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For the latest news from Scotland see our ScotNews feed at:
https://electricscotland.com/scotnews.htm
Electric Scotland News
I hope you are all doing well as we move into the Festive season. I know some of you will be well organised and have all the presents bought and wrapped but others will likely wait until the very last minute to buy some last minute items at good discounts from the big stores.
In these times of high inflation and high interest rates and expensive energy money for many will be tight. I've often thought that Christmas can be both a good and bad time. Good for those with money and bad for those without. In the pages of Electric Scotland you will find pages with tips on how to get by without much in the way of money. Donna Flood did some pages on frugal living as also did Jeanette Simpson so search for both to find suggestions that will help if you're short of money this Christmas.
Check out our Christmas page at:
https://electricscotland.com/index98.htm
There will be one more newsletter before Christmas.
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MyHeritage can be used to create some simple presents by using their various image tools. Like you can colour a black and white photograph and also use their new program to create a picture of a person in various time frames. Like have them dressed up as a Viking. Mind that you can use these with a free account which you can get on their site.
Scottish News from this weeks newspapers
Note that this is a selection and more can be read in our ScotNews feed on our index page where we list news from the past 1-2 weeks. I am partly doing this to build an archive of modern news from and about Scotland and world news stories that can affect Scotland and as all the newsletters are archived and also indexed on Google and other search engines it becomes a good resource. I might also add that in a number of newspapers you will find many comments which can be just as interesting as the news story itself and of course you can also add your own comments if you wish which I do myself from time to time.
How Australia took back control
If you want to see the deterrent effect of offshoring asylum seekers, look no further than Australia. The numbers arriving by boat plummeted thanks to offshoring, as did the number of tragic drownings. And, contrary to what critics claim, the scheme was nowhere near as expensive as you might think.
Read more at:
https://capx.co/how-australia-took-back-control
What the Hunter Biden scandal says about big tech’s political censorship
Twitter employees, unmasking their own political biases, moved quickly to suppress a story that could have affected how some people voted.
Read more at:
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/twi...political-aims
Liberals rushing to help Quebec suppress English
In a country where fairness is a foundational charter principle and the bedrock philosophy of most Canadians, the idea one group of people should be, in George Orwell’s words, more equal than others should be anathema. And yet, that is what Official Languages Minister Ginette Petitpas-Taylor is
proposing.
Read more at:
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/and...ppress-english
Can Labour revive its fortunes in Scotland?
Labour has outlined proposals for a series of constitutional reforms aimed in part at reviving the party's fortunes in Scotland.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland...itics-63312368
Presentation of Guidon to Royal Canadian Dragoons
Speech from the Governor General
Read more at:
https://www.gg.ca/en/media/news/2022...adian-dragoons
Damning report on Scotland's protected nature areas reveals overall decline
Around 18% of land is legally protected for nature but in many areas the measures are not working, a hard-hitting environmental report found.
Read more at:
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/s...ature-28660556
Revisiting one of Scotland's rarest Viking burials
One hundred and forty years ago Victorian antiquarians excavated a rare Viking boat grave in the Inner Hebrides. What they uncovered on the coastal meadow, called machair, at Kiloran Bay in Colonsay remains Scotland's single richest male Viking burial site to be found so far.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland...-west-63920517
K-pop: The rise of the virtual girl bands
Since releasing their debut single I'm Real in 2021, K-pop girl group Eternity have racked up millions of views online.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-63827838
Nuclear fusion breakthrough will go down in history as code cracked to unlimited energy
Nuclear fusion has been tipped as the holy grail solution to generating clean, near limitless energy.
Read more at:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/scien...limited-energy
Scotland snubs trial of game-changing pregnancy technology
Scots maternity units will not join a landmark trial of technology designed to alert midwives and doctors to pregnant women at risk, we can reveal.
Read more at:
https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/scotla...cy-technology/
Canada's train that takes hitchhikers
Compared with Canada's more celebrated routes, the Skeena is far lesser known. But it's one of the world's most beautiful rail journeys and remains vital for local communities.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/2...es-hitchhikers
UK Inflation slows to 10.7% and may have passed its peak
Today's inflation figures have raised hopes that the worst may be behind us. The challenge for the Government now is to convince workers that life will get better next year, and that big wage rises will make them wealthier in the long run.
