Impressions: A summer's day at Kilmartin...

 (The follow-up, when I went into the chambered cairn at Nether Largie South.)

A summer's day -

 the air warm, late afternoon with the sun in the west,

looking into the tomb.

In,

and down.

Then seated: cool, cold on the stones striking into my bones, a relief from the heat of the late afternoon, then becoming colder, and then I no longer was aware of the cold of the stone. I chanted a song that had come to me some months before, which seemed to fit. Over and over, then silence, and waiting.

Eyes closed, I waited, then with open eyes studied the walls, the stacked stones, the large stone slabs of the base, the capstones. Some present-day constructions of meaning were evident in the scratched graffiti, some older than others, though.

In the stillness I waited, and my song still echoed. Still, and silence, and my eyes were closed again, my heart rate increased, a waiting of anticipation.

Thoughts, impressions, voices.

Hazy, with a memory of dissolution, of burnt bone, of merging into the others, into the walls, into the floor.

The community was here, and I was of them, looking out over the valley and awaiting something -- what? Fragments of my poem from the mound surfaced, though these people were far older than their descendants of whom I'd spoken then.

But I did not know, then, where I had waited for words to come, waited for rebirth, waited for those who would uncover walls and floor, let the light into this place that with my eyes shut or even open had become so dark, despite the sunlight that streamed behind me, to warm my back and counter the effect of that so-cold stone: a warmth that I no longer needed, absorbed into this community, part of these presences that permeated walls, roof and floor.

I understood that there were sounds in the silence, voices, whispers, and I was part of the sound...

.. I felt my body trembling as my awareness shifted again, pulling free of the clustering ghosts. No longer one of many but now seeing, or sensing, one who waited, born of earth and sunlight... and I heard my voice singing the song that sends the seeress on her journey, as I made my petition and waited, and spoke again without spoken words, hearing the words in reply, attempting to tug the strands of wyrd, with no thought for what, perhaps, I 'should' have asked.

And listening, as I was given to understand that my words/thoughts/images were now part of the pattern, part of the understanding that emanated from this place...

...and I was now a separate being, and asked again, this time of my own projects and where they should go...

... until suddenly the guardian was before me, and a sound pulled me back, back, the knocking of one pebble against another as I surfaced, dazed, opened eyes, felt the cold of the stone, the heat of the sun, heard the wind moving outside and realized the stillness in the tomb, and saw ... the denim-clad legs of a person who descended into the tomb, and stopped as he saw my backpack and camera bag placed just inside the entrance for precisely this eventuality, as a marker that someone was within.

I stood up, not wanting to have the silence of the stone seat breached, and said 'hello'. He looked in, seemed a little embarrassed, commented that it was interesting, and left... I paced slowly up, and back, and started to hum, letting the sound echo and resonate, then resumed my seat, asking the guardian to take me back, felt my awareness whirling and was again there,

with one who smiled,

for this there were no words, but knowledge yet

of what I must do;

being

and ecstasy,

one-ness and completion

infinite, unbounded, yet

held

in time and place

distilled, this moment,

now.

...until some time later, I saw again the many faces, changing more swiftly now, and the guardian, and then felt the warming sunlight on my back, in time to be aware once again of sound, a quiet chinking of stones.

The three backpackers sitting patiently outside, when I went to the opening and spoke, said 'take your time, we can wait'. But I had done what I had come to do, and so left, with a glance of thanks around the walls, and climbed out, with a smile, not looking back as I made my way down the stones of the cairn, and along the little path and so out, reverting again to a recorder, photographer, as I passed the other cairns of the linear cemetery; later in their building, interesting, but not, today, for me.

© copyright J Blain 1999

all rights reserved

On being a visitor in the countryside

Today I was reminded of a couple of articles I'd posted long, long ago on a long-defunct website; and having found that I'd (also long ago) rescued them to my computer, though I'd re-post them here. These were written in 1999... At that time I was living in Canada, but took an extended 'holiday' back home. So, there are two stories, very different from each other, both from my 'pilgrimage' to the Kilmartin valley in Argyll.

First, the 'Dog Story'!

This is what the title 'On being a visitor in the countryside' belongs to.

I had an interesting trip to the UK this month (July 1999). However, this item is about the most ridiculous occurrence that I met. It intersected with my life in strange ways, being a factor impelling me into one of the most intense and powerful experiences I've had. But that's another story. Here is the ridiculous part, occasioned apparently by someone else's inability to exercise courtesy, or read signs.

The Kilmartin Glen, in Argyll, is sheep and cattle country. Beautiful, lush, grazing. Sheep country brings with it some rules, particularly where it's also a tourist area where people go to see 'the monuments', and usually spend about 5 minutes per attraction as they whiz round. One rule is written on numerous signs: keep the dog on a very short leash.

Loose dogs in sheep country are bad news, especially when lambs are young. Even the best, well-mannered, thoroughly polite and charming city-bred dog is likely to react to sheep and lambs: either they're for herding, they're for play, or they're prey. Any of these reactions, for the sheep and the farmers, is really bad news.

