Land of the Mountain and the Flood - Scotland 2025

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  • I've been searching my Highland Railway books - an embarrassing number - to find the reference to the quality of Brora coal. If I remember aright, it was too hard for use as locomotive coal, hard to handle and burning too slowly. This was unfortunate, as the Highland had to haul all its coal from central Scotland at huge expense. This never changed, and was one of the many reasons why diesels replaced steam so quickly in the north.
  • North East QuineNorth East Quine Purgatory Host
    I know an archaeologist who was poking about Brora looking for evidence of the coal seam, and discovered it when her small grandchild asked her about the funny black stone he'd found.
  • North East QuineNorth East Quine Purgatory Host
    Badly in need of a change of scene, but mindful that the NE Man isn't to do anything too exciting until his blood pressure drops a bit more, today we had a splendid jolly to FOGGIELOAN!

    We have been to a viewpoint with a panorama over the Deveron and seen two stones, believed to be the remnants of two stone circles. We have seen the churches involved in the Marnoch case of 1837, one of the precursors of the Disruption. We have wandered round two graveyards, admiring C16th and C17th carvings of skulls and skeletons, and seen a morthouse.

    And best of all, I've found the gravestone of one of my sets of 5 x gt grandparents. Judging by the gravestone they were quite well off. I wonder where their money went - it certainly didn't pass down to their descendants!
  • SandemaniacSandemaniac Shipmate
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    A 1970s suit is still perfectly fine in my book, and it would probably work now if I still owned a suit.
    1970s suits didn’t look good in the 1970s, I’m afraid, and they haven’t improved over the decades since.
    I have to say that I have two. Both hand-me-downs, both made for gentlemen who could afford a proper tailored suit (one is a Hardy Amies)
    Badly in need of a change of scene, but mindful that the NE Man isn't to do anything too exciting until his blood pressure drops a bit more, today we had a splendid jolly to FOGGIELOAN!

    We have been to a viewpoint with a panorama over the Deveron and seen two stones, believed to be the remnants of two stone circles. We have seen the churches involved in the Marnoch case of 1837, one of the precursors of the Disruption. We have wandered round two graveyards, admiring C16th and C17th carvings of skulls and skeletons, and seen a morthouse.

    And best of all, I've found the gravestone of one of my sets of 5 x gt grandparents. Judging by the gravestone they were quite well off. I wonder where their money went - it certainly didn't pass down to their descendants!

    That sounds absolutely splendid! I miss that detective work...
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    What fun @North East Quine. My great grandfather is said to have said that he spoilt his best pair of horses taking a new organ up to Marnoch Old Kirk. My grandmother grew up on a farm through which ran the spring-fed burn that supplied the village water. My mother was evacuated there in 1940 and started school there, and her grandmother (who at one time had run the farm almost single-handed) lived in the village.

    My great uncle created a great mound of stones cleared from the land which he used to say would be his memorial—but was very happy to sell them to the Deveron River authority who had spotted them from the Turriff Road, and wanted them for some work they were doing on the river. I still have cousins living there.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    ... I wonder where their money went - it certainly didn't pass down to their descendants!
    David had (I think) a connection to the Cadbury family somewhere in his ancestry, but sadly, that wealth didn't trickle down either. :(
  • Just spent some happy time wandering around the map of that area - thank you, NEQ. It was a bit beyond the range of the university cycling club, so we never made it that far, even on a week-end trip.
  • ArethosemyfeetArethosemyfeet Shipmate, Heaven Host

    And best of all, I've found the gravestone of one of my sets of 5 x gt grandparents. Judging by the gravestone they were quite well off. I wonder where their money went - it certainly didn't pass down to their descendants!

    They wouldn't have been the first to have put all their money into their funeral fund.
  • North East QuineNorth East Quine Purgatory Host
    edited July 7
    I have been taking a closer look. It seems as though there was a gentle decline in fortunes between my 5 x greats and 3 times greats, and then something went catastrophically wrong with my 2 x greats. My 2 x gt grandfather lost the ability to write in his late 50s - a stroke, perhaps? He then lost his farm tenancy in his early 60s. His application for admittance to the Poor House in his mid 60s refers to "general weakness."

    One of his sons was reputed to have done very well for himself, and allegedly lived in a "big house in Bearsden" but I looked up the address on Google maps this week and it wasn't a "big house in Bearsden" but an attractive neat semi-detached in Bishopbriggs. Certainly posher than anywhere anyone else in the family lived, but not exactly suggestive of untold wealth.
  • North East QuineNorth East Quine Purgatory Host
    The 2 x gt grandparents for whom everything seems to have gone wrong took their time over getting married - my gt grandfather had been born and his younger brother was on the way before they finally tied the knot. I'm not sure if that was hesitancy, or financial problems at the outset of their marriage.

