F is for the Forth Bridge

Not to be confused with the Forth Road Bridge which came later, the Forth Bridge is a railway crossing which opened in 1890 to cross the Forth Estuary in Scotland.  At the time it had the longest single span cantilever bridge in the world and still is in second place after the Quebec Bridge. Because it was so innovative at the time, it has been put forward to be considered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The saying "like painting the Forth Bridge" to describe a never-ending task never really reflected the actual facts.  However, now it is no longer true at all because the bridge has been completely renovated and has a new technical finish that should last 20 years.

The Forth Road Bridge joined it in crossing the Estuary in 1964, and later this year there will be a third bridge when the Queensferry Crossing opens.

The url on the card is now out of date though it does give a redirect to the new site for the Forth Bridges.  The card itself was sent to me from the Netherlands.

Shetland

Shetland, north east of mainland Scotland, was in the news today because property prices there have risen faster than anywhere else in the UK, up 104% in the last 10 years.  It has happened because of rising employment in the gas and oil industries again.  BP has created new jobs at Sullom Voe, Total is building a new gas plant, there will be a new power station at Lerwick.  The fishing industry though, is still worth more than the oil and gas.

In spite of all this, houses in Shetland average less than half of London prices.

Maps on Monday.

The Trossachs and Central Perthshire - Monday map

Map postcards of central Scotland, an area where I once lived.  The two maps overlap so I tried to demonstrate, with limited success.

On the card showing the Trossachs you can see the River Forth, at the bottom right, which flows through to Edinburgh.  It starts from Loch Ard, slightly below the centre of the card, then winds its way to Stirling where it widens into the estuary called the Firth of Forth.  Until 1936 the bridge at Stirling was the easternmost crossing of the river.

Other places of note are Loch Lomond, and Gleneagles of golfing fame just makes an appearance on the far right of the Trossachs card.  If you know the song, "Road to the Isles", you may also spot the places mentioned in the line, "Sure by Tummel and Loch Rannoch and Lochaber I will go".

Buachaille Etive Mor

Some years ago I bought a book of postcards showing scenes in Scotland because I was bored with the local ones available and my excuses were that my husband was Scottish, and secondly I lived in Scotland for 4 years so I can pass as pseudo-Scottish.  I still have a few left and this is one of them.

The card shows Buachaille Etive Mor, (pronounced very roughly booackulla etiv more) which means the big herdsman of Etive.  There is also a small herdsman of Etive, Buachaille Etive Beag.  Some of the scenes from the recent James Bond film, Skyfall, were shot near Buchaille Etive Mor.  It was also used as a location in Braveheart and Highlander.

I had to choose a Scottish card for today because it is Burns' Night, when people celebrate the life of Robert Burns the famous Scottish poet.  And the connection with Buachaille Etive Mor?  There are several burns on Buachaille Etive Mor.  A burn in Scotland is a stream or river.

This is a post for Postcard Friendship Friday hosted on Beth Niquette's blog, The Best Hearts are Crunchy.

Scotland (and a tiny bit of England)

I wasn't expecting any postcards to arrive, or even any stamped mail, but a lovely cartoon map of Scotland came out of the blue yesterday.  On it is a nice example of the Scottish definitive stamp, with a thistle.  This is the new 87p rate for European mail up to 20g or worldwide up to 10g, a fairly massive increase from 68p for the European rate and from 76p for worldwide postcards.  I haven't started using these yet because I stocked up on the old "No value indicated" stamps before they too increased.

You may notice a young lady in a bikini off the east cost, near Montrose.  I think you can safely consider that to be artistic license on the part of whoever drew this map.

This is a post for Sunday Stamps, now hosted by Violet Sky at "See it on a Postcard!"

Loch Awe and Kilchurn Castle

Loch Awe seems very aptly named to me - it is stunning - though it comes from the Gaelic "Obha" which has no connection with awe.  It is the third largest loch in Scotland and home to four castles of which Kilchurn is one.

Kilchurn was built in the 15th century as a five storey tower and enlarged in the 17th century to provide "modern" barracks.  It was used as a garrison for government troops during both Jacobite rebellions (1715 and  1745), then in 1760 was badly damaged in a storm.

During all this time Kilchurn was on a small island hardly any bigger than the castle.  In 1817 the lake's water level was lowered and now Kilchurn is on the mainland.  People still do arrive by boat but you can now walk to visit.

In 1964 we spread our wings

The first card above was one bought by my father and unused. Although there is a scribbled 1964 on it, it must date from at least two or three years earlier because St Andrews church on Freeman Street had been demolished by 1962.