On my last day in Kilmartin, having spent the day on foot on back roads and track, looking at the very substantial amount of interesting material that was to be found, I headed back for the environs of Kilmartin itself, the vicinity of the Temple Wood circles. I planned to visit the strange 'X' formation, the Nether Largie Standing Stones, across the side road from Temple Wood, and nearby the chambered cairn at Nether Largie South. I thought of doing some meditation at the stones. The chambered cairn was calling to me, had been calling since I arrived in the glen, but at this time I was resisting. I got a lift from Kilmartin to the Temple Wood turn-off, walked up the side road, went through the gate to the little lane between fields that led to the stone 'X', and once more read the notices: keep dogs on a short leash; this is sheep country. Along the lane, through another gate, and here was the stone formation. I walked around, camera handy, and then...

There was a dog. Bounding up to me, not sure whether to be friendly. A large, golden dog. (I'm not good at dog breeds, but it was lovely. Golden retriever?) 

At first I was merely irritated: can't the owners read? This isn't a local dog. Besides, how can I sit by the stones and meditate with a dog bouncing around? As the dog bounded closer, I took a deep breath and -- how do I explain this? -- became my fylgia. The dog stopped short, looked at me, whined slightly, and acted submissive. Fine, except that I had instantly become its pack leader. It then followed me, rather subdued and well behaved now, and keeping a little distance even when it got in the way, as I went around the stones, took my photos, gave up on the meditation plan, and wondered where the hel these owners were. Then the impact of the signs kicked in. This was a loose dog in sheep country. I could see no people. There did seem to be a car, down by the main road, down another little lane like the one I'd entered by, but no signs of people there.

So, OK, the responsibility for this dog was now on me. There was a farmhouse nearly, on the side-road that I'd come in from, opposite the little path to the chambered cairn. I started heading for there, managing on the way to shut the dog in the lane, where I could continue to see it as I headed for the farmhouse. Just before I reached the gate, a young man came out of it on a bicycle, I waved and he waved and stopped.

'Hello,' said I. 'I was down by the stones -- there's a loose dog there, and I can't find the owners. I was coming to let someone know.'

'A dog.' He said. (This wasn't a question.)

'A dog,' said I. 'And no sign of anyone. It's in the lane just now, I shut it in.'

'Right,' he said, 'Thanks!' and headed off on his bike. I in turn headed for the chambered cairn, and stood by it, watching the show.

He stopped at the lane, opened the gate and took firm hold of the dog's collar. At this point, some people finally materialised from the other direction: the owners, at last. He took the dog to them, and I could see the gestures even if I couldn't hear the words, pointing to the signs, pointing to the sheep. People and dog headed off.

I took some photographs of the outside of the cairn, put away the camera, stood a few minutes letting myself become one with the surroundings, the scenery, the landscape: then took a deep breath, and clambered down into the tomb...

Copyright © J Blain, 1999.
All rights reserved.

Gardening in the winter

There is something immensely pleasurable and satisfying about doing garden work in December. Probably because you can't do it every day as it's dependent on what is happening weather-wise, and even on a good-weather day there are few hours in which to do it - and it becomes a valued treat and is never a chore. 

Today after two days of snow and rain the garden was moist, muddy, but good to work in; so I dug a hole, then evicted a Mahonia with some attendant bulbs from one of last year's 'winter pots' and re-homed it at the back of the garden, as planned a year ago, cutting back the climbers in that area; the whiles being scolded by a blackbird who considered that whole area, probably rightly, hers. Then, I planted the last of this year's new bulbs into various areas, particularly the little 'woodland' bit that I've been developing this year. These were mostly wild hyacinths ('bluebells' if you're English) and some daffodils which promise to be very fine when they bloom in the spring. Then, a few remaining daffodil bulbs went into a pot, and I'll see in the spring where they might go into the ground. Finally, a little bit of pruning of a hydrangea, to prevent wind-rock, and a little more on roses...

I got a bit muddy, and enjoyed this just as much as when I was a child, a long time ago, digging holes in the garden of my parents' house!

My garden has a strange shape, because of the way that the 'new build' area, bordering on woodland, was developed in the 1990s. As a result, it's bigger than the standard 'new build' patch of ground, and so has what I think of as a 'secret' area, through an arch that I put in several years ago with the area through the archway not visible from the house. The arch has clematis and honeysuckle growing over it, or at least they're meant to grow over it although the honeysuckle has its own way of growing everywhere else! Bluetits and coal tits enjoy this secret area, and were flying into its trees and from there to the bird feeders in the 'main' part, during all the time I was working there.

After sunset, I walked around with a cup of coffee, looking at the plants which are still growing, still flowering, and those which give their winter flowers and scents. The Viburnum bodnantense scents the pathway through the garden leading to that secret area. Next year's buds are very visible on shrubs and trees. As the twilight deepens - it's pretty dark as I write this - I am rejoicing in my winter garden.

Walking the old railway line

The path, nearing the crossing with the North Dronley road.

Part of the route of the Dundee to Newtyle railway... 

    has been turned into a path for walkers, cyclists and horse-riders, and this is where I went walking this morning. 

The Old Meigle Rail Path runs from Rosemill to North Dronley (and there’s a further path on to Dronley Woods), and I joined it at a small carpark, part-way along the path, reached from the Dronley Road going north from Birkhill. From there, I walked towards North Dronley, though only as far as to where the path crosses the North Dronley road as the skies were darkinging, rain was threatening, and indeed it was a rather wet woman who returned to the carpark. But it’s a walk I’ll do again, going further next time; a walk through farmed fields, along a path lined with wildflowers, small shrubs and trees, hearing the sounds of summer, yellowhammers, blackbirds, blackcaps and other songsters and this day of Solstice.

