My Grandmother

Tags

genealogy, grandmother, photographer's studio, Scotland, very early 20th century

Let’s Just Say That She Could Look After Herself

Unknown photographer- probably in Montrose.

 

Ice Bucket Challenge

Tags

barmkin, Better Together, Cunning Little Vixen, First Minister, Flower o' Scotland, Flower O'Scotland, Ice Bucket Challenge, Kelvingrove, mote and beam, Oh Scotland, Pele Tower, Purgatory, Sassenach, Scotland, Scottish Play, Snodland, snowploughing, sporran, Trident, Wee Eck, Wyvern Mote

Murgatroyd and Diana settled down in the barmkin to watch The Debate.

Murgatroyd sensed that there were many diasporan Scots- was that the

same etymological root as ‘sporran‘?- who felt somewhat aggrieved that a

Sassenach such as himself could vote on their country’s future, so he

wanted to be fully informed and astute in his response.  He had tried to

follow some of the arguments on his tablet, but found that he kept

re-playing The First Minister’s Ice Bucket Challenge instead.  He liked it

when Wee Eck said, Dae it again!  No doubt that would be his cry if the

result in September didn’t please him.

Mrs Connolly came in with a tray of salmon sandwiches.  Murgatroyd

felt ashamed that he had ever suspected her good self, or her son, of

theft.  Forced bonhomie led him to ask her how she intended to vote.

Oh, Scotland!  Scotland! she quoted.

Again, Murgatroyd was impressed by the standard of the natives’

education.

..nation miserable

with an untitled tyrant,

when shall you see your wholesome days again?

He thought that this might be from that Flower O’ Scotland song. He

hummed a few bars to show solidarity.

No, Mr Syylk!  It is your own National Bard.  The Scottish Play.

She went on:

Alas, poor country!

Almost afraid to know itself.  It cannot be called our mother, but our grave;

where nothing is, but who knows nothing..

I didn’t think Alistair did too badly, Murgatroyd remarked, trying to be

impartial and failing.

If that’s the best they can do, Mr Syylk, I intend to emigrate, like past

millions.

Fare thee well!

These evils thou repeatest on thyself

have banished me from Scotland.

Yet my poor country

shall have more vices than it had before,

more suffer and more sundry ways

by him that shall succeed.

Surely not, Mrs Connolly.  Murgatroyd was at a loss to reply to such

moving rhetoric.  Maybe she should have been representing the

‘Better Together‘ campaign at Kelvingrove.

Diana just thanked her and took two generous-sized sandwiches

from the tray. Mad!  All of them.

But, it was only a few weeks since Diana would have thought a barmkin

was some kind of Scottish oatcake.  It was amazing how she had been able

to see Murgatroyd more clearly, the scales having dropped from her

over-prejudicial eyes.  What was all that about motes and beams?  Maybe

her stay in The Tibetan Centre had helped her to move on.

They were going to have a trial reconciliation. (Sonia had said that she

had seen it coming.)  She always said that.

Anyway, it seemed fortuitous that Dru had accompanied Great-Aunt

Augusta back to Snodland Nursing Home for the Debased Gentry.  That

meant Nigel was able to give Sonia a lift home in the hired van.  Dru had

decided to leave her harp at the Pele Tower, so there was room for

Sonia’s luggage.  In fact there was plenty of room for a dismantled Trident,

if Alex and Co had wanted to send it down south.

Nigel’s concentration was being hampered by Sonia’s inquisition on his

relationship with Dru.  How could anyone be more intrusive than his own

mother?

Diana and Gus were already back at school, fielding disgruntled parents

and snowploughing their enquiries, to grit the path for the incoming

Headmaster.  The term stretched before them like a path through

Purgatory.

Gus was annoyed as he had been sent a postcard from Wyvern Mote,

from Maxwell Boothroyd-Smythe, commenting on the wonderful concert

and praising Dru’s musicianship.  Snod knew, with that unerring classroom

intuition developed over decades, that the missive meant that Dru had

taken him there.  He had seen them, tete-a-tete, during the interval, no

doubt arranging to meet up after Dru had dropped Aunt Augusta back at

the care home.  Musicianship?!  Hah!  Cunning Little Vixen!

Gus did not approve of her having led Nigel on.  His own past

experiences returned to haunt him.  He had seen the look in

Nigel’s eyes as he sang some of the more romantic ballads. Poor

fellow!  His vocal timbre was developing, but his charisma was,

like the proverbial gas, at a peep.

