Lazy Post

                                                           Crossing the Forth. Terence Cuneo

 

The best window seat around!

 

 

This short film comes from part of a Fife Circle that runs from Glenrothes via Cowdenbeath to Edinburgh Waverley.  Lots more such films around, sadly all running silently for some reason.  One, from the rear cab, has sound but is only off use if you like travelling all the way backwards.  Here we cross the Forth Bridge heading south towards Dalmeny Station.

  

 

If you prefer you can journey across the River Tay into Dundee.  This film is a wee bit older mind!

The Sea, The Sea! Well the Forth Anyway...

I had to dig out a couple of my brothers photos and now I want to be back in Cramond walking along the front looking at the bird life and the view of Fife over the water.  The one major problem with this town is that it is far from the water. 
There is nothing like the sea.  The light, even when the weather is towsy, is different.  The light bounces back and forth from water to sky and gives a new view of the world.  The sea air, always bracing if it is litter full and trapped in a gully, changes the view of life.  People appear happier walking by the sea, relax is the word that seasides bring, well not if accompanied by a thousand children obviously.
Up in Edinburgh for my mothers funeral eight years ago my brother and I wandered along the front after 'seeing the body.'  This was a relaxing way to consider the new situation.  Having known the area from Cramond right along to Granton Harbour it brought back many memories and we could see how things have changed, though most of the place looks similar to our memories.    
We learn how to enjoy the seaside as children.  This is passed on to a younger generation and on and on afterwards.  Few children fail to enjoy the sea.
In the past people feared the sea.  Men travelled over many miles to trade and explore in thousands of years past yet we still feared the sea while doing so.  Only those who fish or those who trade or explore would consider sea voyages a sensible idea.  However the need to see what lies over the sea is within many of us.  From dugout trees to super liners we want to travel the sea to get to the other side but while this is attractive the majority would rather sit by the sea and just enjoy it from the side.  Sometimes I think I can smell the see though this may be the drains of course.  Sometime soon I must get down to the coast and bore people with photos...

A Quick Cruise

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To See the Sea!

One of the things I miss most about living here is the closeness of the sea.  It is possible to reach it if I jump on a train or bus and endure the other passengers all the way to the coast but in Edinburgh we had the Firth of Forth stretch right in front of us.  Here we could see the sea and taste its aroma as the Forth made its way out to the North Sea.  In days past warships based at Rosyth would make their way out to join the rest of the fleet based in Scapa Flow.  I myself saw a nuclear submarine slip past one day some time back, just a large conning tower and the beginning of the huge volume of the vessel showing. When aged around four or five I was down there with my dad when  a man pointed out to the middle of the water, there we saw a large whale blowing away.  What kind of whale I cannot say but whale it was, the memory remains in my mind of him blowing water.  Neither sub or whale are seen today, one has been removed by London based governments and the other eaten by Japanese or Norwegians. Today not far from this point just before the Forth Bridge large vessels stop to collect the ethylene refined at the Fife Mossmorran plant for shipment to Antwerp and further along similar ships deal with the products of the Grangemouth refinery thus making the Forth a still busy shipway.  

In days of yore just along from this spot Newhaven  Harbour lay.  This small fishing village was once at a distance from both Edinburgh and Leith and has long since been swallowed up.  While many houses have been rebuilt in an old style the people are no longer distinct from those around them. Here the men in their 'pea-jacket' would fish throughout the night, a very dangerous occupation, and on returning to land the wives in their pink or yellow striped dresses would sell the catch to the girls with the 'Hurly' a basket for the fish carried on their backs.  These lassies in the mid 19th century were often Irish rather than Scots and the potato famine brought many more Irish to the city where around 25,000 soon had their abode. According to Detective James McLevy, himself of Irish extraction, the men stood around while their wives did the bartering avoiding any part in the process.  I suppose a near death experience or two at the edge of the North Sea gave them the right to expect the women to do some work, and with the lassies buying it was probably a good idea at that. 

On the far side of the Forth the Fife villages of Crail, Pittenweem and others also so small craft enter the waters to seek for fish, a process that had endured for centuries and ended only in the last fifty years. While the boats developed the danger remained the same and as the fish stocks failed and a type of industrial fishing ruined the breeding grounds the trade died.  Newhaven has developed in other ways and the Fife villages now fill with Edinburgh people too poor to buy a local house, thus leaving Fife folks with even less money less choice of housing. Commuting to work over such a vista may be enjoyable but as always someone suffers.  

The pictures of the Newhaven folks were taken by Edinburgh's two Photographic pioneers Hill and Adamson!   Using a calotype process they subjected the fishing folk to long static poses while they developed their picture.  Quite what the locals thought of this I know not.  They did pose however, in their best, or possibly their only clothes, and must have been happy, and paid, to do so again and again. The pictures taken at Cramond were examples of my brothers talent on a Nikon from a few years ago.  I found them on a disc and decided to put them to use. He wandered out very early one morning before the world had risen and took pics of places we all once knew.  Ah the aroma from the sea is with me still, or possibly I need to put some stuff down the drains again. 

