurred during the day.

After two years in the 'Tinnies' as the infant classrooms were known we moved across the playground to the main school building.

We now lived in 12 Pitkerro Road which was so close to the school that I did not leave the house until I heard the 9 o'clock bell. Having moved to the primary, the teachers were Miss Cowie, Mr. Montgomery and Mr. Dryden.

I remember Mr. Montgomery's book of Scottish Poems which he had collated encouraging each of the class to at least memorise one poem.

Unfortunately I no longer have the book which he had signed for me but I do remember the poem which I memorised which was called 'Twa Corbies'.

No more significant memories of the primary but I do enjoy the anecdotes about the forestry camp, keep them coming.

The Aftermath to Ally Lindsay's Crash on the Duke's Pass
Norrie Henderson
Ah yes, I remember it well...!

Alan, Doug Brymer, and I took the bus to Stirling on the Saturday to get a replacement wheel so Doug had the use of his bike for the remainder of the camp.

This was just one of the accidents Alan suffered during our spell at the camp. Perhaps he could be persuaded to contribute an anecdote about his tribulations.

Meanwhile, I attach a photo of Alan 'recuperating'; note the bandaged left arm.

A Bicycle Built for Two
Alistair Brown
There was a period when one of our language teachers, D B Smith, came to school on a tandem. His route took him along Clepington Road and when he saw a Morgan boy that he recognised he would stop and 'invite' him to get on the back.

This led to a situation where the bold lads would walk along the pavement on the left hand side of the road looking back to see if DB was coming and hoping to be picked up. The rest of us walked on the other side of the road trying to be inconspicuous.

The passenger was expected to help with the pedalling but on one occasion the tandem passed with DB pedalling vigorously and the boy on the back sitting with his feet well clear of the pedals and waving regally to his friends as he passed.

I wonder if he got an earful when they got to the school?

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From Hugh McGrory

I had forgotten about DB's tandem, until I read your story, Alistair. I was much more familiar with his single bike with the straight handlebars. DB was a great guy, and since he was the teacher who revived boys' hockey in the school a couple of years before, and I played for the school team from '52-'55, we had quite a lot of contact over that time.

I used to walk along the south side of The Cleppie from school with my girl friend, she walking and me pushing my bike on the pavement. Quite often, DB would come along on his bike, slow to a crawl, and keep us company until we peeled off - me hoping for a quick smooch before tea, and he heading for his home in Lintrathen Gardens.

One of my favourite teachers.

Coincidences
Jim Howie
Here is a 21st Century anecdote that should ring a few bells!

At a recent postcard show in Glasgow I spoke to a man interested in Arran postcards, I enquired was he from there to be told that he had been born near Dundee, Trottick to be precise. I told him I was a Dundonian to which he replied he had gone to The Morgan to which I replied "so did eh'". He then said his uncle was Hec Gibb of Maryfield Dairy fame!!!!!!!!!!!!

I told him that Hec used to deliver our milk when we were first married and lived in Janefield Place.

My memory of the dairy is of Hec presiding over a packed shop area, there was a bell that alerted Hec that customers were waiting, the ice cream was delicious. If the dairy was packed Miss Fairweather's on the corner of Maryfield Terrace was a good alternative.

On telling this to my cousin some 5 years my junior, she remembered that Hec's son had been in her class at school, and that she had been friendly with Hec and his wife until recently, they lived in Norwich where he had been an architect.

At the recent Yacht Club Lunch I retold the story to a well known FP, who had seen Hec junior's death recently in The Courier.

All that from a casual conversation.

Momentum
Hugh McGrory
Was it Newton or Rabbie Burns that said "Momentum is a chiel that winna ding"?

Norrie Henderson, after reading my stories of cycling to school, remembered a photograph he had taken, and said he'd root through his old prints - he turned up this one taken when he and I were at Forestry Camp back in 1954. It shows me with my trusty Hercules on the Duke's Pass, the road that crosses the mountains between Aberfoyle and The Trossachs.