(Technically, the moment of solstice was yesterday at 22.55; so last night was the ‘shortest night’ and both yesterday and today I'll think of as jointly the ‘longest days’. In point of fact it will be several days before the day becomes measurably or noticeably shorter… )

However: about half-way along my eye was caught by a particular yellow flower which was only vaguely familiar, and to the phone came out of my pocket. Next time, I’ll take more photos from the outset. The carpark itself had, unfortunately, some litter - why do people make litter in these places? - but from just a few yards along the path there was no more. I’ll put on field boots next time, though, rather than today’s walking sandals, as there’s need to avoid what’s left by the horses that clearly are ridden this way quite often. My sandals had to do quite a bit of side-stepping.

I had the path almost to myself today, though - there was one runner, and on the way back two cyclists, all of whom just kept going so that it was I who had to step into the grass at the side of the path - another reason for boots next time! They did, however, say ‘thank you’.

So, photos, starting with the plant which first caught my eye, and ending with a view of the path and a little piece of the birdsong.

John-(or Jack)-go-to-bed-at-noon, aka Goatsbeard,

 Meadow Salsify, and a few other things.

 I'm sure there must be a local Angus name for it...

Botanical name is Tragopogon pratensis.

Another image of the same flower.

Prickly Sow Thistle, Sonchus asper.

One which I do have to haul out of the garden,
though it’s really impossible to control it fully: Aegopodium podagraria.

Ox-eye daisies.

Common Hogweed, aka Cow Parsnip, with more Sow-thistle

 (and a few other things). Please don't ever confuse 

Common Hogweed (Heracleum sphondylium) 

with its much bigger nasty cousin!

At the entrance to a field... quite an assortment of things here,
including a Knapweed (not yet flowering), more Hogweed,
 Clover, grasses and the Trefoil.
(At least it looks like Birdsfoot Trefoil but I didn't look at the leaves,
and these are not clear enough in the photo. Could be Meadow Vetchling.)

And finally for the wildflowers, Nipplewort, Lapsana communis.
This seeds itself freely around, but it's not so often I see the flowers
as I spend a good bit of 'weeding' time hauling it from the
 garden. On a wildflower path, though, is where it belongs.

As I walked on, the most wonderful birdsong rose from the trees on the left of the path - the trees you can see in that first image at the top of the page. So here is a little of it:

On the way home, I picked up a loaf of bread and some sausages at Grewar’s Farm Shop. Lunch was good!

George Kinloch, and his Dundee statue

Here in Dundee we have a problem. It relates to George Kinloch of Kinloch, known as ‘the Radical Laird’, reformer and briefly the first MP for Dundee. 

He was first politically involved with issues of the Dundee harbour, around 1814, though he may have expressed reformer sentiments from at least 1808. From there, he seems to have become increasingly political, with particular attention always to Dundee and to the developments of the mill-workers there, until his death in 1833.

He’s known for getting himself arraigned on a ‘sedition’ case - because he spoke at demonstrations, particularly one after the Peterloo debacle, and supported universal (i.e. at that time meaning male) suffrage. He escaped the so-called ‘justice’ which would have sent him to Botany Bay, taking refuge in France before he was enabled to return to Britain (only to hear of the death of one of his daughters). 

But eventually, after campaigns started to change the ways in which, well, some people thought about other people, he became elected in 1833, after the first Reform Act, as MP for the newly-formed constituency of Dundee, defeating his (also Whig) rival. His speech for his Dundee electors specified his opposition and hatred of slavery.  In 1872, long after his death and after long years of debate and opposition, a statue was erected to him in Albert Square, beside the Public Library, aka Albert Institute.

So, what’s the problem?  It lies in the family’s history: his father’s brother, John Kinloch, had become an owner of a plantation in Jamaica. Then John died, without a ‘legitimate’ heir of his body, though with several (four, I think) children of ‘mixed race’. So John’s heir was his brother, George Oliphant Kinloch, who arranged (remotely, from Scotland) for schooling for the children, and would be receiving reports from Jamaica about the plantation and its earnings. He signed at least one manumission document, but I don’t have any evidence for the context of this.  And then George Oliphant Kinloch also died. So what happened to the estate?

Well, it would be ‘in trust’ for the heir of George Oliphant Kinloch, whose first son was named John - and that son died in 1789: so George, the aforesaid reformer, second son and still a minor, became the ‘owner’ in name of the estate (and of course also of the Scottish estate of Kinloch, bought by his father from a cousin earlier, his father having sold another small Scottish estate in order to buy it… this is complicated…). Young George spent some time in France, in the early 1790s, and so learnt about the early, and idealistic, years of the French Revolution and the reasons for this. When he came of age (1796) and started to deal with the accounts for that Jamaican plantation, what did he think? We don’t know. He didn’t leave a memoir, and while there are some letters from him and to him, these date from a later time.

What we do know is that by 1804 the Jamaican estate, ‘Grange’,  had been sold, apparently to the person who had been in correspondence with George Oliphant Kinloch earlier.

