Glasgow Punter

Poverty Safari, or Othering the Poor?

On a Poverty Safari

In the preface to his Orwell Prize winning book, Poverty Safari, Darren McGarvey talks about the residents of Grenfell Tower. They had been warning for months about the fire dangers they could see in their flats. They were a group of people whose voices were not listened too. After the tragedy, in which 72 people died, the media, and even Theresa May tried to visit the community, but retreated away quickly. Theresa May was criticised for not speaking to any victims of the tragedy, citing security concerns. For her "poverty safari" she kept her distance, the poor were a dangerous and unpredictable alien species, best approached cautiously, and with protection nearby. Certainly not listened to or understood.

The image below of two kids playing in a manky Glasgow close is repeatedly used in the media to illustrate stories about poverty. I fear that it is overly reductive and plays to stereotypes, without being an accurate representation of poverty in the UK. It plays to ideas of poor people not being like "us", best viewed from afar, in their own world, rather than people who should be understood and listened to.

What is poverty?

The most commonly used definition of poverty is based upon income. The OECD defines those living "below the poverty line" as those in households living on less than half the median household income of the country.

("Median"? Brief diversion into statistics. The mean is what most of us understand as the average - you add up all the numbers in a sequence and divide by how many numbers you had. The median is the middle number in a range, used when there are extreme outliers that can skew an average, eg the very rich. If your numbers are 1,3,3,4,5,7,10,17,40 the mean is 90 dived by 9 = 10. Whereas the median is 5 in this example.
"Poverty" is not those living below half the "average" income, but HALF the MEDIAN income).

By this measure of poverty over a third of the population of Britain is living below the poverty line (a ratio of 0.3555, which is among the worst ratios in Europe). Newer definitions of poverty add in calculations for childcare costs, as the previous measure overestimated the disposable income of households with children.

Statistics are slippery beasts however, so what does this mean in reality if you are living in poverty?

Poverty means lacking food, lacking heat, lacking secure housing, lacking adequate clothing. It means being excluded from things others in society take for granted, such as holidays, trips to the cinema or even using public transport. It means having a lot less than other people, including opportunities to change your position. This leads to mental health problems, physical health problems, feelings of worthlessness, insecurity and feelings of being judged by the media, and by society.

Children from poorer backgrounds are more likely to be born premature, more likely to suffer chronic illness and disability in childhood. Children living in deprivation fall behind in education at every stage in life. Childhood poverty also has a hugely significant effect on life expectancy. The BBC news article above, from 2018, shows that those living in the most affluent areas of England can expect to live 8 years longer than those in the poorest areas (although the article is about England, have a look at the photograph they use - does it look familiar?).

News article in Glasgow Herald 23rd February 2019

In Scotland the difference is more stark. In the most deprived areas of Glasgow life expectancy for men is 67.8 years, in the least deprived areas of East Dumbartonshire (less than 10 miles away in Bearsden and Milngavie) it is 81.2 years. Remember that for ALL of these men, you won't be able to start collecting your state pension until the age of 66.

In the UK work does not guarantee a way out of poverty. Two thirds of children living in poverty are in a house where at least one family member is working. People with disabilities are more likely to live in poverty than their peers, and people from certain ethnic minorities also suffer higher rates of poverty than the UK average.

Okay, without labouring the point, poverty is bad, has a huge effect on people's lives and costs the UK billions of pounds in lost revenue as vast numbers of people lack opportunities to live productive, healthy lives.

Media images of poverty

When it comes to media images of poverty, in newspapers and online articles, the same stock photographs are used again and again and again. And again. It gets dusted off more often than the chunky couple bulging out of their clothes and eating ice cream cones that gets used for every "obesity story".

A couple of faceless young boys play football, or climb a fence beside a graffiti-daubed tenement. The windows are boarded up, the garden is unkempt and overgrown, a shopping trolley is sometimes seen. The unsupervised kids sometimes look like they are actually adding to the graffiti or kicking a ball against the door; "feral" you might say. For the audience and for the editors that keep picking these images it ticks all the boxes.

It's a shorthand, an image that tells the story to the audience. It is also one that looks very familiar to me, for two reasons.

Firstly the tenement is recognisably from Glasgow. It reminded me of buildings in Garthamlock and Dalmarnock, and I spent a bit of time out and about trying to find out where it was. I did find it eventually, although I was wrong, it lies south of the River Clyde, as I will explain later.

Secondly, it looked familiar to me personally as I have a photograph of my brother and me at similar ages, outside a graffiti-daubed tenement, unkempt back court and boarded up windows. I was that media stereotype.

Me with the carrier bag in 1970s Glasgow

Except this photograph of me only tells part of the story. Our tenement was virtually uninhabitable at the time this photo was taken. Rat-infested, no bath or shower, no central heating, no hot water, and (importantly) awaiting demolition shortly after this picture was taken. We were soon to be re-housed to a newly built council house (ask your dad), in Maryhill.

The photographs that have been used continuously for over 10 years to illustrate news stories of poverty are likewise not what they seem. The other thing I know about the type of tenements I recognised in these pictures, is that they too were demolished shortly after the pictures were taken in 2008. Nobody lived in those boarded up flats. Nobody was there to care for the garden or keep an eye out for vandalism. The images fit a handy stereotype, which I believe is harmful and not particularly accurate or representative.

POVERTY - as illustrated in The Guardian, Sky News, The Independent,
The Times, Daily Record...and ,eh, David Icke's website.

A poverty of ideas

The Joseph Rowantree Foundation issued a report in 2008 criticising media reports on poverty as drawing on...

"...stock phrases and a familiar journalistic repertoire which portrayed government as active, while people experiencing poverty (when not overtly stigmatised) were represented as passive victims. Even when coverage was generally sympathetic, it risked differentiating those experiencing poverty from mainstream society, and portraying them as lacking initiative, unproductive and a burden on 'us'."

I would argue that the pictures used repeatedly to present an image of poverty reinforce this idea that the story is not about "people like me". I don't live in a house like that. I supervise my kids, clean my close and cut my grass. These images feed a narrative of "them and us".

Other analysts have looked at how the media stigmatises those living in poverty, describing how media representation...

"...contributes to the public's perception that people living in poverty are at fault for their financial circumstances due to individual character flaws and weaknesses, as opposed to structural constraints...framing techniques that present poverty as an individual problem rather than a societal issue rooted in economic and political inequality further reinforce the perceived undeservingness of the poor"

Read all about it. The undeserving poor

An LSE research paper in 2014 analysed how British newspapers represent poverty, and came to some interesting conclusions. In domestic stories the focus was limited to stories of poverty in the elderly and in childhood. The causes of poverty in these stories was unknown or unreported. However in stories on poverty outside the UK the socio-political inefficiencies responsible for the poverty were examined and analysed. I was struck by that today when I was driving home from work and poverty in Venezuela was being discussed alongside debate about the political and governmental situation that was causing it. The LSE researchers also concluded that British newspapers had a...

"...tendency to distance poverty from general society and portray it as a problematic Other."

That's the problem I have with these unsupervised children in a neglected building illustrating every single story we read on the topic, this "othering". They are not like "us", these poor people. We wouldn't end up in that situation. It must be the fault of the parents, not society or government.

In a lecture in 2017 Ruth Lister, Professor of Social Policy at Loughborough University, talked about "Othering the poor". She described it as a process...

"...through which 'the poor' are treated as different from and inferior to the rest of society....a line is drawn between 'us' and 'them'...It is not a neutral line, but one imbued with negative value judgements that diminish and construct 'the poor' variously as a source of contamination, a threat to be feared, an 'undeserving' economic burden, an object of pity or even as an exotic species to be explored. Broadly, 'othering' condemns 'the poor' for what they do or looks down on them for the qualities or capacities they are considered to lack."

A counter narrative can be constructed, based on a politics of redistribution. This needs recognition of the causes of the problem, and recognition of the attributes and strengths the people being discussed. It also needs their voices to be heard and their opinions listened to.

Agencies working in this area are trying to challenge misconceptions about poverty, and present a different image, such as this video produced by Poverty Alliance.

Reality versus the photos

I do not mean any criticism of the photographer who created these stock photographs for Getty Images. The are a very good piece of photo-journalism that clearly struck a chord with editors up and down the land who continue to use these images over a decade after they were taken. Shot in September 2008, the images clearly state on the Getty Images website "note to editors - since these images were taken the street pictured has been demolished".

So I went to see what image of "Child poverty in the UK" we could use if we went back to the street in these images today.

I vaguely recognised the high flats seen behind the fence in one of the pictures as blocks in Govan and with some help from Twitter I was able to locate the street and find the fence, which is the only part of these images standing today.

These kids again illustrating stories of child poverty in the UK.

Same fence today, at Ibrox football complex, behind Ibrox primary school,

The flats and tenements behind it were demolished in 2009 and 2010

The photograph of the kids climbing on the fence is the one that helps locate the street where the original pictures were taken in September 2008. The fence is still there, but the tenements and silhouetted tower block behind the children are long gone. The tenements photographed lined the streets between Hinshelwood Drive and Paisley Road West in Govan.

However these photographs of children playing amidst boarded up and vandalised houses are deceptive. Like my 1970s tenement in Whiteinch the picture was taken at a time when they were awaiting demolition and were empty. The tenements are visible in the photograph below from early 2009, taken from Broomloan Court, looking east. The petrol station which is still there on Broomloan Road helps you orientate yourself.

Broomloan Court, 2009

By late 2009 the streetscape had totally changed, as this photo below demonstrates. By then 400 tenement flats had been demolished and preparations were being made to demolish the tower blocks (photos posted on Hidden Glasgow forum). Yet every few weeks, these derelict tenements awaiting demolition are re-built in the pages and websites of the national media to illustrate "childhood poverty".

Looking west towards Broomloan Court flats, Ibrox, Glasgow. 2009

By 2010 the multi-storey flats at Broomloan Court were also going, going, gone.

The demolition and regeneration of these areas is something I have watched with interest, as after my Victorian slum demolition in Whiteinch, I have subsequently watched my former block of high flats being demolished, where I lived for about 10 years. I revisited the high flats in Knightswood that I used to live in several times to watch my old block being rightly torn apart and I have written about it here.

From visits to my old flats in Knightswood. Gone, but not forgotten, but definitely not there now

So what is the reality today of the street reproduced repeatedly in media to tell us about poverty in the UK? Do these images still represent a fair version of areas of deprivation today? Here are more stories from the past 12 months that show the poor as "an exotic species" for our delectation.

But here is the reality of that derelict street today. It may still be an area with problems, but I think we need to find a more nuanced way to talk about poverty. The stereotype we get accompanying these news stories is just that. A stereotype.

Then and now

Stereotypes are widely held and oversimplified ideas that can be harmful and stigmatising. If you are wanting to tell a story about child poverty, it would be more accurate to have a photograph of an ordinary class of 30 school children bent over their work, but point out that 9 or 10 of them will be destined to fall behind their peers because of disadvantages beyond their control. Not because they are out in the street playing football, not because they are different from your kids or my kids. Simply because they have less money coming in to their household than their classmates.

Fair representation?

The flats pictured again and again in the papers were demolished 10 years ago. They were photographed just before their demolition. The kids in the pictures must be about 18 and 14 years old now. The space where these flats used to be is still in part a building site, with more new flats still under construction (below).

The Skene Road side of the Govan redevelopment. Ibrox Stadium just poking over the rooftops.

Conclusion

If you were to create an image to illustrate poverty in the UK there would be a myriad ways to represent it. You could use a family where both parents are in low-paid, insecure jobs, one parent working night-shift, one working day shift to save on childcare, yet still having to rely on benefits in the form of Working Tax Credit to get by. A person with a disability struggling to find paid employment, but continuing to volunteer for 20 hours a week in a charity shop. Or why not a 70 year old surviving on a state pension, but looking after his grandchildren 5 days a week to let his daughter get out to work. Don't forget that in Britain the poor pay a far higher proportion of their income in tax than the wealthy. It has also been shown that the poorest in our society also give a far higher proportion of their income to charity than the wealthiest in society do.

If you casually stigmatise certain sections of the population, you undoubtedly reduce people's understanding of their lives.

There is an increasing lack of people from poorer backgrounds getting their voices heard - whether in the media, in politics or in professional positions. If the endless succession of gibbering idiot politicians wittering on about Brexit has demonstrated anything, it is now clear to everyone that Britain is certainly NOT a meritocracy.

If you feel that your voice and opinions are not being listened to, why bother taking part? If the journalist or politician that you hear does not talk like you or have any insight into how your life works, it is hard not to be cynical about what they say. There therefore needs to be increased opportunities for people from different backgrounds to contribute to a more diverse society that represents all of the people in it.

I hate ghettoised areas, where people don't share shops, cafes, schools and streets with their fellow citizens, whether it's people of different class, or lifestyle or ethnicity. I fear that these media images of poverty falsely push poverty into a ghetto, to "other" those affected by it and absolve the rest of society from solving the problem.

Ordinary woman carrying an ordinary child on an ordinary street. This is how The Big Issue illustrated a story on child poverty this week. Easy.

Water Towers of Glasgow

They are one of the most familiar sites as you drive into Glasgow, whether from the east of the west, but the concrete water towers on the skyline of the city are slowly vanishing. I have used this as an excuse to run around a few of those still standing, and try to document all the ones I can think of in and around Glasgow.

It's hard not to think of War of the Worlds by HG Wells when you see these towers

Looking like alien spaceships, arrived in suburbia from Planet Brutalism, these concrete towers are often much loved local landmarks, despite the less clean lines they now have with the mobile phone masts that they have almost universally sprouted. In and around Glasgow most of the water towers were built to provide reliable supplies to the post-war housing estates that were built in the 1950s. They are filled with water from Loch Katrine, pumped up to a height that lets gravity feed the local houses with reliably pressurised water supplies. They are increasingly being replaced by underground reservoirs, so I have tried to get a few quick photographs of some of those still standing in 2019. If I have missed any, then please add them to the comments below

HMS Thunder Child being destroyed by a water tower

Barloch, Milngavie

As part of the Victorian Loch Katrine waterworks project to supply Glasgow with clean water in the 1850s, the Milngavie water treatment works at Mugdock were constructed at a cost to the city at that time of almost £2 million. Three reservoirs hold water from Loch Katrine, which is filtered and chlorinated and then piped down to Glasgow.

Milngavie Water Treatment Works

The Barloch area of Milngavie has the nearest water tower I could find to Mugdock Reservoir (it is literally a couple of hundred yards away). Standing atop a hill, on the appropriately named Tower Place. Built in 1959 it is not the largest one around but has the nice feature of a children's playpark at the foot of it, perfect for brainwashing your toddlers into connecting happiness with concrete brutalism.

Tower Place, Barloch

Barloch water tower

Leafy suburbia and concrete functionality

Old Glasgow hospital water towers

I have previously written about the old hospital buildings of Glasgow, many of which are being demolished as the health board modernises its facilities. Often when a hospital is flattened the only part which is listed as architecturally significant, is the old water tower and on many instances these are standing long after the surrounding hospital has vanished. When building a complex of Victorian hospital wards an elevated water tower appears to have been essential to ensuring a reliable water supply to the various units. Here are a few of those still standing at Leverndale Hospital, Ruchill Hospital and Stobhill.

Leverndale Hospital water tower

Ruchill Hospital water tower

The beautiful Ruchill Hospital water tower

Ruchill Hospital water tower. The land surrounding it awaits re-development

Stobhill Hospital water tower, which has a clock built into it

Cranhill Water Tower

Cranhill water tower, at the junction of Stepps Road and Bellrock Road, was built in 1951 by F.A. MacDonald and partners, elevated to provide water pressure to supply the nearby council estate when it was built. It is unusual now among the city water towers because it is square in shape. It's other oddity is that it has a collection of sculptures at the foot of it. Andy Scott designed the six figures at the base of the water tower, with Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea, three sirens and a mermaid accompanied by a fish with a ring in its mouth from the Glasgow coat of arms.

Cranhill water tower, Glasgow

Sculpture at Cranhill water tower, Glasgow

Poseidon and salmon, by Andy Scott, at Cranhill water tower

Garthamlock and Craigend Water Towers

The largest and second largest water towers in Britain stand together at Jerviston Road in Garthamlock. They were built between 1956 and 1958 to designs by F.A. MacDonald and partners (who also built the Dawsholm gas works and the earlier Cranhill water tower). The Garthamlock water tower contains 1,000,000 gallons of water, pumped up to the tank from a feed from Loch Katrine. The height means it supplies the local housing estate using gravity. The reinforced concrete legs look quite spindly and insect-like, and its distinctive appearance makes it a very familiar sight on the Glasgow skyline. Between 1999 and 2003, like several other water towers in the city, it was illuminated as part of an arts project.

Craigend and Garthamlock water towers, Glasgow

Garthamlock water tower, Glasgow

Craigend and Garthamlock water towers, Glasgow

Bishopbriggs (or Bearyards) Water Tower

Just off Boclair Road, on Wester Cleddens Road in Bishopbriggs sits Bearyards Water Tower. This distinctive concrete cylindrical water tower was built by Drummond Lithgow and company in 1959 to familiar designs from F.A. MacDonald and partners. 80 feet in height it contains 600,000 gallons of water.

Bishopbriggs water tower

Drumchapel Water Tower

A familiar sight to anyone living in Drumchapel, or driving into Glasgow along Great Western Road, the Drumchapel Water Tower sits on a hill beside Kells Place. Appropriately the water tower up the Drum, has smoother lines than other water towers in and around Glasgow, almost like...eh, a drum, you might say. (Sorry). The empty land around it has several fine pigeon lofts sited there.

Drumchapel water tower

Water tower viewed from the red blaes football pitches of Drumchapel High School

Auchinairn Water Tower

As it is at the top of a hill, the Auchinairmn water tower is a bit harder to find on it's shorter stilts. It is hidden behind the Campsie Pub on Woodhill Road. It has more the feel of a 1960s service station restaurant, one which was designed to look futuristic but ended up smelling of cabbage and becoming quickly dated.

Auchinairn water tower

East Kilbride Water Tower, Greenhills

I was advised that there is also a water tower in Whitehills in East Kilbride, but I couldn't find it, and in fact once I had found the Alistair McCoist Complex in Whitehills I stopped looking, shocked at seeing the words "Alistair McCoist" and "Complex" in the same phrase. The Greenhills Water Tower sits on Beech Grove. Unlike the other ones I came across, it is not all fenced in, clearly a reflection of the less anti-social behaviour that our new town neighbours exhibit.

Greenhills water tower, East Kilbride

Tannochside Water Tower, Uddingston

In trying to pin down water towers in and around Glasgow, the question starts to become "How far away does it still count?" So I drew a line at Uddingston as again it's a tower you can catch sight of on your way into Glasgow. There are also water towers still standing in Motherwell and Cumbernauld, but I will leave them for someone else. Hovering above a Scotmid supermarket on Aikenhead Road the Tannochside water tower is similar to the larger one at Garthamlock. Like many of them, it is a functional thing where a bit of thought has gone into the design, resulting in a huge lump of concrete carrying tons of water, looming over people's back gardens but managing to look light on its spindly legs.

Tannochside water tower

City Centre Water Tower Designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh - The Lighthouse

And finally The Lighthouse, a Glasgow water tower in the city centre that you can forget is a water tower. The inside has been stripped out and you can ascend it on a spiral staircase to get one of the best views over Glasgow, but the Mackintosh tower at The Lighthouse was originally a water tower which he worked into one of his earliest designs. Now housing Scotland's Centre for Designs and Architecture the Lighthouse building was Charles Rennie Mackintosh's first public commission. Dating from 1895, it was built to house the Herald newspaper. Mackintosh added an 8000 gallon water tower to his design for fire protection due to all the flammable materials that would be in the building. (Thinking about fire protection in a Mackintosh building? There's surely a lesson there.)

Water tower of The Lighthouse building, Glasgow city centre

Water tower of The Lighthouse building, Glasgow city centre, as viewed from the multi-storey car park across Mitchell Lane

Staircase up the Lighthouse water tower

Water tower of The Lighthouse building, Glasgow city centre

And Remembering Those No Longer With Us

As water supply systems change many water towers in Glasgow have become redundant, and vanished in recent years. Here are a few that people may remember, but which are now demolished.

Milton water tower stood from 1949 at the top of a hill in Milton, and was intentionally designed to be functional and an attractive focal point with seating and a garden at the base. At 55 feet in height it held 24,000 gallons of water in a 21 foot deep tank.

Milton water tower 1949, now demolished.

Cochno Hill above Faifley has lovely views over Glasgow and the Clyde. Until 2015 an unusual water tower stood there at the Cochno water plant, a tower which could be spotted from all around Clydebank. As it is still present in satellite shots on Google maps, I went up expecting to find it still there but there are now new houses and an nursing home being built on the site and the tower was demolished in October 2015.

Cochno water tower - now demolished

The new Cochno water treatment works, to the east of the older works on current Google maps

Cochno in 2019, the water tower now gone

Cowglen near Pollok shopping centre has also lost its water tower in the past couple of years to development of the site for housing. This tower was visible from Barrhead Road and from the M77 behind the concrete National Savings and Investment bank building (NSI) at Cowglen. My granny worked here for years, and I hadn't realised that it had been demolished (in February 2017) until I went out looking for the water tower last week. The water tower was actually supplying water to Cowglen Hospital, which operated here from 1931 until 2000. The "redundant water tower" can be seen in the Glasgow City Council 2011 plans to redevelop the site. Again it was an unusual looking one, smaller and heavy on the functionality.

2011 Glasgow City Council plans for Cowglen redevelopment

"redundant water tower" at Cowglen before demolition

Nearby in Pollok was a large, rectangular water tower which has now made way for a housing development. At the top of the hill in Crookston Forest (or Stirling Maxwell Forest Park) off Lyoncross Road this had been lying derelict for many years, a regular haunt for the local youths.

Pollok water tower 2007 - now demolished

Pollok water tower 10 years ago - now demolished

Springburn had a similar looking large, rectangular water tower, which resembles the Parthenon on aerial photographs from the 1950s. It was located in Springburn Park and the concrete foundations where it stood can still be seen. Though now underground, the Cockmuir Reservoirs in Springburn Park still store 1,000,000 litres of water to supply the local area.

1950s image from Britainfromabove.org.uk over Springburn Park

Springburn water tower, behind the old cricket pavilion in Springburn Park, demolished in 1978

Again trawling through the aerial photographs on the Britain from above website you can find a water tower that used to stand over the houses of Ruchill. Lying between Leighton Street and Curzon Street in Ruchill it can be seen above the back gardens between 45 and 47 Leighton Street, near to the golf course..

Ruchill 1953

There were also water towers, now demolished, in Queenslie, Preisthill (in fact two towers here) and yet another in Crookston ( where Markdow Drive now sits - demolished in 1998).

Those were the only ones that I could think of or find. I would be happy to hear about any that I have missed, past or present. The water towers are one of those things you maybe don't notice until you start looking.

75th Anniversary of D-Day

In France this week politicians and veterans will commemorate the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings. On 6th June 1944 24,000 Allied forces made an amphibious landing on the Normandy beaches under heavy gunfire. It would take almost another year of fighting before the German armies surrendered to Russian forces in Berlin, but this was an unprecedented operation and deserves to be commemorated.

Mulberry Harbours

Like many of us, several members of my family were involved in the war effort. I have written before about my great-uncle who died aboard HMS Glorious when it was sunk in the North Sea and about his sister, my granny, who worked on anti-aircraft guns during World War 2. My great-uncle on the other side of my family also died at sea, working on TSS Athenia. It was sunk in the North Atlantic in September 1939. I have other relatives who were in reserved occupations and worked in Glasgow shipyards throughout the war, at times under German bombs. My great-uncle Peter was a Bevin Boy, conscripted to work in the coal mines in West Lothian. He absolutely hated the work, and was badly injured in a cave-in not long after starting.

My mum's dad on the left, with his brother Andy,
who worked in the shipyards at Clydebank for 50 years. I'm wearing the kilt

My grandad in the 1930s with his work colleagues in the Gorbals, front row wearing a tie.

My grandfathers on both sides of my family died whilst I was a teenager. My mum's father was a skilled carpenter and spent much of the war conscripted into construction work for the war effort. He spent time building beach defences on the south coast of England, and for a period was doing construction work at Ordnance Factories. He would talk about horrendous nights where they were sleeping beside munitions stores whilst being bombed by German planes. He often recalled one night when a colleague was driven crazy with fear and was running about on the roof of a building shouting at the planes. I suspect if he had been given a gun, my grandad may have tried to shut him up, so convinced was he that this guy would end up directing the bombers towards them.

Some of the paperwork my grandad held onto, from the Ministry of Labour, this one from 1942

He was also one of the many people involved in constructing the Mulberry harbours that were used in the Normandy landings, the floating piers used to create artificial harbours at the Normandy beaches for off-loading machinery and men. The parts for these were made all over Britain, including on the River Clyde and at the dry dock on the Forth and Clyde Canal in Maryhill. My grandad was called to Gosport from 9th December 1943 where he worked on building the Mulberry harbours.

One of the Mulberry harbour sections under construction at Hayling Island, Portsmouth

On looking through some of his papers this week it is interesting to note the details of his call up papers to Portsmouth. It might be hard to make out on these pictures, but he was to leave Glasgow and arrive in Gosport for 9th December 1943. "This direction continues in force until 5th June 1944". This date may just be a co-incidence, but if you are planning a top secret land invasion of France, which was planned for 5th June 1944 (it was delayed by 24 hours due to the weather) I would suggest that giving the construction workers building your landing wharves a contract which ends when their services are no longer required, due to their work being towed across the Channel that day, does not seem like the best way to keep the date a secret.

I visited the remains of the Mulberry harbour at Arromanche last time I was in France, checking that his handiwork is still there. Like most things he made, they were built to last. My grandad on my dad's side was one of the soldiers who benefited from these harbours in 1944.

Arromanches beach, Normandy

Old Mulberry harbours still visible in the sea off the Normandy coast

Adolf Hitler and My Family's Part In His Downfall

On the other side of my family, my dad's father enlisted to join the army when he was 24 years old.

As a teenager I became interested in tracing my family tree and asked him lots of questions about his relatives who had fought in World War I, those who campaigned against the Boer War and those relatives that fought in it, and about his cousin who was jailed as a conscientious objector during World War I. I knew that he had been a soldier himself during World War II, and that for a short period he was in Belgium and Germany, but he was never interested in talking about it and I never asked him. Having looked through some of his papers after he died, I have a long list of questions I wish I could ask him now. I am grateful at least that all of my grandparents disliked throwing anything out, and left me lots of photographs and papers for me to try and draw a picture of the events in their lives.

My grandad was born in Kilmarnock in 1915, and the family soon afterwards moved to Parkhead in Glasgow when his dad found work at the iron foundry there. Not long after, they moved to Govan, where his dad (my great-grandad) worked in the Harland and Wolff yard for the rest of his days.

My grandad in primary school, second from the left in the front row

1924 photo of my great-grandad and the other H&W iron moulders

My grandad enlisted in June 1940. His service book records him standing at 5 foot 2¾ inches, and weighing in at 8 stone 11 lb on joining the army. In the 5 years he was in the army he moved about between the Highland Light Infantry, to Royal Army Ordnance Corps (RAOC), to Anti Aircraft Division at Bristol before settling in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME), being trained as a radio mechanic.

New recruit

Third from the left

Measurements for a new uniform, and off to France

On 11th June 1944 he is measured up for a complete new uniform, and he landed in Normandy on 13th June 1944, 7 days after D-day, on Juno beach with the 11th Armoured Division of the British Army and was then attached to the 159th Infantry Brigade. One of the day 1 objectives of Operation Overlord was to capture the town of Caen, about 9 miles in from the coast. The Germans had committed a large part of their available Panzer divisions to defending Caen, and a bloody and destructive battle ensued, that lasted 8 weeks and flattened much of the city. My grandad had four photographs he had taken in Normandy, and two of these show the aftermath of the Battle for Caen.

Caen, 1944

His other photographs from Normandy show the badly damaged railroad station at Cherbourg. American forces had taken Cherbourg by June 29th 1944, but the Germans had so badly mined the port that it was unusable for some time to come.His other photograph is of the town of Lison, which lies on the Cherbourg to Caen railway line.

The back reads "wrecked Jerry garrison at Lison, with Wayne"

Cherbourg railroad station

British, Polish and Canadian forces moved north to try to take the port of Antwerp in Belgium to open up shipping routes to supply the advance. This operation (The Battle of the Scheldt) lasted until the end of 1944 before he moved on into the Netherlands before finally crossing the Rhine into Germany. During this period he seems to have managed to enjoy some leave in Paris, which was liberated on 19th August 1944. There is a caricature among his photographs which is recognisably him, with "cartoon from Folies de Bergeres" written on the back. In Normandy winter closes in and he poses for a photo in front of a downed German plane, and sends a greetings card home to Glasgow for Christmas.

1944 caricature

My grandad spending winter 1944 in Antwerp

Army Christmas card from Antwerp

In August 1945 his army service book records "8 days POW leave". In online forums the consensus is that this was leave given to people who had been captured by enemy forces for a period of time. However I can find no other clues about this, and it is not something he ever mentioned. He is finally discharged from the army in 1946. The testimonial in his discharge papers records that he had an "unassuming competence. His ability as a tradesman is first class...particularly skillful at work calling for the greatest precision and patience."

Army discharge papers

Before leaving the army he had met his future wife, my granny. She hailed from Walsall and had spent four years during the war in the army, working on radar at the anti-aircraft guns at Bristol. For their honeymoon in 1947 they spent a week at the Strand Palace Hotel in London (their receipt shows that they paid 6 pence extra per night to have a radio) before they both came to settle in Glasgow.

My grandparents on honeymoon in London in 1947

Honeymoon receipt that they held onto

On this 75th anniversary of D-day I will raise a glass to toast two ordinary Glaswegians, and the part they played in defeating Fascism in Europe in the 1940s.

Me with my granny and grandad, and their spectacular 1970s wallpaper

Ecuador and Galapagos Islands (...and Football)

As someone who enjoys travelling, and who enjoys football I often find ways to combine both these pleasures. After previous holidays I have written about taking in football matches in Greenland, and in the Faroe Islands. I have spent decades attending football matches (if you are American, I mean soccer) in Scotland. It is part of our history and culture that I understand, I feel part of. I can go for a jog in Glasgow around all the old football pitches that Partick Thistle have ever played at over the past 143 years and it tells may about how people in my city have lived, how industry has grown and fallen away in my hometown.

So it is maybe no surprise that when I am on holiday in a foreign town looking for a wee running route, I often pick out local sports stadiums to run around. This is proving increasingly difficult as redevelopment often robs a local community of its historical social focus, and plops the new concrete bowl out of town on a turn-off from the motorway.