Here was the common ground for all of us - going to school in this town, Grimsby in Lincolnshire, during our teenage years as we were finding our feet as we strived for adulthood. Some of us had lived here from birth, others were just passing through. Now we we've scattered throughout the country.  In 1964 all these cards were sent to me by friends as we took our first steps taking summer holidays without parents.

Wendy and Rosie went to Rosslare, in Ireland.  The weather wasn't too good but they seemed to have fun recovering from hard work at school.

Jennifer and Susan went to Scotland, a "grand tour" of Largs, Arran, Inverary, Loch Lomond and Edinburgh.  The card itself has a story.  I found it as I moved a small desk that used to be my mother's.  It dropped out of a narrow slot which can't be seen unless the desk is on its side.  The card arrived for me while I was living at home and it must have fallen behind the drawer soon afterwards.  The desk has moved house at least six times and yet the card didn't fall out until last month.

Muriel and Esther went to Chichester.  Muriel has since returned to that area and teaches nearby.

My sister went on an exchange to France.  She went with strict instructions to write home frequently and, goody-two-shoes that she is, she did.  I think she bought all the cards at the beginning of the trip, probably even wrote them all at the same time, and then posted them every other day.

The card shows the cross channel ferry, the Lord Warden, the first drive-on, drive-off car ferry for British Railway's cross channel service.  She was launched in 1951.  In October 1964 she was repainted in the new colours for British rail: blue hull, red funnel.  At the end of 1979 she went to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, but just a year later was sent to Pakistan for scrapping.

And I, what was I doing?  I was staying with my grandmother in Dublin, and apparently not sending any postcards home.

You can find some other flights of fancy at Sepia Saturday.

The best band in the land?

If you can see it through the grime, the message on the back says, "This is the ragtime Band".  I detect some sarcasm there.  What a jolly bunch!  I think the man on the extreme right must be the leader of the band, since he has a big stick and no bagpipes.  I wonder if his name could be Alexander?

The card was produced by John Goldie, Arbuthnot Road, Loanhead, where, it says, copies or enlargements may be had, at any time.

This is a post for Postcard Friday, which is hosted by Beth Niquette at The Best Hearts are Crunchy.

Views of Edinburgh

The last day of November is St Andrew's Day, and Scotland's official national day, so I've chosen four views of Edinburgh, all dating from November 1980, all sent by my father to himself.

A view of Edinburgh from Calton Hill with the Dugald Stewart Monument in the foreground.  Dugald Stewart was the Professor of moral philosophy at the University of Edinburgh from 1786 until he died in 1828.  Calton Hill is now where the Scottish Government has its headquarters.

Princes Street and the Castle, Edinburgh.

A general view of the Scottish Capital showing the Castle, the National Gallery, the Royal Scottish Academy , and the Scott Monument, dominating Princes Street, one of the finest thoroughfares in Europe.

John Knox's House, Edibnburgh

Situated in the High Street, this 16th century house was built by the goldsmith to Mary, Queen of Scots, and is reputed to have been at one time the property of John Knox.

John Knox is considered to have been the founder of the Presbyterian church in Scotland.

The Lawnmarket: This panoramic view of the Lawnmarket and Edinburgh Castle in the distance was taken from St Giles Cathedral.  Behind the Cathedral is Parliament House, where the Scots Parliament met from 1639 until the Union of Scotland and England in 1707.  Nearby is the National Library of Scotland and the Central Public Library.  Gladstone's Land is a fine 16th and 17th century six-storeyed house in the Lawnmarket and it preserves Edinburgh's last arcaded ground floor.

I haven't tried yet, but it would be fun to find these places on the map card I posted a few weeks ago.

A happy St Andrew's Day to my Scottish readers.  All right, one Scottish reader.  I know there's definitely one of you out there.

Isle of Skye

According to John of English Wilderness, who sent me this card, this doesn't look like Portree at all - it was grey and hidden in mists.  If you go over to his beautiful blog, you will see that a small matter of mist didn't stop him taking some fantastic pictures.

It's all in the name, maybe.  One of the possible derivations of Skye is from the Norse sagas which called it skuy (misty isle) skýey or skuyö (isle of cloud).  There is also a Gaelic name Eilean a' Cheò meaning Island of Mists.  So there it is, mist.  Of course there are other altogether different meanings given such as winged or horned but those are far less romantic.

I always associate Skye with "The Skye Boat Song" we learnt at school:

Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,
Onward! the sailors cry;
Carry the lad that's born to be King
Over the sea to Skye.

It commemorates Bonnie Prince Charlie's escape in a boat after the Battle of Culloden, helped by Flora Macdonald.  There was no Skye Bridge in those days. :)

Geographical fun

I've left the scan of this very unusual card quite large so that you can see the details for yourselves.  The words at the bottom say:

A gallent piper struggling through the bogs
His windbag broken, wearing his clay clogs,
Yet strong of heart, a fitting emblem makes
For Scotland - land of heroes and of cakes.

