In June 1947, George Orwell and his family almost drowned in the Corryvreckan whirlpool between Jura and Scarba. In 1981, his brother-in-law, Bill Dunn (61) became the first person to swim across the whirlpool. Dunn lost his right leg at the hip in WW2.
In November 1922, while Clementina Churchill was campaigning in Dundee for her husband, someone released “electric snuff” at a open forum meeting causing a mass sneezing fit. Churchill lost the election.
After patronizing the crowd and accusing them of taking advantage of Mr Churchill’s illness, they *really* turned on her. Woman in crowd: “Play the game, hen. Play the game. Dinna use that sentimental argument about yer man being ill.”
Clementina Churchill left the meeting hall to Irish Republican songs and cheering for De Valera.
In Dec. 1917, Mary Hill and her parents had a 1.16kg meteorite fragment smash into in their roof in Keithick, Perthshire.
Crashing through the slates, they thought someone had knocked on their door! It is 1 of only 4 confirmed meteorite falls in Scotland.
Read more about the Strathmore meteorite here: https://www.nms.ac.uk/explore-our-collections/stories/natural-world/strathmore-meteorite/
In 1888, two men from Calcutta (now Kolkata) set off for Demerara in British Guiana (now Guyana) but ended up in a freezing Leith sailors’ mission. If ever you think you’ve had the journey from Hell, these guys probably have you beat.
Unfortunately, we don’t know the names of the two men involved here, but unsurprisingly we do know the names of all the (white) people who helped them.
In May 1888, two Bengali men– “a trader and his servant”– boarded a ship in Calcutta bound for Liverpool, where the were to take a transatlantic steamer to Demerara. The trader had family in the West Indies and was emigrating out there to join them.
The passage from Calcutta by sail took them three months. By the time they docked in Liverpool, they’d missed the steamer. They had no English and lost their travel papers and nobody would find a Bangla speaker to help. The harbourmaster put them on a train to London…(it’s not clear why).
In London, nobody knew what to do but saw their baggage had an address on it followed by “DM”. Some bright spark decided that DM meant Denmark! and “helped” the pair buy tickets for the “Boat Express”–a train to Harwich and a paddle steamer to Esbjerg (via Rotterdam)
The pair arrived in Esbjerg near penniless, were arrested by Danish police, and taken to Copenhagen. Here a “Mrs. Severin” who’d spent time in India and had limited Bangla tried to help. As “subjects of the Empire” she appealed on their behalf to the British Consulate.
They refused to help but would return them to Calcutta (and charge them for it). For 3 months, the pair made money by selling the goods brought with them from India and Severin put them on the SS Thorsa bound for Leith. It was now late November…
The Thorsa arrived (via Kristiansand, Norway) on 26th November 1888, about *6 months* after the pair left Calcutta. They had a letter from Severin to a retired Raj colonel, called Buist. They got rooms at the Sailors Home, Buist was sent for.
As luck would have it, Buist knew Bangla and was able to find a man from Calcutta in Leith. Between them they worked out a plan to get the pair to Demerara. Their luggage was clearly relabeled “DEMERARA” in English and Bangla…
10 days later the two men and the manager of the Sailors Home took the train to Glasgow and met the SS Cipero bound for Demerara. The Cipero, a slow cargo freighter, took 20 days to reach Trinidad before finally arriving in Demerara on January 2nd, 1889.
For a sense of how comfortable this journey might’ve been, here is a list of everything the Cipero hauled to the West Indies on that trip.
In reality though, it was likely more comfortable for them than for most Indians headed for British Guiana. After the abolition of slavery, plantation owners looked to the Empire for labour to exploit. In 1889 ~90,000 East Indians lived and worked in British Guiana.
That’s all I could find about the pair while tracing their journey (and most of it was about the people that helped them…). If anyone knows anything else (or where to look) let me know!
Dundee Courier. November 28th 1888. pg. 3
Leith Burghs Pilot.
-December 1st 1888 pg. 5
-December 8th 1888. pg. 8
Aberdeen Press and Journal. December 7th 1888. pg. 4
Dundee Evening Telegraph. November 28th 1888. pg. 3
Edinburgh Evening News. December 6th 1888. pg. 3
Lloyd’s List. November 27th 1888
Whilst the workmen engaged in repairing the dykes round Calwood, near Coshieville, were so employed last week, one of them accidentally came on an earthen jar in the old dyke, filled with money. This is supposed to be one of those treasures which Donuch Mhor am Phiabhur–“Muckle Duncan the Piper”–a harmless character who used to travel through the Highlands, was known to have deposited in many places. Duncan was in the habit of receiving alms from high and low, and then hiding them, and forgetting where he had put them.
Inverness Courier, November 13th, 1844.
Those dykes are still there…
On 28th December 1950, the Australian Airforce flew 585km from Iwakuni, Japan to Suwon-si, South Korea with 180lbs of haggis so the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders could have a “proper Hogmanay” in the first year of the Korean War.
The mission’s codename: “Operation Haggis”
RAAF Unit History sheets (Form A50) [Operations Record Book – Forms A50 and A51] Number 36 Squadron (Ex 30 Comm Unit) Nov 50 – Jul 66 [6cm]. National Archives of Australia. pg 210.
In 1903 Clementina McDonald was arrested for walking down Edinburgh’s High Street dressed in a Black Watch uniform. She was let out with a warning and told to “stick to petticoats”.
Illustrated Police News. 31/1/1903.
Dundee Courier 23/1/1903
William Grinly (auctioneer, Leith): “Great work, John, but can I also be standing on a *massive* bird?”
John Kay (sketch artist): “Ummmm, sure…”
In 1886, destitute and disabled, James Gordon pulled a wheelbarrow from Dundee to London and back as a stunt to earn money for his family. He sent money home and updates to the press from every town he stopped in.
Long distance wheelbarrowing became *the* craze for 1887 in Scotland. Gordon himself probably got the idea from the Lyman Potter who walked across America for money in 1878. Gordon had lost three right fingers which made it hard for him to find work.
The nation excitedly followed his progress in the newspapers. He was briefly the most famous Dundonian. You can hear a detailed account of his story (and others from Old Weird Dundee from Erin Farley @aliasmacalias, who does excellent videos about Dundee’s forgotten past.
Farley, E. (2020) Leisure and Culture Dundee. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COIK1ItWMuQ&feature=youtu.be
Illustrated London News. 11th December 1886. pg. 11
In 1900, a newspaper column entitled “Then and Now: Woman’s Development and Achievements” discussed how far women had come since 1850 in terms of equality and representation. The modern woman in 1900, had left the “vast amounts of household drudgery” that took up her time in 1850 and was now in almost every role in the workplace.
The column also forecast what women might be up to in 1950 and how she would look.
Dundee Evening Post, 28th February 1900, pg.4.