Read more at:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/...ssed-its-peak/
China Covid: Hospitals under strain in wave of infections
China's hospitals are already under so much pressure, following the country's rapid 180-degree shift in Covid policy, that doctors and nurses could be infecting patients.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-63944861
Nick Gibb shows the power of having the right person in the right place
If you want to see the impact that one determined person can have by being in the right place at the right time, look no further than Schools Minister Nick Gibb. His success in improving reading outcomes is admirable in itself, but also underscores a vital point about political strategy.
Read more at:
https://capx.co/nick-gibb-shows-the-...e-right-place/
Scottish Budget: 5 things you need to know from John Swinney's tax rising statement
Ahead of his statement Swinney apologised to the Presiding Officer after details of his Budget were leaked to the media, saying no-one was authorised to do so.
Read more at:
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/p...s-you-28742515
A first glance Scottish budget 2023-2024
Early today, the Deputy First Minister announced the Scottish Government’s draft budget. This is (hopefully!) the last of many fiscal statements this year affecting Scotland.
Read more at:
https://fraserofallander.org/a-first...get-2023-2024/
Electric Canadian
Builders of the Canadian Commonwealth
By George H. Locke with an Introduction by A. H. U. Colquhoun (1926) (pdf)
You can read this book at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/make...di0000lock.pdf
Down the Mackenzie and up the Yukon in 1906
BY Elihu Stwart, Formerly Superintendent of Forestry for Canada (1913) (pdf)
You can read this book at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/life...00stewuoft.pdf
Agar Adamson
Lieutenant Colonel, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry
You can read this biography at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/forces/agar-adamson.htm
Always A Patricia
Documentary about the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry Regiment. Added this video to our page for the regiment along with a couple of others.
You can view these at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/forc...t-Infantry.htm
Thoughts on a Sunday Morning - the 11th day of December 2022 - Advent III
By the Rev. Nola Crewe
You can watch this at:
http://www.electricscotland.org/foru...022-advent-iii
Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry War Diaries 1914-1919
Transcribed by Michael Thierens, 1914, 1915 and part of 1916 proofread and commented on by Donna Walker & Ross Toms. The Complete War Diary was proofread by Stephen K. Newman (pdf)
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/forc...d1914-1919.pdf
Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry
Regimental Manual (pdf)
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/forc...tal-manual.pdf
The Escape of a Princess Pat
Being the full account of the capture and fifteen months imprisonment of Corporal Edwards, of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, and his final escape from Germany into Holland by George Pearson (1918) (pdf)
You can read this account at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/forc...00pearuoft.pdf
Electric Scotland
Beth's Newfangled Family Tree
Hi Everyone. Hope your Thanksgiving was filled with family and friends and all folks who could get home ok after the feast. At least you could pack sandwiches for their trip home.
Tom is up for plastic surgery on his rump I am concerned but know this is the normal procedure in non-healing cases such as his. Please pray for us. We do not know precisely yet when the surgery will be. I am trying so hard to be calm and and cool, but I am afraid I am failing miserably.
I also learned this week via Christmas cards that two of my life-long best friends have died recently My beloved June Hafstad Bondurant, a wonderfullly talented artist and more wonderful talented friend. I shall always miss her and also also love her always. I also miss her family very much. My dearest buddy in the world, Roscoe Gay, also passed away last August. I've not quite been able to stop crying yet. His new wife wrote me and give me word that his son, Sam, is ok. Sam always claimed me as a cousin. I hope he still does that... The world shrank considerably with the loss of these two. There is no limit when to grief when you love folks like these.
We hope that you have a wonderful holiday filled with so much love...and so much joy.
Please be careful on your travels. Please cherish those you have to love.
Tom says we should just cherish each other more and more...and I agree.
Happy Christmas.
Love,
beth
You can read this issue, January 2023, section 2 at:
https://electricscotland.com/bnft/index.htm
Scottish Society of Louisville
Got in their December 2022 newsletter which you can read at:
https://electricscotland.com/familyt...ille/index.htm
Beth's Video Talks
December 14th 2022 - The French Republican Calendar Beware
You can view this at:
https://electricscotland.com/bnft/index.htm
The Scottish Pulpit
Came across this series from the State Library of Pennsylvania and thought they'd be of interest to anyone interested in the Scottish Church as they come from 1845 in a series of 5 volumes. Have added volume 4 to the site and will add the last one next week.