So. Yes, George Kinloch of Kinloch, Scottish reformer, was for a few years in his 20s an owner of a Jamaican plantation worked by slaves. He may have ‘profited’ by the sale of the plantation. What he thought of it, we don’t know. What we do know is that at the time of his election as the first MP for Dundee, he professed a hatred of all slavery, and in particular of ‘negro slavery’; his phrasing of that time, not mine!

Please do not deface his statue!

Children of the Dundee Poor

I've been doing some more work on my family history, both here in Dundee and elsewhere in Scotland. And as it does relate somewhat to the landscape of Angus, I'll post here a piece I wrote several years ago on Thomas Lynch, his family, and his being 'farmed out' as a young child to Auchterhouse as an orphan child from Dundee. There is some new information that relates to this piece - particularly two elder siblings, Duncan born 1819 and John born 1821, in Port Glasgow, for whom I've both 'paper trails' and DNA evidence - but this is the original piece of writing from 2011.

I may add more later!

Seeking ancestors: Children of the Dundee Poor

© J Blain 2011

On a day in 1834 or early 35, four children were taken from Dundee to Auchterhouse in the Sidlaws. This was not a day trip for them: boarding out children was a way in which Dundee dealt with the problem of its orphaned poor. These four bore the Irish name of Lynch, still an unusual name at that time in Dundee. History has confused their origins; the father was Michael, or perhaps James, Lynch and the mother Margaret Haggart, or Haray, or Haughey. Perhaps, though it’s unlikely, they were even from two families not one. This is the story of the children, and it is also the story of their finding, based only in a mystery-man in my own family, a ‘Thomas Lynch’ for whom the only clues were in later census records giving a birth around 1831 in Dundee.

Death records, much later, of three of these children do exist. Thomas’s, five decades later in Glasgow, gives his parents as Michael Lynch, weaver, and Margaret McTaggart. Those of George and James, in Dundee, name the parents as James Lynch and Margaret Haggart, an interesting similarity of sound. James’s record says his father was a coal carter, likely resulting from confusion with James’s own occupation, while George’s death and marriage record show no occupation for his father. Perhaps, given the circumstances, nobody really knew.

But I am ahead of my tale. The children sent into the Angus countryside were James, aged around eleven in 1834 and possibly ‘boarded’ only very briefly before being placed in service on a farm or possibly placed directly into service, George, then around 6, Thomas, around 4, and a baby, Ann. Exactly when they went isn’t known. An entry in the Dundee Kirk Session minutes for 7^thNovember 1834 states, ‘Messrs Fergusson & Kyd to attend to the case of Lynch family’, so that they were by then in care of the parish. Dundee death records show a Michael Linch, from Drogheda, dying from fever in the infirmary, buried in the Howff on 30th May 1834, though there is also a James Lynch, born in County Cavan, aged 40 dying of consumption in September 1835. There are records of baptism in St Andrew’s Roman Catholic Church, for James Linch, in 1823, son of Michael Linch and Margaret Harvy or Haray, and for Thomas Lynch, born in July 1830 but not baptised until January 1831, to Michael Lynch and Margaret Haghey. Alas, for childen named George and Ann no birth or baptism records are evident. 

What however makes these children traceable is that the 1820s were seeing only the beginning of Irish immigration to Dundee, so that the Lynch children are among the earliest Dundee births to families with Irish names. Consistently from the 1851 census onwards they appear as born in Dundee, and James, George and Thomas are shown in the 1841 census as born within Angus, though there is a small glitch for Ann in the 1841 census where she is said to have been born outside the county, though in Scotland, not Ireland.

Lists of the Dundee poor exist for some years in the 1830s, as small printed brochures, bound into volumes and available in the Dundee Central Library’s local history area, including sections on ‘The Board of Children’ for poor orphan children sent out with a sum paid for their keep. In these records, in 1835 and 36, George and Thomas are boarded, along with other children, with Andrew Scott in Bonnettown of Auchterhouse – today’s Bonnyton. Ann is there too, but in a different household, that of John Scott, with a monthly amount of fourteen shillings paid for her keep, whereas George and Thomas rate only the standard eight shillings. James is not boarded. By 1837, George has been ‘struck off the list or put to service during the year’, the standard phrase when children are no longer supported by Dundee parish, and Ann has been moved to the Dundee household of Robert Moncur in the Hawkhill, at the standard eight shilling rate. Only Thomas remains in Bonnettown of Auchterhouse. In 1838 and 1839 records Thomas is in Kirkton of Auchterhouse with a Mrs Chrichton, while Ann remains in the Hawkhill, and finally in 1841 census records Thomas is the oldest boarded child of several with grocer’s widow Charlotte Chrichton and her daughter Betsy, and Ann remains in Dundee with Robert Moncur.

In 1841, also, a James Lynch reappears as a farm servant at Carlungie in Monikie parish, and George is in Tealing, a male servant aged approximately 13 on a farm run by David Bell. Two younger boys there are identified as ‘orphans’, presumably boarded. Ten years later in the 1851 census – still clearly identifiable by that ‘Dundee’ birth – James is in Dundee, and married, George in Panbride, both farm labourers. Thomas is now also an agricultural labourer, in Westmuir by Kirriemuir, and married to Euphemia Low, a weaver there.