I have been lucky enough to watch football matches in some of the world's most iconic stadiums. From the Stadio Olimpico in Rome, to Camp Nou in Barcelona or Carrow Road in Norwich it helps you see how a city lives and breathes. As well as being an entertaining spectacle you see what their equivalent of a pie and Bovril is, how their public transport copes and how the locals celebrate or drown their sorrows. As I am often holidaying with my family during the school holidays, it is often during the summer months when there are no actual football matches to watch. Nonetheless, whether I am in Hamburg, or Thessaloniki I will often get up before everyone else and batter round a quick 10K to see what part of town St Pauli calls home, or what the neighbourhoods around PAOK's Toumba stadium look like. I sound like am obsessed with jogging past football stadiums when no football is on the go, and on thinking about it, maybe I am. Over the next 6 weeks I am doing a half-marathon in Manchester that goes past Old Trafford, and a 10K in Cumbernauld that finishes at Clyde FC's Deadwood Stadium.

So this summer was no exception, just more scenic than these last two.

Why go to the Galapagos Islands?

Visiting Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands was never going to be an ordinary holiday. On my bucket-list of destinations, it has always really been the only place listed. After my granny died recently a few years short of her centenary a wee bit of money came our way from her will and we blew it all on the trip.

People in Quito's Plaza Grande

Flying halfway around the world to visit a place famed for its wildlife and natural beauty is not sustainable in a world being changed by climate change. We sought out travel agents using local guides and companies in the region, and paid for carbon offsetting of our flights. Despite this I understand it would be better for the environment across the world and in the Galapagos Islands if we all traveled less, and I justified it to myself as a way to inspire my children to care about these places, particularly my oldest who is at university studying animal biology and got so much out of the trip.

My own personal interest in this area came from one of my favourite books that I read as a child, Charles Darwin's The Voyage of the Beagle. Re-reading it again earlier this year reminded me how exciting I found it at the time. Darwin is often depicted as an older man with a long grey beard, but he was only aged 22 when he set off as a supernumerary member of the crew of HMS Beagle in 1831, working as naturalist as the ship circumnavigated the globe on what became a 4 year surveying and mapping expedition. Spending time on board collating his notes and reading other people's ideas, the things Darwin saw on his trip led him to conclude that species were not fixed. Why were the tortoises and mockingbirds of the Galapagos Islands recognisable, but unlike their nearest cousins anywhere else? Even between nearby islands in the archipelago he saw differences in the mockingbird species. It was not until 1859 that his thoughts and further researches were pulled together and presented in his book Origin of the Species. The full title summarises his theory, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, controversial at the time, but now "omnipotent because it is true" as someone once said about another writer's ideas.

In a ground-breaking documentary series, full of portentous title music and beautiful exotic scenery, David Attenborough introduced children of my generation to Darwin's theory of evolution. Life on Earth starts with the Galapagos marine iguanas and giant tortoises appearing in episode 1, the Islands a classic example where the powers of evolution can be seen in front of your own eyes. Funnily enough the Galapagos Islands' famous Darwin's finches don't actually feature in the Origin of the Species despite being a classic proof of his ideas, although the mockingbirds appear. Although he collected many specimens of the finches, he had been less fastidious on documenting which specimens came from which island, only noticing whilst reviewing them on board The Beagle when back at sea that they were remarkably varied in the shape and function of their beaks. From common ancestors, 15 species had developed on the islands each with adaptions helping it to survive in its particular environment, from Cactus finch to the blood-sucking Vampire finch.

David Attenborough's Life on Earth, signed book from the series

After being enthralled by the television series aged 9 or 10, my brother and me had our copy of the book that accompanied the programmes signed by David Attenborough in a city centre bookshop in Glasgow, back in the days before he was a national treasure. Thankfully I have still held onto this fantastic book.

This holiday was the one my 9 year old self has always wanted to make, to visit the islands where Darwin developed his ideas. Thankfully that connection now means that the islands are desperately trying to maintain their status as a unique, wild environment that jump-started scientific thought. As they Ecuadorians go forwards, the balance is between encouraging tourism and the money that it brings to fund environmental projects, and strictly maintaining the wildlife's isolation by rationing tourist numbers and designating 97% of the islands landmass as a protected national park.

Ecuador

Quito, capital city of Ecuador

Plaza de San Francisco, Quito

Quito is home to 1.6 million people. The Ecuadorian capital city sits high in the Andes at over 9000 feet above sea level, a long stretched out city which has at its centre an old quarter with many buildings dating back to the Spanish invasion in the 1500s. Ascending the TeleferiQo cable car to the west of the city you quickly ascend to almost 13,000 feet, with views over the river basin where the city sits and the active volcanoes of Cayambo, Cotopaxi, Chimborazo, and more beyond.

Quito, with the peak of Cotopaxi volcano beyond it

Do they like football? If the number of people wearing local football strips is anything to go by, that's a yes. There are four teams from Quito in the country's top league at present. Aucas have the best look, with their red and yellow tops (the corporate colours given to them by their former owner Royal Dutch Shell, the oil company), but Liga de Quito (LDU) was the one that was seen most frequently about town. Our taxi driver was excitedly telling us about the team's new signing, Ecuadorian former Manchester United player, Antonio Valencia. The other strip that was seen commonly all over the city was for Barcelona SC, which confusingly wears the Spanish team Barcelona's badge, put their by the club's founder in 1925, in tribute to his home city that he had left behind.

Aucas FC

The Ecuadorian national football team have qualified for World Cup finals three times since Scotland last made an appearance in the competition. Their most successful run in the competition was in 2006, when a David Beckham free kick eliminated them 1-0 in the round of 16. My son came home with a very authentic $10 Ecuadorian replica strip from a market in Otavalo, and was delighted to see an identical shirt on sale at the airport in Quito for $110. On the couple of days we were in Quito, none of the local teams had a match on. Any plan I had to go a wee run to eyeball some of the stadiums was thwarted by three things; how far from any of the grounds we were staying, the amount of hills in Quito, and the altitude. It was the first time I have ever been anywhere that high, and although we all adapted after a couple of days, when walking up a flight of stairs was leaving me puffing and peching, a 10K run was a non-starter.

A flat back four. Dogs dozing on Panecillo, Quito

Quito card school

Quito is a spectacularly dramatic city, with great cafes and restaurants and a lively main square where buskers performed nightly in front of large crowds, before groups of men gathered to play cards together later on. Soon we were off to try and track down some wildlife though. After a couple of days in Quito, we headed to a lodge in the nearby cloud forest. One lodge in the mountains that we visited in the forest here, as well has having hummingbirds, tanagers and agoutis roaming around, also had a small football pitch laid out in among the trees. Nicely maintained and with a net behind one of the goals to stop any stray balls heading into the wilderness, it did rather beg the question of who was coming up here for a kick about?

An agouti ambling around

Sachatamia Lodge, Cloud Forest Ecuador

There is apparently a thriving local football scene in Ecuador, with hundreds of community teams playing off against each other regularly. One feature of a lot of these leagues is that many have mixed teams of men and women, and for many taking part is as important as winning.

Trekking around Cotacachi volcano

Babyfoot

Mindo football stadium

A popular base for tourists in this region is the town of Mindo. A one time logging town, the area is part of a protected reserve now and the town has found benefits in protecting the forest as a home to various tours and outdoor activities. It is also home to orchid and butterfly farms, coffee processors and chocolate roasters all of which are happy to offer tours.

Mindo

A collared aracari, my new favourite red, yellow and black bird

Every small town we passed through sported a well maintained grass pitch, whether nestled in among houses or commanding views over the Andes, such as on the outskirts of Otavalo, giving me plenty of targets for random evening running. I was advised that the large number of dogs roaming the streets in these areas were not strays, but much as we let cats wander off during the day, Ecuadorians will do the same with their dogs. Used as effective burglar deterrents, avoiding or fleeing these "pets" regularly added a couple of kilometers to any runs that I attempted.

Calicali

Otavalo market

Otavalo, with beautiful views over the Andes

So, farewell to the volcanoes (and llamas) of the mainland

Galapagos Islands

The Galapagos Islands lie about 800 miles west from the Ecuadorian mainland. At one time it was only home to buccaneers and whalers, who between them almost wiped out the giant tortoise population by using then as food. There are now about 35,000 people living, on 5 of the 21 islands. The largest town is Puerta Ayora on the island of Santa Cruz, home to 12,000 people and the Charles Darwin Research Station. Landing at the airport on Baltra Island the cabin of the plane is fumigated to prevent alien insects landing on the islands. Then your baggage is searched, by hand and by sniffer dogs, for any foodstuffs that may contain pests, or muddy shoes that could carry non-endemic seeds. You pay your $100 per person tourist tax (most of which now goes to the local economy) and finally you are let loose on one of the most unique places on the planet.

As the birds and animals of the Galapagos Islands have no instinctive fear of humans, the problem is not spotting the wildlife, but avoiding tripping over it. Local rules ask you to stay 2 meters away from any animals, and to not touch or feed the animals or birds, all with the aim of preserving their wild habits.

Giant tortoises on Santa Cruz

Brown pelican in the mangroves

Marine iguana

There is a balance in the Galapagos Islands, with many people keen to benefit from the money that tourism can bring, and others see the need to control the numbers visiting the islands. The locals that we spoke to held different opinions about how far things should be allowed to go. At the moment the balance is tilting in favour of preserving the environment, but as Brazil has recently shown that needs political will and government investment to persuade everyone of the benefits.
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The balance between tourism and nature, on Avenue Charles Darwin

Estadio Pampas Coloradas, Puerta Ayora, Santa Cruz. Galapagos Isalnds

There are two sports that we saw being played by the locals everywhere we went in the Galapagos Islands; volleyball and football. The Ecuadorians play their own version of volleyball apparently (see below). The stadium above, in Puerta Ayora on the island of Santa Cruz, is part of a sports complex in the town which has other facilities including a swimming pool. It has all recently been renovated. There were many other small pitches around town, and most schools seem to have a covered area for playing sports in the playgrounds whatever the weather, pitches which aren't chained up behind fences at night and were regularly being used. The Galapagos Islands have at least one footballer who has made it to a World Cup finals, Denise Andreas Pesantes, who played for Ecuador at the 2015 tournament in Canada. In an interview on the FIFA website at the time she says

"The Galapagos are a great place to live your passion for football. A lot of people think there's no time or place for football there, but you can play from Monday to Sunday, from eight in the evening to midnight. Men, women, everyone plays."

Welcome to Isabela Island, the largest in the Galapagos

Sally Lightfoot crab

Isabela Island is the largest in the Galapagos archipelago, and home to almost 2000 people. In the mid-twentieth century it was known for two things, sulphur mining from the active volcanoes, and as a prison colony, with prisoners here forced to build and dismantle pointless walls of volcanic rock under the heat of the equatorial sun. Now it is the wildlife that it is known for, and the chance to enjoy snorkeling among turtles and sharks in crystal clear waters that attracts people.

Los Tuneles, Isabela Island. Popular place for snorkeling

Looking for places to go for an early morning run I headed to the outskirts of Puerto Villamil to wander around the municipal stadium, Estadio Municipal Misael Franco Vera. The old signpost for the ground seems to have been "up-cycled" as the bench in one of the dug-outs, but I can only guess the place's former name. I have a soft spot for empty football grounds. You are halfway around the world from home, but everything is instantly recognisable, but also a wee bit exotic and different. It is a place where local people spend there time, relax, have fun and is a universal environment, far removed from the glitz and showbiz of a Champions League TV game.

Some people visiting the Galapagos Islands spend their whole time on a cruise ship, which allows them to visit lots of different islands, but we were happy staying in just a couple of places, getting to know them better and relaxing. Also the speedboat trip between Santa Cruz and Isabela Island across choppy waters convinced us that being on dry land for most of our holiday had been the correct decision.

You need to get down to the beach early in Puerto Villamil if you want to get a bench before the sealions hog them all

Local teams played every night at the wee 5-aside pitch by the beach here

Blue-footed boobies dancing like nobody is watching

Swimming with sea turtles was a real highlight of our trip

Volleyball is very popular in Ecuador, in towns and on beaches. I don't play volleyball so I apologise if what I am saying makes no sense at all, but one of the local guides was telling us that here they play "Ecuavolley", which is similar to the traditional game, but involves a lot more scooping up of the ball into the air. To me it looked like volleyball, but as I say, I am ignorant of its finer tactics.

Volleyball in the main square of Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz

This was our first trip to South America. We came here to follow in the footsteps of a European scientist, but fell in love with the spectacular scenery, the wonderful wildlife and the friendly and welcoming people. All our guides were knowledgeable, accommodating and keen to go out of their way to show us as much of their country as they could squeeze into the time we had. So, special thanks to Tania, Andrea, Miguel, Cesar and Memo. Salud!

Fife Pilgrim Way - Part 1A

After the success of the Fife Coastal Path, opened in 2002, a new long distance walking path has been created in Fife. The Fife Pilgrim Way opened in 2019. It follows a 64 mile (104km) route that medieval pilgrims would have taken from North Queensferry or from Culross, via Dunfermline Abbey and onwards to St Andrews.

By connecting existing paths, upgrading others and creating some new tracks the Fife Pilgrim Way can be used as a sign-posted route for day-trips around Fife, or could be taken on as a relaxing walk over several days. I have divided it up into several short runs which I plan to undertake over the Autumn and Winter months of 2019. The route goes through some of Fife's medieval and religious sites, but inevitably also passes many of the industrial sites from the days when coal was king in this part of the world.

Culross to Dunfermline

Since at least AD 965 until St Andrews Cathedral was destroyed in the Reformation in 1559, people came across to Fife to make a pilgrimage to see relics of St Andrew in the town that took his name. Many of these travelers would have arrived at North Queensferry, but the Fife Pilgrim Way gives you a choice of following the route from there, or from Culross, to Dunfermline. As a Glaswegian, I started from the town where the patron saint of my hometown, St Mungo, was born. Culross

17th century house in Culross, with the Greek inscription "God provides and will provide" above the window

Culross was once the fourth largest port in Scotland, trading with the Low Countries and Scandinavia. Rich coal seams under the Forth and a monopoly on 16th century Scottish iron girdle pan manufacture (eh?) created its wealth. However the town's origins were as a religious centre. The ruins of a Cistercian abbey founded in 1217 still stand on the hillside above the waterfront, with a 19th century church in one corner of this area. However its religious roots go back to St Serf who established a community here about 500 years earlier in the era of early Celtic Christianity.

Saint Serf

As his life story was written down half a millennium after his death, and was rather designed to add to his prestige, it is impossible to separate fact from fiction in his story. What is certainly true is that he was born in Alexandria in Egypt, crossed the Alps, later went to Rome and became Pope and arrived in Scotland to do missionary work. Throwing his staff across the River Forth, it landed among prickly bushes in what is now Culross, where miraculous fruit trees sprouted and he set up a monastery at this spot. He later debated with the devil in a cave at Dysart, turned water into wine and slayed a dragon with his staff. Alternatively, he may have been a Gaelic speaking monk with associations in the Ochil Hills who established several religious settlements here and hereabouts, but most notably at Culross, or Cuileann Ros, the holly point/promontory.

Culross Abbey

Stained glass window in Culross Abbey Church, with St Serf and St Kentigern

Saint Mungo/ Saint Kentigern

Kentigern, also known by his nickname Mungo, possibly derived from the Gaelic Mo Choë, taken to mean "My Dear". He was believed to have been taught by St Serf. The illegitimate son of pagan royalty his mother, Teneu (later St Enoch), was washed ashore at Culross and taken in by the monastery where Kentigern was raised. He later traveled west to the banks of the River Clyde to spread his religious teachings. The spot where he established his first church may be where Glasgow cathedral now stands nearly 1500 years later.

Culross pier

Before starting the route I took the chance to have a quick look about the picture postcard pretty village of Culross. The village as it stands today is largely the 17th century appearance. The town was being threatened with demolition in the 1930s when the National Trust for Scotland bought the whole village and slowly restored the crumbling buildings. The contrast between the village, which has been used repeatedly as a film and TV set (it seems that half of Outlander is filmed here), and the petro-chemical plant at Grangemouth across the River Forth is striking. The coal fired power station at Longannet just a couple of miles east of the village no longer has a permanent plume of smoke billowing from it after it closed in 2016. You have to wonder how much of a future Grangemouth has if Scotland is to achieve its net-zero carbon emissions by 2045.

Grangemouth petro-chemical works on the south bank of the Forth

Longannet power station near Culross, now closed but soon to become a train making factory

As well as being a centre of monastic communities, Fife also has a history of religious leaders pursuing women for supposed witchcraft. Although we may be familiar with witchcraft trials in Salem in Massachusetts, Scotland also persecuted many people for this "crime", mostly women. Between 1563 and 1736 more than 3800 men and women were documented as being accused of witchcraft, with at least two thirds of these people executed. Fife was a particular hotbed of witch trials. In the 1640s the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland passed several acts "for the suppression of witches" and many women were imprisoned, executed or even lynched in Inverkeithing, Pittenweem, Kirkcaldy and St Andrews over this era. In Culross the Townhouse which sits on the main street with its distinctive clock tower was the place where the court sat. Women accused of witchcraft were allegedly held prisoner in the tower awaiting trial (the ground floor rooms were more usually used as the cells here.

Culross Townhouse

"The study" at Culross market place

The medieval Mercat Cross

Views across the Culross chimneys to Grangemouth

The Fife Pilgrim Way starts from the west car park in Culross and follows the Fife Coastal Path for a couple of miles, zig-zagging across the train line here and passing behind the Torry Bay Local Nature Reserve. The remains of Preston Island salt pans lie off to your right.

King Coal

Before going any further I must mention one thing that I did NOT see between Culross and Dunfermline - evidence of the areas coal mining. The empty shell of Longannet is the only clue that there ever was a coal industry here, but in its heyday a century ago 20,000 miners were employed in producing 10,000,000 tons of coal per year. The first coal burnt in Fife was literally sticking out of the ground, pushed up by geological pressures. It could also be howked out from the sides of glens and valleys where it was often exposed. The first recorded authorisation to dig for coal was in 1291 when the Abbot of Dunfermline was granted permission to extract coal from Pittencrieff Glen. Until the Reformation the monasteries controlled coal extraction, but afterwards the landowners could profit from it. Near Culross in the 16th century coal was mined from under the Forth from an artificial island. The Moat Pit was abandonded when it flooded after being swamped in a storm in 1625.

Preston Island was reclaimed from the Forth in the 1800s and mines started for coal to sell on, and to fire the salt pans here, evaporating water to produce a valuable commodity, a common industry along both sides of the Forth here at that time in places where coal could be easily accessed. By the 1850s the industry itself evaporated in the face of cheap salt imports.

Valleyfield, just east of Culross, was the home to the Valleyfield pit, opened by the Fife Coal Board in 1908. It was well known for high methane levels, or "firedamp" which was actually pumped out to supply public gas. In October 1939 an underground explosion here left 35 men dead, the worst ever pit disaster in Fife. A statue stands in High Valleyfield to commemorate those who died. When I was running the route I was unable to find it as it is not flagged up anywhere, but if you want to visit it, it stands at the junction of Woodhead Street and Valleyfield Avenue in Valleyfield. Valleyfield was still producing coal until 1978 when the pit was closed. At that time the workings connected under the Forth to pits at Bo'ness, west to the Longannet works and east to the Torry mine, which opened in 1950. Unbelievably a further 17 miners lost their lives at Valleyfield between 1942 and 1978, highlighting what a dangerous profession mining remained.

Torryburn

At Torryburn, where the Fife Coastal Path turns right along the coast, the Pilgrim Way carries on along the main road through the town. You soon pass an old phone box, which although no longer in use the box has been adopted and maintained by the local community.

Torryburn

One 18th century resident of Torryburn recently made news headlines. Lilias Adie died in prison in 1704 while awaiting trial for witchcraft. She is believed to have admitted under torture to having a "tryst with the devil". She faced being burned at the stake and her burial site by the shore at Torryburn is the only known grave in Scotland of a woman accused of witchcraft. As such plans are being drawn up to mark the spot, as a memorial to Lilias and the thousands of other women persecuted as supposed witches. Torryburn Church, built in 1800 has an interesting collection of much older gravestones in the churchyard, many illustrating the trades of the deceased. Many of these date from the time of the first church on this site, built in 1616. A slight detour to the north could have taken in the Tuilyies standing stones that lie beside the A985 nearby, showing that before weaving and coal mining brought people here, it was a sacred Bronze Age site.

Torryburn Church

Gravestone at Torryburn

Cairneyhill

Following the signposted route along paths and pavements leads you into Cairneyhill, a former weavers village. The main road will take you across "conscience bridge" over the Torry Burn. Allegedly the bridge gets its name from a murderer who was caught here, confessed his crime and hanged himself. After Cairneyhill the path veers off to the left then turns right towards Dunfermline. The first views of Dunfermline Abbey lie ahead.

Row of cottages passed on leaving Cairneyhill

The path towards Dunfermline, the Abbey in the distance

The path as it approaches the edge of Dunfermline

Dunfermline

Dunfermline was made into a royal residence by King Malcolm III. After Malcolm's father, Duncan, was killed by Macbeth, he fled to England at the court of Edward the Confessor. He returned north after 17 years and after the death of Macbeth and his stepson Lulach, became king of Scotland around 1058. He moved the royal residence to Dunfermline, which remained a royal residence for the monarchs of Scotland for hundreds of years.

Steam train sitting in Pittencreiff Park, Dunfermline

It was Malcolm's second wife, Margaret of Wessex, who changed the face of religious practice in Scotland, and in Dunfermline this can be see in the remains of the Benedictine Dunfermline Abbey that she established. The abbey is at the heart of Dunfermline's "heritage quarter". The abbey itself became the burial ground of many kings and queens of Scotland, most notably King Robert the Bruce (although his heart is buried in Melrose). Much of the ancient abbey is in ruins but is well worth a visit. The Dunfermline Abbey Church was built here in 1820 and is still an active church. It's distinctive "KING ROBERT THE BRUCE" stonework at the top of the tower is a decidedly modern-looking adornment for a place of worship.

Dunfermline abbey church

The nave of the former abbey

Dunfermline abbey

On a sunnier day, early this summer

Dunfermline heritage quarter

Standing on the former site of Queen Margaret/ Saint Margaret's tomb which became a shrine, looking towards the "Abbot's House"

As well as monks and royalty, Dunfermline was also home to one of the 19th century's wealthiest men. Andrew Carnegie was born in 1835, in a weaver's cottage which still stands in the town as a museum to him. His father was a handloom weaver and as work fell away to the rapidly industrialising industry, Andrew was aged 13 when his family emigrated to America. From humble beginnings he made his fortune in the steel industry, and made his name with philanthropy. With a mixture of his family's Chartist and Presbyterian beliefs he truly seemed to live his life by the famous quote attributed to him, that "The man who dies thus rich, dies disgraced.". During his lifetime he gave away approximately 90% of his wealth. His money built 3000 libraries around the world (including most of Glasgow's Victorian libraries that I first borrowed books from), music halls, educational buildings, the Carnegie Trust fund to be shared by the 4 Scottish universities, and even a vast telescope in America. In Dunfermline he built baths, libraries and bought Pittencrieff Park and endowed it to his hometown, with funds to maintain it and ensure it was free for all to use (he had been banned from entering it as a child by an official due to his family's political views). I have not been able to discover if Carnegie's philanthropy extended to the wages and working conditions he gave his employees, the people who made him his billions, but we can only hope so.

Carnegie's birthplace museum

Carnegie's birthplace museum

Fife Pilgrim Way - Part 1B

From Dunfermline the Fife Pilgrim Way heads north towards Kelty, but first I am going to go back to the alternative start, at North Queensferry, and pick up the story of Saint Margaret...

Fife Pilgrim Way Links

Fife Pigrim Way - Part 1B

The Fife Pilgrim Way gives you the choice of starting at either Culross or North Queensferry before coming to Dunfermline, then on towards St Andrews.

North Queensferry to Dunfermline

One of my favourite views in Scotland is of the Firth of Forth, looking out over the now three bridges crossing the river at Queensferry. I have been travelling back and forth (apologies) over the bridges for years, more frequently since I married a Fifer 20 years ago. The elegance and drama of the Forth Rail Bridge's red girders makes it one of the wonders of the modern world. However, before there were any bridges here it was a treacherous crossing.

North Queensferry and the Forth Rail Bridge

Queensferry, "The Ferry" or South Queensferry. Whatever you call it, the town that sits here on the southern bank of the River Forth takes its name from Queen Margaret, Scotland's only Royal Saint. Margaret of Wessex was an English princess born around the year 1045 in Hungary before her family returned to England. She was the daughter of Edward Æthelred, known as Edward the Exile. Not long after returning to England she and her family fled again, to Scotland after the Norman conquest of England in 1066. With an arrow in his eye, the death of King Harold meant that her brother was next in line to the throne, a claim rejected by William the Conqueror. She sailed from Northumbria and her family arrived, as refugees I suppose, on the Fife coast near to where Rosyth now sits. In 1070 she was married to King Malcolm III and came to live in his royal residence in Dunfermline, Fife.

Beauty and the beast? Joseph Noel Paton's arcadian rendering of Queen Margaret and Malcolm III

She is oft described as being a pious Roman Catholic who spent a lot of her energy modernising Scottish worship, moving it away from its Celtic Christianity roots and more in line with the continental practices of contemporary Rome. She may also have introduced the Anglo-Saxon language to court, replacing Gaelic. Pilgrims were already travelling to St Andrews to visit the relics of the saint there, and she established the "Queen's Ferry" across the River Forth to facilitate their journeys. Like Culross, St Andrews had been a place of worship since the 8th century, and Margaret now created a religious community at Dunfermline. She invited the Benedictine Order to establish a monastery here, and soon there were numerous religious settlements in the area; the Cistercian monasteries at Culross and Balmerino, the Benedictine abbey at Dunfermline, a Franciscan friary at Inverkeithing, the Augustinian priories at St Andrews, Loch Leven, Inchcolm and Pittenweem. Over this period numerous religious houses were established in Fife.

Margaret herself used a shrine in a small cave on the banks of Dunfermline's Tower Burn in which to pray. In 1962 the local council decided to fill in this valley in order to create a public car park, but local opposition meant that access to the cave, which I think we can safely call a grotto, was preserved. In 1990 a rather functional access tunnel was created down to St Margaret's Cave, which can be visited in the town centre if you can manage the 87 steps (free to access from Spring to Autumn). If you start descending the stairs don't be put off by thinking you have accidentally arrived at a nuclear bunker, keep going and you'll get there - just don't build your hopes up too much for a religious epiphany at the bottom. Instead you will find a robe-clad mannequin of the good lady contemplating the ceiling of her nook.

Steps down to St Margaret's Cave

Sculpture of St Margaret in her cave

Margaret died in Edinburgh Castle in 1093, three days after hearing of her husband's death at the Battle of Alnwick. After her death she was buried at Dunfermline Abbey and her grave became a place of pilgrimage, with many people praying at her graveside for cures from sickness. Many miraculous healings were recorded and in 1250 she was canonised by Pope Innocent IV and her body moved to a shrine at the abbey. After the destruction of Dunfermline Abbey in The Scottish Reformation her body was smuggled abroad by the Jesuits (although St Margaret's Church in Dunfermline has a bit of her shoulder as a relic). Now many religious buildings around Scotland carry the name of St Margaret. Nothing now remains of her shrine at Dunfermline Abbey. After the church was rebuilt as a Protestant, Church of Scotland church this very Catholic shrine was left on the outside, but it's site is marked by a small plaque.

Former shrine to St Margaret in Dunfermline

North Queensferry to Inverkeithing

So to take up the route of the Fife Pilgrim Way from North Queensferry we need to start at the old pier, which was built hundreds of years after the time of Queen Margaret. The Rail Bridge was opened in 1890, but it wasn't until 1967 that the ferry was put out of business by the Forth Road Bridge, which had opened in 1964. Travelers in the Middle Ages arriving in North Queensferry could come a couple of streets back to visit St James's chapel, which was run by the monks of Dunfermline Abbey from at least 1320. St James was a patron saint of pilgrims. The now ruined chapel, lies in ...Chapel Place where it has been used as a graveyard by local sailors since 1752 according to the plaque on the wall here.

North Queensferry, Chapel Place

The path follows the Fife Coastal Path to Inverkeithing, under the spans of the rail bridge and then along the coast for a mile or so.

Forth Rail Bridge overhead

Looking across the River Forth

Arriving in Inverkeithing of the Middle Ages weary travelers would find a comfortable resting place at the Franciscan Friary here. This large, late 13th century "hospitium" survives remarkably intact, with a well in the garden at the back. As well as housing the friary, the town was a port and a market town, trading sheep, cattle and animal products. From the 1820s until the 1930s there was much activity at the whinstone quarries near the town, cutting stone that was used for Leith and Liverpool Docks, London pavements and the Forth and Clyde Canal. Other local employment could be found in paper making, ship building and coal mining - three industries now all but vanished from the area.

Coming into the town you pass a rather empty looking dock, a scrapyard, and the old quarry. You then come to a nondescript patch of land, called Witchknowe Park ("witches hill"). Inverkeithing has a sorry history as a "hotbed of witch-finding and punishing". Now much reduced in size, this park was reportedly the field where dozens of alleged witches were burnt alive in the 17th century. Between 1621 and 1652 the local church records report at least 51 cases, mostly women, convicted and executed for witchcraft in this town (despite having a larger population, Kirkcaldy executed 18 people in this same period according to this Scotsman article by Chris McCall) .

Wtchknowe Park, Inverkeithing

The Hospitium in Inverkeithing

Inverkeithing High Street, with the 14th century church at the top

Inverkeithing to Rosyth

A lack of signposts for the Fife Pilgrim Way over the next wee bit, and wrong data on some of the GPX files available online means that a good old fashioned map can be handy here, but the route takes you out by Hill Street and then over the M90 and across the B890, or Castlelandhill Road as it is called. Castlelandhill? I can't see no castle? Well if you didn't know about it, there is nothing here to tell you, but you are about to walk across Fife's bloodiest battlefield.

The Battle of Inverkeithing on 21st July 1651 saw Oliver Cromwell's English Parliamentary forces pave the way for his conquest of Scotland, against an army of Covenanters and Royalists fighting under the flag of Charles II. With the heart of Scotland fortified south of Stirling, Cromwell realised that if he swept quickly into Fife he could march towards Perth and cut off Scottish supplies and reinforcements from the north. The Scottish forces were 4500 strong on the higher ground at Castleland Hill above Inverkeithing, near to where a similar sized force landed with Cromwell below. Wary of Scottish reinforcements arriving, Cromwell's troops quickly advanced, and despite initial successes for Scottish cavalry the Scots were soon forced back to Pitreavie Castle, sustaining heavy losses in the retreat. 800 men under Maclean of Duart held out for 4 hours on the slopes near the castle, but eventually all but 35 of these men were killed. A cairn in Pitreavie, just by a mini-roundabout on Castle Brae commemorates these men. By the end of the day 2000 Scots had been killed and a further 1600 taken prisoner. Much of the battlefield now lies under roads and housing estates, and if I hadn't read about the area before running along this way today I would not have known about it at all. Surprising, given the brutality of the fighting that day - perhaps we are not so good at remembering defeats. The open fields up here now give views back across to the bridges for the last time, as we head down towards Rosyth.