I had no idea what all this was about until I looked up that rhyme.  The illustration is one of a series entitled Geographical fun: Humorous outlines of various countries first published in 1869 by Hodder and Stoughton, as an educational tool.

This reproduction came to me all the way from Brazil.  On the other side the title has changed a little to "Humorous Maps of Serious Countries".  I don't know if somebody somewhere thought somebody somewhere else would be offended.  The rest of the reverse reads:

Scotland

The gallant piper representing Scotland plays an instrument strongly identified with the Scots, but in fact it originated in the Middle East; a bagpipe appears on a Hittite monument dating to 1000 BC.
Aleph (William Harvey) 1796-1873.

The website, The Map House, has more information on this series. 

A week of maps: 3 Edinburgh

A card from 1963 showing a map of the centre of Edinburgh.  I've left the scan a little larger than usual so that the details can easily be seen.

It will surely have changed in the last 50 years, not least that the Scottish Parliament is now more or less in front of Holyrood Palace.

The Kingdom of Fife

I tend to think map postcards are a relatively recent development but this one showing Fife in Scotland must date from around 1910.  The publisher, John Walker and Co. was in business 1903 - 1910.

The British Open Golf Championship

"Royal and Ancient" club house and Grand Hotel

St Andrews Links, driving to 18th hole

Golf Club House and Grand Hotel, St Andrews

These three cards, unused but sadly quite badly marked, all show the "Home of Golf", St Andrews.  This year the Open is being played there, in dreadful weather by all accounts.

The Royal and Ancient Golf Club (then called Society of St Andrews Golfers) was founded in 1754 and still administers the rules of golf everywhere except the USA.  Golf has been played on the links in St Andrews for about 600 years.

UPDATED: Relax Max has written an interesting post about an American amateur golfer who won the Open Championship at St Andrews.

A Gothic rocket-ship

The memories conjured up by this card are only remotely connected with the subject matter, the Scott Monument on Princes Street, Edinburgh.  Primarily I remember a friend and myself dragging our assorted sons around in a vain attempt to instil a little "cultcha" when ranged in age between 9 and 14 years old.  We should have known better.

The Scott Monument did brighten them up a little, because you can climb up something approaching 300 steps for a view over Edinburgh.  The monument was commissioned not long after Sir Walter Scott's death in 1832 but it took until 1844 to finish.  It is built in a rock quarried nearby which oozed oil, I believe it still does.  In years gone by the pollution in the air bound to this oil and turned it black.  In 1998 it was refurbished to its original state but not before Bill Bryson had described it as a Gothic rocket-ship.  Inside the arch is a statue of Scott and his dog in white marble.

On reading the reverse of the card my memories were again prodded into action.  The card is postmarked Edinburgh, dated 7 September 1960 and addressed to the landlady of the lodgings where we were staying at the time.  We were newly arrived in an area and my parents were still house-hunting so I think we were with Mrs Dennis for a whole month. We had to endure what seemed to me the most disgusting food.  One day my father exchanged my still full bowl of grey, gluey, mushroom soup for his empty bowl.  Two days later it was on the menu again because Sheila "liked it so much".  Be sure your sins will find you out!!

This is a post for Postcard Friendship Friday hosted at The Best Hearts are Crunchy.

Edinburgh Castle and Extraordinary rendition

Edinburgh Castle as seen from The Vennel is a brooding view which makes it all to easy to imagine dark and damp dungeons where prisoners were tortured.  In the 17th century the castle became infamous for torturing the Covenanters who opposed the belief of Divine Right of the monarch.

Torture was first abandoned in England in about 1640 and it was written into the Bill of Rights in 1689 that "cruel and unusual punishment" should be forbidden.  Scotland, however, did not finally abolish torture until 1708, leaving open the possibility of transferring prisoners from the Tower of London to Edinburgh Castle in an early example of extraordinary rendition, that is the transfer of a person from one state to another, without legal proceedings, to take advantage of harsher interrogation techniques.

James II of England (James VII of Scotland) had one William Spence taken to Scotland where he could legally be tortured.  Because he was thought to have information on a plot against the King, he was thrown into the dungeons carved into the volcanic rock deep beneath Edinburgh Castle.  He stayed there nine days.

In spite of the rather morbid train of thought that I've conjured up, it's a card I like.  I bought it in the early 1980s.

E is for Edinburgh Castle.  A post for ABC Wednesday.