You can read these at:
https://electricscotland.com/bible/scottish-pulpit.htm
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman
By T. P. O'Connor, M.P. (1908) (pdf)
You can read about him at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...00oconuoft.pdf
The Serpent-Shaped Mound of Loch Nell
An Account of Some Recent Excavations in Argyleshire
You can read this account at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...hapedmound.htm
Old Pictures of Glasgow
Put up two videos to the foot of our Glasgow page which shows old photographs of Glasgow going back to around 1860.
You can watch these at:
https://electricscotland.com/history/glasgow/index.htm
Scottish Society of Indianapolis
Got in the December 2022 Newsletter which you can read at:
https://electricscotland.com/familyt...olis/index.htm
Ross-Ter 2022
End of Year Report which you can read at:
https://electricscotland.com/familyt...ross/index.htm
A Mother's Funeral
By The Late Norman MacLeod, D.D.
A poem which you can read at:
https://electricscotland.com/poetry/mothers-funeral.htm
How a Fort Ditch was Plumbed
An article by J. Cave Browne in Good Words (1872) (pdf)
An interesting article which you can read at:
https://electricscotland.com/lifestyle/fort-ditch.pdf
Communism
A Parish Lecture by J. Llewelyn Davies, an article from Good Words (1872) (pdf)
And yet another interesting article which can be read at:
https://electricscotland.com/lifestyle/communism.pdf
John MacLeod Campbell D.D.
By Norman MacLeod in Good Words (1872) (pdf)
An interesting biography which you can read at:
https://electricscotland.com/bible/j...d-campbell.pdf
The Ratha Jatra of Serampore
By Alex. Allardyce, an article from the publication Good Words of 1872 edited by Norman MacLeod D.D.
Added this to our Scots in India page which you can read at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...atha-Jatra.htm
Story
Shall I, because I have seen the subject which has been simmering in my mind for several past days, treated beautifully by another hand, resolve not to touch that subject, and to let my thoughts about it go? No, I will not.
It was a little disheartening, no doubt, when I looked yesterday at a certain June Magazine, to find what I had designed to say, said far better by somebody else. But then Dean Alford said it in graceful and touching verse: I aimed no higher than at homely prose.
Sitting, my friend, by the evening fireside: sitting in your easy chair, at rest: and looking at the warm light on the rosy face of your little boy or girl, sitting on the rug by you: do you ever wonder what kind of remembrance these little ones will have of you, if God spares them to grow old ? Look into the years to come: think of that smooth face lined and roughened; that curly hair gray; that expression, now so bright and happy, grown careworn and sad; and you long in your grave. Of course, your son will not have quite forgot you: he will sometimes think and speak of his father who is gone. What kind of remembrance will he have oi you ’ Probably very dim and vague.
You know for yourself, that when you look at your little boy in the fight of the fire, who is now a good deal bigger than in the days when he first was able to put a soft hand in yours and to walk by your side, you have but an indistinct remembrance of what he used to be then. Knowing how much you would come to value the remembrance of those days, you have done what you could to perpetuate it. As you turn over the leaves of your diary, you find recorded with care many of that little man’s wonderful sayings: though, being well aware that these are infinitely more interesting to you than to other people, you have sufficient sense to keep them to yourself. And there are those of your fellowcreatures to whom you would just as soon think of speaking about these things, as you would think of speaking about them to a jackass. And you have aided your memory by yearly photographs: thankful that such invaluable memorials are now possible; and lamenting bitterly that they came so late. Yet, with all this help: and though the years are very few; your remembrance of the first summer that your little boy was able to run about on the grass in the green light of leaves, and to go with you to the stable-yard and look with admiration at the horse, and with alarm at the pig, voraciously devouring its breakfast; is far less vivid and distinct than you would wish it to be. Taught by experience, you have striven with the effacing year of time: yet assuredly not with entire success. Yes; your little boy of three years old has faded somewhat from your memory: and you may discern in all this the way in which you will gradually fade from his. Never forgotten, if you have been the parent you ought to be, you will be remembered vaguely. And you think to yourself, in the restful evening, looking at the rosy face, Now, when he has grown old, how will he remember me? I shall have been gone, for many a day and year ; all my work, all my cares and troubles, will be over all those little things will be past and forgot, which went to make up my life, and about which nobody quite knew but myself. The table at which I write, the inkstand, all my little arrangements, will be swept aside. That little man will have come a long, long way, since he saw me last. How will he think of me? Will he sometimes recal my voice, and the stories I told, and the races I used to run? Will he sometimes say to a stranger, “That’s his picture: not very like him;” will he sometimes think to himself, “There is the corner where he used to sit: I wonder where his chair is now?”