Forth Road Bridge and Queensferry Bridge from Castleland Hill

Rosyth shipyard in the distance, with the Goliath crane used to construct the aircraft carriers here

Rosyth to Dunfermline

Fife Pilgrim Way signpost

Rosyth as a town was created in 1909, as a dockyard town. The naval dockyard was built at the time of a mounting arms race with Germany. Much of the work the dockyard has had is in refitting ships and in ship-breaking, from the salvage of many of the German naval vessels scuttled at Scapa Flow, to its more recent role in attempting to decommission nuclear submarines. For the past few years the yard has been kept busy in constructing the new aircraft carriers for the Royal Navy, HMS Queen Elizabeth, and HMS Prince of Wales (there are no immediate plans to build an HMS King Charles III).

Wilson Way, Rosyth

Rosyth FC

The Fife Pilgrim Way comes west along Ferry Toll Road, above a part of the coast called St Margaret's Hope, which may have been where the fleeing future queen landed in Scotland. The route then turns up Wilson Way and cuts through a park where Junior Football club Rosyth FC play. Skirting around their pitch the path heads north towards a busy A-road, heading west along a narrow path beside this road for half a mile before crossing over and going north towards Dunfermline. The first thing you come to, hidden among the trees here, is the isolated, and beautifully maintained Douglas Bank Cemetery. As you would expect, with Rosyth being a naval town, there is a naval plot here, with over 130 burials of people who died in the First and Second World Wars.

Douglas Bank Cemetery in Autumn 2019

The path goes through a short forest here and then across some open fields before arriving at the southern end of Dunfermline. Heading towards the centre takes you past a cricket club and rugby club at McKane Park, before you arrive at the Andrew Carnegie Birthplace Museum and the abbey.

Whether you started the Fife Pilgrim Way in either Culross or North Queensferry, it now heads east out of town, passing East End Park, home to Dunfermline Football Club....

Fife Pilgrim Way Links

Fife Pilgrim Way - Part 2

Dunfermline to Lochore - Built on Coal

The Fife Pilgrim Way is a new long distance walking path, following in the footsteps of medieval pilgrims coming from Culross or North Queensferry to see the relics of St Andrew. Over several weekends I am trying to run the route, and find out a bit about the local history on the way.

Arriving in Dunfermline from either Culross, or North Queensferry, the medieval pilgrims would head on towards St Andrews, out of Dunfermline through open countryside. One hundred years ago travellers would have been walking through mile upon mile of mine-workings, pit bings and bustling communities. Now the coal mining has all gone. Although many of the miners' villages still struggle on they are a shadow of their former selves. It seems amazing that so much of the infrastructure of Fife's industrial past has been completely erased from the landscape, and between Dunfermline and Ballingry few hints at what was there before now remain.

Dunfermline

On the Fife Pilgrim Way you arrive in Dunfermline from the south, into its "heritage quarter" past weavers cottages and abbeys. You leave through the centre of town and out through the east end.

With a population of 50,000 it is the most populous town in Fife. It was a royal town and an abbey town. Then it grew as a mining town and flourished with linen weaving. Now few industries remain and the service sector is the biggest employer in town, with Dunfermline being the main shopping area in Fife. Dunfermline is home to the Alhambra Theatre, and now the old art deco fire station on Carnegie Drive has been re-modelled as an arts centre. Dunfermline's other contributions to the arts include gifting the world members of the bands Nazareth, Jethro Tull and Big Country, as well as the inimitable Barbara Dickson. They should all get together as a Dunfermline supergroup.

The Carnegie Hall

As you head east through town, you pass "the second" Carnegie Hall as its website describes it, which I see has Danny John Jules and Neil Oliver performing there soon, though I suspect not together. There aren't many signposts for the Fife Pilgrim Way over the next couple of miles, so following the directions on the official website or using a map is necessary. Skipping onto a path parallel to the main road we pass between Dunfermline Cemetery and East End Park, home to Dunfermline Athletic Football Club. Before getting there on the left you will see the former Poorhouse of Dunfermline. Built in 1843 it was extended several times, before later being known as the Dunfermline Combination Home and Hospital, being incorporated into the NHS when it was founded in 1948.

Dunfermline Poorhouse, now converted into housing

The path behind East End Park football ground

The path here passes between Dunfermline Athletic Football Club and Dunfermline Cemetery. The football club was started in the late 19th century as a way to keep players of Dunfermline Cricket Club fit during the winter months. By 1885 they had split away to become a separate club. The club's greatest achievements were in the 1960s, twice winning the Scottish Cup and reaching the semi-final of the European Cup Winners Cup in 1969. As a Glaswegian child it was the club crest that I knew before I got to know the team as a travelling Partick Thistle fan, as it was so totally unlike the badge of any other Scottish club. It was designed by a local school art teacher in 1957 and features Malcolm's Tower (the ruins of which lie in Pittencrieff Park), the "hanging tree" of Malcolm III's time, and what looks like a glass building of contemporary 1957 Dunfermline that I haven't been able to identify. A splash of green at the bottom represents East End Park. Mr Dymock, take a bow. There ain't no club badge like that one. As a Partick Thistle fan I write this in November 2019, looking up to Dunfermline FC's mid-table Championship mediocrity with envy.

Club badge of Dunfermline Athletic Football Club

Leaving Dunfermline the Pilgrim Way heads around the town's modern Queen Margaret Hospital, named after the saintly Queen Margaret that we have met already, and heads up the Townhill road and on to Kingseat. From here, looking out across the M90 off to the right lies Hill of Beath. The hill itself was used for Covenanters gatherings, held here in the 1670s, a good place to look out for approaching soldiers coming from afar to break up your meetings. From the days of The Reformation 100 years earlier, to the Covenanters and beyond, the splits and divisions over religious doctrine in Scotland were tied to many other social changes, with shifting allegiances, land ownership and royal interventions mixed into a murky theological mix which still brings problems to Scottish society today.

Hill of Beath, off to the right of The Fife Pilgrim Way

The village of "Hill of Beath" just beyond the hill was established to house miners, as were most of the villages in this area. In 1963 once the local pits had all closed, dismantling the pit bing here was the first of many subsequent land reclamation projects in the area. The land between the path and the Hill of Beath in the photograph above had been home to coal mining from the 1700s, now all gone.

If Hill of Beath rings any bells for you, it may be due to its football connections. This small village, which is still home to a Juniors team, was the childhood home of three famous Scotland internationals; 'Slim' Jim Baxter (whose statue stands on Main Street), Willie Cunningham, and current Celtic captain Scott Brown.

Kingseat

We come next to Kingseat, another former coal mining village, with four pits sunk in this area in the mid-1800s. The village grew up about the mines and a report in 1875 bemoans the fact that there were few amenities here, with "no ashpits or closets over all the village". The report also mentions that for those living here "(t)he water for the village is got from a field near at hand. It is surface water and becomes dirty in rainy weather". All this for 6s 8d a month for a room and kitchen. Mining continued here until 1945 when the last pit up beside Loch Fitty flooded, and was abandoned. On the edge of town new houses are being built, and like several of the towns around here, many people live in this area and commute to work in Edinburgh and surrounding areas.

The village allegedly takes its name from a large rock that sat near by, beside the long gone Craigencat Quarry. King James was supposed to favour this as a place to sit when journeying between Falkland and Dunfermline, enjoying views across to Arthur's Seat.

Even in this small village, home to 800 people at its peak, for those who worked the local pits death was an ever present danger underground. By the time the last pit closed in 1945, 27 people had lost their lives in the Kingseat pits, the youngest being an 11 year old and two aged only 14 year old. The last to die were in November 1945, when two brothers-in-law died working their last shift in the flooded Pit No. 3 that was being closed down.

Between Dunfermline and Kingseat lies the former Muircockhall Colliery, on the edge of Townhill Wood. From 1868 until 1943 this pit was worked. Towards the end of World War 2 with growing demands for coal, men were conscripted not to serve in the armed forces, but to work underground on producing coal. Over 5 years 48,000 men served as "Bevin Boys" across Britain. Muircockhall was where these men from Scotland and the North of England, including my great-uncle Peter, received 4 weeks of training. After the war Muircockhall continued as a miners training centre until 1969. Did my great-uncle decide to carry on as a miner after the war? Not on your nelly. He hated it from day one, and only a few weeks in, working in a pit in East Lothian, he was caught in a cave-in, breaking his leg which left him with a limp for the rest of his life. Once he had recovered he was sent back down the mine, at which point he deserted in terror, refusing to go down again.

Kingseat

Leaving Kingseat the path heads down towards Loch Fitty, and across the causeway here. Walking this way you pass over the former route of one of the many mining railway lines and the site Kingseat colliery Pit No. 3, the last one to close here, which stood just by the loch. Though once a trout fishery, Loch Fitty is surrounded now by just farmland, with the sounds of ducks and swans, cows and horses rather than that of machinery.

The path across Loch Fitty

Lassodie

New Rows, Lassodie

On the other side of Loch Fitty the path leads you into a curious area. On some maps this area is described as "Lassodie" but no signs of human habitation exist. The rise and fall of Lassodie village is an extreme example of what has befallen much of this area, whose fortunes have come and gone with the Scottish coal industry. In 1901 Lassodie was a village of over 1400 people and several mines. There was a post office, a church and two co-op stores. By 1931 the cost of pumping the water out of the remaining pits made them unprofitable and they were closed down, with some families given 14 days notice to quit their homes.

1854 map, before the miners' houses were built

If you click on the 1854 map above to expand it, the Lassodie estate is there, in the days before the landowner had built any miners' houses. Also on this map is "St Margaret's Well" showing that centuries earlier, this area probably did have associations with those on their pilgrimage from Dunfermline Abbey to St Andrews.

In the 1930s the Reverend David Patrick Thomson maintained the church and manse for a while as an evangelical retreat, in the now quiet village. Scotland's one time Olympic athlete Eric Liddell was one visitor to the centre. Another visitor to the village in the 1930s and 1940s was a young Sean Connery whose gran and granda had retired to the village. Young Sean (at that time still known as Tommy) was taken on the bus to Dunfermline to watch the football by his grandad. Another former Lassodie resident was my wife's uncle Archie. He spent his working life as a driver, and was a keen amateur footballer. We have his runners-up medal from the 1931-2 Fife Cup, when his Inverkeithing team were beaten in the final by Bowhill Rovers, 3-0 after two replays.

Archie Notman (R). Driver and one time footballer. Picnic in Dunning Glen

For a short while at the start of World War 2 the quiet village became a place of refuge for people fleeing Nazi Germany. All the remaining buildings from the deserted village were swept away when mining briefly returned to the area. St Ninian's open cast mine operated here in the 1960s, and then again from the late 1990s until 2013.

On running along this way the village has completely vanished from the face of the Earth, but one thing remains. A slight detour off the Fife Pilgrim Way brings you to the village's war memorial, which sits now at the side of the B912. On it are listed the names of the 21 men from Lassodie that died in the First World War, and 4 men that died in the 1939-1945 war. As the memorial says "we will remember them". However it feels strange to find that no other record on the ground of the village that these men grew up in survives today. All but forgotten.

Lassodie war memorial

The Fife Earth Project or The Scottish World

St Ninian's opencast mine has now closed down, and the area partly remodelled by landscape architect Charles Jencks. Sometimes called "The Fife Earth Project" or "The Scottish World" the project was abandoned in 2014. By then he had created a sort of mappa mundi in stones, with areas where Scots have settled around the world in four imagined continents, and had carved out two artificial hills. One of the hills is fitted out with sculptures of trees and tyres, and a row of old mining equipment that looks as if it is a twentieth century henge lined up to catch the winter solstice. The Fife Earth Project is now a strange curio, and with so much empty land and not a soul in sight it feels rather desolate. If you look at his website, he had ambitious plans to create a major attraction for the area, which would have involved carving out a watery map of Scotland. As Charles Jencks died in October 2019, it seems unlikely his vision will ever be realised and you will need to look at his works outside the Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh and Jupiter Artland to imagine a completed version. Here are some pictures I took when I went to explore the area. It seems odd and neglected now, this vast swathe of empty land. The half finished artwork feels like some strange archaeological vestige of a vanished civilisation. It is all rather melancholy.

Kelty

After passing through Blairdam Forest the Fife Pilgrim Way then comes into Kelty.

Entrance to Blardam Forest

Kelty is one of the larger towns in this area, much reduced in size from its peak when mining was in full swing. A century ago the authorities were concerned about the negative effects of alcohol on the workers. So a number of towns established bars on the Gothenberg principle, a Swedish model of co-operatives which refused to allow credit, no gambling, dominoes or other vices on the premises, and they were generally unadorned. In return they could promise an unadulterated product for sale at the bar, and profits fed back into the well-being of the local community. The No.1 Goth still stands in Kelty but looked decidedly closed when I passed through town. A mural here marks the life of young boxer Connor Law from the town, who died earlier this year.

Totem pole, Kelty

An unexpected sight were several totem poles in and around the town. These were carved by Canadian aboriginal totem carvers who visited Kelty in 2005. You may be unaware, as I was, that Kelty was once home to an undefeated world champion. Robert Stewart became world draughts champion in 1922 after a narrow victory in Glasgow over the reigning champion from America (a narrow victory after 2 wins, 1 loss and 37 draws). His obituary in the Montreal Gazette reports that he "lost only 2 out of 8000 games" in his draughts career and retired as British champion after multiple victories "for want of competition". The table and chairs in Kelty's memorial garden are an appropriate tribute I think you would agree.

Sit and remember Robert Stewart. Champion.

Lochore Meadows

The Fife Pilgrim Way as it is routed manages to just miss several other notable former mining villages. A short detour will be required if you want to pass through the villages of Ballingary, Lochgelly, Cardenden or Lochore. I ran up to Lochore to catch sight of a notable Goth pub that was still very much in business when I passed, The Red Goth, possibly named after a famous Communist Robert Smith fan (or maybe I just made that up).

Red Goth, Lochore

Before getting to Lochore, we pass through Lochore Meadows, a large country park on the edge of Lochore which has Fife's largest loch in the shape of Loch Ore. 'The Meadies' as it is more commonly known, is now an area of grass, hills and lakes used for dog-walking, outdoor pursuits and sports, but it is all laid out on land reclaimed from former mines and pit bings. A few mementos of the former industry of this site still exist, but you have to seek them out. (This short film shows the extent of the work that had to be carried out here to create the park-> Lochore Meadows Reclamation.)

Still from amateur footage early 1970s of pit bings at Lochore being landscaped

Canoeists and dog walkers are what can be found now in Lochore Meadows

Some memorials to the mining heritage of the area exist, in some subtle ways. The children's playpark consists of several hillocks, and each represents a pit from the area - the tree house below represents the Nellie Pit for example. The cafe and community building is called the Willie Clarke Centre, after Fife's longest serving Communist councillor, who just died last week. He had served as a councillor for over 40 years. He had began working as a miner in 1949 aged 14, and he was elected as the councillor for the Benarty ward in 1973, representing the Communist Party. Fife has a strong history of elected Communist representatives, founded in the radical history of the miners here, who had to fight for every advance in their conditions. We will come back to this in the next part of the Fife Pilgrim Way as we continue through mining areas.

Playpark at Lochore Meadows

Willie Clarke Centre, Lochore Meadows, Fife

The concrete headframe and winding wheels of No. 2 Mary pit stand beside the visitor centre at Lochore Meadows, beside a decaying NCB steam engine. Like other pits in Fife and elsewhere, the work of the miners was never safe and a board nearby lists the names of the 78 men who lost their lives in the Mary colliery that worked here from 1902 until 1966. Apart from maybe fishermen and soldiers it is hard to think of any other profession where death is accepted as an occupational hazard.

The concrete headframe of No. 2 Mary pit, Lochore

A small plaque stands opposite the Willie Clarke Centre to commemorate the miners strike of 35 years ago that effectively marked the end of mining in the UK. It reads "Erected by the Scottish people in recognition of the struggle by Fife miners and their families during the year long strike 1984-1985".

Small plaque commemorating the miners strike of 1984-85

Nothing was put in place to succeed the mines when they all closed down. Thousands of skilled workers were abandoned and years later these former mining communities are still suffering. A report out this week (November 2019) shows that "Fife's former mining communities are being left behind the rest of the UK" with regard to unemployment rates, ill health and rates of incapacity benefits, both in former miners and in the generation that has followed.

Next the Fife Pilgrim Way heads towards Glenrothes, skirting past the delights of the Kingdom Shopping Centre for the more traditional pleasures of Leslie and Markinch....

Fife Pilgrim Way Links

Fife Pilgrim Way - Part 3

Lochore Meadows to Markinch

Lochgelly

I have been running these stages of The Fife Pilgrim Way whenever I get the chance. I live in Glasgow so am relying on public transport to get me to and from different starting and finishing points. Lochore isn't easy to get to from here, so I have started 1 mile further down the road in Lochgelly, where there is a train station. The eccentricities of ScotRail's Fife Circle timetable meant that it wasn't as easy to get a few miles back down the track from Markinch as I'd imagined, but nonetheless it gave me the chance to have a quick stoat about Lochgelly. This suited me just fine as my wife's grandparents lived in Lochgelly, and it is a place that I have not been to for a while. Jimmy Herd started working down the mines here at the age of 14 and worked underground for over 50 years. He spent many years in the dangerous job of setting the explosives to break up the coal seam.

My mother-in-law as a child, a coal miner's daughter

After Jimmy had retired in the early 1980s, and given up on blowing things up, he turned his hand to making things. He would turn his hand to anything; conservatories, garages, swing seats, and even garden strimmers made from re-purposed washing machine motors. His finest piece I think was the violin he decided to make I think than for no other reason than to see if he could, which is a thing of beauty.

Jimmy with his violin, ready for a final varnish

Lochgelly has a longer history than some of the other mining towns nearby, already a noted town for weavers in the 1600s before iron ore and coal extraction began 200 years later. When the nearby Jenny Pit closed in 1957, and the Nellie closed in 1965 there was still plenty of work nearby for the miners of Lochgelly. Jimmy ended his working life in the Seafield Colliery at Kirkcaldy, which extended under the River Forth. Seafield Colliery closed in 1988.

Today the only miner in Lochgelly stands in Lochgelly Square, a statue by David Annand of a miner supporting pit props which have lines of poetry, "God The Miner", on them from William Hershaw.

Lochgelly sculpture

Radical Politics

Just like my mother-in-law, another coal miner's daughter from Lochgelly was Jennie Lee. Born in 1904 she left Beath High School and headed for Edinburgh University, initially for teacher training. She was a socialist, like several other members of her family, and her grandfather was a friend of Keir Hardie, who later became leader of the ILP.

1929 election card, Jennie Lee

In 1879 the 23 year old Keir Hardie was elected leader of the National Conference of miners at a meeting in Dunfermline, and led several local strikes against mine owners who were forcing a reduction in miners' wages that year. Jennie joined the ILP (The Independent Labour Party, the forerunner of the modern Labour Party) and was elected to parliament as their candidate in a by-election in North Lanarkshire in 1929. At that time she became the youngest MP in the House of Commons, aged 24 in an era when women under the age of 30 were not allowed to vote. Her first time in parliament overlapped with that of my great-uncle Robert Climie, who was the ILP MP for Kilmarnock until he died in October 1929.

In 1933 she married Welsh Labour MP Aneurin Bevin, and she was re-elected into parliament in 1945 for the Labour Party. She remained an out-spoken left-winger throughout her political career, and is most well-known for creating the Open University in the 1960s, when she was the first Minister of State for Education in Harold Wilson's government. The OU's goals were to offer education to those who had not had the opportunity to gain access to traditional universities. Appropriately the library in Lochgelly is now called the Jenny Lee Library.

Jennie Lee Library, Lochgelly

At Lochore Meadows the visitor centre is named after Willie Clarke. As I write this in November 2019, Willie Clarke has just died a couple of weeks ago, Britain's last Communist local councillor. Born in 1935 in Glencraig near Lochgelly he was a former miner, starting work when he was 14, and had been a trade unionist in the mines. For 43 years he was the councillor for Ballingry, standing on behalf of the Communist Party. In 1973, when he was first elected, there were 12 Communist councillors elected to the Lochgelly and Cowdenbeath Council. Before this West Fife had been represented in Parliament by the last Communist MP in Britain, Willie Gallacher. He was born in Paisley and worked in the Albion Motor Works in Glasgow. He was influenced by John MacLean and in January 1919 was one of the organisers of a mass strike to demand a 40 hour week in Glasgow. This had sent the authorities into a panic as crowds in George Square raised the red flag. He was arrested and spent 5 months in prison at this time. In 1935 he was elected as the Communist Member of Parliament for West Fife after several previous unsuccessful attempts elsewhere. The West Fife constituency covered the area from Culross to Kirkaldy, taking in Lochgelly, Leslie and Markinch. He remained the MP for the area until 1950.

Willie Gallacher MP

When miners'wages had almost halved in the 7 years since the end of World War 1 a general strike was called in 1926. Although the general strike was called off by the TUC after 9 days, many miners remained on strike for months, showing that that their unions had the power to organise over 1 million men across the whole of the UK into action. In the 1960s when many of the pits in Fife were closing down, again the miners fought against the loss of their jobs, and a delegation of Lochgelly miners marched to London in the early 1960s in protest. The coal industry in Britain was killed off in the 1980s under Margaret Thatcher's government. The 1984 miners strike started in Fife a month before it spread elsewhere. After a belt broke in the Frances colliery in Dysart, miners were sent home from work and the miners of Frances and Seafield collieries walked out to defend their jobs. The miners strike led by the NUM lasted over a year, and became increasingly brutal as time went on. The subsequent closure of mines in Fife led to permanent change in the communities and the landscape of this part of Scotland.

Lochgelly to Lochore Meadows

So, that's the part of the world The Fife Pilgrim Way now heads through. Trotting a mile up the road to Lochore Meadows from Lochgelly you first pass the site of the Nellie Pit, now a small industrial estate. The site of Williie Clarke's home village, Glencraig, is just along the road from here. Little of it now remains, and people began to be moved out in the 1940s to the new model village of Ballingry up the road. In 1966 Glencraig Pit closed, which led to the demise of the village. Glencraig Pit operated from 1896 to 1966 with an average workforce of 1,105 men. An information board at the side of the road here lists the names of 111 men who died in Glencraig Pit during this period. You see this again and again at every former pit, lists of hundreds of men from the region who died at their work, not to mention the many others who were seriously injured. The scale of it is hard to picture.

A football ground, Ore Park, home to Ballingry Rovers FC, and a memorial to a former resident of the village can be found here too. Peter Johnstone was born in Cowdenbeath in 1887 and his family moved to Glencraig when his father got work in the new pit here. Peter worked alongside his father from the age of 13, and was a skilled junior footballer with several local teams. When Celtic directors saw him play for Glencraig Celtic FC against Strathclyde FC in a Junior Cup game, he was signed to Glasgow Celtic in 1908. He enlisted for the army in 1916 during World War 1, and was killed in action at the Battle of Arras in May 1917. A memorial to him stands opposite Ore Park.

Ore Park, Glencraig

Memorial to Glencraig miner and Celtic player Peter Johnstone

Getting back on the Fife Pilgrim Way at Lochore Meadows, the first thing that greets you is the ruins of Lochore Castle which stands at the entrance to the country park. The castle stood on an island until 1792 when the loch was drained. The tower that stands there now is from the 14th century, but is on the site of a 10th century crannog that once stood on an island in Loch Ore.

Lochore Castle, Fife

Pit winding wheel, Lochore Meadows

A former pithead wheel marks the entrance to Lochore Meadows and from here the path heads across the countryside to Kinglassie.

Kinglassie

Benarty Hill and Balingry

Heading out from Lochore you get views back towards Benarty Hill and Ballingry, and onwards the Lomond Hills up ahead pop into view. Running along here a beautiful peregrine falcon flew just over my head, not in its high speed dive, but seemingly as curious to see me there as I was to see it.

A coo, and west Lomond appearing on the horizon

Around Kinglassie there is much evidence of the pre-historic residents of the area. A Pictish stone, Dogton Stone, stands in a farmer's field just south of the town, the remains of a 10th century Celtic Cross that, it has been argued, may commemorate a Pictish victory over the Danes around 900AD. When the field is in crop you cannot access it, and as I ran across the stubble to see the rock a small flock of meadow pipits rose up from the ground with their bright, chirping call.

Dogton Stone, in a field near Kinglassie

Dogton Stone

Churches in the town of Kinglassie can trace their history back to the 1100's, and pilgrims would stop and pray at the waters of Finglassin's Well which lies just north of the town. This well has recently been renovated and Kinglassie has definitely decided it is going to make an effort to lay on some attractions for those passing on the Pilgrim Way. I was drawn more to the home pitch of Kinglassie FC, and the Miners Welfare Institute and bowling green next door.

Kinglassie Parish Church, with ruins of former church forming an entrance

St Finglassin's Well, Kinglassie

Kinglassie Miners Welfare Institute

Kinglassie

From 1906 to 1966 Kinglassie swelled in size when the pit here brought employment. The colliery football team started the career of some notable players. James Bowthorne played at East Fife and Dundee, and later managed Aberdeen FC. Also Willie Fernie started with Kinglassie Hearts. He went on to play for Celtic and Scotland, and also spent some time playing at Middlesborough (he joined my team, Partick Thistle, in 1963 but left to play with Alloa without starting any games according to Wikipedia). He coached for a while at Celtic under (former coal miner) Jock Stein, before finishing his footballing career managing at Kilmarnock.

Heading past the Braefoot Tavern in Kinglassie, a former Goth pub, the path goes through the centre of town and then turns left up over a short hil towards the River Leven. North out of town, you get views towards Blythe's Folly, a tower on the hillside above the town. It was built by a wealthy linen merchant in 1812, and he watched cargo ships arriving on the Forth from it. It was used as an observation post during World War 2.

Foyle's Folly on the right, the River Forth on the left

Leslie

The villages of Leslie and Markinch nowadays merge into Glenrothes. I have been visiting Glenrothes for almost three decades and I am always surprised when I come across the old buildings or village greens here, hiding among the concrete and roundabouts of their much younger neighbour.

The origins of the Leslie family that gave their name to the town date back to Bartolf, a Hungarian merchant who came to Scotland in the 11th century as part of Queen Margaret's entourage. He was given lands by Malcolm III in Leslie, Aberdeenshire and it is from there that the family took their name. His descendant Norman de Leslie, was given the lands of Fettykill here on the banks of the River Leven in Fife in 1283. Leslie House was completed by the family in 1672, a veritable palace according to Daniel Defoe who visited, which burnt down in 1763. The replacement Leslie House stood until a few years ago, latterly run as a care home by the Church of Scotland. Sadly it also went on fire, a few years after the care home closed, and it now stands as an empty shell.

The chimney of a former mill, down by the River Leven below Leslie

In the 1800s the River Leven powered mills in the town here, and at Markinch, producing lint, linen, cotton, flax and even snuff. Production increased with steam power and in 1861 the handsome Cabbagehall Viaduct brought the railway to Leslie. When the textile mills closed down paper mills replaced them here and in Markinch, Tulliss Russell being one of the largest. Now these have largely gone the way of the linen mills. Solitary brick chimneys are all that remain of some of the former mills. In the town The Bull Stone (below) stands in the village green at Leslie, behind the war memorial. It was apparently used for tethering bulls (hence the groove in the stone) when crowds assembled to watch some bull baiting. Since 1805 the sport of setting dogs against bulls has been banned, but for hundreds of years before it was a common form of entertainment.

The Bull Stone, Leslie

The Fife Pilgrim Way then leaves Leslie and crosses the Cabbagehall Railway Viaduct, going straight through the green ribbon of the Riverside Park without ever really emerging onto the streets of Glenrothes.

Cabbagehall Viaduct, Leslie

Glenrothes

The Riverside Park (usually known as The Town Park) is a place that I have been to many times with my children. Before that my wife grew up in Glenrothes, and was a reluctant cross-country runner in the park when at school. Glenrothes is one of the five post-war New Towns built in Scotland. (Can you name the other four? Bonus points if you know the name of the sixth one planned for Lanarkshire that was never built - answers at the bottom).

New Towns are towns laid out and planned from scratch, and are certainly not new. Construction of Edinburgh's New Town began in 1767 and New Lanark a couple of decades later. Glenrothes was part of the wave of New Towns devised as a response to overcrowding and dilapidated housing in some British cities post-World War 2. It is now home to almost 40,000 people. It was designed to house workers for the newly established Rothes Colliery, officially opened by the Queen in 1958 in one of the most incongruous photo opportunities ever.

The Queen blending in with the local on her visit to Rothes Colliery in 1958

As had been predicted by many older miners in Fife the pit was not a success and was forced to close in 1964 due to geological faults and unmanageable flooding. Electronics and manufacturing industries moved into the town to join the paper mills at Leslie and Markinch as the main employers.

Irises by a roundabout in Glenrothes

Going through Glenrothes much public art is always on display. Some of it may be familiar to Glaswegians like me, such as the sculpture of irises above that sit by a roundabout. They were built in 1988 as part of Glenrothes's contribution to the Glasgow Garden Festival by the town artist at the time, Malcolm Robertson, and afterwards returned home. Glenrothes took an original approach to creating a sense of identity for its residents in the 1960s by appointing a "town artist". It was such a success that it is a model that has been copied around the world. Often working with the same materials that had been used to build the housing and being inspired by local history (such as "The Henge", a row of concrete standing stones) these pieces of public art are often humorous or involved input from local residents and schools. The first town artist, David Harding, later went on to develop the department of Enviromental Art at Glasgow School of Art which has since produced several Turner Prize winning artists.

Concrete hippos at a pond in Glenrothes Riverside Park

Hippo going to inspect a newly created labyrinth in the grass

Within Riverside Park one of the hippos appears to be ready to try walking around a newly created labyrinth. This was the idea of St Columba's Parish Church in the town, inspired by the labyrinth in Chartres Cathedral. Labyrinths have often featured on pilgrimages, and the idea is that you walk your way slowly around the whorls, quietly praying or contemplating.