Furthermore, there was an issue which now loomed larger than the

outcome of a referendum: if Dru were to strike up a liaison with

Maxwell Boothroyd-Smythe and it should become permanent, then-

Heavens forfend!!-he might end up step-grandfather to that bolshie

Juniper and her odious younger sibling, the biggest bete-noire of St

Birinus’ Middle.

He would like to empty a bucket of something else over that

particular parental head.

 

Season of Mists

Tags

Germany, Gleneagles Hotel, Golden Spurtle Award, Keats, Peebles, Porridge, Sassenach, Scotland, St Cross, To Autumn, Water Meadows, Winchester Cathedral

World Porridge Day.

You’d better get out there and sow some oats.

Was horrified to learn that The Golden Spurtle Award  for the best porridge in the world has been won by Benedict Horsburgh, an Englishman who now lives in Germany.  This was the 19^th Championship and it is only the second time that it has been won by a foreigner, or Sassenach. Gleneagles’ Head Pastry Chef, Neil Mugg, was one of the judges and he should know a thing or two about that important first meal of the day, as his hotel won Breakfast of the Year Award (Large Hotel), 2012.

Benedict has graciously acknowledged that he is descended from Scottish roots- so that’s all right then!

I can trace my family back to the 1390s to the Peebles area,

he assured journalists.

And you certainly needed something warming for breakfast these last few misty mornings.  The cathedral near Suttonford felt distinctly chilly on Sunday morning and the walk through the Close reminded me of Keats and his poem: Ode to Autumn, which was inspired by his constitutional through the Close and all the way down the water meadows to St Cross.

Some years ago there was a competition to write a poem inspired by Keats and his walk and I felt the Muse nudge me into this mellow entry:

IF FOR A SEASON

Autumnal infernos blaze through the Close;

crimson creepers lick lintels like tongued flames.

Mellow masonry supports one last rose.

Choristers discover old conker games.

You can’t enjoy such salamandrine shows:

except from your grim ward, through heavy panes.

So many youths ago, Keats waxed verbose

about St. Cross, these misty college lanes.

You yearn for those, but Life has reached the sere,

the burnished leaf, and I suspect you know,

so squeeze your hand and try to transmit cheer:

your shrivelled face flushes a phoenix glow.

Green on Blue

Tags

Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, Camp Bastion, Philip Hammond, Saturday, Scotland, Second Battle of Ypres, Stirling Castle, Trojan War, Yorkshire Regiment

On Saturday two young men from the 3^rd Battalion, The Yorkshire Regiment, were shot and killed by an Afghan soldier who pretended to have an injury and who then turned on them.  This is known as a green on blue attack.

The Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, said that he would not allow Allied strategy to be de-railed, but stressed the pain for all concerned by insider killings.  Henceforth, joint operations are to be greatly curtailed in number.

I mentioned dissimulation in an earlier, somewhat jocular post last week, but there is nothing more sinister than treachery and deception in the serious theatre of war, or indeed in any real life encounter.

Yet there is nothing new under the sun, and pretence has been practised on the perceived enemy, ever since the Trojan War and even since Jacob and Esau.

I visited the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders Museum at Stirling Castle last week, to see if I could discover anything more about my grandfather, who served with the regiment in 1914-18.  The gentlemen on duty were very helpful, but it was later that I determined his precise engagement in the Second Battle of Ypres, after reading on-line descriptions of what the 1/9^th had experienced after being heavily shelled and gassed.  They attempted to flush out some of the enemy from a broken trench and then were stunned to see a line of what appeared to be Camerons approaching through the gas and smoke, wearing the kilt.  They ceased their machine gun fire and hesitated before the deadly realisation dawned that it was the enemy who had requisitioned the clothing from their dead Scottish comrades.

There is nothing fair in love and war.

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012

I Am What I Ate

Tags

Andrew Fairlie, Commonwealth Games, Cullen Skink, Glasgow, Gleneagles Hotel, Irn Bru, Jammie Dodgers, Loch Fyne, Rab C Nesbitt, Scotland

The Commonwealth Games are coming to Glasgow in 2014 and more than 2 million meals will have to be prepared for athletes, officials, staff and spectators.  However, Ah hae ma doots that the 100 plus tonnes of fruit and veg that are being ordered will necessarily go doon a treat.

Save the Children co-ordinator, Malcolm Clark, has been reported as saying that there should be a junk food ban.  Many will respond:  Ach, away an’ bile yer heid.

Rural Affairs Secretary, Richard Lochhead said: 

There will be unprecedented opportunities to showcase the magnificent produce Scotland has to offer.