It isn’t clear when these children were sent out to the countryside, and even whether they all arrived at one time. The Lists of Poor in Dundee for 1833-4 have no mention of them, tallying with the 1834 Kirk Session minute that puts two elders in charge of the Lynch family ‘case’. How directly the children were taken to Auchterhouse isn't given, so that we know only that they arrived there before the end of the year of 1st February 1834 to 25th February 1835. They might have been housed in Dundee for a while before being taken to Auchterhouse. The appearance of James as a farm labourer, though, suggests that he too was ‘farmed out’, arriving in 1835 if not the year before.

But what did happen to these four children, traceable through censuses and records of marriages, subsequent births, and deaths? James married Margaret Laing in 1850, and moved into Dundee before 1861, becoming a market gardener in Blackscroft, then a carter of coals and seemingly developing a small business in this trade. His children included Anne, Helen, Robert, James, George and Margaret, with Robert and Helen named for his wife’s parents. He eventually declined in health and became an inmate in Dundee’s West Poor House poor house, dying there of cardiac failure in 1904 aged in his 80s. Margaret Laing had predeceased him.

George, now a ploughman at Claypots, married Agnes Osler, a domestic servant in West Ferry, born in Murroes, in 1857 and in 1861 they are living in Cotton Road in Dundee with George a ploughman, later moving to 3 Crescent Street. They had children Margaret, Alexander and William, but George is not in the household with Agnes and the children in the 1871 and 1881 censuses. He may have been on a ship, having changed his occupation, as there is a George Lynch in the 1881 census on the Dundee ship Beryl, then in Aarhus harbour, with occupation ‘fireman’ which would be stoker. George died in 1890, at 3 Crescent Street, survived by his widow Agnes, the death reported by his son Alexander.

Ann, the youngest, had a somewhat different set of experiences. In 1851 she was a general servant in the household of brewer Thomas Kerr and his sisters Margaret and Mary, in the Hawkhill, along with three apprentices, a clerk and a drayman. However by 1861 she was lodging with embroideress Jean Christie in the Nethergate, her occupation given as servant, and with an infant daughter Mary. The child’s birth was recorded in 1860 as ‘illegitimate’ with her name given as Marian Jane Paterson Lynch, leading to speculation that the father’s name may have been Paterson. Ann then disappears from records, with no death or marriage found – but Mary is in the 1871 and 1881 censuses, at 3 Crescent Street, as ‘niece’ in the household of Agnes Osler or Lynch. 

Then Mary, too, disappears from records, possibly marrying or emigrating.

Thomas’s tale is the most complex and leads beyond the scope of this article. He married Euphemia Low in 1850, but though a child, James, was born in Kirriemuir in 1851, the marriage did not last. (Euphemia Low outlived the Lynch brothers, dying in Kirriemuir in 1818.) Thomas left her in the early 1850s, and reappeared in Glasgow records in 1868. His story therefore leads elsewhere, as does that of the infant James who would eventually become a farmer in Colorado – tales for another day.

But the question remains: Why were the four Lynch children sent out, in 1834 or 35, to the Angus countryside?  Dundee had an association which gave care to orphans (funds always permitting), a charity developed from 1815, opening its orphanage in 1821, supported by subscription, collection and in particular by bequests. But the efforts of the charity were aimed at the ‘industrious poor’ and several specific records suggest that a child’s admission to the Dundee Orphans Institution was dependant also on their father being ‘of the parish’, presumably of the ‘right’ religion rather than only living there, on the children’s perceived ‘fitness’ or ability to benefit, on an initial petition with recommendations by two notable people of the town, and also on their state of health. There are implicit social class assumptions here – and possibly of ethnicity, as very few children of Irish names appear in the ledger, excepting a James Keough and a Rose Ann Lynch admitted in 1857 and 61. The births of James and Thomas Lynch are recorded in the Catholic register, but Thomas’s baptism is a whole six months after his birth, and records of baptisms of George and Ann were apparently not made or have not survived. Did these children qualify neither for the Orphans Institution nor for provision from the growing Catholic community?

Apparently not – so they became a charge on the parish, and were sent to the countryside, with (unlike many children of the orphanage) no possibilities of apprenticeship to a trade.

The pursuit of family history can involve many types of records, not only the most obvious ones of the censuses, and births, marriages and deaths. This article – and the discovery of the four Lynch children – was made possible by the lists of Dundee poor. In these lists, details are sparse. The ledger of pupils of the Dundee Orphan Institution (vol2, 1821-1892) is rich and detailed, a wonderful resource for family historians and for all those interested in the story of Dundee, giving details of parents’ names, occupations, even places of birth, names of those recommending children to the Charity, and notes on how children came to leave, apprenticeships or wages paid. From comments we know that Margaret Ann Dickson ‘Went to learn to be a tailoress with J S Smith Reform Street’, that Catherine Adam ‘Went out to America with her Aunt’, that Thomas Kermoth was ‘Engaged to Messrs Paxton & Sinclair, Coffee & Tea dealers 7 Reform St for 3 years’ and even what happened to this child after that period. But these children’s fathers’ trades were jeweller, engraver, shipmaster, wright, with only an occasional labourer, such as the father of Rose Ann Lynch admitted in 1861. For the children of the immigrant Irish, in these early years, the orphanage does not seem to have been an option. For children who developed some sort of problem, the orphanage committee requested that the Kirk Session ‘relieve them’ of the child – as in the case of Alexander Scott who developed ringworm.