At Balfarg the path crosses through an area of housing before heading into Balbirnie Park. Here it takes the chance to pass some art work from the people that lived hereabouts 6000 years ago, Neolithic farmers who were spreading across Fife. Balfarg Henge is a curious structure, incongruously sitting amongst a suburban housing scheme. There are two upright stones that would have once been part of a larger circle, and a 60 meter diameter ditch surrounding them. Stakes mark out the positions of timber posts that were discovered at excavation. Cremation goods and a later burial from 2000BC have also been found here. I quite like the idea of contemporary families living and playing amidst the evidence of their ancestors, rather than all our history being put up upon a special pedestal marked "Do Not Touch".

Balfarg Henge

Just around the corner in Balbirnie Park lies the Balbirnie Stone Circle, which was moved to its current site when a road was widened nearby. It is thought to have been a site of ritual and burial, and had a hearth at the centre.

Balbirnie Stone Circle

Markinch

The path then skirts past Balbirnie House and out from Balbirnie Park into the town of Markinch. Balbirnie House was built from 1777 by the Balfour family who had made the estate their home since 1640. Arthur Balfour, who was Conservative Prime Minister from 1903-1905 and drew up the Balfour Declaration in 1917, establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine, is a relative of these Balfours. Nowadays Balbirnie House is a popular hotel and wedding venue. The family made their money here from agriculture and mining interests.

The Stob Cross, Markinch

As you emerge onto the road to Markinch, above you sits the ancient Stob Cross, a weathered stone cross, thought to be Pictish. The signs into town declare Markinch to be "the ancient capital of Fife" and it was thought to be the centre of power in Fife in Pictish times, when 1000 years ago there was a substantial Pictish settlement here. Iron Age agricultural terraces cut in the hillside above Markinch show that people had lived here long before then. In the 12th century the arrival of feudal rule in Scotland led to Balbirne and Markinch being laid out as feudal estates, gifted in return for allegiance to the king. Markinch Parish Church has a Norman tower incorporated into it, which dates to at least 1130.

Markinch Parish Church

By the 14th century Markinch was in decline as a centre of religion and power. In the Industrial era workers came to dig coal here and on the Balbirnie estates, and the River Leven powered corn mills, and later linen and paper mills. In the 20th century Haig whisky was one of the biggest employers here, with their huge bottling plant still standing on the edge of town. The history of mining in the town is old though. A gravestone that I saw at Markinch Parish Church marks the grave of Janet Forret, who died in 1785 aged 62. It says it was erected by her husband, a "coal hewar in Balbirnie", a pair of crossed bones on the back of the gravestone.

Grave of a "coal hewar"'s wife 1785

As well as Lochgelly miners on one side of her family, my wife has miners down another branch of her family tree too. The picture below is of Henry Wyse. He was born in Markinch in 1875 and later lived in Lochgelly where he worked as a miner. His father, and grandfather before him were miners in Markinch, and in the late 1700s their parents before them had come from Collessie to Markinch for work. Henry's mother was a mill worker in the town. Other Markinch relatives were employed in the Balbirnie estate, one looking after the horses, another employed by the Balfours as a wet nurse.

Henry Wyse, Lochgelly miner, born 1875 in Markinch

The Fife Pilgrim Way begins heading away from the major Fife coalfields now, into more agricultural land. The next stage is from Markinch to Ceres...

(NB New towns of Scotland- East Kilbride, Cumbernauld, Livingston and Irvine. Also planned but never built was Stonehouse in Lanarkshire)

Fife Pilgrim Way Links

Fife Pilgrim Way - Part 4

Markinch to Ceres

Markinch Church

Markinch to Kennoway

It was a grey and foggy morning when I left Markinch, and although the rain stayed off all day, it had been raining heavily for several days beforehand making much of the path muddy or awash with water. Much of the path in this section is along the grassy verge of fields meaning there wasn't much solid ground between the towns. It is November and that is what you would expect so I was ready for it, but I did enjoy a hot bath and a scrub at the end of the day.

Former Haig Distillery, Markinch

Leaving Markinch the path heads east out of town through open countryside, staying north of the road that goes into Milton of Balgonie. You can't see it from the Fife Pilgrim Way, but the striking red brick building of the former Haig bottling plant and whisky bond is the first thing you see when you drive out of this side of Markinch. It was once a big employer for Markinch people. The Haig distillery started prodution of its whisky in nearby Cameron Bridge in 1824. The grassy path continues through farmland here until it reaches Windygates in about 3 miles, with flocks of geese coming and going to eat in the fields nearby as I came along this way.

The path out of Markinch

Diageo still has a large bottling facility a few miles further east from here, in Leven. Much of the wheat grown in this part of Fife ends up being turned into spirit, vodkas and Gordon's Gin in Cameron Bridge Distillery just south of Windygates. Apparently this is Europe's largest grain distillery and it was briefly visible to the south through the fog as I approached the outskirts of Windygates. Just beyond it lies Cameron Bridge Hospital (or Cameron Brig Hospital if you are a local). Although this is no longer its role, it opened as an infectious disease hospital in 1912. When the first four wards were built, the old Haig House was used as the administrative block. This building still stands, and was built by the Haig family in 1849. It became the home of Field Marshal Earl Haig, who was born in 1861. The hospital was expanded in the 1930s, and then again in 1955 when a TB treatment unit was added.

Two coos and Cameron Bridge Distillery

The path comes to Windygates, where it turns north to head through the town of Kennoway. On the southern outskirts of Kennoway, to the right hand side of the road sits an odd hill. This is not a pit bing. This is Kennoway Motte, usually called Maiden Castle, an artificially created medieval mote-hill for a motte-and-bailey style castle. This has traditionally been associated with Macduff, Thane of Fife, who hailed from hereabouts. One tower of the more substantial Macduff Castle still sits at East Weymss four miles to the south. In Shakespeare's Macbeth play it is Macduff, who "from his mother's womb untimely ripped" kills the tyrannical king in the final act.

Maiden Castle, Kennoway

The real Macduff, like the real Macbeth, is difficult to unpick from the mythical character immortalised by Shakespeare. Macbeth was the King of Scots from 1040 (after killing King Duncan I in battle near Elgin) until his own death in 1057. He had made frequent raids into Northumbria, and it was the nephew of Siward, Earl of Northumbria, Duncan's son Malcolm Canmore, that replaced Macbeth as King of the Scots and became Malcolm III. This is the same Malcolm that moved the royal residence to Dunfermline upon taking the throne in 1058. Macbeth was defeated by Malcolm's forces at the Battle of Lumphanan in 1057. This Lumphanan is in Aberdeenshire, not the Lumphinnans in Fife near to Lochgelly, famed for having a street named Gagarin Way in honour of the Soviet Cosmonaut.

The Clan MacDuff website has Macduff, Thane of Fife as the slayer of Macbeth, bringing his severed head to Malcolm. Thane as a title is an early version of Earl. Whatever MacDuff's actual involvement in the defeat of Macbeth was, he was rewarded by the newly crowned king by being raised to Senior Earl of Scotland, elevating the MacDuffs to become the second most important family in Scotland, and granting them lands in Fife. It was a MacDuff that placed the crown on King Malcolm III's head.

Kennoway

Old weavers' cottages in Kennoway

A former mill sluice in Kennoway Den

Kennoway was a former staging post on the stage horse road between St Andrews and the coast at Kinghorn. It later became a mill town, with several mills along the Kennoway Burn. As the town was largely rebuilt in the 1940s to house miners for pits in the surrounding area, little evidence of the old town survives but the Fife Pilgrim Way deviates from the main road to pass some former weavers cottages on The Causeway. There was a proposal for Kennoway to become Fife's New Town in the 1940s, before Glenrothes was chosen in preference. Like other towns in this part of Fife that housed many miners in the twentieth century, the closure of the Fife coalfield brought unemployment and hardship to the town.

I took a detour off of the Fife Pilgrim Way to follow the path through Kennoway Den, alongside Kennoway Burn. The word den describes a ravine, a hollow with sloping sides and this Den was busy with dog walkers when I visited. Several footbridges cross the Kennoway Burn, the oldest dating from 1704. Some old wells and caves can be found here too and the Den Green, that was used to bleach linen in the sunshine in the weaving times.

The burn was pretty full in Kennoway Den after a few days of heavy rain

A colourful totem pole in Kennoway with mining motifs among other carvings

Henry McLeish, former First Minister of Scotland, grew up in Kennoway, born to a mining family. He started playing football here, progressing to play at East Fife FC.

Kennoway to Ceres

After leaving Kennoway the path again skirts the edge of fields, forests and farm buildings as it heads towards Ceres, 9 miles away. There may be lovely views on clear days here, there may not, but I couldn't tell you. By this point the fog was closing in and the path was very heavy underfoot. The last time I got into such deep fog in Fife was in 2013. Cowdenbeath were beating Partick Thistle 2-1 by the time fog descended and the match had to be abandoned. Partick Thistle won the re-arranged fixture, which probably saved our season that year, so Fife fog is filled with happy memories for me.

Farm buildings near Kennoway

Clatto Reservoir, looking very atmospheric in the fog

Clatto Reservoir once provided the water supply for Cupar, but no longer and is now used for recreational brown trout fishing.There were plenty of fungi around too, enjoying the damp conditions. I would love to know which mushrooms are safe and which are deadly, but as a risk-averse individual I think I'll just stick to buying them in shops. On holiday in Sweden a few years ago the farmer who was renting us a cottage told us to help ourselves to any mushrooms we gathered with the re-assuring phrase "most of them aren't poisonous." To me this phrase rings alarm bells in the same way as a light bulb that's not working in a horror movie basement scene does.

The path mostly runs along the field edges...

...but can become muddy after heavy rain

For the last mile heading into Ceres The Waterless Way was not living up to its name, but once you are covered in mud a wee bit more doesn't really make much difference. This is just a reminder that you are following a path in Scotland, where the weather can contribute to the challenges of any route.

Ceres

Ceres (pronounced as you would 'series') is a dwarf planet that orbits in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It is also an ancient village in Fife. The road from Kennoway to Ceres was called The Waterless Way, which I presume was medieval shorthand for "no service station for 9 miles". It did not follow the course of any streams or rivers, as paths usually did. The medieval pilgrims that came along this route on their way to St Andrews would stop for one last night in Ceres, weary and in need of refreshment. The current parish church stands on the site of an older one and marks the spot where Christianity has been worshiped for over 1000 years. Pilgrims would stop to pray and receive a blessing here before embarking on the last leg of their trip. In the 1500s Scotstarvit Tower just west of the village was built by the Inglis family, and is looked after by Historic Scotland.

Ceres struck me as a very handsome and well-to-do village, with many old buildings still being used and in a good state of repair. Those in need of refreshment can find it in the couple of hotels in town, or in the tearooms at the Fife Folk Museum, which sits in some former weavers cottages and the old tolbooth building by the Ceres Burn. The museum itself closes over the winter months. After the Hopes of Craighall made Ceres a Barony in 1620 it became a busy market town, and the tolbooth was built in 1673, a prison cell in the basement and a weigh house above. Standard weights were kept here for use on market days to prevent fraud, and the carving of some goods being weighed above the door carries the motto (or warning) "God Bless The Just".

The Weigh House, Ceres

Ceres is home to the oldest Highland Games in Scotland, which started in 1315, the year after the Battle of Bannockburn. It was organised to celebrate the men of the village that had fought there, and a memorial to the Ceres men that fought in Bannockburn sits in the centre of the village.

Playing fields in the centre of the village

Memorial erected in 1914 on the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn

An old bridge crosses the burn near to the Folk Museum, Bishop's Brig. The bridge gets its name from Archbishop Sharpe who was murdered shortly after crossing this bridge, in 1679. In the 17th century The Covenanters organised opposition to Episcopalian changes brought by the Stuart kings to their Presbyterian Scottish church. The national Covenant was signed by a large gathering in Greyfriars graveyard in Edinburgh in 1638 and their uprising was at times bloody and brutally suppressed, largely coming to an end with the rule of King William of Orange in the late 17th century.

In the face of Presbyterian resistance, James Sharpe was appointed Archbishop of St Andrews and Primate of Scotland in 1661. At attempt on his life was made in Edinburgh in 1668. His would-be assassin was imprisoned on Bass Rock and became a martyr to some when executed in 1678. In 1679 Archbishop Sharpe was making his way back to St Andrews. When his coach left Ceres, the group of Covenanters who had been informed of his presence, caught up with his coach at Magus Muir, between Ceres and St Andrews. His coachman was shot and Sharpe was dragged from the carriage by a group of nine Covenanters and stabbed multiple times by them.

Bishop's Brig, Ceres

Another curio in the town is the statue known as The Provost, though it looks more like a Toby Jug. He was hidden behind a lorry whilst some builders put up scaffolding when I passed. The work of local stonemason John Howie, born in 1820, it is meant to be a likeness of "the Provost of Ceres", the Reverend Thomas Buchanan, minister of Ceres from 1578-1599.

The Provost, Ceres

I will definitely make an effort to come back in the summertime to see Ceres and visit the museum, it looks a perfect place for a lazy stroll and a pub lunch. I would also like to come back to visit the shop of potter Griselda Hill, who works here producing Weymss Ware. Another time. For now it was a case of getting back to Glasgow. I haven't quite got my head around all the intricacies of the Fife public transport system, but I decided that for me the speediest way to get home was to grab a roll and a can of ginger from the Spar on the Main Street and walk the three miles to Cupar to catch the hourly train service south. A pavement and less fog on the road would have made it a more relaxing walk.

The road to Cupar.

Next time it is the last leg of the Fife Pilgrim Way, Ceres to St Andrews.

Fife Pilgrim Way Links

Fife Pilgrim Way - Part 5

Ceres to St Andrews

Bishop's Bridge, Ceres

Ceres to Craigtoun

A week is a long time in the Scottish weather calendar, and whereas last week I was running through mud, a hard frost had frozen the path and given everything an icy edge a few days later. The Bishop's Bridge in Ceres was looking festive in the frost, the last stop for Archbishop Sharp in 1679 before he was murdered on his way to St Andrews. Even The Provost of Ceres was looking Christmassy with the town's tree blinking away beside him.

The Provost, Ceres

The path heads east out of town, across farmland with inquisitive cows watching you pass by. A slight rise takes you to Kinninmonth Hill, with views stretching back over miles of lush farmland on a crisp clear morning like I had today.

"On yonder hill there stood a coo..."

Fife farmland on the way from Ceres to St Andrews

The Fife Pilgrim Way comes onto the tarmac road for a while as it makes its way to St Andrews. To the north above the road stands Drumcarrow Craig, a rocky lump with the remains of an Iron Age broch at its summit, overshadowed by a TV mast. I was going to run up to it to see what remains, and to see if I could spy Magus Muir and Bishop's Wood to the north, where Archbishop Sharp was murdered in 1679. However a motorcycling event was on the go at the Craig, so I left them to it and continued on my way.

Drumcarrow Craig

Bikes going up Drumcarrow Craig

In 1679 the now impassable Bishop's Road led into the woods here at Magus Muir. Later that year five Covenanters unconnected with the Archbishop's murder were captured at the Battle of Bothwell Bridge, and for refusing to give up those that attacked the bishop, they were taken to the woods here and hanged. Their graves stand there beside a memorial to Bishop Sharp. Scottish religion eh, its a bloody history?

As we come into St Andrews that, unfortunately, is going to be the theme of the day.

The path to Craigtoun Park, around the Duke's Course

Before reaching Craigtoun Park on the outskirts of St Andrews we come across the current source of pilgrimage to St Andrews. Golf. Whatever way you approach St Andrews it is golf courses that you will see before you reach the town. Hotels, museums, gift shops and cafes in town are all supported by the visitors who come to town wearing their uniform of one glove, polo shirt and cream coloured slacks.

In medieval times St Andrews existed as a town to provide accommodation, sustenance and locals selling trinkets to the many pilgrims that visited here to see the relics of St Andrew. Over a 500 year period from 963AD, visitors came to pray to the relics of this fisherman from Galilee. From the 1400s golf has been played on the St Andrews Links. King James II banned it in 1457 as he felt it was distracting young men from archery practice, and the ban was not lifted until about 50 years later. The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews was formed in 1754, eventually becoming golf's ruling authority and codifying the rules. To this day it still has this role for golfers around the globe.

On The Fife Pilgrim Way the first golf course that you walk past is the Duke's Course, named after another Andrew, Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, who opened the course in 1995. I am sure that those in the Old Course Hotel (that owns the course) may be having some second thoughts now about the wisdom of seeking his patronage. The path winds around the Duke's Course, through the trees at the edge of the fairways and comes around into Craigtoun Country Park. St Andrews first appears in the distance here, our final destination.

St Andrews in the distance, beyond the golf course

Craigtoun

The Craigtoun Estate was the property of the Melville family from the 1600's. It was sold in the 20th century to the brewer James Younger. At this time it is estimated that Younger's, based in Edinburgh, was producing a quarter of all Scottish beer. James Younger commissioned the building of a grand, Baronial style house, in pink sandstone. When Fife council bought the house and 45 acres of land at the foundation of the NHS in 1947, they converted it into a maternity hospital. But not just any old maternity hospital. It was designed to have the atmosphere of a guest house with a sun parlour, and two nurseries to take the babies away from the mothers to allow them to rest. It was here that my wife was born, giving her a birth certificate the envy of golfers around the world. Since the 1960s the country park in the grounds has been a popular attraction for visitors to St Andrews.

Craigtoun Hospital

Craigtoun Hospital continued as a maternity hospital until 1992 when the house and 330 acres of its grounds were sold to the Old Course Hotel. They laid out the Duke's Golf Course in the western grounds, but have left the house to deteriorate and it is now on the Buildings At Risk register.

The route of the Fife Pilgrim Way winds through Craigtoun Park. I resisted the temptation of a trip on the tractor that was taking a be-tinselled trailer around the park, and as the pedallos were frozen into the middle of the pond, I continued on my way to St Andrews.

Craigtoun Country Park

Craigtoun to St Andrews

The Den, St Andrews

Bogward Doocot

The path leaves Craigtoun via a wooded den, called "The Den" before going through another den, called "Lumbo Den". By now the path has reached the outskirts of St Andrews, but tries to follow a green route, passing dog-walkers and joggers towards the town centre. Amongst a modern housing development sits the 16th century Bogward Doocot, an incongruous sight. Finally the path emerges at the West Port, the gate built in 1547 to welcome visitors onto the ceremonial South Street that would take them the last half mile to the cathedral.

West Port, St Andrews

St Andrews

St Andrews is not a place I have visited very often. The first time I came was on my first holiday to a static caravan, with my brother, my mum and dad and a couple of their friends. I remember it being windy, I remember clambering about some old ruins and being told absolutely not to use the chemical toilet in the caravan, but to go to the campsite toilet instead.

Late 1970s summer holidays in St Andrews (don't worry, I'm sure it was fake fur)

Since then I have come to St Andrews to fly kites on the beach, to visit the aquarium, to hear poetry at the StAnza poetry festival and to finish a 10K race on the beach that was used in the Chariots of Fire film. Although we come through to Glenrothes often to visit family, St Andrews always seems just a wee bit too far away for a day out, and perhaps I have a degree of inverted snobbery against this pseudo-Oxbridge university town.

The distinctive old town centre of St Andrews today

What my flying visits haven't taught me was how big a part religion played in the creation of the town. Again and again on this Pilgrim Way, any story of religious history soon becomes a story of conflict and control. As a Glaswegian I wrongly felt that we had a monopoly on religious strife Scotland, but I was mistaken. We are mere amateurs.

The town of St Andrews as it is laid out now was created to accommodate the large number of pilgrims coming from all over Europe between the 11th and 16th centuries. Various myths have grown up about how relics of St Andrew arrived in this remote part of East Fife. In Scottish religious practice we have moved away from the adulation of fragments of bone and other relics of martyrs, but the tangible items that connect you with ancient characters still has a strange pull on me. When I was on holiday in Amalfi the fact that the local cathedral had a toe of Scotland's patron saint was enough to make me visit. St Andrew, as the First Apostle, is revered in Greek and Russian Orthodox religion too. As well as Scotland, he is the patron saint of Greece, Romania and Russia. Patras in Southern Greece has a church with a large quantity of his relics, but some are also to be found in St Mary's Catholic Cathedral in Edinburgh.

Relics of St Andrew in Amalfi Cathedral

Around the time that Christianity arrived in this part of Scotland, from Ireland, there was much transporting of the bones, hair and clothing of saints all over Europe, arriving in churches as a focus of veneration and miracles. One legend has St Rule (also known as St Regulus) from Patras in Greece being shipwrecked in east Fife in 347AD. Another theory is that the relics were brought from England by St Acca, the Bishop of Hexham in 732AD. Building up a long back story and miracles for these relics helped St Andrew to eventually rise above St Colomba to become the patron saint of Scotland, and move the centre of gravity of religious life in Scotland from the west, to Fife.

The first recorded pilgrim to St Andrews, then known at Kinrymont (the name reflecting the fact that it was the base for a Pictish king), was an Irish prince called Aed, brother of King Tara, in 963AD. Soon the reports of miracles were increasing. In 1260 the Chronica Gentis Scotorum reports tales from 100 years earlier of St Andrews.

"In that place by the touch of the relics, many astounding miracles were worked, and were worked to this day. The blind from their mother's womb received their sight, the dumb were made to speak, the lame to walk and all who piously spoke the favour of the apostle, were immediately, by God's mercy healed from the sickness that possessed them."

Once you put that on the brochure, people flood in. Queen Margaret was a frequent pilgrim, and the demand was sufficient in the 11th century for her to establish the ferry that transported pilgrims across the Forth.

St Rule's Tower, all that remains of the old church in St Andrews

By 1160 St Rule's Church was not large enough to meet the demand and a cathedral was commissioned. It took 150 years to finally complete. After storm damage in 1270 it had to be partially rebuilt and was eventually consecrated in 1318, with King Robert the Bruce present, four years after his victory at Bannockburn over the English forces. By now St Andrew was established as the patron saint of Scotland and Robert the Bruce no doubt invoked saintly influence in leading him to victory. The Declaration of Arbroath, sent in 1320 by Scottish Barons to Pope John XXII, invokes the high position of St Andrew as the First Apostle to make their case for a distinct Scottish identity, a people protected by a saint of high regard. By an act of the Scottish Parliament his saltire, or diagonal cross, had to be shown on soldiers' outfits when they faced the English in the 1400s, and his image began to appear on coins and seals.

St Andrews Castle, viewed from the Cathedral

St Andrews Castle

As befitted their increased power and position in society, the bishops of St Andrews built a palace, or castle, to live in to the west of their new cathedral. The cathedral rivaled any in Europe, 12 metres longer than the one in Santiago de Compostela that still draws pilgrims to the relics of St James. The town was reconfigured, with the processional routes of North Street and South Street, city gates and walls built.

The ruins of St Andrews Cathedral

By the 16th century the popularity of pilgrimage was falling away. The university, founded in 1413, was now a big draw bringing many students to the town. But it was the Reformation that turned everything upside down.

A fiery oration from John Knox in the exhibition at St Andrews Castle

After Cardinal David Beaton's strict suppression of Lutheran ideas, burning to death four Protestant martyrs in the streets of St Andrews, he himself was murdered in 1546 by Protestant nobles, stabbed then hung from the window of his castle. The Reformers occupied the castle for a year, inviting a young John Knox in as a teacher to their children, then persuading him to become a preacher. He gave his first ever sermon in 1547 in the Holy Trinity Church in St Andrews.

Holy Trinity Church, St Andrews, rebuilt since John Knox's time

The castle was besieged for a year before being attacked and destroyed by French canons. For a while Knox was imprisoned on a French galley ship, but eventually he returned to St Andrews in 1559. One of his fiery sermons is supposed to have so inflamed the congregation that they marauded down South Street and destroyed Blackfriars Chapel.

Ruins of Blackfriars Church, St Andrews

With the Protestants in the ascendancy the cathedral ceased to be a place of worship in 1560. Sculptures and stained glass were destroyed and the cathedral fell into ruin, the stones becoming a quarry for local builders. It was from here that John Knox fired up the Scottish Reformation. Although he has a statue at the highest point of the Glasgow necropolis, atop a 60 foot Doric column, his body lies in the ground behind St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh. John Knox died in Edinburgh in 1572. A simple brass plaque marks the spot, under car park place number 23.

In the late afternoon, after spending a beautiful winter's day in St Andrews, I headed towards the beach. The Martyrs' Monument on the front at St Andrews near to the Old Course Hotel, commemorates Patrick Hamilton and three other Protestant martyrs that died in the town, a suitably unadorned monument.

The Martyrs' Monument

Looking towards West Sands and St Andrews Links

The end

Despite visiting Fife for decades, spending a few weekends running the Fife Pilgrim Way has led me to explore much more of the history of this area. A history of saints, kings, martyrs and monks, but also of farmers, footballers, miners, communists, mill workers and family members. The scenery may not have the drama of the Fife Coastal Path, but the stories that I met along the way were not just a history of Fife, but of Scotland's people. I would heartily encourage you to go and have a look.

So where to next??

Fife Pilgrim Way Links

Part1A - Culross to Dunfermline - from Culross to Torryburn, Cairneyhill and onto Dunfermline

Part 1B - North Queensferry to Dunfermline - North Queensferry to Inverkeithing, Rosyth and then Dunfermline

Part 2 - Dunfermline to Lochore - from Dunfermline to Kingseat, passing Hill of Beith, past the lost village of Lassodie to Kelty and Lochore

Part 3 - Lochore to Markinch - Lochgelly to Lochore, then through Kinglassie and along the River Leven to Leslie, Glenrothes and Markinch

Part 4 Markinch to Ceres - Markinch via Widygates and Kennoway and then on past Clatto Reservoir to Ceres

Part 5 Ceres to St Andrews - Ceres, Craigtoun and then to St Andrews on the coast

At the end of last year I spent a few weekends running The Fife Pilgrim Way, a new long distance footpath from Culross to St Andrews. I enjoyed the challenge, particularly as it took me away from running my usual jogging routes again and again. So this year, to explore the rest of Central Scotland I plan to complete my run across Scotland, from the Ayrshire coast to the Fife coast at St Andrews.

This middle section takes me from the River Clyde in Glasgow to Culross on the banks of the River Forth.

Glasgow to Culross - Part 1. Glasgow to Kirkintilloch

Maryhill to Possil

I started today's run in Maryhill. It is a part of Glasgow that I know well as I grew up here, and played (briefly) for Maryhill Primary school's football team. It is well known as the home of serial under-achievers Partick Thistle Football Club, and less well known that it's named after somebody called Hill, rather than after an actual hill.

Maryhill Burgh Halls on Maryhill Road

Unlike assorted hills of Glasgow, such as Broomhill, Govanhill, Haghill, Dowanhill, Nitshill, Priesthill, Gilochshill and Firhill (among many others), Maryhill owes its name to a certain Mary Hill. When Hew Hill, Lord of Garbraid died without male heirs, his daughter Mary inherited the estate. With the completion of the Forth and Clyde Canal through the estate in around 1790 the land became more valuable, and the village to which Mary gave her name was established. Starting at Maryhill Road outside the Burgh Halls I headed up Lochburn Road towards the canal. Lochburn Park on the right here is home to Maryhill FC, a juniors team founded in 1884. After a couple of years of financial uncertainty they appear to be on a more stable footing after a successful public appeal for help last year. Lochburn Park is the only football ground in Scotland that I have been threatened with being ejected from. Aged about 8 years old, my brother and me were distractedly kicking the harling off a wall there a few decades ago instead of watching the football, much to the annoyance of a club official. Mentally scarred by this incident I have been on best behaviour inside football grounds ever since.

Lochburn Park, Maryhill

Maryhill FC v Carluke Rovers, February 2020

Arriving here at the canal a couple of hundred yards up the road, you will find yourself at Stockingfield Junction. You have the option of turning right and going along past Firhill Stadium towards Port Dundas, or turning left and following the canal towards the Clyde at Bowling, 9 miles away. What I aimed to do was carry straight on and follow the tow path along the canal in the direction of Falkirk and Grangemouth where it arrives at the eastern sea lock. At present, to head along this part of the canal you have to go under the bridge on Lochburn Road, and squeeze against the wall if any cars try to pass while you are under there. (When I ran back up today to take a photograph of it, a McGhee's bread van had got itself wedged under the tunnel in order to emphasise the point for me- see below). To make it a more attractive route planning permission has just been granted for a footbridge to be built over the canal, connecting the tow paths on either side, and creating a wee park on the Ruchill embankment, which is currently a small area of wasteland between Ruchill golf course, the canal and Currie Street.

Lochburn Road canal tunnel, and bread van

Hopefully the driver won't be well fired.

At the Stockingfield Junction the rusting remnants of a safety gate can be seen. Installed in 1942, this and two other sets of hand cranked gates at Speirs Wharf and at the Firhill Basin, were constructed to allow the canal to be closed at a section where there were few locks. In the event of a German bomb hitting the canal near one of the many aqueducts here, the gates could be closed to minimise the flooding into the Glasgow streets below.

World War 2 safety gate at Stockingfield Junction of the Forth and Clyde Canal

Forth and Clyde Canal tow path on a frosty February morning, near Ruchill

Once you are on the canal tow path it can be a bit disorientating where you are, passing along a green corridor with few reference points to where you are. The canal no longer has any industries using it to ferry their goods about and the long planned recreational facilities along it are few and far between. Along this first stretch Gilochshill is on the left, and Ruchill opposite, behind the council run golf course on the right bank. Sadly Glasgow City Council is threatening to close its six golf courses just now in order to save money. As I used to play regularly as a teenager on Ruchill, Knightswood, and Dalmuir courses (I know that last one is over the boundary in West Dumbartonshire) I will be really sorry if this happens, leaving golf in Glasgow the preserve of people who can afford club memberships and own a blazer.

Lambhill Stables

In the days when horses pulled the boats and barges along the canal, regular stables were required as staging posts to rest and feed the animals. Built in 1815 the Lambhill Stables building still survives, being maintained as a community hub. As well as being a centre for various activities I can recommend it as a place to get an excellent bacon roll and a mug of tea. It is also a good base to start the wee walk around Possil Marsh which it backs onto. A nature reserve and site of scientific interest, if you time it right you may get to see some of the 150 bird species that have been spotted here. The nature treks take you past the site where a meteorite landed here in 1804. If you want to find out more about the meteorite, it is on permanent display at the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow University.

Possil Marsh

Site where the Possil meteorite landed in 1804

Possil Loch in the middle of the nature reserve

Possil to Kirkintilloch

Passing Possil Marsh and carrying on up the canal you leave the pylons behind and soon head into the countryside on the northern edge of Glasgow. Bishopbriggs and Cadder lie ahead. There are few clues to the former coal and iron mining industries that this area used to support, and miners' cottages previously came down to the banks of the canal. In the photograph below the houses of Mavis Valley would have ran off to the right, which came and went with the mining. Starting with ten houses in 1850, it was home to 270 miners and their families by 1910. When fire broke out in Cadder pit No.15 in August 1913, twenty-two men died underground of carbon monoxide poisoning. Six of them were residents of this village. As mining declined in this area in this area in the 1930s the writing was on the wall for Mavis Valley. The Co-op store here closed in 1952 and in 1955 the remaining houses were demolished.