This in turn reminded me of another 'cycling on the Duke's Pass, story':

Ally Lindsay and I cycled up the Pass from Forestry Camp. Not sure how far we went up, but the road was still climbing when we'd had enough and turned around to freewheel down into Aberfoyle.

I, of course, was on my Hercules, and Ally had borrowed Doug Brymer's bike. We got up quite a speed, enjoying the contrast to the grind on the way up.

I was a couple of feet in front of Ally when he suddenly overtook me – he and the bike - both in midair. It wasn't his bike remember, and it seems that he and Doug had their rear brake on opposite sides. His front wheel stopped dead and - momentum did what it does...

Thankfully there was no other vehicle near us, but for a moment I thought he'd killed himself. He hit the road with a helluva clatter, and skidded to a halt.

Amazingly his injuries were superficial - bloody abrasions, and lots of bruises later. The bike survived not too badly, except that the front wheel was no longer round!

So when he'd sorted himself out and mopped up the blood, he put the bike on his shoulder, climbed onto the seat behind me, I sat on the crossbar, and we coasted all the way down. I was careful to check which brake was which every time I pulled them on - I think I wore the brake pads down almost to the metal...

I let Ally explain to Doug why his bike looked so different...

Only Happy Memories
James Sullivan
My spell at the Morgan was from 1948 to 1953. I have no bad memories of those days and many people and events still come to mind even now. The character who comes to mind mostly is the rector Peter Robertson. Among the teachers were D.B. Smith, our French teacher and to a lesser extent our English teacher for a time Miss Stewart (Kipperfeet) and Addie Lawson, head of the Technical Department.

One incident I can recall does not show me in a very good light. I went to the school dinners. Everyone put a ticket in the box, supervised by the rector checking everyone at the door. The rector sat alone at the back of the dining room. One forbidden activity I, as well as others, were involved in was to take a second plate of something that you enjoyed. You would ask the server, one of the boys sitting at the outside of the table, to bring you the extra one which you would put on your knee. No count was ever made by the catering staff.

Unfortunately one of my 'slips' as they were called slipped off my knee and clattered to the floor. The ever alert rector had obviously heard the sound before and came up and ordered me out – never to return!. After about 6 months, I was missing the school dinners and took a calculated gamble. Even with the eagle eye of the rector watching every ticket going in the box, I returned with the thought that he was a decent sort underneath his stern demeanor and despite noticing me he would pretend he didn't see me or had forgotten about the incident. To my relief nothing was said and I ate there until I left school for good. But no more 'slips'.

Another memory comes to mind. This time a rather humourous one. The rector was visiting our English class under Miss Stewart when the buzzer went to end the morning session. As the rector was leaving the room, Miss Stewart shouted "Peter" and the rector spun around and stared at Miss Stewart thinking she had had the audacity to use his first name in front of the class.

Kipperfeet realized what had happened and told him that she had in fact been calling back a boy called Peter Smith. The stern face of the rector suddenly changed to a smile with a slight blush and he walked out. Miss Stewart was highly amused at the whole thing. The story seems fairly unimportant but I never forgot it.

My association with the Morgan didn't end when I left school. I started an apprenticeship at the Caledon Shipyard at the same time as former pupils namely Eddie McBride and Willie Taylor. Among the apprentice intake the following year was Sandy Smart. I still correspond from time to time by E-mail with Richard Young and Ron Holden. Only happy memories!

The Queen and I
Hugh McGrory
You may remember that in June 1955 there was excitement in the air in Dundee. The young Queen and Prince Philip were coming to town...

It was announced that the whole school was going to be given a couple of hours off to see the royal party pass by, and that we would exit the school, by class, at a certain time and march up to the Kingsway so that we could line up along the verge and wave.

And so it came to pass; the school assembled and marched northward – Ian Stevenson and I marched south... We had decided that we could live without seeing the royal pair, since we had an urgent need to play a few games of snooker in our favourite haunt, the Maryfield Snooker Hall at the foot of Mains Loan.

It seems however that Liz and Philip hadn't wanted to miss us, since half-way down Forfar Road we see the royal limo coming up the hill, and the royal couple giving us the royal wave.