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Interesting Scotia Happenings

gCaptain

'Gardyloo,' as you well know, was the exclamation shouted from old Edinburgh tenements when someone wished to empty their 'pisspot' into the gutter that ran down the middle of the narrow close.  Such a load offered from several floors above, some buildings reaching ten stories, was not the most pleasant part of Edinburgh past.  Walking through it on the way ho,e from the tavern would not have been a barrel of laughs either I suspect.  Hygiene was not much improved anywhere in what is laughingly referred to as the 'United Kingdom' until the middle of the nineteenth century.  Then Ministers of Health were to be found in most cities and sewerage, slum clearance, clean water and soap brought much needed improvements.  Edinburgh, not surprisingly, produced some of the best and most inventive doctors in the world!  They had a lot to go on, as it were.  

During the twentieth century, which some of you may be old enough to remember, Scotland's capital still had problems with sewage.  By this time pipes ran way out into the Firth of Forth depositing unwanted material into the waters where it would be passed on into the north Sea. This is the same same North Sea where our Haddock came from and they kindly recycled the stuff back to us through the many 'chippies.'  I recall the early 70's when Edinburgh streets were in upheaval as a new sewage works arrived down Portobello way at Seafield.  Normally this seaside 'resort,' I use that word sparingly, contained the youthful Hibernian players and their fans idling the day's away while bigger clubs participated in European competition, however during this decade the contents of the sewage pipes had failed to reach the Haddock in the North Sea and instead arrived unwelcome on Porty beach.  Some folks still swam!  Leith people eh?  The council swiftly moved into action, once a backhander had arrived, allegedly, thousands of tons of new, clean sand was deposited, the new sewage works opened  and people removed the clothes pegs from their noses.

This was not without mishap of course.   While working in the infirmary one chap (English of course) arrived in the ward, both hands tied to a rack keeping his arms in the air.  Behind him came a nurse carrying a small bowl containing several of his fingers, or bits of his fingers.  He then had Professor James sew them back on again.  I spent the next two weeks looking after him, doing all those things you wish you could do yourself, until he was considered fit enough to return home.  I wonder how his hands are now?   Possibly the shaving cuts have healed also?  He was a warning that when fixing a large industrial fan, make sure it will not swing round swiftly when your hands are inside!

The fitters work at the Seafield plant may have been good, at least up till someone switched the fan on, but Edinburgh still had an excess of waste to deal with, this is where the 'Bovril Boats' come in!  'Bovril' itself as you know was an invention of an Edinburgh Butcher, John Lawson Johnson.  He later moved to Canada (because Edinburgh was too warm?) where his 'beef glaze' was developed into 'Bovril' as we know it today.  This he sold to Napoleon's army and made his name and his money!  However the substance also gave its name to the 'sludge boats.'  To remove the contents of the sewers boats collected from sewage farms as much as they could contain and sailed into recognised areas at sea and dumped the lot for the tides to disperse. From 1978, while I existed on a pittance in a hole in a wall in Notting Hill the M.V. Gardyloo operating from Leith Docks, took up to half a million metric  tonnes of 'sludge' from the people of Edinburgh, and headed of to St Abbs Head or the 'Bell Rock' to release its contents there.  For twenty years this interesting operation continued.  However while the dumping ground was carefully chosen, and the ship 'ponged' a wee bit the interesting thing was the passengers!  At no charge twelve passengers were entertained on the short trip and were given breakfast, coffee and biscuits, lunch and even their tea while they inspect the sea life on the islands in the Forth, especially the Bass Rock I suspect.  In between using binoculars on nesting seabirds or examining the wheelhouse the ship would dump its load on unsuspecting Cod.  Their opinion has not been recorded.  A very good day out this seems to me and I wish I had known of its existence at the time.  I would have been aboard at a shot!  Sadly EU regulations forbade such dumping in 1998 and these boats curtailed their employment and were passed on to others for less exciting work. The 'Gardyloo' now transports 'fresh water' for Azerbaijan!  The Seafield Water Treatment Works, a nice way to say 'sewage,' continues the work, although much attention is required concerning the 'odour' that local citizens may notice from time to time.  Some £50 million may have to be spent to deal with that.  The boat was cheaper!

BBC

From 1950 until 1953 the United Nations fought its first war, this took place in Korea.  The 'Cold War' had begun and used third world countries as battlefields.  Our fifty years of peace were fifty years of war for Africa, South East Asia and Central and South America, among others.  Fifty to a hundred million died, still, we were doing OK so that's alright then.  The Japanese had dominated Korea for around a hundred years and when removed in 1945 a political decision meant the nation was divided between the Soviets to the north and the USA to the south.  The two nations began to develop along different lines and in June 1950 the Communist North invaded the South making the UN rush into action - eventually.  An army comprising twenty nations, with almost 90% being American, arrived under 'Mad Boy' MacArthur.  The United Kingdom, still devastated after the defeat of Hitler, sent a large number of troops to this war, much against public opinion!  Two major wars in fifty years, a depression and now with rationing still ongoing few cared about a nation they had never heard off.   However a force built from the Commonwealth was sent.  The British Commonwealth Forces Korea (BCFK) comprised Australian, New Zealand, Indian, Canadian and British  forces and numbered 100,000 men and this was always led by an Australian. For the most part however these men have been forgotten!  The British units involved are named here.  