Culzean Castle, Scotland

Now go back and read the title again, but this time pronounce the name Cullane.  That's the correct way, believe it or not.  During the 1600s the spelling was changed from Cullean to Culzean but that's not the entire explanation.  The 'z' is a 'yogh' or 'ʒ' in the same way as it is in Dalziel (pronounced Dee-yell) and in Menzies (pronounced (Ming-iss).  It was used in Middle English and Middle Scots, and because of its shape like a figure 3 it was confused with the letter 'z'.

Now you may carry on reading, safe in the knowledge that you are pronouncing the name correctly. :)

Culzean Castle is on the west coast of Scotland, south of Glasgow.  It was built in 1777 to replace a stately home that had been there earlier.  It now belongs to the National Trust for Scotland but when it was handed over, one of the conditions was that an apartment was to be reserved for Eisenhower in recognition of the part he played during World War II.  There is now an Eisenhower exhibition in one of the rooms.

This card was posted in Ayr on 7 July 1977, a time of wonderful weather, by all accounts:

"Childhood haunts revisited after a long absence can be very nostalgic but I realise much more so on a balmy summer evening than in a drizzle".

Visit Marie Reed's The French Factrice to find more people this Postcard Friday.

The Highland Light Infantry

The Highland Light Infantry was a regiment in the British Army from 1881 until 1959. It was formed by the amalgamation of two Scottish regiments and in the same way became amalgamated with the Royal Scots Fusiliers to become the Royal Highland Fusiliers in 1959.

The card has a divided back, with no mention of it being for inland use only, and a one penny postage stamp.  The postage was raised for postcards in Britain from a halfpenny to a penny in June 1918.  It increased to one and a half pennies (three ha'pence) in June 1921.  After considerable protests, this was once again reduced to a penny in May 1922.  The stamp on the card was in circulation from 1922 until 1934.  In fact a very high resolution scan shows the postmark to be St Michael's Tenterden, and the date April 1934.

And why were they called a "light" infantry?  It's tempting to say that it's because their equipment was lighter than regular equipment but it's more a description of their role.  Light infantries came into being as skirmishers who didn't fight in the disciplined tight formations of the ordinary infantry.  Today that distinction has gone and the role has, in the UK, been taken over by parachute or mountain infantries and special forces, none of whom have the heavy weaponry of other battalions.

The Highland Light Infantry was the only Highland regiment to wear trews as uniform, as can be seen on the card.  Kilts were authorised in 1947.

Traditional trews were almost skin tight garments cut on the bias so that the tartan would lie diagonally.  This bias gave the trews some stretch.  The seam would be at the back of the leg.  Modern trews are no longer cut on the bias and are more like trousers, but they have no side seam. 

The card is titled "Highland Light Infantry at Laffans Plain".  Laffans Plain is a former parade ground in Aldershot, Hampshire, in the south of England.  Aldershot was a village until it was decided that an army camp should be built there in 1855.  It is now a town with a population of over 30,000 and is known as "The Home of the British Army".

This post has a Scottish flavour to tie in with Burns' Night, tonight 25 January.  As a  tie-in in a different direction, I am reproducing Burns' Selkirk Grace (with English translation).  I think it is particularly poignant when remembering the earthquake in Haiti.

The Selkirk Grace

Some hae meat and canna eat,

And some wad eat that want it,

But we hae meat and we can eat,

And sae the Lord be thankit.

Some have meat and cannot eat
And some would eat but want for it
But we have meat and we can eat
And so the Lord be thanked for it.

Festival headquarters

Scotland - it's St. Andrew's Day

With a perfect sense of timing, this excellent map card of Scotland arrived so that I could mark St Andrew's Day appropriately.  The stamp has completely missed the franking machine, so I can't say where it came from.  Probably Scotland. :)

From the back of the card:
Scotland has a land area of about 79,000 sq km (30,500 sq miles), with a total coastline of nearly 12,000 km (7,500 miles).  There are some 800 islands, with almost 600 of them lying off the west coast, over 30,000 freshwater lochs and 6600 river systems.  Scotland's population of 5.1 million live in only 3% of the total land area.

So, plenty of room to lose yourself there. 

Tanera Mhor, Summer Isles

Postmarked Summer Isles, dated 29 June 1984.
Holiday cottages
Island of Tenera Mhor
Summer Isles

Clockwise from top left:
Old Inn, Fuchsia, Schoolhouse (left) and Farmhouse, Murdo's.

Hands up who knew where the Summer Isles were?  No, I hadn't heard of them either.  They are a group of islands off the north west of Scotland.  The one inhabited island is Tanera Mhor.  It has a salmon farm, a post office and a cafe.  The post office has printed its own stamps since 1970, and they are apparently much sought after.