The Lynch children clearly did not qualify and so, alas, their records are sparse. Family historians often search for ‘facts’ perceived as ‘truth’. But truths are what people make them. Even in the ‘factual’ records there is room for dispute and there are problems in searching: for instance, the burial record for Michael Linch, in the Howff on 30^thMay 1834, is recorded in the online Howff burials as on 30^thJune, and was indexed in the Scotland’s People website as Michael Smith, so that finding him required some effort and some lateral thinking. The death records for James, George and Thomas – giving different names for the father – may indicate that none of them have good information, or might still indicate that Thomas wasn’t related to the others. And records don’t hold the full story. There is need for imagination to interpret the records, to fill in the gaps – in the knowledge that we may never really ‘know’ much about our forebears, and that the speculation of uncertainty, while informed by history, remains with us.

Useful resources:

Lists of Poor in Dundee available at the Family History Centre, Dundee Central Library, Wellgate

Dundee Kirk session minutes, viewed at Dundee City Archives

Minute Books of the Dundee Orphans Institution, ditto

The Dundee Orphan Institution Pupils Ledger, 1821-92 ditto

Old Parochial Records, available from Scotland’s People at http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/ as scans, and from film reels available to view at Tay Valley Family History Society and at Dundee Central Library

Statutory Records, available from Scotland’s People at http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/

Census records, available from Scotland’s People and from microfilm at Tay Valley and at Dundee Central Library, and via transcriptions on the Ancestry.co.uk website

Burial records for the Howff burial ground, Dundee, available from Scotland’s People, accessed also through the online material at http://www.fdca.org.uk/FDCAHowffInfo.html and from microfilm at Tay Valley and at Dundee Central Library

Silly quiz - regnal names in Britain

I haven’t posted here for far too long...

So (given the media's continuing insistence on 'royals') here’s a bit of fun, a rather silly quiz for any readers. It’s about ‘regnal’ names and numbers. Three questions;

1. Given that since the Union of the Crowns,1603, Scotland and England have shared a monarch, how many monarchs since that time would have the same ‘regnal number’ in both countries, who share names of previous monarchs? (naming, please)


2. Since the Union of the Crowns, how many names of monarchs did not occur previously as names of rulers in either country (in other words, they’re strictly post -Union names)? And what were these names? There are only a very few… 


3. And, what names of monarchs are found only in Scotland or only in England before the Union of the Crowns? (Please, take this from around the year 1000, or there would be far too many…)

Any answers? - you can post here, or on my FB status to which I'll forward this.

Now follows the Dark Time... for Samhuinn, a poem from ten years ago

Samhuinn / Winternights

Now follows the dark time,

grey stones, night’s chill falling,

owls, flower-faced, calling

winter and old friends

As wind gathers, rustling

dry dead flowers from heather,

rattling broom-seeds; shifting

now, between the worlds, wait,

between year and season,

between known and unknown,

turnings, change, year’s end.

Harvest made, we gather,

shape and sort, assemble

sift tales of our season

spun from joy or sadness

crafting song and legend

stories to attend

On the cairn, leaves new-spread,

new-dead, over long-dead

bones in barrow bearing

stories of the years past

living tales and sped

Our deeds, their rememberings,

merging here, our beings,

self or legend; lives turn,

seed to earth our year’s work

wait the new year’s growing,

join our hopes ahead

So, now, comes the wanderer,

worlds-walking, by barrow,

stone, or stream, or city

hearing song and story

hoarding deed and meaning

words that lie in wyrd

(© J Blain, 2005)

Dundee, for my father: rememberings from around four years old

We walked, those times in my remembering, into

the town, a mile or so, a slow walk

for a young child tripping on sandalled feet,

stones going into the shoes;

and the dust in Princes Street blew into my eyes,

so a hankie was needed, and sometimes spit.

But then, the toun, the streets, and you would say

how the Seagait and the Murraygait cam aboot

and the Cowgate wi the coos coming intae the toun

frae Angus to merkat; then the city square,

Boots' corner and Monck's lodging, with the old toun,

the kirks, the steeple, Overgait, and scents of foods

and people, and smoke too, and gaun doun the hill tae

docks, the arch, with swing bridge and the walking

among salt breezes, with stories of the harbour.

And the Fifie, oh the Fifie! and the trip for a day

and the lifebelts, rings that so teased imagining;

going there and back, and the engine's sound,

beside that bridge of fear and exaltation,

with joy of the return, tired and expectant

of a bus ride home.

Or maybe into Tally Street's hotel,

'Imperial', they called it, friends who ran it;

by Barrack Street and through the ghoulful Howff

to where you, my Dad, worked - with a wondrous door,
and that lift that the small child marvelled at; then
by statues at the Albert Institute

and by the school that I would go to,

when I was bigger.

Trying to not sleep on the bus,

Stumbling up the street to home,

home, home, home,

Sleep.

Explorations in Angus

I was writing some pieces for an online course I'm teaching for Cherry Hill Seminary, and developed a photo-essay from a trip out into the Angus countryside on Saturday. So I'll attempt to post it here too. Alas I can't just post the pdf, apparently!