Forth and Clyde Canal, near to former site of Mavis Valley

Mavis Valley

Just beyond this, continuing along the canal tow path brings you to Cadder Wharf, where a few barges were moored on the day I ran past. Also, after passing no buildings for a couple of miles the surprisingly large Cadder Church looms up on the left which continues to minister to the needs of those in Bishopbriggs and Cadder. Nothing of it remains now, but a Roman fort once stood near here on the Antonine Wall almost 200 years ago. A church has stood on or near this site since 1150, the present church building was completed in 1829. One noteworthy former elder of Cadder Church was Thomas Muir the radical, who was transported to Botany Bay in 1794.

A barge at Cadder Wharf

Cadder Church catching the sun in February 2020

If it wasn't 9am when I was jogging past I may have stopped for a refreshment at The Stables bar, which is found at Glasgow Bridge on the canal, another former stables for horses that worked the canal. This also marks the former site of the next Roman fortlet on the Antonine Wall.

The Antonine Wall and the Radical War of 1820 (aka Scottish Insurrection, aka Radical Uprising) will pop up again as I get nearer to Falkirk.

The Stables bar on the canal near Kirkintilloch

Kirkintilloch looms ahead out of the mist of this fine winter morning. It is a town I have been back and forwards to over the past couple of years, delivering my children to various clubs and friends. I also used to get the train out here as a student when Woodilee Hospital still existed, but I have never spent any great amount of time getting my head around Kirkintilloch (nor neighbouring Lenzie where the train to Glasgow stops) as a town. The weekend after I ran here from Glasgow I ran the annual Kirkintilloch 12.km race to hopefully see a bit more of the town, only to discover that it starts on the edge of town and finds 10 hills around and about in the countryside beyond the town. Although it was the site of one of the Antonine Wall forts, it was really the industrial revolution that sparked the growth of Kirkintilloch. Weaving developed here, and with the canal and later railways arriving, industries could connect to the rest of the world and locally iron, coal, nickel and even small ships were produced. Iron foundries here produced the famous red British post boxes and phone kiosks until 1984. Like the foundries, the influence of the Temperance movement in Kirkintilloch has also gone. It was a "dry" town between 1923 and 1967, with the sale of alcohol banned on public premises during that time.

On the Forth and Clyde Canal, approaching Kirkintilloch

The canal basin at Kirkintilloch has been redeveloped in recent times. Until 1945 nearby was the site of a shipyard, specialising in small boats, such as puffers, barges and tugs. Due to the narrowness of the canal, these had to be launched side on. Nowadays a colourful crowd of barges fills the basin, which is overlooked by a new school building and council offices. The annual Kirkintilloch Canal Festival takes place here in August.

Bridge over the canal just before the basin at Kirkintilloch

The Forth and Clyde Canal at Kirkintilloch

For me that was the end of the road, after 8 miles (12.8km), and time to jog up through the mist to Lenzie train station and back to Glasgow. The next section of my run across the country continued along the canal, from Kirkintilloch to Falkirk.

Lenzie in the mist

Glasgow to Culross - Part 2 - Kirkintilloch to Falkirk

Last weekend I ran from Glasgow to Kirkintilloch along the tow path of the Forth and Clyde Canal. This week I continued upon my very literal cross country run, from Kirkintilloch to Falkirk. From Glasgow I hopped on the train at Queen Street, which takes about 10 minutes to get to Lenzie, and then jogged down to the centre of Kirkintilloch to rejoin the canal.

St Mary's Parish Church by the canal, Kirkintilloch

Kirkintilloch to Twechar

Soon leaving Kirkintilloch, the canal meanders through the countryside all the way to the River Carron at Grangemouth, just beyond Falkirk. The canal just out of Kirkintilloch is accompanied by the River Kelvin, which lies just to the north for about the next 5 miles. Beyond that can be seen the Campsies, a gently rolling range of hills that was formed from lava flows 300 million yeas ago. The Campsies have long been an easily reached rural escape for the people of Glasgow, and was where I first went camping with my school friends. The wee dusting of snow today is a hint of the Campsie Fells place in Scottish skiing history, where William Naismith made the first ever skiing expedition in Scotland, in 1890.

The River Kelvin and the Campsies, viewed from the Forth and Clyde Canal outside Kirkintilloch

The Forth and Clyde Canal was opened in 1790. It became a popular route for sea-going craft to get coast-to-coast, avoiding the treacherous seas around the north of Scotland. It was also used to transport cargo (woven cloth, timber, coal, pig iron, sandstone, and agricultural produce) across the country, and to and from sea ports, at a time when the roads were poor. With the arrival of the railways in the 1830s, and then over time improved road transport, the canal soon became an uneconomic way to travel.

Especially in Glasgow, there is still lots of evidence of the former industrial buildings that huddled by the canal, but coming along this way it is all now open countryside, a few former lock-keepers cottages and derelict buildings hinting at the former activity on the canal. The canal was closed to traffic in 1962 and when I used to live overlooking it in Maryhill in the 1970s it had basically become an open refuse tip. After much work it was re-opened to barges and boats in 2001 but there are ongoing battles still to maintain the funding to keep it open.

Derelict building beside the canal

Reaching Twechar I veered off to the right to take a short diversion to the local Roman fort. Twechar was a mining village. The first substantial pits here were dug in 1860 and mining continued until 1968. For at least 50 years much of the coal was transported away via the canal.

The Antonine Wall, marking the northernmost extent of the Roman Empire in Britain runs across Scotland from Old Kilpatrick in the west to Bo'ness in the east, and therefore runs alongside the canal for much of its route. Constructed around 142AD it was built, occupied and then abandoned by the Romans over a period of just 20 years. To the north of the wall was dug a ditch, 5 metres deep in parts, then the wall constructed with layers of turf on a stone foundation, with some possible wooden palisades on top. Along the length of the wall were built 17 major forts, plus additional "fortlets" which accommodated about 7000 men. South of the wall ran a military way, a road allowing soldiers and supplies to move swiftly along the wall.

Bar Hill Fort at Twechar is the highest fort on the Antonine Wall, with impressive views east and west along the line of the wall. Although it is hard to imagine today the impact the arrival of the Roman garrison here had on the people living hereabouts, the buildings would have been unlike anything the locals had ever seen before. The headquarters building here, the principia, had rows of stone pillars and iron window grilles housing glass windows. These can all be seen at the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow.

The principia at Bar Hill Fort, Twechar

Columns taken from Bar Hill Fort, now on display in Glasgow

The soldiers manning the fort at Bar Hill were initially Baetasian soldiers from Rhineland, and then later Hamian archers from western Syria. Among some of the archaeological finds were discovered north African style pottery, and it may be that some African soldiers had been recruited to the Baetasian ranks during their time fighting the Mauretanian War in modern day Morocco, before being transferred to modern day Twechar.

Gravestone of Salamanes

The gravestone above, now in the Hunterian Museum, was from Bar Hill. It is dedicated by a father to his fifteen year old son, Salamanes, a Semitic name, revealing the middle Eastern origins of this family. It is thought that his father was a merchant who had traveled here from his homeland to a civilian settlement adjoining the fort. Below is part of a gravestone from Bar Hill, a reclining man with what looks like a dog.

Roman gravestone

The bath house at Bar Hill Fort is shown below, where soldiers would relax and play board games. Other objects from Bar Hill Fort that can be seen at The Hunterian are beautiful leather shoes from a man, woman and child (400 leather shoes have been found here on excavations), and a wine barrel with a bung hole in the side found in a rubbish pit, with its owner Januarius' name scrawled on the side.

Bar Hill Fort bathouse

Roman shoes found at Bar Hill

Old wine barrel found in a rubbish pit at Bar Hill Fort

On an increasingly blustery February morning I imagined those shivering Baetasians or Hamians waking up for another day on patrol in this remote outpost of the Roman Empire as I jogged on east along the wall. Before getting back to the canal I followed a path from here that leads to Castle Hill, a rocky lump that was once home to an Iron Age fort 500-700 years before the Romans arrived. Getting back on track, I headed along the route of the Military Way, which lies just south of the Antonine Wall, and then via forestry roads to a path signposted for Auchinstarry.

The Military Way leaving Bar Hill Fort, the Roman road behind their wall

Path down to Auchinstarry

Twechar to Bonnybridge

Getting back on the canal path I arrived at Auchinstarry which lies between Croy and Kilsyth. It is now home to a marina but it is also where Auchinstarry Quarry is found, a popular rock climbing spot. Just east from here on the canal was previously found Craigmarloch Basin. Now overgrown with weeds it is hard to spot, but from the 1890s until 1939 this was the terminus for pleasure cruises from Port Dundas in Glasgow. Steam ships such as the Fairy Queen and the Gipsy Queen. A tearoom here catered for the day-trippers, who could visit the putting green, play in the swingpark or take a picnic up the short walk to Croy Hill behind the tearoom. Nothing now remains, although plans are being submitted to try to restore the nearby canal stables, which date back to 1820.

Boats at Auchinstarry Marina

Pleasure boats at Craigmarloch Basin on the canal 100 years ago

I took a short diversion off to the left here to follow the River Kelvin to its source near the hamlet of Kelvinhead, 22 miles away from where the river joins the Clyde in Glasgow. Here it is little more than a babbling burn. I have no proof of the fact, but the Kelvinhead local community website claims that the village was the place where the first potatoes were grown in Scotland, the beginning of a long love affair between Scotland and the starchy tuber.

Shortly after the Kelvin veers away from the canal we come to something that hasn't been passed on the canal since leaving Maryhill in Glasgow; a lock gate. The flat summit of the canal comes to an end here and we start to slowly descend towards Falkirk. The former lock-keeper's cottage, and stable block and inn across the canal have been converted here into private houses.

The mighty River Kelvin near to its source, at Kelvinhead

Wyndford lock-keeper's cottage

Canal bird spotting. Cormorant, traffic cone, oyster-catchers and gulls.

Bonnybridge to Falkirk

Continuing east along the canal path you soon go under the M80 motorway near to the Castlecary arches, and with the handsomely named Bonny Water to the north of the canal instead of the River Kelvin, we soon come into Bonnybridge. I had never been to Bonnybridge before, and unfortunately only knew it as the UFO-spotting capital of Scotland. Also I cannot help but pronounce its name in the style of "Stoneybridge" from the TV show Absolutely. A village has existed near the river crossing here for several centuries, but it was in the 19th century that it increased in size with people coming to work in the sawmill, paper mill and iron foundries that were being established.

In 1820 the last armed uprising on British soil took place, a year after the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester. A week of strikes and unrest led to workers marching in Strathaven, and another group marched towards the Carron Ironworks in Falkirk, intent on seizing weapons. This group , armed with a handful of muskets and pistols and homemade pikes, were led by John Baird, a weaver from Condorrat, and Andrew Hardie a weaver from Townhead in Glasgow. Both men had been soldiers in the recent Napoleonic Wars. On the outskirts of Bonnybridge this small group of men rested in a field, at a place called Bonnymuir. The radicals had been heavily infiltrated by spies and agents provocateurs and the government forces knew of their plans. At Bonnymuir a detachment of Hussars on horseback attacked them in a sabre charge. Realising that it was a fight they could not win, the Radicals surrendered. Several men were injured and rumours of others being killed circulated widely. The captured Radicals were taken through a tunnel under the Forth and Clyde Canal here and marched to imprisonment in Stirling. The "Battle of Bonnymuir" took place on 5th April 1820, almost exactly 200 years ago.

In the following months 88 people were tried for treason. Many were deported to Australia. James Wilson of Strathaven was executed in August 1820, and upon 8th September 1820 John Baird and Andrew Hardie were executed in Stirling. Hanged and then posthumously beheaded. A small plaque at Stirling Tolbooth, and a monument in Paisley commemorate their deaths.

Radical Pend, Bonnybridge

The passageway, or "pend", that the prisoners were taken through on their way to Stirling Castle was renamed "Radical Pend" in 1981, and a plaque above the arch was unveiled by Winnie Ewing to mark the occasion. It is one of the oldest tunnels under the canal still in use, constructed in 1780. After running through this I tried to find the hillside known as Bonnymuir. Unfortunately I ended up on the wrong side of the railway tracks here and had to take a circuitous route to it, but I got there in the end. It did let me run past some fields filled with Highland coos, and barnacle geese, which was nice.

Memorial stone to the Battle of Bonnymuir

Is this the Radical Dyke?

A memorial stone at the side of the B816 now marks the spot where the "Radicals took cover behind a 5 foot high dry-stane dyke...later known as The Radical Dyke". I wandered into the field trying to find that radical dyke. I don't know if I saw it, or just a pile of stones, but I am glad that Andrew Hardie and John Baird are not forgotten. I have seen James Kelman talk several times, at book launches and the like, and he almost inevitably manages to get the topic of conversation around to our lack of knowledge in this country of our working class radical history. In fact he has previously written a play about these events "Hardie and Baird - The Last Days". It surely is due a revival on the bicentenary of this Radical Rising, Scottish Uprising or Radical War. The events of that year go by many names but I would hope to see them investigated more fully and taught more widely.

Once I had found Bonnymuir I was so far away from the canal that I finished my run into Falkirk along the John Muir Way. This path goes from Helensburgh to Dunbar, John Muir's birthplace, and their website has lots of useful information on the various attractions along the route.

Finishing my day on the Antonine Wall I passed through Rough Castle. Little remains above ground from the excavations from the last century of the fort, but the rampart and ditch here are more obvious that at other parts of the wall.

Antonine Wall at Rough Castle, near Bonnybridge

The site of Rough Castle, little of it remains at the site

Continuing along the path eastwards out of Rough Castle, after a short distance I arrived at the mighty feat of engineering known as the Falkirk Wheel. The world's only rotating boat lift takes vessels between the Forth and Clyde Canal and the Union Canal. Due to a maintenance issue I understand that the Union Canal is not navigable from here to Edinburgh at present, but plans are in place to repair it this year. In the meantime you can still take short boat trips up and down the Falkirk Wheel if you fancy.

The Union Canal where it connects to the Falkirk Wheel

Falkirk Wheel

Falkirk Wheel and visitor centre, viewed from the locks that lead to the Forth and Clyde canal

I am delighted that the canal network across Scotland has been re-opened, and provides green corridors for people to enjoy. At present it is a struggle to finance the necessary maintenance to keep the canal safe and navigable, but I think that it is of benefit to the common good and worth preserving. Maybe I am just biased because until I was 11 years old my bedroom window, looked down into the canal and Maryhill Road. Running along it today I enjoyed learning about the people that have worked, played, fought and rebelled along this quiet strip of greenery, and I have almost made it from Glasgow to the east coast now without stepping on tarmac for very long, or dodging any cars. Next for me is to find a route from Falkirk to Culross.

Antonine Wall at Watling Lodge, Falkirk

After a roll and square slice and a mug of coffee at the Falkirk Wheel visitor centre I jogged on to Falkirk High train station, passing another impressive bit of Antonine Wall at Watling Lodge, where the deep ditches of the wall are very obvious. One last Roman find to end on. At Bar Hill fort many statues to Silenus were found. He is usually depicted as an older man, a drinking companiion to Bacchus, and sometimes described as the god of drunkenness. It seems that he was a popular character with the soldiers. This wee statue of him below, which can be seen in The Hunterian Museum, describes him as having "an extended middle finger to ward off the evil eye."

A 2000 year old statue from a Roman fort in Scotland that seems instantly recognisable.

At the end of last year I spent a few weekends running The Fife Pilgrim Way, a new long distance footpath from Culross to St Andrews. I enjoyed the challenge, particularly as it took me away from running my usual jogging routes in Glasgow again and again. So this year, to explore the rest of Central Scotland I plan to complete my run across Scotland, from the Ayrshire coast to the Fife coast at St Andrews.

This middle section takes me from the River Clyde in Glasgow to Culross on the banks of the River Forth.

Falkirk to Culross

Glasgow to Culross - Part 3 - Falkirk to Culross

Falkirk to Grangemouth

Falkirk is a more historically important part of Scotland than you might imagine if, like me, you only ever come here on away days to watch lower league football. 2000 years ago the eastern end of the Antonine Wall passed through the spot where the town now sits, the northernmost extent of the Roman Empire in Britain. However, after a couple of decades the Romans decided that there was nothing here for them and they retreated back to Hadrian's Wall.

A millennium later The Battle of Falkirk in 1298 was a major defeat for the Scottish forces led by William Wallace, when Edward Longshanks came north again and this time hammered the Scots.

In the 1700s Falkirk was home to one of the largest cattle markets in Scotland, but 100 years later it was as an industrial town that it grew in importance. At the junction of the Forth and Clyde Canal and the Union Canal, its good transport links led to the development of many industries, particularly iron foundries, like the Carron Ironworks which used local iron ore and coke derived from local coal. By 1814 this was the largest ironworks in Europe, employing 2000 people. It had produced James Watt's first steam engine, and cannons deployed by Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo. This created great growth in the town, but by the 20th century, the decline in the local industries led to a decline in the town.

I ran here from Glasgow along the canal, so decided to follow the canal to its end when I arrived back in town today. After passing the Falkirk Wheel which connects it to the Union Canal, the Forth and Clyde Canal heads towards its eastern sea lock at Grangemouth and the River Carron.

Callendar House, Falkirk

Callendar Lake, in Callendar Park, Falkirk

Arriving back at Falkirk High train station I ran down through Callendar Park as a fine winter's morning was dawning. Callendar House here dates back to the 14th century, but was re-modelled in the style of a French chateau in the 19th century. A ditch of the Antonine Wall cuts through the grounds near to the house.

Having initially headed off on a wild goose chase up the verge of a B-Road that didn't have a pavement, I eventually got back onto safer ground near Falkirk Stadium. To me this seems brand new, but Falkirk Football Club have been playing here now since 2004, when Brockville, their home since 1885, was demolished and the land sold. To be honest, if it hadn't been demolished, it looked like it was going to fall down by then, after decades of neglect. Falkirk where denied promotion to the SPL in 2003 due to their stadium not meeting the top league's (ever changing) criteria, which forced the move. Nine million pounds from Morrisons, who built a supermarket on the land, probably helped sweeten the move (not sure how reliable this figure is, but if Wikipedia says it, it must be true).

Falkirk Stadium early in the morning

The area between Falkirk Stadium and the River Carron was redeveloped as part of the Forth and Clyde Canal regeneration. When the canal was re-opened in 2001, a new lock into the River Carron had to be devised as the former route of the canal where it entered the river at Grangemouth docks had been obliterated by roads and housing. The new lock was less then ideal at either low or high tide on the River Carron and as part of a project to improve the area a new connection to the River Carron was devised and a park with cafes, walkways and play areas was created. The Helix Park was the end result, its most recognisable feature being the much loved Kelpies.

The Kelpies at Falkirk

The 100 foot tall sculptures recall the heavy horses that used to pull barges along the canal, but kelpies are also shape-shifting spirits associated with water in Scottish folk tales. These malevolent creatures would lure you towards them, either in the form of a horse or a young woman. Once you were in their grip you would be pulled to your death below the water.

The Kelpies were created by Glasgow based sculptor Andy Scott. His other familiar works include the John Greig statue at Ibrox, the heavy horse near to Easterhouse by the side of the M8 that welcomes you into Glasgow, the four armed woman (Arria) near the M80 at Cumbernauld and the new sculpture of Charles Rennie Mackintosh sitting atop one of his distinctive chairs in Anderston.

Lock gate between the Kelpies marina and the River Carron

The Kelpies

As you can see from the picture of the lock gate above at the River Carron, at low tide on the river the drop is too great. However at high tide, there is little space to allow any boats to pass under the M9 and other bridges on the River Carron. A short stretch of canal was cut parallel to the river to take boats further downstream to avoid this problem. Along this stretch The Charlotte Dundas Heritage Trail tells the story of the Grangemouth boatyard, where the early steamboat Charlotte Dundas was built.

Kelpies seen from the new stretch of canal after it passes under the M9 motorway

Grangemouth to Kincardine

Grangemouth grew up around the docks that were here, but now the main employer is the Ineos refinery and petrochemical plant. The chimneys, cooling towers and gas flares here, usually shrouded in steam, are a distinctive feature of this part of the world, visible from miles around. I was talking once to a guide at Culross, the historic and scenic village across the River Forth from Grangemouth, about what he thought of the dystopian vision across the water. He made me look at it anew, as he delighted in its lights and steam, showing that the area could still provide skilled jobs for local people, and that we weren't stuck in the past here, becoming a heritage curio.

Grangemouth refinery

He is right, but this type of industry is itself now becoming something of the past, like the coal mines that once were seen all across the central belt. They have all now completely vanished. In a world of climate change we need to move away from relying on fossil fuels, and create new technologies and industries. Government investment in order for us to get from where we are now, to where we need to be still seems to be pie in the sky despite the evidence of our own eyes that climate change is having an effect on our world already.

River Carron, west of Grangemouth

As the canal heads down towards the Grangemouth refinery, I headed north across the River Carron and on towards the Kincardine Bridge. This area of land has tidal wetlands down by the river and can be home to flocks of birds, like the many geese that I scared into the air today as I ran through here. Two horses gave me a disinterested glance, briefly looking like a Kelpies tribute act.

Kelpies or horses

Skinflats has got to be one of the best/worst names for a village in Scotland. Anyone who has driven across the Kincardine Bridge will know the name from the road signs pointing it out before you cross the bridge. Purely to satisfy my curiosity I took a short detour through the village before following the old paths down in the direction of the River Forth. Formerly a mining village, the pits have all now gone. However about 300 people still live here, amongst farmland and wetlands, with views across to Grangemouth. By the waterfront much work has recently been undertaken on what is now an RSPB reserve to recreate saline lagoons. This makes a perfect environment for certain terns, avocets and plovers and is a spot where numerous rare waterbirds can be found.

Skinflats

Grangemouth seen behind an old farm building at Skinflats

Path towards the River Forth

Not wanting to get too bogged down in the mud I headed northwards towards the bridges again, zig-zagging along various paths. As Grangemouth's chimneys faded into the distance, the tower of Longannet Power Station on the other side of the river came into view. Longannet was the last coal-fired power station in Scotland. When it opened in 1970 it was the largest coal-fired power station in Europe, and it operated until 2016. The site has now been ear-marked to become a train manufacturing factory, which is expected to open in 2023.

Grangemouth

Looking across farms and the River Forth towards Longannet

Longannet and Grangemouth on either sides of the River Forth

Two bridges now cross the River Forth at Kincardine. The original Kincardine Bridge was opened in 1936, thirty years before the Forth Road Bridge at Queensferry. A central pivoting section could be swung round to allow ships to pass up river to the port at Alloa, but this has not functioned since 1988. Due to increased traffic and congestion, a new bridge across the river was built here, and opened in 2008. The Clackmannanshire Bridge is in the curious position of the north approaches being in Clackmannanshire, the span of the bridge in Fife, and the southern approaches being in Falkirk council area.

Clackmanannshire Bridge with snow-topped Ochil Hills beyond, March 2020

Central pontoon on the Kincardine Bridge, looking downriver

Kincardine Bridge over the River Forth

Kincardine to Culross

After running across the bridge I had a quick stoat about Kincardine, basically because it is a town that I often drive past but have never stopped in. It has a surprisingly old feel to it, despite being sliced up by a century of major roads being cut through the town. The town itself dates back 500 years and was at one time a fairly substantial port, with ferries frequently used by drovers taking their cattle to market in Falkirk. At low tide the old jetty and the skeletons of some old wooden boats were visible in the mud.

Kincardine Bridge from the slipway in Kincardine

The rotting hulls of old wooden boats in the mud at Kincartdine

As I wanted to visit the old Tulliallan Kirkyard I popped into Marco's Kitchen, a cafe at the bottom of Kirk Street, where the key and guidebook to the graveyard are kept. Tulliallan Old Parish Church was built in 1675 and replaced in 1832 by a new church on another site, leaving the old kirkyard and church building like a time capsule. The local history group have made a great job of restoring the gravestones and maintaining the churchyard and their website is a treasure trove of information on the beautifully carved gravestones to be found here. Many of them have emblems of the occupation of the deceased carved on the stone, everything from painters and coal miners to farriers, sailors, tailors and foresters.

Marco's Kitchen, Kincardine

Old Tulliallan kirkyard

From 1767 a gravestone with an anchor, a weaver's shuttle, carding comb and stretchers, an hourglass, crossed bones and skull

A woodcutter chopping down a tree, 1787, with the motto "As the tree falls so must it ly."

Shield with pendants, lances and crossed flags. "Erected in memory of William Greig. Died 16th November 1805 aged 32." (A soldier/sailor it is believed that he may have died from injuries sustained at the Battle of Trafalgar, 21st Oct 1805)

Having remembered to drop off the key again, I was able to join the Fife Coastal Path and run along the last part of today's route to Culross while avoiding the roads. The path goes past Longannet Power Station just outside Kincardine before winding its way to Culross.

Fife Coastal Path at Kincardine

Longannet Power Station

Coming into Culross means that I have now joined up to my route from a couple of months ago, when I started at Culross, to run towards St Andrews. As it was such a lovely day I wandered out to the end of the pier at Culross, facing towards Bo'ness on the other side of the Forth. "Do not throw stone" the message reads to prevent people chucking bits of the old pier into the river. Before lunch in one of the town's cafes I wandered back up the hill to Culross Abbey.

Culross pier

In the abbey the Bruce family burial vault contains the ostentatious monument to Sir George Bruce, who died in 1625, the former resident of Culross Palace at the bottom of the hill. This includes marble carvings of his eight children piously praying by his tomb. On a wall in the tomb is a curious plaque to another Bruce. It records that the heart of Lord Edward, Lord Bruce of Kinloss, has been deposited here. He died fighting "a bloody duel" in 1613 with the Earl of Dorset, near Bergen in Holland, "in which country the combatants had repaired, the one from England, the other from Paris, for the determined purpose of deciding their quarrel with the sword."

Memorial to Edward, Lord Bruce of Kinloss

Monument to Sir George Bruce, in Culross

So I have now enjoyed running from Glasgow to Culross, and from Culross to St Andrews. Now I think it is time to turn west, and head from Glasgow to the Ayrshire coast.

Glasgow to Johnstone

Over the space of several weekend runs, I have been trying to jog across Scotland, a proper cross-country run. Having now run from Glasgow, across to Falkirk, then into Fife at Kincardine, via Dunfermline and Glenrothes to St Andrews, it seemed only fair to turn my face the other way and head for the Ayrshire coast. Much of this has taken me through places that I have rarely spent much time, so it has given me a chance to find out more of the local history along the way.

On running through Fife I had come across the stories of women accused of witchcraft and executed in numerous towns and villages. Sadly these same stories were played out in Paisley also. On my way between Glasgow and Falkirk I saw the memorial to The Battle of Bonnymuir, where a band of working class radicals were captured, and later executed. In Paisley, Johnstone and Elderslie again I came across the Radicals' story. Where Dunfermline had the ruins of Dunfermline Abbey, Paisley Abbey dominates the centre of the town here.

Glasgow to Renfrew

As someone who has worked and lived around Glasgow and Renfrewshire over several decades I was on more familiar territory with the stretch between Glasgow and Paisley. Also when previously researching my family history I found many generations on both my mother and father's side that lived in this area over the past 400 years. I have ancestors who were fleshers (butchers) in Johnstone, farmers and hand loom weavers in Kilbarchan, muslin weavers, pub landlords and soldiers in Paisley.

Starting in Maryhill, where I headed off towards Kirkintilloch on a previous run, I ran the 13 miles to Johnstone on a slightly meandering route. To cross the River Clyde there are three choices. The nearest bridge to Paisley is the footbridge at the Glasgow Science Centre. A slightly shorter route can be taken by going under the Clyde through the pedestrian tunnel at Whiteinch, or the most scenic way is to go via the Yoker/Renfrew Ferry, which will cost you £1.90.

The cycle path and pedestrian tunnel runs underneath the carriageway of the road for the Clyde Tunnel. It used to have a reputation for being a bit dodgy, with urban myths about fishing line being tied across the tunnel to catch unsuspecting cyclists coming down the incline at speed. There are gates at either end of the tunnel and you have to buzz to be let in/out at either end, which is monitored on CCTV, so it's all very civilised nowadays.
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Clyde tunnel, cyclepath and pedestrian walkway

The Yoker/Renfrew Ferry

As a child I remember getting the ferry to Renfrew from time to time. My great-uncle Andy had worked in shipyards all his days and would tell us about the mechanics of the engine if he was taking us over. Before that my great-auntie Cathy had worked in the ticket booth on the Yoker side of the river. Only the foundations still survive of her booth, from the days before the Kingston Bridge, Erskine Bridge or Clyde Tunnel were built. The ferry was running back and forth 24 hours a day at that time. In those days it was f several car ferries that made the crossings "back and furrit", with a diesel engine that pulled it along the submerged chain. This old Renfrew Ferry is now moored underneath the Kingston Bridge as a venue, doing a busy trade in nights of tribute acts.

The ferry between Yoker and Renfrew has got smaller over the years, but still goes between the two points 7 days a week, carrying pedestrians and cyclists, and offering great views up the Clyde on a clear day. Plans have been approved to build a new road bridge here, ending the need for a ferry, but objections are ongoing whilst arguments about traffic congestion and whether this would be the final nail in the coffin for Clydebank Shopping Centre are sorted out. As some large ships still pass beyond this point on the river, the new bridge would need to open to allow river traffic to pass, in order to avoid a repeat of the 1996 incident when an oil rig being towed down the Clyde struck the underside of the Erskine Bridge.

Renfrew town hall, at the end of High Street

Renfrew is a town close to Glasgow, but very much with its own history and identity. In the 12th century a castle here was home to the High Steward of Scotland, a hereditary title that eventually became the royal Stewart family. Convoluted royal shenanigans have led to the title of "Baron of Renfrew" being bestowed upon the heir to the British throne, at present Prince Charles. In 1315, Walter Stewart married Marjorie Bruce, daughter of King Robert the Bruce, and their son became the first Stewart monarch, Robert II, a line that continued to Mary Queen of Scots (who took the French Stuart spelling) and beyond.

Numerous industries have come and gone in this area. The India Tyres factory at Inchinnan is now closed, and the sign outside the former employees social club on High Street is a reminder of that. Glasgow's first commercial airport was at Renfrew, on a spot that now lies under a housing estate and the M8 motorway. Its distinctive concrete terminal building was a thing of beauty, but by 1966 the runway here was too short for the new jet engine powered planes. Simons and Lobnitz shipyard in Renfrew specialised in dredgers and barges, but closed in 1964, and from 1946 until 1982 Braehead Power Station stood on the banks of the Clyde near here.