Allowing for the lack of news at the time, TV was in its beginning after the war and the Radio and newspapers appeared to play down the war itself.  Indeed one returning soldier stepped of a train in Edinburgh's Waverly Station where a friend greeted him.  When asked where he had been he replied "Korea," and his friend had no idea what he was talking about!  The war was so badly reported because no-one wished to know.  The Britain of the early fifties was rebuilding after the war, houses were in desperately short supply, wages were low, the ravages of war and the building of families and a new life took precedence.  The men who served, and suffered greatly, were forgotten.  As indeed were those in Britain's other small wars, the 'End of Empire' wars.  

Now however this new enlarged memorial has been opened to remember those Scots who served before they all pass away.  Situated in  West Lothian, of a Korean design, surrounded by Scots and Korean trees to represent the dead, the hills also suggest Korea to those who were there.  Many died there, many were traumatised, as any 19 year old on National Service would be!  Forgotten on their return, ignored at the time, these men endured for their country as did those from the other conflicts since that time.  It is good that something is done to remember their actions. 

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Friday Musings

These interesting houses were I read somewhere built by one of the Courtauld's for some of their (better) employees. Unfortunately I cannot find the link again and I am going on memory here. I believe they were built as late as 1926 and appear influenced by the 'Arts & Crafts Movement' begun by the middle class socialist William Morris.  They stand alone, backing on to the allotments that join the playing fields. I often wonder what they are like inside, although glancing at the windows brings scowls from the inhabitants I find, and the only disadvantage they have these days comes from the once large front garden now turned into car parking, and the tiny letterbox which annoys postmen!  Whether they are now on open sale or still tied by some agreement I cannot tell, and being broke don't really care, but I do think that if you make homes for your (better) employees you may as well make them attractive like the ones shown here.  

I saw this picture for the first time many years ago and took to it straight away.  The face of the woman, bored, depressed, or what stuck in my mind.  I just wanted to do something for her.  Who knows why this was painted, possibly it was a genuine situation the artist noted, at least it wasn't more young ballet dancers! The reality of the situation still impresses me, and reality is all that matters. 

During the high winds that crossed the centre of Scotland yesterday, causing no little destruction, flooding and turning over of vehicles, someone, I know not who, took this picture from the train while crossing the Forth Bridge. The Forth Road Bridge behind is deserted, closed because of the winds howling up the Forth from the west, and there in between the bridges we see a small boat cheerfully crossing the Forth in spite of it all. I wonder if this is an official boat, Police or Coastguard perhaps, whatever rather him than me in such weather!


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Tuesday

Every week I begin by attempting to get fit. By the end of the week I feel good and within days I am overcome by weariness and the 'bug' feeling. This lasts for days and then I am ready to start again, but always starting from the beginning I find. To that end I walked out in the cold sunshine this morning, and after sleeping that off, I went out again this afternoon. It was almost like Spring! The sun shone, the sky was blue and people almost smiled as they passed. Wandering along the old railway I noticed this squirrel happily sitting, or was he posing, on top of this cut down tree just off the line. he appeared to be doing nothing but questioning the meaning of life, or maybe wondering where All the branches had gone more like. Poor lad, it was probably one of his favourite hang outs and now it's gone! There has been a lot of work on the vegetation on the line in recent days, and though this tree is in a private garden the squirrels must be wondering about their hide outs. How lovely to walk in the sunshine, to even see a few flying insects, and hear the birds in the trees. A robin and a thrush sang for me as I passed by. Mind you, if I could speak thrush I may be disillusioned by what he was actually saying about me of course! A good afternoon! However I am knackered now. How come I am so unfit?



This is the river from which the town gets its name. Now from our window in Edinburgh I can look over the Firth of Forth, and the sight of that majestic Firth speaks to me of what a river is like. In fact the young ladies on Scottish Diary have some excellent pictures of the Firth of Forth on their Flicker widget. Well worth a look! However, when I consider what I was brought up with and look into this dirty brown stream I find it hard to call this a 'river.' This is no more than a wee burn to me, and when you look you see it has actually overflowed and flooded the land all around, well a wee bit anyway. Further along the reeds and flooded area would make a great place for kids to play. I suspect neurotic mum's and social service staff would object.

When we drove around on Monday we passed many fields on the borders with Suffolk which were flooded, some over a wide area. The rain has not been excessive but the water floods down through the fields, leaving a dirty brown river full of chemicals and farmers waste I suspect. Kevin, my instructor, kept suggesting they dig barriers to control the flood as it happens every year. However I don't believe water is that keen to be controlled. Far too many houses are built round here on flood plains, in one area the houses have a form of 'stilts' 20 foot high under the foundations just to keep them above the possible flood! How daft is that? The drive was in fog and sunshine, what horrible conditions! So bad that even the drivers round here behaved well! I have booked the theory test fr the 10th and then, if I pass, I will book the actual driving test.
I am on my knees now!