There will be a Food and Drink AGM in Perth, so close to Andrew Fairlie’s eponymous restaurant at The Gleneagles Hotel. However, I don’t think his signature lobster dish- its shell smoked in whisky, as if you didn’t know, will be featured in the biodegradable cardboard takeaway dishes of the Games themselves.  Nor do I see Celtic Fish and Game and all things feathered and sustainable being up there in the hot desires of Rab C Nesbitt and Co.

Candia was once a student at a Scottish University, in the gloaming of time and so she can recall seeing some graffiti sprayed on the exterior of the students’ refectory and it read:

You Are What You Eat

And that is a very frightening concept.

Just over a week ago now, I was contemplating a journey north and felt compelled to express in verse my anticipation of the culinary delights of Alba.

I Am What I Ate

I’m returning to the land of shortbread-

(Petticoat Tails, the Peek Frean Custard Cream)-

where, for many years I had ingested

more Jammie Dodgers than in sweet-toothed dream;

Lorne sausage, Stovies, Co-op jam

stirred into semolina, mutton pies,

mince n’ tatties, neeps, pan peeces, flaccid Spam,

school custard, tablet- then, to appetise,

Black Bun.  If I felt a wee bit faddy;

Barr’s Irn Bru, a Paterson oatcake

with a Loch Fyne kipper; a Finnan haddie

gar’d me grue. Bottles of ginger would slake

my thirst and, if I was in a paddy,

you could shut me up wi’ a soor green ploom.

On Fridays we had something Ruskolined,

Cock-a-Leekie, Clootie Dumpling, sheep’s womb,

Tunnock’s wafers, Lees’ Snowballs, but now weaned

off those pokes of chips, black pudding slices,

I spread my Low Fat Flora very thin.

Childhood diet no longer entices,

yet I am what I ate- there’s nae denying

the place the skillet had in all our hearts.

Arteries were clogged through constant frying

by strangers to the culinary arts.

But Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled don’t shrink

fae food wae names like bannock, Cullen Skink.

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012

Recognition

Tags

Antarctica, Argentina, Billy Connolly, Blairgowrie, Border Terrier, Buckingham Palace, Buenos Aires, Canongate, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, coffee, fritillaria, gardens, Holy Fools, honey, Jenny Geddes, Kate Winslet, Lion Rampant, manukah, Mount of Olives, Neil Oliver, Perth, piper, post office, Prince Philip, Princess Alice of Greece, Robert Falcon Scott, Saltire, Scotland, Suttonford, Waterworlds, William Speirs Bruce

Tuesday

Stickily oppressive.  No rain, but grey and the first signs of hay fever appear.  Probably the effects of mould spores from rotting vegetation.

Visited my friend’s professionally landscaped garden which was established at the start of the summer.  Yellowing box edging is probably dying from early drought, excessive waterlogging later on, or simply from the peeing habits of a new Border Terrier.

Our garden is suffering from mordant animals which gnaw every bulb that one plants.  Altruistic bird feeders may encourage rodents.  Seventy six snakes head fritillaria that I bought from The Telegraph failed to materialise, so I won’t be able to recreate the floral watercolours of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, not that I have the skills, anyway, but that is not the point.

Went to Costamuchamullah for a very skinny latte and noticed honey for sale from Perth. It reminded me of a joke told by Billy Connolly – but he might have pinched it from Chick Murray – about how he had stayed at a B&B in the Highlands and the proprietor had served him a breakfast tray with an individual pot of heather honey on it.  He had remarked, I see you keep a bee.

 It took me a moment to work out that it was probably Australian honey.  Is it Manukah? I wondered.

When I returned home, I simply had to check the facts on Wikipedia. Oh yes, you do find it in Perth, Oz, and it is produced by apis mellifera and, to be called manukah, it has to have a 70% pollen count from tea tree Leptospermium scoparium.

The disappointing part was that it also said that: “alongside other antibacterial products, [it} does not reduce the risk of infections following treatment for ingrown toenails.”

So, probably not a best-selling product for Aquanibble then.  Might be fun to say to one of the four optimistically termed assistants in Costamuchamullah, I’ll have a pot of your honey.  Oh, by the way, only if it reduces the risk of infection from my ingrown toenails.

 They would probably just ignore me in the way that they usually do when they are too busy wiping a perfectly clean surface while a serpentine queue builds up and spirals out of the door into the street.  Perhaps I will have to stop wearing my invisibility cloak- you know, the one that envelops females after the age of fifty.