Although these industries have all gone several large employers still rely on workers from Renfrew. Glasgow Airport now lies just west of Renfrew and Braehead shopping centre sits on the former power station site. Other large employers near here include Vascutek, BAE Systems, Diageo distillers and the European headquarters of Doosan Babcock's engineering.

M8 motorway heading to Erskine

Renfrew to Paisley

As I jogged on through town, down Paisley Road towards...eh, Paisley, the road crosses over the M8 motorway to mark the edge of Renfrew and after briefly coming though Gallowhill we approach Paisley. A cairn here marks the spot in Gallowhill where a heavily pregnant Marjorie Bruce, daughter of Robert the Bruce was thrown off of her horse in 1316. She went into premature labour and delivered her son Robert before dying. After the death of Robert's childless uncle David II in 1371, Robert became the first Stewart king of Scotland. With a KFC and an Esso garage one way, a McDonald's in the other direction, and a council estate behind the cairn, I suspect that Marjorie may not recognise her old stomping ground if she were to return to this spot today. Other notable former Gallowhill residents include actor Gerard Butler, and former Partick Thistle player James Grady.

Cairn in Gallowhill marking the spot where Princess Marjorie fell to her death

Further along Renfrew Road sits the former administrative headquarters of Chivas Brothers, who produce one of the world's best selling whiskies, Chivas Regal . The company is now owned by French company Pernod Ricard, who are moving all their business from here to Dumbarton. Many whisky makers have had distilleries or bottling plants in the Paisley and Renfrew area, but global companies lack sentimentality and many changes have happened here in recent years.

Chivas headquarters

Chivas no more, despite the sign

Coming down Renfrew Road to...eh, Paisley, Scotland's largest town comes into view with the towers of Paisley Abbey, the town hall and Walneuk North Church visible in the photo below. The local football team take their name from St Mirin, the Irish monk who in the sixth century established a religious community that became Paisley Abbey. His statue stands outside St Mirin's Roman Catholic Cathedral in the town, waving on the Buddies.

Paisley skyline on approach from the Renfrew

Statue of Saint Mirren/ Saint Mirin in Paisley

In 1245 the priory at this site was raised to status of abbey, and with the royal patronage of the local Stewarts, it grew in wealth and influence. It is believed that William Wallace was educated by the monks at Paisley Abbey and after Princess Marjory Bruce fell off her horse and died, she was buried in the abbey. As the mother of the first Stewart monarch, Queen Victoria provided an ornate cover for the tomb of her ancestor.

In 1560 the monastery was disbanded with the Reformation, and much of it fell into ruin, a section being maintained as the local parish church. Extensive restoration over the past 150 years has returned it to some of its former glory. My favourite part of the restoration is among the gargoyles. As many had decayed away, in the 1990s stonemasons had to recreate them from scratch. They sneaked in a version of the xenomorph from the film Alien, who seems to fit in perfectly on a 12th century abbey.

Paisley Abbey

An Alien gargoyle in Paisley

With hand loom weavers from the early 1700s and then 100 years later with the start of shawl production in the town, Paisley has been synonymous with weaving, and with the distinctive teardrop of the Paisley pattern. The early shawl weavers were copying Kashmiri designs brought back from the British Empire. By 1850 there were 7000 weavers in Paisley, and the town became the biggest producer of these distinctive, expensive shawls. As fashions changed and cheaper versions became available from elsewhere, by 1870 shawl production fell away.

The main output of the large mills in the town was cotton thread. First at the Clarks Mill founded in 1812, and then later Coats in 1826 (who took over the Clarks' works in 1896) they produced thread for clothing factories and domestic use all around the world.

Former Coats Mill in Paisley, on the White Cart

Statue of the weaver poet Robert Tannahill

Two other things that Paisley is associated with are poets and radicals, and above is the statue of "Weaver Poet"Robert Tannahill (1774-1810) outside Paisley Abbey.

Poetry and radical ideas come together in Radical Renfrew an anthology of poems collected by Tom Leonard. When working as a writer-in-residence at Paisley Library Tom gathered the works of over 60 poets from their archives to demonstrate that "anyone can use the public library to reclaim and reconstruct their own past". In the book he ties the local history to the poems, and gives fascinating brief biographies of the writers. There are concrete poems and political poems, laments and epitaphs, songs and rants.

After the collapse of a weavers' strike in 1813, wages plummeted. At the end of the Napoleonic Wars destitution and poverty was widespread and some men returning from the war wanted to take up arms against the government. In England the military broke up a demonstration in 1819 calling for parliamentary reform, killing 11 people at Peterloo Fields near Manchester. A month before the 'Peterloo Massacre' 30,000 people had gathered at Meikleriggs outside Paisley. With Radicals organising across the country, Paisley was seen as a potential flashpoint. Curfews were imposed after rioting followed several meetings, and 1000 troops descended on the town to break it up.

In 1820, again revolt was in the air, but despite a planned insurrection there was no mass rising across the country. When Baird and Hardie attempted to march on Falkirk, and James Wilson led the Strathven Radicals marching in the Cathkin Braes, they were quickly rounded up and the leaders later executed. In Woodside Cemetery in Paisley, lower down the hill from the monuments to members of the Coats family, a memorial was erected in 1867, to the memory of the executed radicals. The poem carved on the side of it reads

Our heath-clad hills and lonely mountain caves
Are marked by battle-fields and martyrs' graves,

This stone records the last embattled stroke
Which Scotchmen struck at vile oppression's yoke.
At Bonnymuir, they trod their native heath,
And sought a warrior's or a martyr's death,
Sad choice! for their they found their enterprise
To claim or force Reform, by arm'd surprise,
Was circumvented and betrayed by spies,
And, thus ensnared in Treason's feudal laws,
Their personal honour in the people's cause
Compelled the fight which claims our pity and applause.

I don't copy that down here because of any great poetic quality, but because it illustrates how much this whole uprising, or insurrection, in Scotland in 1820 has so fallen from the public consciousness. Writing in 1969 in the foreword to a book on the subject, Hugh MacDiarmid complained that the people of Scotland knew nothing of the country's radical history, neither of John MacLean in the 20th century, nor of the radical uprising of 1820. He complained that "...in Scotland, where owing to the educational system scarcely anything of value in relation to our literature, history, national biography, or economic facts gets through the filter." In 1867 it merited a memorial, raised by ordinary people, but on the 200th anniversary barely a whisper. This is particularly surprising after the bloody events that followed the uprising, outside a prison in Greenock, when troops fired into an unarmed crowd, killing several people, but more on that as I head into Greenock on the next stage.

Martyrs Memorial, to the Radicals executed after the 1820 uprising

There are numerous interesting memorials and sculptures in this Paisley cemetery, including to Covenanter martyrs, and to Belgian refugees who came to Paisley during World War 1. A particular favourite of mine is the one below with an organ carved atop, which I imagine being played on certain moonlit nights.

Memorial stone in Paisley cemetery

Paisley to Johnstone

On a day that had me sheltering from hailstones one minute, and shading my eyes from the sun the next, I got back on track with my route to Johnstone. I ran along the Sustrans "Lochs and Glens North" cycle path to Johnstone, and as this route uses A-roads to get to Largs beyond there, I plan to switch along to Route 75 which stays off road all the way to Greenock.

National cycle path number 7 near Paisley Canal train station

Cycle path from Paisley to Johnstone

One more quick detour took me off the cycle path to the busy junction between Maxwelltown Street at George Street. This inauspicious site marks a dark episode in Paisley's history. Like the women accused of witchcraft I came across on running through Fife, the west coast fell under the same madness. Peaking in the 17th century well over 3000 people, mostly women, were accused of witchcraft in Scotland, and many of them tortured and executed. In Paisley one famous trial resulted in seven people being found guilty of witchcraft, and executed.

Paisley Witch Trial

In 1696, three years after the Salem witch trials in America, the eleven year old daughter of local landowner the Laird of Bargarren accused a servant of stealing a drink of milk. On being dismissed the servant cursed at the girl, Christian Shaw. A few days later she developed mysterious seizures and trances. When no medical explanation could be found and the child's behaviour persisted week after week the servant, Catherine Campbell, was accused of witchcraft. Shaw's accusations ballooned and eventually 35 people were accused. Of these seven were found guilty at trial and condemned to death. They were four women and three men, the youngest aged eleven and fourteen years old. One of them hanged himself in prison, the rest were publicly garroted at Gallow Green, their bodies burned and their ashes buried. Even after death they were defamed. To prevent post-mortem witchcraft they were buried at a crossroads, where sacrifices could appease the devil (Maxwelltown Cross at the bottom of Gallow Green) and a horseshoe laid to mark their grave, another lucky charm.

After roadworks led to it being removed in the 1960s the horseshoe was relaid in 2008. A new memorial citing "Pain Inflicted, Suffering Endured, Injustice Done" marks the burial spot of the Paisley witches. I risked life and limb to have a quick look at it, the very brief green man at the traffic lights not designed for any lingering, but I can't help feel there may be a better way to commemorate this injustice.

The Paisley Witches Memorial, sits in the middle of a busy road junction

Horseshoe at the burial site of the Paisley "witches". Remembered with lucky charms

Elderslie

Leaving Paisley the cycle path ran briefly alongside a train line before skirting the north of Elderslie. Elderslie is known as the birthplace of William Wallace. Born around 1270 he went on to lead the Scottish forces in the Wars of Independence against England in the 13th century. After defeat in 1298 at the Battle of Falkirk he evaded capture for several years before being caught, and taken to London where he was tried for treason. After execution his head was placed on a pike at London Bridge.

Cycle path to Elderslie

I did not know that there was a monument to Wallace in Elderslie so I veered off my path to follow the brown tourist signs that brought me to it. No tourist trail flags up the former site of the Stoddart's carpet factory, which was a later arrival to Elderslie than William Wallace. They produced the carpets for the Cunard liners built at John Brown's in Clydebank; The Queen Mary, The Queen Elizabeth and the QE2. My great uncle Andy worked on all three of them, and any suggestion that my granny's hall carpet came from this Elderslie factory is pure speculation.

Building remains at the site of William Wallace's birth

The memorial to William Wallace was erected in 1912, modeled like a Mercat Cross with panels at the base showing episodes in the life of Wallace. Archaeological investigations at this spot have shown evidence of an early castle being here, with ditches and suchlike uncovered. From the 15th century Wallace has been viewed as a national hero. The writing at that time by "Blind Harry" of The Wallace, a long poem extolling his virtues written 170 years after his death, has given us a romantic, idealised version of Wallace that lives on to this day in popular imagination, and in Hollywood depiction. An ancient oak at this spot is described in the poem as a place where Wallace hid from his enemies, and the oak was still standing in 1839 when it was depicted on an engraving. "The Wallace Yew" is the olde tree that still stands here, protected by a wee fence, although it is believed to be only about 300 years old. Unfortunately due to an arson attack in 1978 and subsequent storm damage and a fungal infection, it is slowly dying. The foundations beside the memorial are from a 17th century building, so about the same age as the yew.

Wallace Memorial, Elderslie

"The Wallace Yew"

The Wallace oak gets a mention in the history of the Radicals in this area. On 1st November 1819 the Radicals rallied in Johnstone against the government in London. Contemporary newspaper reports tell that they were led by bands, and carrying banners proclaiming "For a nation to be free, it is sufficient that it wills it", "Liberty the object, reason our guide" and "Against tyranny and oppression our lives we'll spend our rights to gain". William Wallace, thistles and Irish harps featured in banners and it is clear that many saw independence from England as the route to gain their rights.

The demonstration marched to Elderslie, where they halted beneath the "Wallace tree". The band played Scots Wha Hae and people fired pistols into the air and marched onwards to Paisley, probably along the cycle path as it avoids the busy A761. The authorities in Paisley were ready for them, with cavalry stationed on the High Street, sabres drawn. When news reached the Radical leaders of this, the crowd spread down the side streets of Paisley and dispersed.

Johnstone

Former art deco cinema in Johnstone

Johnstone was established as a planned town in 1782 by the Houston family, who owned the land here. Coal mining, and then cotton industries grow up in the town, with mills powered by the Black Cart Water which runs to the north of the town. One of the prominent companies was WM Paton Ltd, a shoelace and twine manufacturer. Paton's mill was possibly the first machine factory mill in the world, pre-dating the mills at New Lanark by four years. The factory stood until very recently, demolished to make way for a drive-through Starbucks. There is a wee local history museum which is proclaimed as the world's only history museum housed within a supermarket (Morrisons on Napier Street if you are interested).

At the end of my day's run I headed to the station to catch a train back to Glasgow, only to find we were having a train-replacement-bus day. The bus which just left the car park as I came into the station. Excellent. Hopefully the trains will be running when I return to continue onwards to Port Glasgow and Greenock.

Johnstone "train" station

That'll be the train replacement bus heading off...

(The books referenced above are pictured below. The one on the Scottish Insurrection was first published in 1970, and little has been produced on the topic since. This year with it being the 200th anniversary of the 1820 uprising a couple of new books have emerged, although I haven't had the chance to read them yet. Kenny MacAskill has just produced a book called "Radical Scotland: Uncovering Scotland's Radical History", and Maggie Craig has "One Week In April: The Scottish Radical Rising of 1820" coming out in April 2020.

Radical Renfrew. Poetry from the French Revolution to the First Wold war. Edited by Tom Leonard
The Radical Rising. The Scottish Insurrection of 1820, by Peter Berresford, Ellias and Seumas Mac A'Ghobhain

Running Coast to Coast - Johnstone to Greenock

Over the space of several weekend runs, I have been trying to jog across Scotland, a proper cross-country run. Having now run from Glasgow, across to Falkirk, then into Fife at Kincardine, via Dunfermline and Glenrothes to St Andrews, it seemed only fair to turn my face the other way and head for the Ayrshire coast. Much of this has taken me through places that I have rarely spent much time, so it has given me a chance to find out more of the local history along the way.

I have got as far as Johnstone now, just west of Paisley, and to stay off the roads as much as possible, decided to run along the national cycle path to Greenock, then Gourock, before finishing off down the Ayr Coastal Path as far as Largs.

Johnstone to Bridge of Weir

Cycle path at the outskirts of Linwood

I caught a morning train from Glasgow Central to Johnstone to pick up from my last run. My route took me out of Johnstone and along the southern edge of Linwood. Like many towns around this area Linwood grew with the arrival of cotton and flax mills in the 18th century. In the 20th century it became synonymous with car production, and with one car in particular: the Hillman Imp. These were produced at the custom built factory in Linwood from the early 1960s. The first Imp off the production line can be seen at the Riverside Museum in Glasgow (with the escalating Covid-19 situation I haven't been in to check it out, with the museum closed until further notice). The Hillman Avenger, and later the Talbot Sunbeam were also produced here. When Peugeot took over the company, all production was moved elsewhere, and in 1981 the plant shut down. As The Proclaimers sang, it was "Linwood no more." Mass unemployment greatly damaged the town, and redevelopment was slow.

The Hillman Imp. Made in Linwood

Leaving Linwood the cycle path to Gourock passes Brookfield, a small village which used to be home to Merchiston Hospital, but is now a growing estate of new housing.

Kilbarchan lies a mile southwest of here, where my great-great-great grandad on my mother's side lived in the 1840s, a silk hand loom weaver on Shuttle Street at the time. His home was a couple of doors down from the National Trust's Weavers Cottage, which is fitted out with a loom from that period. This was when hand looms were at their peak and there were 900 in the village at that time, usually a handloom filling the lower floor with the living quarters above. Handloom weaving declined with the arrival of power looms in factories, and the Industrial revolution. His son, my great-great grandfather moved to Greenock, where I am headed today, where he worked as a boat ranger. On my father's side my great-x8 grandfather was farming at Auchinames just beyond Kilbarchan in the 1650s.

River Gryffe, viewed from a bridge at Bridge of Weir

The path soon comes to the sleepy town of Bridge of Weir. It was early in the morning when I ran through it, so maybe it doesn't always look so drowsy, but I'd be surprised. As I know someone called Alan from Bridge of Weir, in my mind I think of it as Bridge of Allan, and Bridge of Weir as the douce town outside Stirling (which everyone else calls Bridge of Allan). I know I am wrong, but I can't disentangle my brain on this.

Bridge of Weir...or is it Allan?

As the name suggests, Bridge of Weir's origins are due to it being a crossing point on a river, the River Gryffe. Ranfurly Castle was built in 1440 nearby and there was a salmon weir here on the river connected to the estate. Small sections of castle wall still stand to the west of the town, on the grounds of Ranulfy Castle Golf Course. The bridge at Bridge of Weir was built around 1770, and stood until it was demolished and replaced in 1964. The road between Greenock and Paisley always crossed the river at this point, and in the 18th century increased traffic led to a larger road being built, and a bridge to replace the former crossing. Bridge over the weir, lets call this place Bridge of Weir. Imaginative.

Leather has been produced here since the 1770s, and still is today. When the benches of the House of Commons and the House of Lords were re-upholstered in 1989, it was with Bridge of Weir leather. They have also produced leather for upholstering high end cars, from the DeLorean to the Maclaren F1. The path I am on follows the former train line between Kilmacolm and Paisley and is dotted with various sculptures to distract you along the way. This old train as you pass Bridge of Weir was one of my favourites.

Bridge of Weir to Kilmacolm

Quarriers Village

As the path carried on in the direction Kilmacolm, I took a diversion off to the left to have a quick nosey around Quarriers Village. Glasgow shoe maker and philanthropist William Quarrier set up a village here in 1876 for "orphaned and abandoned children". He wanted to create a community for young people, in well-built homes, with religious instruction, schooling and work training integral parts of his plan. Over time there were 40 cottages, a schoolhouse, church, workshops and a training ship to school people for naval careers. Emigration at the time was seen by William Quarrier as a way to give the children a new life, and although questions have been raised since about the consent children could give, 7000 children from Quarriers Village were sent to Canada between the 1870s and 1938, often starting off work as farm labourers.

Cottages in Quarriers Village

Buildings of Quarriers Village

Although the houses are now private residencies, a small residential epilepsy centre still operated from here until 2013, when it was moved to Glasgow, still funded by the social care charity which takes its name from founder William Quarrier. A TB sanitorium was also built on this site. Although the houses of the village were grand and the principles upon which it was founded were undeniably benevolent, it is an incongruous place unlike anything else around about, and feels like it could be the setting for a particularly Presbyterian John Wyndham novel.

Statues on the cycle path

Back on the cycle path we pass another of the statues on the route. Known locally as "the soldiers" this is "The Lost Roman Legion" by David Kemp, who works with recycled materials, a nod to the Roman history of this area. South of the Antonine Wall, which ended at Old Kilpatrick on the north bank of the River Clyde there is local evidence of the Roman presence with the Lurg Moor Fortlet on a hill above Greenock. While this sculpture maybe suggests the lost Roman Ninth Legion, which was believed to be wiped out on a march into Caledonia, they appear to be carrying the standard of the Seventeenth Legion who were wiped out at the Battle of Teutoburg in modern day Germany, so a well and truly lost legion.

Next I came to Kilmacolm, which the Telegraph likes to describe as "Scotland's millionaire heartland". It can safely be described as well-to-do, and Kilmacolm used to return the only Conservative cooncillor in Inverclyde Council, in the days before boundary changes and the single transferable vote system robbed them of that claim to fame. There has been settlements here since prehistoric times and it has a long history as a religious centre, named after a church (or Gaelic cill) of Columba that was found here some 1500 years ago. Legend has it that St Columba and St Mungo met at this spot in the 6th century.

The reason that I took a detour into Kilmacolm was to take a quick look at Windy Hill, a detached house in the village that was designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and built in 1901. After the railway arrived in the 1870s, Kilmacolm had rapidly grown as a place for wealthy professionals who commuted to Glasgow to live in. With views over the Gryffe Valley, Windy Hill stands at the top of a steep hill and is still a private residence. Although it is a large house, with seven bedrooms, it actually looks bizarrely small among all the mansions of Kilmacolm, and is rather dwarfed by the pseudo-baronial building next door. It was Mackintosh's first building where he used rough-casting on the exterior, and it provided inspiration for his later designs for Hill House in Helensburgh, and House For An Art Lover in Glasgow.

Windy Hill, Kilmacolm

Mackintosh's designs for the house

Windy Hill, Kilmacolm

Kilmacolm to Greenock

Having satisfied my curiosity over a Mackintosh building I had never seen before in the flesh, it was onwards across the open countryside towards Port Glasgow and the River Clyde.

Farmland between Kilmacolm and Port Glasgow

I took the direct route down the hill towards the Clyde from the cycle path, which continues above Port Glasgow in the direction of Gourock. This was because I was wanting to see The Bogle Stane, in Boglestone. The housing scheme here was very familiar to me, as if I was running through the scheme in Glenrothes where my wife grew up which has the exact same houses. Who knew where Mackintosh's experiments in rough-casting and design would end up?

Upper Port Glasgow

Dragged from Loch Long, 15km away, by a glacier during the last Ice Age, the Bogle Stane stands at the top of Clune Brae, a mere shadow of its former self. About 3m across and only a meter high, this whinstone used to stand about 4m tall.

The Bogle Stone (or what's left of it after the church intervened)

Bogles are ghosts, and the Bogle Stone used to be a favourite haunt for a particular ghost who would jump out at unsuspecting people passing between Kilmacolm and Port Glasgow (one old story about it can be found here). Frustrated at this pagan nonsense a former minister of the area apparently blew up the stone with dynamite, and broke much of it down to be used for making curling stones and dykes.

At the bottom of the hill, Newark Castle sits on the banks of the River Clyde. Having spent a couple of centuries hidden away by the many shipyards on this part of the Clyde it now stands revealed, beside the only remaining shipyard on the lower Clyde. The "new wark" (the new building work) on the Maxwell estate here in the 1400's was the first castle on this spot, remodelled in the 1590s. So it's old. When you live in a modern city like Glasgow just up the road, you forget that there are these old castles here, and in Dumbarton, and in Mugdock Park, etc. on your doorstep, and that the layers of Scottish history are hiding under your nose. It is a castle full of fascinating stories, and interesting nooks and crannies, a lovely doocot and great views over the Clyde. Worth visiting if you are passing by (although its closed just now).

Ferguson Marine shipyard next door is a sorry tale. Having gone into administration in a dispute over two CalMac ferries, the yard is now owned by the government, but the two ships languish while plans for what is to become of them seem to be sadly lacking. It is a thoroughly depressing sight. The first shipbuilders in Port Glasgow were founded in 1780. Business was good after the demand for ships increased with the loss of the American colonies and the wars with Napoleon. Eventually the whole of the Clydeside from here to the centre of Greenock was a continuous chain of shipyards. The early yards built wooden ships, and the remains of the tree ponds, where tree-length logs were stored in the water to season and preserve the wood until it was required, can be seen stretching to the east of Newark Castle.

The unfinished hybrid CalMac ferry in Ferguson Marine's yard

Before it diversified into shipbuilding, Port Glasgow had been created as a port for Glasgow. As Glasgow grew in importance and influence in the late 1600s the problem of the shallow waters of the River Clyde became more acute. Greenock docks had been used to unload ships, and cargo could then be transferred to smaller ships which could come upstream. Various disputes led to the merchants of Glasgow arranging the purchase of 18 acres of land near to Newark Castle from then laird, Sir George Maxwell, in order to build their own docks. This rapidly became Port Glasgow and quickly grew in size. Scotland's first dry dock was built here in 1762, designed by local boy James Watt.

Meanwhile the big neighbour up the river continued to "build the Clyde". By building hundreds jetties from both banks, to make the central channel scour the riverbed with faster flowing water, and by dredging ever since, a river deep enough to allow larger ships upstream was created. Now the "Clyde built Glasgow".

All the nautical activity in Port Glasgow led to other industries growing up alongside. From the 18th century until the mid 1970 the rope works in Port Glasgow were a major employer, and their handsome building has now been made into flats. I am sure I can remember being driven in my grandad's car to Largs or Arran, and having the different smells of Port Glasgow (from the rope works) and then on to the sweeter smell of the sugar refineries of Greenock. Did rope works have a distinct smell? Am I just making this up?

Gourock Ropeworks

Port Glasgow town centre. Even in the sunlight it is hard to make this building look anything other than functional

A nod to the maritime past of the town, this sculpture "Endeavour" of a ship's prow cutting through the waves by Malcolm Robertson is found by the main road through town

The Comet was one of the early ships built in Port Glasgow, the engine of which can now be found in the Science Museum in London, as it was the first commercially successful steamboat service in Europe. One unique feature of the PS (paddle steamer) Comet is that the inventor of the improved steam engine, James Watt, traveled on her as an old man, coming back to his hometown of Greenck from Glasgow, and taking in the full trip to Rothesay. Sir Walter Scott also sailed on the PS Comet. Henry Bell, hotel owner from Helensburgh, ordered the ship built in 1811 and ran a service for passengers from Glasgow to Greenock and Helensburgh. It started a flurry of steam boat services on the Clyde that took people from Glasgow "doon the watter" for the next 200 years, the PS Waverley the only one still in service.

Replica of PS Comet

A replica of the Comet was built in 1962 by shipyard apprentices, and sailed successfully from Greenock to Helensburgh. It is now quietly rotting away in the Port Glasgow town centre. At Port Glasgow a sharp bend in the navigable channel up the Clyde is marked by the Perch lighthouse. So I used that to navigate my way down the coast towards Greenock, a couple of miles west from Port Glasgow.

Perch lighthose at Port Glasgow

Former warehouses and Titan crane at Greenock

For some reason the name Greenock seems to be impossible to pronounce properly by English broadcasters. Basically it is pronounced as "green" then "ock". Pretty easy. However, those more familiar with Greenwich insist on making it "gren-ock". As a safe anchorage on the Clyde, Greenock grew up in the 1600s as a fishing village. As the village expanded, merchants in Glasgow began using it as a port, until disputes drove them to build their own port. Greenock became known for sugar refining for over 200 years. Originally the raw ingredients came from slave colonies in the Caribbean, but later from elsewhere. It became a prosperous town, and that is reflected in the many handsome Victorian buildings in the town centre. The last Tate and Lyle refinery closed in 1997 and the caramel smell that used to hang over the town has now gone. Many of the warehouses remain giving a hint at the bustle that there used to be about the town, but like Port Glasgow, high unemployment in the late twentieth century followed the closure of many of the towns industries.

As I ran along the A8 on my way to Greenock Central Station, I passed by Cappielow, the stadium where Greenock Morton FC have played since 1879. As a Partick Thistle fan I have endured many a wet afternoon on the western terraces here, which seem to have been designed to collect 6 inches of rainwater about your ankles if it rains, and it usually does.

It is a stadium that I enjoy visiting though, it has a shabby charm, and I will be sorry if they ever modernise it to 20th century standards. Today when I ran past it was a sad sight, locked up indefinitely while Scotland starts shutting down in order to ride out the Covid-19 storm.

Cappielow, March 2020

Morton v Partick Thistle, August 2019
(I would say "in happier times" but Morton won 3-2)

I had arrived in Greenock, foot sore and weary after taking more diversions than planned. Next time out I would try to carry on down the Clyde coast to Weymss Bay.

Coast to Coast. Greenock to Weymss Bay

Over the space of several weekend runs, I had been trying to jog across Scotland, a proper cross-country run.

However, there are more important things on the go just now with the Covid-19 pandemic, and as I write, we are only just at the beginning of this. Part of the reason for me writing these blogs was to flag up various lesser-visited parts of Scotland, that can be beautiful, and always have a fascinating history. It was for my own personal curiosity, but I hoped that people would maybe use the blogs as a prompt to head off somewhere different for a Sunday drive, or a walk with the dog, maybe buy some lunch or a coffee when you were there. I fear people often overlook these places, and we quickly forget the damage that 20th century political decisions brought to various Scottish industrial towns. All along my route across the Central Belt of Scotland, from Fife to Ayrshire, whether it has been shipbuilding, or coal mining, sugar refining or car making, I have found community after community abandoned when the local industry moved on elsewhere.

The optimist in me hopes that whatever damage the Covid-19 outbreak brings, government will realise it cannot just let market forces pick up the pieces this time. So, enjoy a virtual tour of Scotland by reading my ramblings, rather than making unnecessary journeys at this time. As I have already run it to Weymss Bay, I will stop there and await further developments before heading for a pokey hat in Nardini's to finish my route. Anyway...

Greenock

Having now run from Glasgow, across to Falkirk, then into Fife at Kincardine, and to the coast at St Andrews, it seemed only fair to turn my face the other way and head for the Ayrshire coast. It has given me a chance to find out more of the local history (and my own family history) along the way. My last run took me from Johnstone to Greenock.

Having now got to Greenock, for this stage I had a quick stoat about the town before I followed the coastal path, which took me through Gourock, on to Inverkip and then Weymss Bay. My original plan had been to eventually reach Largs, then complete a 10 mile race around the island of Millport that I'd applied for but, hey ho! Another time.

Greenock and its distinctive Victoria Tower, with the river Clyde and the Luss Hills beyond

My great-great grandfather moved from Kilbarchan, where his father was a handloom weaver, coming 15 miles up the road to Greenock in the 1850s. On one census he was working at the docks as a "boat ranger". By 1867, when my great-grandfather was born in Ingleston Street in Greenock, he was described as a "labourer (sugar)". Looking at the old Ordnance Survey maps from that time, there were three foundries, three mills and two sugar refineries within a 100 yards of their front door. Sugar refineries were one of the biggest employers in town by then.

Sugar was refined from the 1700s in Greenock, but by the 1800s it was big business, while the tobacco trade had suffered with American independence. The port at Greenock, on the west coast of Scotland, provided favourable routes for merchants importing sugar cane from the Caribbean. This was being produced by slaves until the 1833 Abolition act was passed, and their sweat enriched Glasgow's merchants. By 1852 some 500 men in Greenock were employed producing 50,000 tons of sugar annually. Twenty years later, thousands of men (including my great-great grandad, Robert Speirs) were producing 250,000 tons each year, and supplying half of the UK's needs. Greenock docks were filled with ships from all around the world; Cuba, Brazil, Mauritius, the West Indies, and steamers coming from Belgium and France with cargoes of sugar beet for refining. As refining from sugar beet took off in Europe, demand for Greenock's sugar began to fall away, and slowly the refineries began to close. The last sugar refinery closed in 1997, the Tate and Lyle refinery on Lynedoch Street, although many of the warehouses built with multi-coloured brickwork that stored the sugar cane and tobacco arriving at the docks, still remain.