Last Saturday I  drove out towards the Sidlaw Hills, a few scant miles from my house on the outskirts of Dundee. My purposes were vague, only to explore a couple of places I had not seen, possibly investigate one of the local stone circles, and have a gentle walk in the wild.

Balkello Community Woodland is a good place to explore. As summer draws to its close and autumn nears, rowans are laden with berries and the trees display their varying shades of green, with the richness of oak and alder against the darker spruce and pine. A good place to wander: and as I reached the north side of the woodland, the hills beyond - Balkello and Auchterhouse - caught the afternoon light.

The derivation of 'Sidlaw' is not clear. 'Law' is a hill (so 'Sidlaw Hills' is Sid-Hill-Hills). The first part, though, is more difficult. Some say that 'Sid' means 'seat', and indeed one of the hills is named 'The King's Seat'. Others have names that come from older languages or blend two, as indeed 'Sidlaw' may do: Dunsinane, Auchterhouse, Balkello, Balluderan and Craigowl. The last of these is from Creag gobhal, 'forked hill', despite its name having meaning in English also. But an alternative derivation of Sidlaw is from Sidhe, the 'fairy folk', the hidden people, by which the Sidlaws would be the Hills of the Sidhe.

I think I prefer that derivation, though it may owe more to hope than to linguistic analysis.

Balkello woodland is young, and managed by the Forestry Commission: the trees were planted only in the 1990s, to create a community place which contrasts with the farmlands around and uplands beyond. It lies to the north of the road which connects the villages of Auchterhouse and Tealing.

Just south of the road is a standing stone, the Balkello Stone, which will be a visit for another day. However, I'd hoped to catch site of a circle nearby at Balkemback, and find the Pictish carved stone known as Martin's Stane. 

The field in which the circle sits was occupied by many cows, and would have required climbing over several barbed wire fences: again, not for this day as the afternoon was wearing on. Views from the roadside, though, showed the heather coming into its own on the hills behind, and the plain beyond stretching to the coast - a landscape farmed for thousands of years, by people who left their marks on the land, clearing fields, creating cairns, erecting stones to mark places that, perhaps, called especially to them, building roundhouses and digging souterains, carving on rock and boulder, building houses of stone and later of brick, then churches for each group of villages as those became parishes. This landscape is not 'wild', even on the heights of the Sidlaws, but changed in the interaction of humans and others through millennia.

Finally, I headed for Martin's Stane, on my way home to Dundee. Some information on this Pictish carved stone is at http://www.scotlandsplaces.gov.uk/record/rcahms/31864/balluderon-st-martins-stone/rcahms

Alas, it was broken long ago, so that only part of the stone remains, with figures of a horse though the rider is no longer present, with, below, another rider and horse and a pair of 'Pictish symbols' one of which has been said locally to be a 'dragon'. Local folklore has therefore created its own meanings for this stone, linked to place names towards Dundee, but what it commemorated, or its inscription as 'sacred', may never be known.

The stone, minutes from Balkemback and Balluderan, is in a field which on my visit held glowing golden barley, waist-high or even higher, waiting for harvest. There was a narrow trackway across the field, on which I walked with care for the barley, which let me come close enough to photograph such of the images as could be seen through the waving grass around the stone and the barley between it and me. Again, this calls for a visit once the crop is harvested.

And so, the final images here are of that field and the waving barley, farmer's gold, with the stone visible through its protective railings. That I could not approach closely did not, on this visit, matter: the ripeness of the barley was, for today, enough.

On Petrushka and 'illegal' migrants

This evening I turned over to BBC4 without knowing what was on - and was delighted to find Stravinsky's Petrushka being played in a Proms concert.  And then I browsed through a bit of my email, while listening, to find a statement by Tim Farron on the Calais situation.

And they were so much in tune. For those who don't know it, Petrushka is the story of three marionettes, at a Russian town's fair, manipulated by the puppet owner, and performing under his rule for the entertainment of the assembled people at the fair. And the people have their own lives and things to do, their dance, their joys, and take no notice of the puppets.

But the puppets have their own lives, offstage or out of sight of the crowd, and there are tensions between them, ending when one kills another. Petrushka, mortally wounded, breaks from his booth, attempts to take agency and runs out into the fairground, the town square, and with his dying movements accuses those who have not known of the puppets' situation, effectively that of slaves of the puppetmaster; and his death - the death of one whom the crowd thought of as not a person - troubles them.

So then to Tim Farron's piece: the central message of which is while we do need to 'police' boundaries and work on security issues, the situation of those caught within this dreadful system of politics, seeking freedom or new futures and issues of trafficking needs our attention in other ways. I will add that we do seriously need to take on board the predicaments of the people attempting to transport goods, and those who depend on this trade (particularly important for Scottish seafood transporters who are hit very hard by the situation). How do we balance this, somehow, with the need to think of those breaking free of the camps as both victims of the 'puppetmasters' of their initial trafficking, and people attempting to take agency and do whatever they can to draw our attention, the attention of those sitting comfortably in our British homes, to what drives them to assay these difficult and dangerous ploys?

Farron said that 'While the Government is focussing on building bigger fences and bolstering security, we cannot ignore the humanitarian crisis. Tear gas and dogs will never solve the problems that these people are facing, and we should not turn a blind eye to their suffering.'