Apparently there are honey outlets in Perth, Scotland too:  Heather Hills Farm and Scarletts in Blairgowrie produce masses, in spite of the predatory nature of a single honey buzzard that seems to have been circling since 2010.

Scientists have confirmed that there are planets out in the far beyond called Waterworlds, but they are not huge theme parks.  In fact they are composed of hot ice.

Ice was a theme this evening with a Neil Oliver repeat of his journey to the Weddell Sea and South Atlantic.  After he had left The Falkland Islands, it took him four days until he reached the first icebergs.

I thought he might stand, lashed to the prow of the boat, and let his hair flow behind him, but he sensibly stayed in the cabin.  I don’t think he would fancy Kate Winslet, but I haven’t asked him.  Maybe a nautical Jenny Geddes might be more up his Canongate. Anyway, he very commendably seemed resistant to seasickness.  You wouldn’t want his macho Celtic image to be undermined by a shot of him leaning over the side, or taking Quells.

Of course, the whole point of the expotition seems to have been to draw attention to the Scot, William Speirs Bruce, who had discovered many firsts, rather than that Sassenach Scott, who might have had the correct name, but wasn’t related, at least by surname, to Robert the. Scott had an interesting middle name, though – Falcon.  Another Pointless question to which I shouldn’t know the answer.

Anyway, Bruce had filmed penguin colonies and measured ice and been a thorough scientific Scot – self-conscious flick of the hair.  He hadn’t been as shocked as Levick, a scientist on Scott’s team who witnessed the sexually delinquent behaviour of the Adelies.

I’m sure Neil just loved the opportunity to transmit old photos of a piper in full Highland regalia, playing the bagpipes, surrounded by Saltires and Lions Rampant on huge ice floes.

The irony is that if Bruce hadn’t been so stereotypically parsimonious, then he might have bought his fuel nearer to the South Atlantic base, instead of trying to save a bawbee by sailing up the coast to Buenos Aires, where he took on board some Argentinian scientists and cut-price provisions.  The Argies set up a post office with a franking machine and this influences territorial rights to this day.

Meanwhile Scott and even his stoker were awarded polar medals and Bruce didn’t even get a packet of Fox’s Glacier Mints.

 Explorer Bruce went to his ice hoose

To get his poor husky a bone,

But when he got there

The cupboard was bare.

He found a wee note

Saying, “Taken your boat

And your seal blubber lamps,

But have left you some stamps.

We don’t want to seem mean

But our franking machine

Proves this land is for Argies,

So no argy-bargies.

And we’ll claim the minerals, Bruce.”

 

The other brilliant programme was about Princess Alice of Greece. She served as a nurse in the Balkan wars, but when her faith became too difficult for the rest of the family they had her detained and irradiated by early experimental psychiatrists and psychologists.

When she was released she protected a Jewish family in her own apartment and used her deafness to advantage in deflecting soldiers’ questions.

I loved the image of her being re-united with her son and roaming the corridors of Buckingham Palace in her nun’s habits, smoking Woodbines.  She only owned three dressing gowns at the end of her life, but had used her jewels and other assets to help the poor.  She is buried on the Mount of Olives.  If this be madness, then she is in the tradition of The Holy Fools and it makes me question who is sane and who is mad.  Prince Philip should be incredibly proud of her, as he very likely is.

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012

Lost in Translation

Tags

Ann Widdecombe, France, George Osborne, Glasgow, Scotland, swifts, Vince Cable

26/7/12

Maybe even hotter, but a high pollen count.

Swifts seem to be abandoning the UK as the summer hath all too short a day and is soaking wet.  There hasn’t been enough in the way of insects for them, so they are returning to Africa, faster than Polish migrant workers are legging it back to Warsaw.

It was reported that a commercial aircraft on its way from France to Glasgow lost communication with Air Traffic control, so a Typhoon was scrambled. I could imagine the lost in translation dialogue with the pilot:

’allo, ‘allo, nous sommes ou?

Right pal, never mind that.  You’re jist aboot tae be hit by a

missile and Ah doan’t mean a stick o’ rock, or an Olympian

caber.  Defence is convinced that you are in cahoots wi’ the

North Koreans, who are bent on nuking us for insulting their

wimmen’s footie team, whitever that is, by flashing the

wrang flag.  Git oot o’ that air space.

Comment?

You had to laugh at Vince Cable trying to outdo Ann Widdecombe in the modesty department, by stating that he isn’t after George Osborne’s job.  He is probably too busy training for Strictly 2.  And he says he has only one job!  He may find out that his costume has 50% fewer sequins in this time of austerity.  If he thinks he can improve on George, or Gideon’s performance, then he’d better consult his Swarowski crystals, as nobody seems to have a clue as to how to kick start the economy.  The Bollinger, Bullingden, whatever Club, might like to lead the way by consuming fewer country suppers, whatever they are.