Former warehouse in Greenock

My great-grandfather was born in Greenock, but the family soon moved to Glasgow, where he trained as a plumber. His big brother (my grandad's uncle Bob) stayed in Greenock and worked in shipping. In 1881 he was an office boy in a shipping company. A few years later he had taken to sea and I have this photograph of him (below), taken in Bombay. The photographer's company in Bombay only worked under that name for a few years, so it dates the picture to the mid-1890s. The map of the world was covered in pink when he was growing up, with the British Empire offering trade, work and, in desperate times, opportunities to emigrate.

The dock at Greenock was where thousands and thousands of Scots departed their homeland. People left for a variety of reasons, but for many it was destitution that drove them to seek a better life abroad in Canada, the USA, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere. The years of economic hardship and unemployment in Scotland were also the years of high emigration.

My great-great uncle Bob. Born in Greenock, ended up in Bombay

Part of the municipal buildings in the town, the Victoria Tower is the 245 feet tall tower visible from miles around, completed in 1886. When one shop owner refused to sell the land he was on, the building was completed around his shop, leaving a bite out of one corner, faced with two blank walls (seen in my photo below). Cowan's Corner as it was known was cleared of the shop when a German bomb landed on it in 1941 but the building has never been completed as originally intended. The Lyle Drinking Fountain outside the municipal buildings in the picture below was gifted to the town by Abram Lyle, businessman and one time provost of Greenock. Initially involved in shipping and cooperages, he bought a sugar refinery in Greenock in 1865. In 1921 his grandson merged his business with a Mr Henry Tate to form Tate and Lyle.

Victoria Tower, Greenock

On the opposite side of Cathcart Square from the Victoria Tower stands "The Toon Kirk", or Wellpark Mid Kirk to give it its Sunday name. Built in 1760 it was the church used by a young James Watt and his family.

Wellpark Mid Kirk, Greenock

The James Watt docks, the James Watt Pub, James Watt College. In case you were unaware of the fact, James Watt came from Greenock, the man who supercharged the industrial revolution with his invention of the improved steam engine. The son of a prosperous shipbuilder, James Watt was born in William Street, Greenock in 1736. A red sandstone building (The James Watt Building) stands on the site now with a statue of James Watt where his former home stood. When his mother died and his father's company struggled he set off to London, then settled in Glasgow, making and repairing academic instruments. Walking on Glasgow Green he was struck by an idea for how to improve the efficiency of the Newcomen steam engine, but lacking finances could not realise his idea. He was introduced to John Roebuck who financed his invention (in return for two thirds share). Roebuck had helped found the Carron Iron Works in Falkirk. It was after moving to Birmingham with a new partner that his engine found success, initially in collieries, but then in flour, cotton and iron mills. James Watt died in 1819, aged 83, a wealthy and famous man having made his last visit to Greenock three years earlier aboard the steam powered ship PS Comet. In 1882 a unit of mechanical and electrical power was named the Watt in his honour.

Statue of James Watt, Greenock

When I ran from Kirkintilloch (where the Lyle Water Fountain above was cast at the Lion Foundry) to Falkirk (where parts for Watt's steam engine were cast at the Carron Iron Works) I came to the site of the Battle of Bonnymuir. This was the place where a period of Radical revolt in Scotland came to a head in 1820, and a group of workers were captured as they marched towards Carron Iron Works, trying to seize weapons there. On April 5th these men were arrested, and their leaders later executed. This led to other Radicals being rounded up across the country. On April 8th 1820 the Port Glasgow Volunteers were bringing five prisoners from Paisley, to Greenock prison. Expecting hostility along the way they increased the armed escort to 80 men and successfully delivered the prisoners to Greenock prison.

As the Volunteers headed back to Port Glasgow a crowd had gathered on Cathcart Street and began shouting, and throwing stones and bottles at them. Apparently the firing of warning shots over the crowd was ordered, but two people fell down injured. Enraged, the crowd turned on the soldiers who fired indiscriminately into the crowd as they fled as far as Cartsdyke, roughly where Cappielow Stadium now stands. The crowd gave up the pursuit and turned back towards the prison. The wooden gates of Greenock prison were quickly forced open and the five Radical prisoners released (all the other prisoners were left in their cells- this was clearly not the work of people intent on anarchy). The prisoners and the crowd dispersed before reinforcements arrived.

The episode left eight people dead, shot by the soldiers, and many others seriously injured. Among the dead were an 8 year old boy, James McGilp, and a 65 year old man John McWhinnie. A 14 year old boy had to have a leg amputated due to his injuries, as did a 65 year old woman Mrs Catherine Turner. (source)

A memorial now stands at the spot where the incident occurred, at the junction of Bank Street and Cathcart Street. The 200th anniversary of this episode on 8th April 2020 will largely pass unnoticed amidst all the other events around the world at this time, but I still find it remarkable that this incident, a mere seven moths after The Peterloo Massacre is so little known.

Radical War Memorial, Greenock commemorates events of April 1820

Greenock to Gourock

Ginger The Horse, by Andy Scott

James Watt's improved steam engine all but ended the days of the horse powered machine. This statue stands just off the A8 in the centre of Greenock, opposite the Police station. "Ginger" is its name, after the horse in the American novel about Scottish immigrants, Dancing at the Rascal Fair. In the book Ginger is a cart horse transporting sugar on the quay. Apparently based on a true story, when cart and horse accidentally tumble into the water, the owner is distraught and has now lost his beloved horse, and source of income. Ginger the statue, by Andy Scott (creator of the Kelpies at Falkirk), is here to commemorate the working men and horses that powered the growth of Greenock as docks, and ship building centre.

Custom House Quay, Greenock

Custom House and the Beacon Arts Centre, Greenock

On the day I was in town all was quiet at the dockside, and it is impossible to imagine the bustle and activity that used to go on down here. Custom House Quay is where the Waverley still docks when it stops in town, but was once where Canadian timber for the shipyards, tobacco and fish from North America, wine from Spain and sugar from the Caribbean would be arriving. Also thousands of people left Scotland for the last time from here. All incoming goods had to pay government duty, and from 1714 Greenock was a custom house port. The current Custom House that stands here was built in 1818 and housed HM Revenue and Customs from then, until 2010. It has now been redeveloped as office space, and stands alongside the Beacon Arts Centre, a new building which opened here in 2013.

Heading west from the centre of town along the seafront you pass the Greenock Ocean Terminal, where ships unloading containers or cruise ships giving passengers a whirlwind visit to Scotland can dock. There is not much to it at present but a new terminal building has been given planning permission.

When Albert Harbour was excavated, the spoil was used to create the Greenock Esplanade, a pleasant place for a morning walk or run, with views north over the river towards the hills above Helensburgh and the entrance to Gare Loch. At low tides the wreck of "the sugar ship" can be spotted halfway to Helensburgh. The Greek owned, sugar carrying ship MV Captayannis sank in January 1974, and was grounded on the sandbank, The Tail 'o the Bank.

This point on the river was often crowded during World War II as the merchant ships and naval vessels formed up here before heading off in the North Atlantic convoys, a vital supply line to Britain during the war.

Greenock Esplanade

There were many gulliemots on the Clyde this crisp March morning

There is an excellent leaflet available here that tells you about some of the former residents of the grand villas that line the road behind the esplanade, including ship owners and shipyard owners, the Algie family of coffee and tea merchants, Abram Lyle of Tate and Lyle fame, and Henry "Birdie" Bowers, polar explorer and one of the men that died on Captain Scott's ill-fated expedition to the South Pole.

Further along the path comes around the green space of Battery Park. As the name suggests this was where gun batteries were positioned. In the wars with America in 1812 it was decided to build defences to protect the Clyde from attack and a gun battery was positioned here in 1813. Fort Matilda was a military post here from 1818, and in 1907 land here was purchased by the government to create Britain's main torpedo manufacturing facility, using Holy Loch on the opposite bank as a torpedo test range. The Clyde Torpedo Factory opened in 1910, employing 700 people at that time. During World War II the factory switched entirely to torpedo manufacture and anti-aircraft guns were again located at this point. Several batteries of guns were positioned around other potential military or industrial targets on the Clyde on both sides of the river. The factory carried on at this site as the Torpedo Experimental Establishment until 1959. The military looking buildings that now house Fun World Leisure are the only hints at the former military life of this corner of Greenock.

Open space at Battery Park, Greenock

Another reminder of the effects of World War II in this part of Scotland can be spotted on the skyline from here, on the brow of Lyle Hill. The Free French Cross memorial here, with the Cross of Lorraine combined with an anchor. In commemorates the 1500 members of the Free French naval forces who were based in Greenock during the war. It specifically commemorates several of their vessels which sank, and locally it unofficially commemorates the Maillé Brézé. While anchored in the Firth of Clyde in 1940, an accident fired off one of the torpedoes, sinking the ship, and killing 37 crewmen.

Lyle Hill shares its name with the Greenock family that brought the world tins of Golden Syrup, the only sugar by-product marketed with the image of a swarm of bees around a lion carcass filled with honeycomb. However, I cannot find out if Lyle Hill is specifically named after them, or even their teeth rotting products.

Lyle Hill and Free French Memorial on the brow of the hill, from Battery Park

Views from the Free French Memorial at Greenock, from a previous visit

Following the path around coast towards Gourock, it comes around Cardwell Bay. The old jetty rotting away in the bay is known as Admiralty Pier, having been built by the admiralty to service ships during World War II. It was later used by US servicemen at the submarine base across on Holy Loch, landing here on "liberty boats" to enjoy some R&R on this side of the water. With the Americans departing in the 1980s it has been slowly rotting away since then.

Gourock's Cardwell Bay

Admiralty Pier, Cardwell Bay, Gourock

Gourock grew from small fishing village to an important cross roads on the Firth of Clyde, with ferries from here going to numerous points from the 1600s. With the arrival of the railway in 1889 Gourock became a popular holiday destination and the Clyde steamer service here expanded. A gazetteer of 1882 describes Gourock as having...

"...so neat and cheerful an aspect, such snug and comfortable houses, such capital bathing grounds...to merit the character of a first-class watering-place."

One of the "first-class watering-places" that was around in 1882 is the Victoria Bar on Shore Street. On 25th January 1883 the Gourock Jolly Beggers Burns Club held its first Burns supper here. Local artist George Wyllie is commemorated in a small garden on the other side of the road from the bar, but surely such a fantastic sculptor merits something more grand from his hometown? A new terminal at Greenock for cruise ships is being planned to welcome visitors, and as part of this they aim to incorporate a gallery of George Wyllie's works. But Gourock looks like it needs a bit more of the great man's work about town.

Victoria Bar, Gourock

George Wylie Memorial Garden

An earlier sculpture, created by the residents of this part of the world approximately 4000 years ago, stands on the hill behind Kempock Street in Gourock. The Kempock Stone, or The Lang Stane, also known as "Granny Kempock", this monolith of mica-schist stands about six foot tall and vaguely resembles a shrouded figure...allegedly. Before all the houses here crowded around it, the stone was a prominent object for passing sailors. Fishermen and sailors of yore are supposed to have made offerings to the stone, and chanted as they marched around it in order to be granted a safe voyage. Many of the stories about the stone, including the quote on the plaque beside it come from the 1880 book by Revd. David MacRae, Notes About Gourock, Chiefly Historical (image below). He supposes that the site was once "an altar to Baai in druid times" but the good reverend seems to be the only source of many of these stories.

The Kempock Stone, Gourock

"Granny Kempock"

Notes About Gourock, Chiefly Historical by Reverend D. Macrae

Sadly the stone is tied up in a more depressing episodes of local history. Just as I had found stories in the villages of Fife, and in Paisley of supposed witchcraft, the mania for finding witches in the 17th century also came to Gourock, and nearby Inverkip. Researchers from Edinburgh University have mapped the location of witch trials. They record the story of Janet Love from Greenock, who in 1632 was taken to Inverkip to be interrogated by being "pricked", and tortured on the "stocks", "bow strings", and "wedges on the shins". Over a period of 50 years, at least 30 people (mostly women) were sent to trial at Inverkip for witchcraft.

One of the most well-known cases was that of Mary Lamont. In 1662 she was aged only 15 or 16 when she was accused of conspiring with the devil. She confessed to dancing around the Kempock Stone, and, with others, plotting to throw the stone into the sea to bring on bad weather and disrupt shipping. Found guilty of witchcraft, she was executed by burning, possibly outside the Auld Kirk in Inverkip.

A curious TV appearance from the Kempock Stone is in an STV drama from 1987, Shadow of the Stone, which features Shirley Henderson, and Alan Cumming. It is available on Youtube, but the trailer was enough for me to get the gist.

Leaving behind a 4000 year old standing stone, I ran on past the fabulous Gourock Outdoor Pool, which sits down on the river's edge. Closed over the winter months I would encourage you to come and enjoy one of the few remaining outdoor pools in Scotland. Every Scottish seaside resort used to boast such a pool, Gourock's being first opened in 1909, often tidal pools right down at the water's edge. The pool at Gourock is now a bit classier than that, with the water heated, but still filled with salt water, which catches you by surprise when you get a mouthful of it.

Gourock Outdoor Pool, March 2020

There are spectacular views from the terrace here across the Clyde Estuary and if you haven't been for a while, I would encourage you to make the effort. I have always enjoyed swimming outdoors, but I am a mere amateur compared to my grandfather, who would jump into any river, sea or pool when he was outdoors. This photo below is him on the diving dale at Stonehaven Open Air Pool, in about the 1930s. That pool is still open, but the outdoor pool at Helensburgh that I can remember visiting with my grandparents, is long gone.

Old photo of my grandad at Stonehaven Open Air Pool

Gourock Outdoor Pool, Summer 2019

Gourock to Weymss Bay

My mum, her brother and sister, and my great-uncle Andy on holiday in Dunoon in the late 1950s

If I think of Gourock, it is "Gourock to Dunoon" that I think of. Ferries across the Clyde have ran from Gourock for hundreds of years. It is positioned at a strange point on the Clyde, where you can cross to Dunoon on the Cowal peninsula, to Kilcreggan on the Rosneath peninsula, or in the past, to Helensburgh. With train connections and steamers, Gourock and the coast around about became the holiday destination for Glaswegians heading "doon the watter" at the Glasgow Fair. This was the main source of income for these towns in the early twentieth century and led to their rapid growth.

There are still two ferry terminals in Gourock and the photos below are of the Western Ferries terminal at McInoy's Point at the western edge of town.

Gourock to Dunoon ferry, at Gourock

Gourock Dunoon ferries on the Cyde, passing in front of Ben Ime and Gare Loch

Cloch lighthouse on the Clyde

At Cloch point between Gourock and Inverkip, the lighthouse was first lit in 1797, one of Robert Stevenson's early designs. Chains from a boom across the river between the Cloch lighthouse and Dunoon prevented enemy submarines coming further up the Clyde in both World Wars. On the frosty morning in early March that I ran down here there were dozens of birds up and down the coast. Colourful bullfinches in the bushes by the path, cormorants, guillemots, duck and swans in the sea and the most gorgeous views across to the snow-topped hills on the northern side of the Clyde. Coming around the bend at Cloch lighthouse, the snowy mountaintops of Arran came into view, with the distinctive shape of Goatfell.

Cormorant on the Clyde

Arran on the horizon, beyond Bute, as I came into Lunderston Bay

Lunderston Bay

Heading south now, the coastal path comes around Lunderston Bay which has a couple of sweeping beaches, and wonderful rock pools. In the past when Port Glasgow and Greenock closed down for their Fair fortnight this was one of the most popular destinations on the coast and a tent city would spring up on the grass behind the beach. There is a fantastic old photograph from those days on one of the information boards at the beach, where it looks absolutely rammed.

The Isle of Arran in the distance

Beaches at Lunderston Bay, much quieter than in the past.

Although I only knew Inverkip as the place where the marina is found, it is actually a very old settlement, with a church built here by the monks of Paisley Abbey in 1188. King Robert III, of the Renfrewshire Stewart line gave lands here to his son, Sir John Shaw Stewart, in the 1400s, who built a castle here. The Shaw Stewart family later built nearby Ardgowan House in 1798 and have lived there ever since. See what a few family connections 600 years ago grants you?

In the 1600s Inverkip, as mentioned above, was notorious for its zealous witch trials and several alleged witches were burnt here. Over the centuries the village was known as a hotbed for smugglers, transferring tea, tobacco and alcohol from ships travelling up the Clyde to port. The area at the mouth of the Kip Water river was excavated by army engineers during World War II to allow barges to be stored here. In the 1970s, building work for the Inverkip power station further down the coast involved dredging this area for sand and gravel to be used in the construction. This left a sheltered area of water that was converted in 1973 into Kip Marina. It has grown in size since then and can provide space for over 600 boats. A recent housing development beside the marina is a wee bit brutal, and not exactly to my taste. Presumably in part it provides accommodation for many people who may come and go to their boats here in the marina.

Kip Marina

The path then skirts around Inverkip Power Station and reaches Weymss Bay. Since 1865 Weymss Bay has been at the end of the train line from Glasgow, allowing passengers to quickly disembark and hop onto the ferry to Rothesay on the Isle of Bute. The current train station is surely one of the most handsome in the whole of Britain. Built in 1903, it has curving steel beams supporting tons of glass. A glass covered corridor sweeps passengers straight down to the ferry.

Weymss Bay train station

Glass roof of the Weymss Bay train station

To the ferry

Rothesay to Weymss Bay ferry

That brings me to the end of my run, and to the end of my run across Scotland, for now. Since I did this run, the Covid-19 outbreak in Britain has escalated and all unnecessary travel has to stop to reduce the spread of the disease. So I'm stopping.

In 1849 a third of the people living in Inverkip died from a cholera outbreak. SO to avoid the same thing happening to all of us, stay at home and wash your hands. No more day trips for me until this is all over. Once we can travel again, I will finish my coast to coast run at Largs and do a lap of honour around Millport. Until then, look back over some of my other runs, and maybe plan your own next jaunt.

While I am down in this part of the world I will leave you with one last old photo. This is my great-great granfather, James McKellar, and his fine beard. He didn't just go to Rothesay for the Glasgow Fair, he grew up there and, married my great-great granny Agnes Donaldson from Bo'ness. He worked as stone mason and moved to Glasgow, living on Hope Street in the 1860s, just where Glasgow Central Station would be built 15 years later. His daughter Flora McKellar married my great-grandad Andrew, the plumber from Greenock, that I mentioned above.

I have particularly enjoyed this run today, enjoying the views, remembering childhood day trips, and ferry trips. Remembering my grandad's love of swimming in the sea and pools down here, and remembering the lives of his parents and grandparents at sea, in the sugar warehouses and on the islands. I'll be back again soon.

As I write this in early May 2020 the United Kingdom has sadly become the European country with the highest death toll from the COVID-19 outbreak. This made me look back to see how we ended up in this position.

The viral infection first came to light in the Wuhan province of China when WHO reported deaths from an unusual type of pneumonia on 31st December 2019. A new coronavirus was identified as the cause, later named COVID-19, and on the 24th of January 2020 a paper in The Lancet described human to human transmission of the virus. It advised of the potential for a pandemic to occur, recommended personal protective equipment for healthcare workers due to airborne transmission, and the need to develop testing. On 30th January the WHO had declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.

South Korea and Taiwan soon reported cases and took measures to screen the public for infection, to trace and isolate contacts of those with the disease, and these countries quickly got control of their outbreaks. In Iran and Turkey the disease became more widespread.

The virus was first documented in Europe when two Chinese tourists tested positive in Rome on 31st January. A second cluster was found in Lombardy 3 weeks later, and in this region the infection rate escalated dramatically, overwhelming local health services. The first cases in the United Kingdom were in Newcastle on 31st January, and in Spain on the same date a German tourist in the Canary Islands tested positive, 4 days after the first case had been found in Germany. At this stage the disease was clearly present in many countries across Europe, but national governments chose different policies to contain the disease. 2500 Spanish football fans from Valencia attended a Champions League game on February 19th in Bergamo, the centre of the Italian outbreak. By the end of February the British media watched in horror as the Italian situation was getting out of control. Soon we would go past Italy's trajectory while the Prime Minister of our country incomprehensibly states "many people are looking now at our current success".

As countries around the globe stepped in line with the WHO advice on testing and quarantine, Britain remained out of step with everyone else. On March 4th Boris Johnson suggested, under the searing questioning of an ITV morning television programme, that Britain should "take it on the chin". Meanwhile government press officers leaked suggestions to their unquestioning media friends, such as Robert Peston who on 12th March ran with their story about the benefits of "herd immunity". This type of kite-flying briefing, which told you what the preferred government policy was without anyone actually having to state it on record, was greeted with horror from the scientific community. The principle with herd immunity is that if you make enough people immune from a disease, the disease can no longer spread through the community. This is best dome by mass vaccination. You don't need everyone immunised against measles, but if you keep vaccination rates up above 70% you will create herd immunity in the country and stop it spreading to those it may kill. To do that for a disease with no vaccine you have to let the illness just rip through the country, "taking it on the chin" and just letting enough people get it to stop it spreading any further. I suppose in principle you could lock all the most vulnerable people away somewhere separate from this viral tsunami, such as in nursing homes perhaps, to prevent them getting it. (Hint: that won't work).

The problem with a new disease that has a mortality rate of about 1% means that the estimates for the deaths this policy would cause were in the region of 250,000 to 500,000. These numbers came from modelling by Imperial College London published on March 17th. At that time the WHO advice was for countries to act aggressively and speedily in order to halt the virus spread. Other scientists were voicing concerns at the British policy. On March 13th Professor Devi Sridhar of Edinburgh University and chair of Global Public Health stated"the UK government is getting it wrong...Other countries have shown speed is crucial".

Meanwhile over the weekend of March 10th in Britain almost 200,000 spectators attended the Cheltenham Festival, and on March 11th around 3000 Spaniards arrived in Liverpool to see a Champions League game between Liverpool and Atletico Madrid. On 12th March hundreds of German fans came to Ibrox to watch Rangers vs Bayer Leverkusen. Two days later the Spanish government imposed a national quarantine as their national death toll approached 500 from COVID-19. At this stage the British government advice was for us to wash our hands while singing God Save The Queen, advice Boris Johnson was simultaneously telling us not to bother with as he spoke about "there were actually a few coronavirus patients, and I shook hands with everybody you will be pleased to know."

On March 12th government policy changed from "contain" to "delay", later admitting this was due to insufficient resources being available to test all new cases and quarantine contacts. The new advice was for symptomatic people to self-isolate at home for 7 days, and the rest of us to continue using hand-washing and handkerchiefs. The government press release of that date specifically states that "in the coming weeks we will introduce further social distancing...If we introduce this next phase too early, the measures will not protect us at the time of greatest risk." The only justification for this delay was if the policy remained at this stage to let a large proportion of the population get infected, and later immune, thus speeding up the exit from the inevitable lock-down. In effect we were prioritising restarting the economy over preventing deaths. On 26th March the weakness in the government's cunning plan was plain for all to see, when the Health Secretary, and the Prime Minister managed to contract COVID-19, Boris Johnson eventually ending up seriously unwell in ITU. One further example in a long list of people in positions of power in this crisis who failed to believe their own advice, or heed it.

As Professor Sridhar and others said at the time, this delay was wrong. On 26th March Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, said on BBC's Question Time programme "we knew in the last week of January that this was coming. We knew that 11 weeks ago, and then we wasted February". No social distancing was imposed until 18th March, and from 23rd March gatherings of more than two people, travel restrictions and unnecessary outdoor activity were forbidden. The Scottish infection rates began climbing a week or so behind the UK figures. The first confirmed case in Scotland was March 1st, in Dundee, and the first death was on 13th March, at a time when 85 cases had been confirmed. Scottish policy appears to have been in step with UK-wide advice, following the same general programme of actions. However the impression is that First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is at each stage slightly forcing the hand of the UK government by enacting policies when they are proposals in England, eg announcing a ban on gatherings of 500 people on 12th March (meaning the Rangers vs Celtic game planned for 15th March was cancelled), announcing school closures on 18th March. Unfortunately no separate policy was taken on ramping up testing capacity, establishing teams of contact tracers or planning for increased testing and shielding of vulnerable adults in care homes. As of today, 6th May, 2795 deaths have been recorded in Scotland with COVID-19 mentioned on the death certificate as a contributing factor, 1703 of those deaths with a confirmed test for COVID-19 as we still struggle to extend testing beyond those admitted to hospital. The confirmed deaths for the whole of the UK is now over 30,000, with many more deaths suspected as being due to the virus.

Unfortunately we are just at an early stage in this outbreak, as it may yet be another year before an effective vaccine is developed. As it is a new illness it is not yet clear how much immunity is retained by those exposed to the virus who only develop mild symptoms, and as we emerge from lock-down, all the modelling predictions expect an increase in infection rates to develop. We maybe did not have the geographical distancing that have enabled Iceland, New Zealand and the Faroe Islands to be examples of good practice, but Vietnam, and South Korea appear to have managed it with densely populated countries (recorded deaths in Vietnam is zero, and South Korea, population 51 million, is 255). What about a European neighbour that I know quite well, Greece? The first case in Greece was on 26th February, in the northern city of Thessaloniki, where I worked in a hospital as a student. Fearing that their health system which was stretched before a decade of severe cuts, would not cope with a widespread outbreak, the country acted early to minimise spread of the disease. After three cases were confirmed in the country, all large events were cancelled. On March 10th with 89 cases in the country and no deaths, all educational institutions were closed, three days later all cafes, bars and shopping centres were closed. On March 16th two villages with cases were quarantined, and all religious ceremonies stopped. From 22nd March non-essential movements were banned. If you were going out, a central number had to be texted to justify your actions before you ventured out, health systems were changed to allow prescriptions to be sent as text messages. These strict measures are now beginning to be stepped back. A country of 10 million people, with a similar geographical population spread, has now recorded 147 fatalities from COVID-19. This country with twice the Scottish population had its first case 5 days before we had a case in Scotland. At present their total fatalities from COVID-19 are 5% of the Scottish numbers (which are terrible, but are better than the figures in England).

The one thing the Greeks did was "follow the science", the advice that was there from WHO for everyone to decide whether or not to follow.

The Progress of Science - a sculpture at Glasgow University Engineering Building

Views over Kelvingrove Park from University of Glasgow

During the recent coronavirus lockdown, like many people I have spent more evenings wandering around the streets of my hometown, and maybe paying attention to some details that had previously escaped my notice. Now 12 weeks in, I think I have now walked up and down each and every street, lane and park within a 5 mile radius of my house. One place I keep coming back to is the University of Glasgow building on Gilmorehill, either enjoying the views over Kelvingrove to the south, sheltering in the university cloisters, or just wandering about the various buildings.

Western quadrangle, University of Glasgow

Cloisters, University of Glasgow

One of these buildings that I have looked at more closely than ever before is the James Watt Engineering Building. This sits just east of the main University building. The chemistry department was previously found here, but with the prevailing wind blowing from the west, their fumes were regularly being blown all over the main campus. So at the start of the 20th century the chemists were moved to new premises further to the west, leaving a prominent spot for the faculty of engineering to move in to.

I spent 7 years as a student at Glasgow University, and the James Watt Engineering Building was never one that I paid much attention to. Work started on it in 1899 and it was opened in 1901 by Lord Kelvin, to the north-east of the main Gilbert Scott building. Over time various extensions were added and between 1957-59 a further large extension was added, a functional, and rather non-descript building designed by architects Keppie, Henderson and Gleave. Its otherwise undecorated ashlar south-facing surface was decorated with a 30 foot high frieze carved in Portland stone.

James Watt was born in Greenock in 1736 and was working as a mathematical instrument maker at Glasgow University on the High Street when he came up with the idea of his steam engine that would make his name. In recent times his name has been linked to the money his father made from rum, sugar and cotton produced by slaves on Caribbean estates. James Watt himself was also involved in a case of selling a slave boy to his new master in Scotland. More light has been cast on these facts in recent weeks as the spotlight from the Black Lives Matter movement spreads into previously overlooked aspects of our collective history. The "James Watt School of Engineering" at Glasgow University has been quick to flag up these issues on its website, whilst continuing to ally itself to the "innovative spirit of Watt".

James Watt (south) building in front of the main University of Glasgow building

The architects of this new building specified a relief sculpture of some kind should be an integral part of their design from the outset. The University authorities suggested that the subject of the sculpture should be "the development of engineering relative to the University". Their initial suggestion was for abstract shapes, inscribed with various important names and dates, "a unified composition of small units", rich in texture to match the Scott Gothic of the neighbouring University main building.

In the correspondence between the University authorities and the architect it is clear that the University quickly fear that none of their plans are being listened to and they complain that "the plaque is unlikely to seem a good £3000 worth", and that it does "nothing to tie the New to the Old as claimed." It would be fair to say that the building as a whole adds little to the beauty of the University of Glasgow campus, but it was the images on this frieze that caught my eye as I was walking past it today.

James Watt building, south extension. Not the prettiest building on the university campus.

Eric Kennington - artist

A cursory look at the relief on the southern face of this building shows you that the finished sculpture bears very little comparison to the brief laid out by the architects. Entitled "The Progress of Science" it stands about 30 foot by 10 foot in size. Instead of describing the "development of engineering relative to the University" it in fact has only one scientist in it, who stands in Arabic robes, and lots of imagery from nature, religion and mythology.

The Progress of Science, by Eric Kennington

The architects in their early reports to the University authorities described their plans for the sculpture and in their 1957 "Notes On Bas-Relief Sculptural Panel". With no explanation given, they recommended a "non-Scottish sculptor".They suggested Eric Kennington for the job, as the "British sculptor most likely to make an outstanding job of the panel."

In a letter to the architects from the assistant secretary to the University court, disquiet that the architects favoured Kennington to a Scottish sculptor, suggesting "What about Hew Lorimer or Benno Shotz?" Benno Shotz had recently completed a 15 foot high tablet on the side of the new chemistry building of Joseph Black, and Hew Lorimer was commissioned to sculpt the facade of the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh.

Joseph Black by Benno Schotz

In the end Kennington was given the commission for what was to be his final work. The work had to be completed by September 1959 for the official opening, and when Kennington took ill in June 1959 he headed back to England and his assistants, Eric Stanford and Archibald Robertson, who had been working alongside him for 2 months on the job, completed the sculpture. Kennington died, aged 72, before the work was completed.

Eric Kennington was born in 1888. After attending the Lambeth School of art he enlisted in 1914 and was injured while fighting on the Western Front. After 4 months in hospital he returned to France as a war artist. After the war he met T.E. Lawrence who had come to an exhibition of his paintings, and they became lifelong friends. In 1921 he traveled through Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria drawing portraits or Arab subjects and many of these were used as illustrations in T.E. Lawrence's book The Seven Pillars of Wisdom.

One of Kennington's illustrations from the 1935 edition of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom that belonged to my father-in-law

In 1935 he was one of T.E. Lawrence's pall bearers and sculpted the bust of Lawrence for his tomb. Throughout the 1920s and 30s he was increasingly working as a sculptor. During World War 2 he was again commissioned as a war artist, working mainly for the RAF.