Indeed: and a photo accompanying his text showed a sign on the side of a makeshift tent, 'We are not dangerous, we are in danger.' But I'd put his message more blatantly - that the solutions, if there can be 'solutions', to the queues of lorries and the people dying on the Mediterranean, the Calais camps and the problems of lorry drivers, have to be in tune. We have to take our share of migrants to Europe, and in particular we have to open doors as and how we can, to help with this crisis; at the same time as exploring what the possibilities are in North Africa and Syria, and what we might do that recognises the ordinary people and the everyday, dreadful, things that they are facing there. And to take on board at least some of the historical reasons for these fearful situations.

This doesn't mean that we should blame the West for all the problems of North Africa and the Middle East. It does mean that we need to see ourselves as part of an interconnected system, with what we do and have done affecting other people's lives there; to acknowledge responsibility for some actions and some mistakes, and to think about what kinds of connectedness we can help create, and who we might connect with; and in the meantime to recognise what privilege we have and to extend that hand of help to others who, because of a specific situation at this specific time, have it not.

Winternights

Dundee, in the last week of November. I was coming across the bridge at just the right time to see the wonderful sunset and its reflection - and that of the city and the hills - in the so-still water of the Firth of Tay. This was begun three nights ago, when a possible frost was forecast, and completed just now.

A finger-nipping chill is in the air,

and in the earth, as I dig, even now

to plant and seek to grow, for hopes of sping.

Though days continue mild, their warmth now fades,

and soon dark gathers, evening deeps to show

how near we are to solstice.

And daily flocks of chaffinches now gather,

forgetting their rivalries of summer

for winter friendships here.

At night, again, my candles blaze, to mark

a time between the times, a time so late,

a time when winter hovers on her dark brink

and darkness holds the calling owls, who greet

the winter’s chill, the driving rain,

the last wind-fallen leaves.

Yet today, with winds moderate, then stilling,

it seems December pauses on the threshold

as marigolds unfurl their still-bright petals

to drink the sun that gives life to their brilliance,

and stubbled fields and hills hold promised beauty,

the bare trees limned by low-slanting sunlight;
when evening chill returns, a gold-red sunset,
glowing, is mirrored in stillness of the firth.

  

(© J Blain 2014 - still draft of course.)

NOT HOME RULE: The Smith Commission and the Lib Dems' need for critical perspective

Well, I am disappointed. Very disappointed.

Not, though, so much with the Smith Commission’s report (which you can read in full online at https://www.smith-commission.scot/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/The_Smith_Commission_Report-1.pdf). OK, I’d have much liked it to go further, but knew this was unlikely – the time-frame, aside from anything else, militated against true ‘home rule’ proposals. There were compromises, many of them, and not too surprisingly today’s proposals were probably most in tune with the Tory submissions. So the report, in what it says, is just about meeting (my) expectations, indeed maybe even meeting some hopes a little better than I’d feared. It might even – just might – be another stage on the way to some kind of federal situation. Britain needs to change and this may move things on.

My disappointment, therefore, is not so much with the report – it’s with the comments that followed it.  First, I thought that John Swinney’s immediate comments were a bit too negative – he, after all, was one of the people presumably agreeing to this. He could have made it more evident that he did welcome what was proposed – his short welcome appeared a grudging one, followed as it was by all that was wrong… even while largely agreeing with him I found the timing misplaced.  Nicola Sturgeon’s comments in the Scottish Parliament were rather more welcoming – she made the same points, but made them rather better and I respect that.  However, Swinney’s comments gather only a minor quibble from me.

What I find wrong, yes wrong, indeed very wrong, is the response of my old ‘home’ party – the Scottish Liberal Democrats, whom I had been thinking to rejoin. That’s been pushed aside yet again. Michael Moore presumably does know that these proposals are not ‘home rule’ and should not have used that term, but his ‘welcoming’ comments were somewhat measured. Alistair Carmichael has promised to see them through, and I respect him for this. But the ‘welcome’ of Willie Rennie, online at http://www.scotlibdems.org.uk/more_powers_for_scotland is ridiculous. 

I mean that. Ridiculous. Laughable. The comments are laughable for people with no knowledge of the Liberal long-standing commitment to federalism, who’ll see Rennie’s claim that ‘we argued for these Home Rule powers’ as irrelevant – and also laughable, in a very sad way, for people who do know of that long-standing commitment and see this claim and 'welcome' as a serious backsliding, and as a serious inability to take any kind of critical view of what's going on here.

The STV news tonight had a comment from Bernard Ponsonby that 'Some traditional Liberals may well say that "home rule" amounts to a whole load more powers than is on offer'. Just so. Indeed this is very far from a federal or even a ‘quasi-federal’ solution, whatever that might have meant. Do we laugh or cry?

So why could not the Scottish Liberal Democrats be honest?  Why can they not say,  ‘We have a long-standing commitment to a Federal Britain. We know this is not Home Rule. Nevertheless, we pushed for such powers as could be got at this time. We much welcome the result, and it may be a stepping stone to a true British Federalism. We certainly hope so and will continue to work for such a solution.’

Had they said that – or something like it – they would now have had a rejoined member. As it is, I’m back to weighing up my political options, feeling more disgruntled than ever – and not because of the Smith report.