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012

Unkindest Cut?

Tags

Alan Bennett, Boris Johnson, Bras, James Naughtie, John Humphries, London 2012, Lord Coe, Olympics, pigeons, Sarah Montague’, Scotland, Scottish Play, Tesco, Wiggo

Listening to the news at 1am, I tried to filter out the depressing latest bulletins from Syria.

I perked up, however, when I caught a snippet about fifteenth century linen bras having been discovered in a Tyrolean castle.  It proved, apparently, that this type of underwear had been in existence a couple of centuries earlier than had been previously thought.  The next item was introduced as a world briefing, without anyone noticing the connection.  You would have thought that John Humphries would have latched onto the pun, but he might have been sparing Sarah Montague’s feelings. Goodness knows why: she never spares anyone.  He usually is quite good at masking James Naughtie, as the latter often commits a terminological inexactitude, as when Lady Steel ( wife of Liberal, David) aka the granny with the jaguar tattoo, was on the programme.  Naughtie commented on the fact that one headline had said the tattoo had been a sudden revelation for her seventieth birthday.  He wondered if they could get a photo of it for their website, if it wasn’t in too delicate a position.

Lady Steel affirmed that she had not had it done precipitously and he then “naughtily” quipped that she wasn’t hiding it under a bushel, was she?

Probably Naughtie is more comfortable with discussing the Edinburgh Tattoo. Mind you, his weather reports from The Festival sound Irish rather than Scots:

Some fog around, which you will know about, if you are in it..

I could have shocked the nation rigid with a revelation about a septuagenarian acquaintance of mine who told me that she had decided to lose her virginity on her three score year and ten birthday.  She had then gone on to have piercing when she was eighty.  That made Lady Steel look positively demure.

John Humphries hurried to the next topic which was according to a rabbi the biggest challenge to Judaism since The Holocaust.  Someone had mooted that circumcision is basically malice aforeskin, as children have no choice in the matter and it is irreversible.  The rabbi said that if it were done, t’were best that it was done quickly. The Scottish play again.

Then it was pointed out that the Queen had had all her boys snipped, but who is to say what the effects have been on them?

I wondered if Judy Murray had taken that line too with Andy and Jamie, but didn’t want to hazard a guess concerning the Switzer.

Saturday brought some sunshine, but a threatening sky and suspicious levels of humidity came with it.  Better get the rest of the blackcurrants in before the wood pigeons pounce, I thought to myself. Pigeons were on the news this morning.  Some fancier had taken his birds to France for a race and eight of them had failed to return to the UK.  He probably suspected that a family linked to La Chasse had already baked them in a pie, or turned them into a terrine, but suddenly he had reports from the Bahamas that they were sunning themselves there. It was too far for them to have winged their way to that location, so they must have hitched a ride on a cruise ship.  Can’t say you could blame them this summer.

The Olympic flame was abseiled in by a Marine to the Tower of London last night, at 20.12pm, enabling Boris to make a quip about how he was reminded of Henry VIII and how it was a marvellous place to bring an old flame.  He then became too excited and over-extended the metaphor by trying to convince everyone that there would be a veritable forest fire/ conflagration or towering inferno of enthusiasm for the Games.

Evan Davis teased Lord Coe about the likelihood of getting past the sponsor spies if you were wearing a Pepsi t-shirt.  We were left with an unconvincing assurance that Nike trainers would probably be all right.  Alan Bennett could have told them that trainers mean that you are probably not fully qualified and are certainly not the type of footwear that Jesus would have worn.  Maybe that would be enough of a social drawback.

Sunday.

Allez, Wiggo!

Wiggo does not like cheating or performance- enhancing drugs; he does like sideburns.  He is 6’3” and only 10 stone 6 lbs.  A belly putter would give him no advantage, even if he was a golfer, since he has a washboard for a stomach.

I considered taking up cycling for the second time that summer. Then I could eat Tesco’s Rocky Road straight out of the big black plastic tub- the one with the line-drawn glamorous woman wearing a fascinator on the lid.  There was no way that someone that resembled that illustration could possibly be associated with these calorific time bombs.

Four is an even number.  And now that one at the bottom looks so lonely…

Belgian chocolate.  Mmm. Three famous Belgians?- Bradley

Wiggins, sort of; Herge and err..?

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012