Parachutes, 1941, by Eric Kennington

After the war he continued to work and was elected as member of the Royal Academy. His sculpture for the University of Glasgow in 1959 was his last work.

The Progress of Science

Top of Kennington's sculpture

The main features in his sculpture seem to have little connection to Glasgow, to science or to engineering. At the top stands Hermes, messenger to the Gods of Greece, with his winged feet, and his staff with entwined snakes about it in his right hand. As the Roman god Mercury he often carries his staff in the left hand, so I am going to stick with the Greek versions throughout. Also I suggest that a major source of ideas for the sculpture was Belgian scientist George Sarton. He is credited as largely being the founder of the discipline of the history of science. He wrote extensively on Greek scientists, such as in his book "Hellenistic Science and Culture in the Last Three Centuries BC". This book was published in 1955, just in time for any artist in 1957 who was looking for ideas for a work on the history of science to find inspiration.

In this book he talks about one of the greatest scientists in the Greek world, Eratosthenes. Eratosthenes became chief librarian at Alexandria, he was known as a critic of Homer and he made some of the earliest calculations of the size of the Earth's circumference, and the tilt of the Earth's axis. He also wrote poetry, and Sarton quotes his Hermes as "his masterpiece. Such poems satisfied the scientific curiosity as well as the love of metrical words of the Ptolemic aristocracy."

Beside Hermes can be found motifs from mythology and the natural world. Pegasus the winged horse, a swan, the sun with rays coming across towards an eagle, who seems to be bowing down. Above the eagle parachutes are falling, and Pegasus was the emblem of the newly formed British parachute regiment in the second world war. Is the eagle the German Reich succumbing to the British forces? A compass is found in the background here, and the word "PROGRESS".

Progress of Science, or memories of war?

To the left is found a kite (is this Benjamin Franklin's kite that he flew in a thunderstorm to experiment with electricity), and a quiver with an arrow (I can only guess that these belong to Artemis, goddess of hunting). A cloud of smoke adds to the mystery of this collection of items.

A quiver and a kite

Perhaps the clue is that Zeus, king of the Greek gods, and the god of thunder and the skies, stands in the middle here, ready to cast down a bolt of lightening, science explaining the mythology.

In the lower half of the panel the god Hephaestus stands at his anvil, below a volcano, with his other symbols, his hammer and tongs, in his hands. Hephaestus was the god of blacksmiths and metalworkers, forges, fire and volcanoes, artisans, stone masons and sculptors. Hephaestus epitomises George Sarton's life work, trying to combine the humanities and sciences. By creating a history of science he wanted to create a "new humanism". He felt that without science the humanities are incomplete, and without the arts, history, philosophy, religion that a life of science was empty. He looked for this in the world of ancient Greece, of Homer and in the medieval Arab world. Like Kennington he traveled around the Middle East as part of his work, learning Arabic as he sought to read original manuscripts of the Arab scholars.

Lower part of The Progress of Science

Carpenters' tools, farming implements, gears, chains and pulleys lie between the figures and below it all a boat that looks suspiciously like Noah's ark, floats on a sea filled with a whale and a shoal of fish. Other scientific instruments such as protractors, possibly an Archimedes screw, and a governor mechanism are dotted about.

Also several words are seen. "PROGRESS", "PER MARE, PER TERRAS" (by land and sea - motto of the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland), "SCIENTIA ET INGENIO" (motto of the Society of Civil Engineers), "DISCE DOCE" (learn, teach- motto of the Institution of Electrical Engineers). These mottoes hint that some of the symbols in the sculpture may be nods to the emblems of engineering societies - the swan way in fact be the crane from the Civil Engineers crest, the caduceus of Hermes, his staff, is found in the crest of the Electrical Engineers, as is the winged horse.

The one mystery that did have me scratching my head was the man on the left, standing atop some steps, his calipers measuring an orb of some description. Out of keeping with everyone else depicted he is in Arabic robes, a ghutrah or keffiyeh on his head, and a beard and moustache similar to those Kennington has drawn in his pictures for T.E. Lawrence's book, such as the portrait of Auda Abu Tayi above. This figure is the only one taken from history, and the only scientist depicted in the sculpture.

The solitary scientist in the sculpture

Arabic scientist, but which one?

Again I have gone back to the writings of George Sarton to find out, as I suspect that Kennington found a lot to agree with in Sarton's book An Introduction to the History of Science. Over several volumes he had taken this from the time of Homer up to the 14th century by the time of his death in 1956. Like Kennington he traveled extensively in the Middle East in the 1920s as he investigated the area where many of our modern scientific ideas originated. As Professor Jim Al-Khalili points out in his book "Pathfinders. The Golden Age of Arabic Science" for 700 years the language of science was Arabic. Their scholars began translating the works of the Ancient Greek scientists and thinkers such as Euclid, Aristotle, Archimedes, and Ptolemy in the mid-8th century. They examined and improved some of these ideas with the technologies available in their time.

The vocabulary of these ancient scientists survives in our English words, such as alkali, azimuth, alcohol, algebra, elixir, nadir, zenith, and alchemy. Ptolemy, the Greek mathematician and astronomer, wrote his Almagest, his theory on the movements and sizes of the planets and the sun. He laid out his ideas on celestial motions, his solar and lunar theories and catalogues the stars. His Almagest was translated into Arabic (and we still know it from its Arabic naming, 'The Great Book') and in the 9th century the caliph of Baghdad, Al-Ma'mun, commissioned a huge observatory to be built in Baghdad to allow his scientists to check Ptolemy's observations. With the necessary state funding behind them, a team of astronomers, mathematicians and geographers. They improved upon Ptolemy's observations and drew up charts of planetary motions and made more accurate estimates of the Earth's circumference. They also placed the Sun at the centre of the planets, with the Earth and other planets revolving around it. More accurate calculations of the Earth's circumference were made by Al-Biruni, using algebra to look to the distant horizon from the base and summit of a mountain. Born in Khiva in modern Uzbekistan, he was Persian, and wrote on physics, mathematics, anthropology, religious history, astronomy, and came up with te idea of dividing the hour into 60 minutes and seconds. His calculations on the circumference of the Earth are merely 1% out from modern measurements. Of the three giants of medieval science who all lived in the same era, Ibn al-Haytham who developed new theories of optics, Ibn Sina (Avicenna), the father of early modern medicine and al-Biruni, it is the latter who we see depicted by Eric Kennington with his calipers out, measuring the size of the Earth. In a book I suspect Kennington was reading due to their shared interest in the Middle East, George Sarton says in his Introduction to the History of Modern Science, the first half of the eleventh century was "the Age of al-Biruni".

We have here our scientist, al-Biruni, possibly

I think that this sculpture by Eric Kennington, his last work before his death, combines many elements of his life's work, his ideas and experiences. As a churchwarden in Checkendon, Oxfordshire he was a religious man and bible references can be seen in his work. He served as a war artist in both world wars and elements from that can be seen also, particularly his World War II experiences with the RAF. Parts of the sculpture try to connect the humanities and science, with classical references and the Greek god of sculptors prominently displayed. This is a theory explored by George Sarton, whose books were in circulation in the 1950s when the sculpture was conceived, developing a history of science, a similar task to that which Kennington was set. And finally we have the sole scientist portrayed in the piece being not a graduate of the Glasgow faculty of Engineering, nor a Copernicus, Einstein or Galileo but a man who would be little known to Westerners who had not spent time in the Middle East, or delved deep into the history of the Islamic world.

This therefore is my hypothesis of the motifs and characters portrayed on the sculpture of the Engineering building of the the University of Glasgow, based on my own observations and the limited evidence I have been able to find. I particularly must cite Roy MacKenzie's excellent book "Public Sculpture of Glasgow" (2002), which my mum picked up in a Brighton bookshop for £1. As with any scientific hypothesis please feel free to correct my mistakes with your own insights.

I will leave the last words to al-Biruni, as he shakes his fist at those who would hide their own ignorance by mocking science and scientists, perhaps saying such things as "Britain has had enough of experts."

"The extremist among them would stamp the science as atheistic, and would proclaim that they lead people astray in order to make ignoramuses, like him, hate the sciences. For this will help him conceal his ignorance, and to open the door for the complete destruction of science and scientists."

Normally at this time of year (December 2020) I would be trying to spend as many weekends as possible out in the hills and mountains of Scotland. It is my favourite time to be out there. In the colder weather the boggy ground is usually frozen solid, making for easier going on the lower slopes, the biting midges have all died off for a season with their eggs awaiting the arrival of warmer weather, and with a bit of luck there will be enough snow at the summits to let me dust off my ice axe and crampons.

Buachaille Etive Mor seen from Beinn a'Chrulaiste

Covid restrictions

But this isn't a normal year. With the Covid-19 pandemic still raging onwards I would like nothing better than to spend my downtime in the outdoors, getting the chance to stretch my legs and clear my head. As I live in Glasgow however, the higher rates of infection in the city have meant that for several months now travel restrictions have been in place to reduce the risk of infection being spread. At the start of the year I planned to jog, in stages, from St Andrews to Largs (for no great reason) but this too was thwarted near the end, when I had frustratingly got as far as Weymss Bay before travel restrictions meant this non-essential trip had to be paused. Instead I am spending my time in Glasgow vicariously enjoying the hills and the outdoors by reading about other people's exploits.

With various restrictions in place for over 9 months now, with many people's foreign holidays cancelled, and closed venues, there has been a growth in the numbers of people exercising outdoors and some concerns raised that the rural infrastructure is being stretched. Footpaths need maintained, also public toilets have often been closed, car parks overcrowded and rural communities which often rely heavily on visitors for income. They are likely to suffer heavily due to Covid restrictions. It is maybe a timely reminder about the importance of investing in our wild areas and rural communities to allow us all to enjoy them in the future, and also there is an unmet need to educate people in how to look after these fragile assets. Counting on volunteers and charities alone is not enough.

Local travel

The tier 3 and tier 4 restrictions in Scotland that we have been under mean that only essential travel beyond our local council boundaries has been permitted. Travel is permitted for "local outdoor informal exercise that starts and finishes at the same place (which can be up to 5 miles from the boundary of your local authority area)".

This 5 mile limit has made me look for different walks from those I would normally chose. As well as taking in the green spaces of the many Glasgow parks, I have enjoyed walking along the Seven Lochs Trail from Hogganfield Loch to Drumpellier, along the edge of Glasgow north of Easterhouse. It has also made me re-visit the Kilpatrick Hills (the Kilpatrick Braes car park is just over 4 miles outside the Glasgow boundary) - when I was at school we used to hitchhike out along Great Western Road at the weekends and then head into the Kilpatricks and the Campsie Hills beyond. Our next youthful walks took us onto the West Highland Way, which marked its 40th anniversary in subdued fashion this year, by telling people to stay at home, and some outdoor enthusiasts got together by organising successful virtual walks and races this year. My recent, more local walks have been very nostalgic (and often very wet it has to be said). I have enjoyed the views over Glasgow from Cathkin Braes, from Queens Park and Park Circus, but it is the wilder, more remote hills that I am missing.

Glasgow seen from The Kilpatrick Hills

Bishop's Loch on the Seven Lochs Trail

The travel restrictions are necessary, and are important so I am very happy to remind myself (through gritted teeth) that the hills will always be there. I would strongly encourage people to resist the temptation to bend the travel rules, as they are there for all our benefit.

I am however collating a growing list of hills, mountains and walks that I want to undertake as soon as it is practical and permitted. Whilst confined to the city I seem to have been reading more and more books about the great outdoors, and will share a few with you that I have enjoyed this year. If you can't be there in body, you can be out there in spirit. I have tried to include a selection of memoirs, poetry and guides that I can lose myself in.

My reading matter - a personal selection

Islands

- The Outrun: A Memoir by Amy Liptrot

At the start of the year I had booked my first ever trip to the Orkney Islands, and read as much writing from the islands as I could lay my hands on. My Easter trip had to be cancelled due to Covid, but this book is one that I was glad to have found. Overwhelmed by her hedonistic London life, the author returns to her childhood home in Orkney and describes the rhythms and wildlife of island life. Mental illness, alcoholism and corncrakes. All aspects of life are there.

- Scottish Island Bagging by Helen and Paul Webster

From the people that brought you the fabulous Walk Highlands website comes their latest book. As exhaustive list of all the Scottish islands that can be easily travelled to, with suggested walks and sites. Whether you want to work your way through all the islands ticking them off, or just look at the excellent photographs and cherry pick a few day trips, it is a thoroughly delightful book.

- The Guga Hunters by Donald S. Murray

The men of Ness, at the northern tip of Lewis, have annually set sail to the remote island of Sulasgeir to hunt gannet chicks, guga, for many years. Their ongoing tradition is part of the fabric of their village life and the book interweaves a social history of the islanders and their ancestors. Mixing in Gaelic and English, poems and prose it is not a romantic picture of life there, but full of all the hard work and danger generations have faced there. (Having eaten gannet when I was in Iceland, I don't think that it is no bad things the numbers allowed to be taken each year and restricted).

- Steisean by Angus Peter Campbell

Angus Peter Campbell worked on this collection whilst living in a thatched house in his native South Uist. Gaelic poems with his own translations (which sometimes poke fun at the fact a translation is not always possible) of everyday life, walks up a hill, childhood recollections, ferries and seasons. Personally I enjoyed the poems here because it took me back to a time many years ago when I was briefly working in Daliburgh in South Uist, where Gaelic was the first language of most of the people I worked with, and where my wife spent our last couple of weeks before our first child arrived.

Mountains

- Assorted Mountain Guides

I never head into the hills without first reading 4 different routes up any planned mountain, and spending an evening poring over an OS map. Sometimes I wonder if I get as much pleasure from planning trips as I do from actually carrying them out. The first guide to the Munros that I had, from the days before you could use the internet to find your way, was the SMC guide. If you keep using a book, you get to understand what the author means when they say "an easy scramble" or a "narrow ridge". Triangulating between Cameron McNeish's Munros book and the SMC one I can find the right level of challenge for my planned expeditions, and I know how long each book's "6 hours" will take me.

-Come By The Hills by Cameron McNeish

After decades of writing books, editing magazines, and presenting TV shows on Scotland's outdoors, Cameron McNeish recently published an excellent memoir (There's Always The Hills) which described how a working class Glaswegian fell in love with the mountains of Scotland, and elsewhere. In this new book he recounts trips to his favourite places, from Borders hillsides to Shetland beaches, with many familiar mountains in between. The next best thing to actually getting out into the hills myself.

- The Climb by Anatoli Boukreev and G. Weston DeWalt

The bizarre sight of commercial climbing crews queuing up to reach the summit of Everest is an abject vision. This book tells in great detail about one such climb in 1996 which resulted in the death of eight climbers. It is a gripping read, and a cautionary tale more strange than any fiction. A reminder that turning back and not reaching a summit can often be the most sensible decision you make on any given day.

- Call-Out by Hamish MacInnes

I had read this book a couple of years ago, looking for early stories of Glen Coe mountaineering when I was writing an obituary for an old family friend. Hamish MacInnes was a mountaineer, and has been described as "the father of modern mountain rescue in Scotland". He died earlier this year at the age of 90 and this memoir of his days in Glen Coe mountain rescue gives a great insight into the affinity some people develop with the mountains.

- The Bonniest Companie by Kathleen Jamie

Written over the year 2014, when Scotland was gripped by the independence referendum, these poems by Kathleen Jamie cover a variety of topics. However the ones where I have turned down the page corners to read again are those in the natural realm, where the characters are "oxter-deep in a bramble-grove". One of my favourites finds itself on one of my favourite mountains, Ben Lomond. It starts "Thae laddies in the Celtic shirts" and when I walked up Ben Nevis earlier this year a similar group clad in green and white striped tops were making their way up that mountain, a very real scene, and a reflection of the communal sense of ownership we all feel we have for our mountains. Or at least we all feel we have a right to be there.

Countryside

- Scottish Trail Running by Susie Allison

A few years ago, bored of running around the same city streets and looking for new routes, I picked up this book by Susie Allison. It has suggested routes from all over Scotland, through forests, over hilltops and along riverbanks. Suitable for walks or runs I have used it when I have been on holiday or with work in different parts of Scotland to find interesting and diverting routes. It's addictive once you start and has led me to start entering hill races. I am not going to win any medals, but it is a different way to see a mountain or hill, unencumbered by boots and backpack.

- The Fife Pilgrim Way by Ian Bradley

The Fife Pilgrim Way is a new long distance walking route which tries to introduce you to some of the lesser known parts of the Kingdom. The book focuses very much on the history of the pilgrim routes, and the backstory to saintly Queen Margaret, the monasteries and mining of the region, much of it completely new to me before I decided to run the route twelve months ago. Who knew that there was an underground grotto in Dunfermline, and a witches grave on the foreshore at Torryburn? I previously always made for the mountaintops, but am growing to love the highways and byways too, and the stories you can uncover.

-Killochries by Jim Carruth

I did not know which of Jim Carruth's collections to include here as every one of them exudes knowledge and empathy for the realities of rural life. The son of a dairy farmer from Renfrewshire, the poet laureate of Glasgow in the book Killocheries presents a verse novella that observes a troubled man spending a year living and working on a farm. Fantastic storytelling.

- At The Loch Of The Green Corrie by Andrew Greig

I read this book when I was staying in a cottage up north one year and was completely immersed in it. Andrew Greig follows request Norman MacCaig made of him, to fish in the Loch of the Green Corrie on his behalf. Ruminating on friendship, land ownership, poetry and the countryside Andrew Greig and Norman MacCaig loved it is a lovely, reflective way to end my list.

These books were just the first ones that came into my head tonight, books I have read, re-read and enjoyed. Please give me your own suggestions of what I should read next in the comments below, and don't forget. STAY HOME, STAY SAFE.

With the days blurring into each other in yet another Covid-19 induced lockdown, the motivation to go for a cycle, a run or a walk in these Winter evenings can be hard to find sometimes. However, I know that after I get home from work it will be the best way to clear my head and relax. Trying to exercise near to home during our current lockdown does inevitably mean that you go walking or running over the same routes again and again. I am a bit tired of jazzing up my long Sunday run by maybe running around the Subway stations clockwise instead of anti-clockwise, or going out to Clydebank along the Yoker cyclepath, and back along the canal instead of doing it in the other direction (which for some reason feels as if it is more downhill).

So a new week, and a new 13 mile route. A half marathon around the creations of Glasgow's most renowned architect, artist and designer, Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh

Charles Rennie Mackintosh was born in 1868 at 70 Parson Street in Townhead, Glasgow, a flat which would now roughly lie underneath the on-ramp to the M8 at the top of Castle Street. His father was a policeman, and later chief clerk in the City of Glasgow Police.

From 1880 to 1883 he went to Allan Glen's School where he began learning architectural and technical drawing, then from 1883 he studied part time for 10 years at Glasgow School of Art, while starting an internship under architect John Hutchison. In Glasgow of the 1880s there was a building boom as industry flourished and the population grew, with the city rapidly expanding. In around 1889 Mackintosh started working for architects Honeyman & Keppie, later becoming a partner in the company. He worked with them until 1913.

In 1900 Mackintosh married designer and artist Margaret MacDonald and they worked together on many projects, creating their distinctive ideas, that would later become synonymous with the term "Glasgow Style".

Many of the buildings designed by Mackintosh are now treasured museum pieces, looked after for us all to enjoy, such as Hill House in Helensburgh, by the National Trust for Scotland. Some are still private residences such as Windy Hill in Kilmacolm. In Glasgow many of his buildings are still in regular use, though not many for their original purpose. His masterpiece in the city however, the Glasgow School of Art "Mackintosh building", is a miserable sight as the current custodians of it have managed to see it burnt down not once, but twice in the past 10 years. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, to lose it once may be regarded as a misfortune: to do it twice looks like carelessness.

So starting off on Byres Road I headed up to Maryhill to start my tour of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's Glasgow buildings. It has been pointed out to me on Twitter that I missed some of his handiwork here at the start. Some Mackintosh flourishes can be seen on the old BBC building on Queen Margaret Drive. The former Queen Margaret College building had an extension designed by John Keppie in 1890, with Mackintosh assisting.

Ruchill Church Hall

Finished in 1899 as a Mission Hall for the Free Church of Scotland, Ruchill Church Hall stands on Shakespeare Street, now overshadowed by the later church building alongside it, and overlooking a drive-in McDonalds. When it re-opens take the chance to go in to their wee cafe to admire this simple, functional but handsome space.

Ruchill Church Hall, Glasgow

Queen's Cross Church

Now home to the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society, the Queen's Cross Church is the Mackintosh building that see most frequently, passing it every time I head to Firhill Stadium behind it. Opened in 1899 Mackintosh managed to smuggle in some stylish flourishes in the necessarily simple design for the Free Church. Inside the timber-lined barrel-vaulted ceiling makes me feel like I am in a ship whenever I am at any events in here and the unembellished stained glass heart in the window above the pulpit draws up your eyes. From the outside I always think it looks more like a castle than a church.

Queen's Cross Church, Glasgow

Queen's Cross Church, Glasgow about 12 months ago at a gig

Queen's Cross Church, Glasgow

Glasgow School of Art

When the Mackintosh building at the Glasgow School of Art opened in 1909 it heralded a new style of 20th century architecture. Inside and out it was beautiful, functional and practical and widely regarded at Charles Rennie Mackintosh's masterpiece. A devastating fire broke out in 2014, and reports at the time suggested a lack of fire protection in the building contributed to the blaze. As restoration work was nearing completion a more extensive fire in March 2020 gutted the art school building, and neighbouring buildings on Sauchiehall Street. The fire investigation has been long delayed and accusations have been laid at the door of the Art School management board for inadequately planning for these eventualities.

Glasgow School of Art in former times

Glasgow Art Club

At 185 Bath Street the unassuming friontage below conceals a surprising interior designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh. In 1893 when the Glasgow Art Club commissioned Honeyman & Keppie to transform two adjacent townhouses into their new clubhouse. The 23 year old Mackintosh drew up many of the plans for the interior detail, including the glorious frieze in the main gallery. It is all closed up just now, and peering through the glass only reveals some delicate carving on the entry door, but if you see their annual exhibitions advertised, take the chance to step inside and have a look.

Glasgow Art Club

Entrance to Glasgow Art Club, founded 1867

Willow Tea Rooms

Miss Cranston's Tea Rooms on Sauchiehall Street opened in 1903 and after designing parts of other tea rooms in the city, this time he was responsible for the exterior, interior, decor and furnishings, alongside his wife Margaret MacDonald. The Willow Tea Rooms as they came to be known were a great success. After a couple of decades of becoming rather shabby, with the tea rooms accessed through a jewellers shop on the ground floor, the Willow Tea Rooms have been extensively restored and had not long re-opened prior to the Covid induced lockdowns. Hopefully there will still be a few shops left open on Sauchiehall Street in the future to draw customers back to this wee gem of a building when it gets to open its doors again.

Willow Tea Rooms, Sauchiehall Street

Martyrs' School

Heading east we come to Parson Street, where Mackintosh was born, and Martyrs' School. If you head here via the footpath from east of Buchanan Bus Station, that weaves through the high flats, there are a couple of memorials to local boy Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Commissioned in 1895, and built to accommodate 1000 pupils, Mackintosh had to stick to the authorities' design conventions for new schools, such as symmetry and separate entrances for boys and girls. You can still find some of his typical designs in the roof ventilators and around the windows. The building is not open to the public.

Martyrs' School, Glasgow

Gravestone, Glasgow Necropolis

An unassuming gravestone in the Glasgow Necropolis is an early piece of work by Charles Rennie Mackintosh. It marks the grave of Alexander McCall, for 18 years police chief of Glasgow, who died in 1888. He was in effect the boss of Mackintosh's father for many years. The gravestone is in the lower graveyard of the Necropolis, facing towards the Tennent's Wellpark Brewery.

The Lighthouse/ Former Glasgow Herald Building

The Herald Building on Mitchell Street was one of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's early public commissions. Built as a warehouse behind the Glasgow Herald printing office, its most distinctive feature is the water tower, designed to hold an 8000 litre tank of water to protect the building from fire. In 1999 it was remodelled interiorly and opened as The Lighthouse, a centre for architecture and design, with a gift shop, cafe and exhibition spaces. The Mackintosh gallery here is free to access, as is the stairwell to the top of the water tower. If you prefer an easier option there are fantastic views over the city available from the viewing room in the other tower that is serviced by a lift. The best views of the building can be had from the top floor of the NCP carpark across the road.

The Lighthouse, Glasgow

Carved details on the sandstone doorway jostle for attention with modern clutter

The Lighthouse, Glasgow from across the street

Pre-lockdown views from the top of the water tower

Former Daily Record Building/ Stereo

Designed by Mackintosh in 1900, the former Daily Record printing works can be found hidden up Renfield Lane. Hard to spot as the lane is so narrow, but looking up you see the unusual features of this hidden building, with its white glazed tiles and art deco styling. Unfortunately the fantastic Stereo bar/ cafe/ venue located in the ground floor and basement here is closed at present, but will again hopefully soon be home to crowded gigs.

Former Daily Record building, Renfield Lane

Just around the corner from here, as I head south towards the river, can be found the less impressive side of Glasgow's Charles Rennie Mackintosh tourist honeypot. Just because you put a Mackintosh font on your building and a Margaret MacDonald style rose above the door, it does not make your building a Charles Rennie Mackintosh building, as the Rennie Mackintosh Hotel ably demonstrates.

Scotland Street School

My daughter has mixed memories of a school trip here as one of the people acting as a mean Victorian teacher was overdoing it a bit and reduced one poor child to tears. Not sure that was a great idea. Usually open as a "museum of education" with period classrooms and related exhibitions, Scotland Street School is obviously closed at present during lockdown. However I see that plans are afoot to possibly open a nursery within the building in the future.

Designed between 1903 and 1906 it was Mackintosh's last major commission in Glasgow, and he created a building that is both functional and handsome. The impressive glass towers at the stairwells mean that the interior is flooded with light and his typical flourishes can be found in the stonework and vents. Designed for 1250 pupils, urban redevelopment destroyed a lot of the local housing by ploughing the M8 motorway through this part of town,. The school roll had fallen to 100 in the 1970s and the school was closed in 1979.

Scotland Street School, Glasgow

"School Board of Glasgow"

Infants' entrance at Scotland Street School, Glasgow

House for an Art Lover

Situated in Bellahouston Park, The House for an Art Lover was opened in 1996, a full 95 years after Charles Rennie Mackintosh designed it. His plans for this building were submitted to a German design magazine in 1901 as entry to a competition to design a "Haus Eines Kunstfreundes". He worked with his wife Margaret MacDonald on the project. The building in Bellahouston Park is therefore not quite the real thing, as it wasn't a fully worked up architectural plan that Mackintosh had created, but it is as near as you can get. It is available for hire as an events space and has a small cafe, gift shop and gallery.

House for an Art Lover, Glasgow

Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum

To make my walking/running/cycling loop an actual loop, I headed back across the Clyde at The Science Centre and headed back in the direction of Byres Road. But two further stops first.

Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum now has a gallery on the ground floor dedicated to "Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Glasgow Style" with a collection of furniture, jewellery, glass, interiors and textiles by Mackintosh and his contemporaries.

Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow

Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum,
on a frosty January morning

The Mackintosh House

From 1906 until 1914 Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret Macdonald lived in a terraced house at at 78 Southpark Terrace, which was demolished in the 1960s and replaced by a university building. The interiors have been reassembled in Glasgow University's Hunterian Museum, in a concrete replica of Mackintosh's house, roughly one block back from where the house would have stood. Inside the house layout is recreated, with all his own furniture and decoration. His beautiful, bright bedroom here makes it hard to believe that you are standing within a Victorian terraced house in Glasgow.

The Mackintosh House, Glasgow

In 1914 Mackintosh and Margaret MacDonald moved to rural Suffolk, working increasingly as a watercolourist. During World War 1 he was briefly arrested as a possible spy, and fell out of love with Suffolk, moving to London. In 1923 they moved to Port Vendres in the south of France. Within 5 years they had to return to London due to his ill health, and he died of cancer in 1928, aged 60 years old. His style and imagination are unique, a blend of diverse influences pulled together to create something new. He's one of those people you wish you could go back and tell them how loved their work is a century after it was created.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh (now wearing a face mask) on a mural above the Clutha Bar

Poverty Safari, or Othering the Poor?

On a Poverty Safari

What is poverty?

Media images of poverty

A poverty of ideas

Reality versus the photos

Conclusion

Water Towers of Glasgow

Barloch, Milngavie

Old Glasgow hospital water towers

Cranhill Water Tower

Garthamlock and Craigend Water Towers

Bishopbriggs (or Bearyards) Water Tower

Drumchapel Water Tower

Auchinairn Water Tower

East Kilbride Water Tower, Greenhills

Tannochside Water Tower, Uddingston

City Centre Water Tower Designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh - The Lighthouse

And Remembering Those No Longer With Us

75th Anniversary of D-Day

Mulberry Harbours

Adolf Hitler and My Family's Part In His Downfall

Ecuador and Galapagos Islands (...and Football)

Why go to the Galapagos Islands?

Ecuador

Galapagos Islands

Fife Pilgrim Way - Part 1A

Culross to Dunfermline

Saint Serf

Saint Mungo/ Saint Kentigern

King Coal

Torryburn﻿

Cairneyhill﻿

Dunfermline

Fife Pilgrim Way - Part 1B

Fife Pigrim Way - Part 1B

North Queensferry to Dunfermline

North Queensferry to Inverkeithing

Inverkeithing to Rosyth

Rosyth to Dunfermline

Fife Pilgrim Way - Part 2

Dunfermline to Lochore - Built on Coal

Dunfermline

Kingseat

Lassodie

The Fife Earth Project or The Scottish World

Kelty

Lochore Meadows

Fife Pilgrim Way - Part 3

Lochore Meadows to Markinch

Lochgelly

Radical Politics

Lochgelly to Lochore Meadows

Kinglassie

Glenrothes

Markinch

Fife Pilgrim Way - Part 4

Markinch to Ceres

Markinch to Kennoway

Kennoway

Kennoway to Ceres

Ceres

Fife Pilgrim Way - Part 5

Ceres to St Andrews

Ceres to Craigtoun

Craigtoun

Craigtoun to St Andrews

St Andrews

The end

Glasgow to Culross - Part 1. Glasgow to Kirkintilloch

Maryhill to Possil

Possil to Kirkintilloch

Glasgow to Culross - Part 2 - Kirkintilloch to Falkirk

Kirkintilloch to Twechar

Twechar to Bonnybridge

Bonnybridge to Falkirk

Glasgow to Culross - Part 3 - Falkirk to Culross

Falkirk to Grangemouth

Grangemouth to Kincardine

Kincardine to Culross

Torryburn

Cairneyhill