    At least they got married. Of my eight gt gt grandmothers, two never married, two married someone other than the father of their first child, two married the father of their first child, and two were actually married BEFORE they had their first child. Although one of those had been married for only six weeks when she gave birth. A shout out to Catherine Fraser, the only one of the eight who had her first child a full nine months after her marriage!
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    A shout out to Catherine Fraser, the only one of the eight who had her first child a full nine months after her marriage!

    Or as the old Welsh joke has it - 'No baby? There's posh!'
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    When David and I got engaged, a cheeky wag asked us if we'd set a date for the wedding. We told him we had - a date about 15 months hence - and his reply was, "ah, you're not then!". 😂
  • There are several online articles about the coal mine (and other industries) in the Brora area. Here's one, which mentions the rail connections:

    https://www.scottishbanner.com/2023/09/16/duke-of-sutherlands-coal-mine/
  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    Piglet wrote: »
    When David and I got engaged, a cheeky wag asked us if we'd set a date for the wedding. We told him we had - a date about 15 months hence - and his reply was, "ah, you're not then!". 😂

    In all seriousness, we did the same, and it was astonishing how many people in the Vietnamese church were openly counting on their fingers and checking out my waistline. It was one of the most disconcerting things about entering that culture!
  • There are several online articles about the coal mine (and other industries) in the Brora area. Here's one, which mentions the rail connections:

    https://www.scottishbanner.com/2023/09/16/duke-of-sutherlands-coal-mine/

    Thank you for posting the link - I didn't know about it. Excellent information there with other articles just as interesting (the discovery of an early Crossley engine for one).
  • SojournerSojourner Shipmate
    Piglet wrote: »
    When David and I got engaged, a cheeky wag asked us if we'd set a date for the wedding. We told him we had - a date about 15 months hence - and his reply was, "ah, you're not then!". 😂

    In all seriousness, we did the same, and it was astonishing how many people in the Vietnamese church were openly counting on their fingers and checking out my waistline. It was one of the most disconcerting things about entering that culture!

    No difference between them and the (Catholic) Irish….

  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    I was 21 and engaged to their pastor’s brother, a seminarian. I was a bit shocked.
  • SojournerSojourner Shipmate
    Piglet wrote: »
    When David and I got engaged, a cheeky wag asked us if we'd set a date for the wedding. We told him we had - a date about 15 months hence - and his reply was, "ah, you're not then!". 😂

    In all seriousness, we did the same, and it was astonishing how many people in the Vietnamese church were openly counting on their fingers and checking out my waistline. It was one of the most disconcerting things about entering that culture!

    No difference between them and the (Catholic) Irish….

  • North East QuineNorth East Quine Purgatory Host
    When Charles and Diana married, Diana carried the sort of large and elaborate bouquet which in my neck of the woods signified a bride who wanted to obscure her waistline.

    Clearly the royal family hadn't got the memo that non-pregnant brides carry a small bouquet to show off their lack of bump!
  • SandemaniacSandemaniac Shipmate
    When Charles and Diana married, Diana carried the sort of large and elaborate bouquet which in my neck of the woods signified a bride who wanted to obscure her waistline.

    Clearly the royal family hadn't got the memo that non-pregnant brides carry a small bouquet to show off their lack of bump!

    My paternal grandma would have had to have carried whole florists, given that Aunt Gladys arrived a fortnight later!
  • SojournerSojourner Shipmate
    No suprises there: I recall back in 1981 poor Di was subjected to a pre-marital “ fertility test” ( accordig to the Sydney Morning Herald). I doubt whether there has ben a pregnant Royal bride since Anne Boleyn (not that this did her any good)
  • mrs whibleymrs whibley Shipmate Posts: 47
    Only now am I understanding all the eyebrows raised when we had a 6-month engagement! And I thought it was just because I was 25 and he was a 41-year-old divorcé.

    We're about to celebrate our 30th anniversary…
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Good on you, Mrs W (and Mr W!)!
  • CathscatsCathscats Shipmate
    Gorgeous day on the Costa Moray, with clear skies, blue sea and just enough breeze to be pleasant. Hopefully also good for the film folk who are in town. Filming the Odyssey, we are told, so Scotland is standing in for Greece? They are mainly at Findlater castle ruins, and the woods behind Forres, but A-listers have been spotted - Matt Damon with a long grey beard (Ulysses, we presume). For us locals the main fun is watching the reconstructed Viking longboat, acting the part of a Trimerene, as it crosses the bay to and from its mooring in Buckie harbour.
  • SandemaniacSandemaniac Shipmate
    Presumably with characters like McHilles, who has to be careful where he sticks his sgain dhu?
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    :mrgreen:
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