The next day when asked howcum we missed the Queen, we said "Oh we saw her earlier!"

By the way, the Royal pair visited Queen's College, and you may remember the stunt the students pulled which made big headlines at the time? See the video here.

Oh and by another way... the snooker hall was always a special place, quiet, except for the click of balls and the murmur of voices, and with a low level of lighting, except for the bright lights which shone down on the green tables with their bright coloured balls. I was never as good a player as Ian, but I always enjoyed our competitions.

About ten or so years ago I was walking down Mains Loan one morning, and the snooker hall was just opening up for the day, so I went in to take a little walk down memory lane. The table lights weren't yet on, but the main lights were – I never saw such a dingy miserable looking place with cobwebs in the rafters and dustballs in the corners – sic tempus fugit...

The hall closed a few years ago, and sadly, judging by its Google Earth photo, the wrecking ball can't be far away.

Cycling to School
Hugh McGrory
In my early teens, my parents took me down to Halford's in the High St. and bought me a bicycle – a Hercules. I remember I wanted drop handlebars, but my mother insisted they were dangerous and so I had to settle for an upright. Arguably the single, best, most life-changing present I ever got in my life – from then on that bike was with me almost every time I left the house, and vastly expanded my world.

For my last few years at Morgan we lived in Clement Park, Lochee (the reason my wee brother went to Harris, the little traitor that he was...) and I cycled back and forward to school every day. I figured it was about 5 miles, but I just measured it and 3 miles is closer – and I cycled along the height of land, Clepington Rd., most of the way, so it was quite flat. So not much effort really, but it helped keep me fit for hockey.

I used to like it if the bus that went along Clepington Road and down Mains Loan (was it a number 2?) appeared at the right time, especially if it was windy, since I could draught along behind it.

Usually the timing didn't work out but on occasion I would see it in the distance approaching Mains Loan, and I'd speed up and try to time it so that I could tuck in, very close behind, just as it made its turn into Mains Loan and so get through without having to stop for the considerable morning traffic coming the other way along the 'Cleppie'.

I was always inordinately pleased with myself if I could get the timing right – except for the morning that the bus driver began his turn then changed his mind and stopped. I clattered into the back of the bus and fell on my backside in the middle of the road. The driver didn't even notice, but the Morgan pupils in the back of the bus had a great laugh at my expense...

I cycled all year round unless the weather was really bad when I would take the school bus. One winter's day it had snowed overnight, but I thought I could make it all right, so I headed out. It was a bit icy and a bit slushy but all went well until I reached The Clep Bar and the bus stop across the road.

There was a queue of about a dozen people waiting for the bus, and just as I reached them my wheels slipped out from under me. I landed on my butt and the bike and I slid along past the queue – they were all highly amused as I passed by.

I picked myself up, red-faced, determined to get on my way as quickly as possible. With a touch of insouciant bravado – just to show them – I decide to do a classic mount (instead of putting my leg over the bar first and pushing off from a straddle position). I thought they would think it quite dramatic, given the ice and slush – as it turned out, they did...

I put my left foot on the upraised left peddle, pushed off gracefully and just as my right leg reached its highest position over the bike, my bent right pedal hit the frame and then, I swear everything, including time, stopped dead. I balanced in mid-air for what felt like several minutes, then crashed into the slush again.

As you can imagine, for the people standing in the cold waiting for the bus, I was the highlight of their day, and probably featured later in a lot of workplace stories.

This time of course, I couldn't make a quick getaway – did I mention the bent pedal – so I had to spend an agonizing few minutes providing more entertainment for them while kicking my pedal stem until it cleared the frame – managing to miss with one of my kicks and gouging my ankle in the process.

I finally got it clear, did a quick (straddle) mount, my face burning, and left that mortifying experience behind me – for ever – it would never be spoken of again...

The next day, after school and needing a haircut, I headed for 'my' barber, Winston Turnbull in Ogilvie St. The shop was busy, and as I entered he caught sight of me, said "Hi Hugh", and then to the assembled throng, including a couple of Morgan students, "So I was waiting for a bus yesterday morning on Clepington Road, and..."