Cowper, writing at the age of fifty-eight, says of his mother: “She died when I had completed my sixth year, yet I remember her well. I remember too a multitude of maternal tendernesses which I received from her, and which have endeared her memory to me beyond expression.” For fifty-two years the over-sensitive poet had come on his earthly pilgrimage, since the little boy of six last saw his mother’s face. Of course, at that age, he could understand very little of what is meant by death; and very little of that great truth, which Gray tells us he discovered for himself, and which very few people learn till they find it by experience, that in this world a human being never can have more than one mother. Yet we can think of the poor little man, finding daily that no one cared for him now as he used to be cared for: finding that the kindest face he could remember was now seen no more. And doubtless there was a vague, overwhelming sorrow at his heart, which lay there unexpressed for half a century, till his mother’s picture sent him by a relative touched the fount of feeling, and inspired the words we all know:
“I heard the bell toll’d on thy burial day:
I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away:
And turning from my nursery window, drew
A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu!
But was it such?—It was.—Where thou art gone,
Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown.
May I but meet thee on that peaceful shore,
The parting word shall pass my lips no more!”
Nobody likes the idea of being quite forgot. Yet sensible people have to make up their mind to it. And you do not care so much about being forgotten by those beyond your own family circle. But you shrink from the thought that your children may never sit down alone, and in a kindly way think for a little of you after you are dead. And all the little details and interests which now make up your habitude of life, seem so real, that there is a certain difficulty in bringing it home to one that they are all to go completely out, leaving no trace behind. Of course they must. Our little ways, my friend, will pass from this earth : and you and I will be like the brave men who lived before Agamemnon. A clergyman who is doing his duty diligently, does not like to think that when he goes, he will be so soon forgotten in his old parish and his old church. Bigger folk, no doubt, have the same feeling. A certain great man has been entirely successful in carrying out his purpose; which was, he said, to leave something so written as that men should not easily let it die. But that which is nearest us, touches us most. We sympathise most readily with little men. Perhaps you preached yesterday in your own church, to a large congregation of Christian people. Perhaps they were very silent and attentive. Perhaps the music was very beautiful, and its heartiness touched your heart. The service was soon over: it may have seemed long to some. Then the great tide of life that had filled the church ebbed away, and left it to its week-day loneliness. The like happens each Sunday. And many years hence, after you are dead, some old people will say, Mr. Smith was minister' of this parish for so many years. That is alL And looking back for even five or ten years, a common Sunday’s service is as undistinguished in remembrance as a green leaf on a great beech-tree now in June, or as a single flake in a thick fall of snow.
Probably you have seen a picture by Mr. Noel Paton, called The Silver Cord Loosed. It is one of the most beautiful and touching of the pictures of that great painter. I saw it the day before yesterday: not for the first or second time. People came into the place where it was exhibited, talking and laughing: but as they stood before that canvas, a hush fell on all. On a couch, there is a female figure, lying dead. Death is unmistakeably there, but only in its beauty. And beyond, through a great window, there is a glorious sunset sky. “Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw herself: for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.” Seated by the bed, there is a mourner, with hidden face, in his first overwhelming grief. Looking at that picture in former days, I had thought how “at evening time there shall be light:” but looking at it now, with the subject of this essay in my mind, I thought how that man, so crushed meanwhile, if the first grief do not kill him (and the greatest grief rarely kills the man of sound physical frame), would get over it: and after some years would find it hard to revive the feelings and thoughts of this day. People in actual modern life are not attired in the picturesque fashion of the mourner in Mr. Noel Paton’s picture: but it is because many can from their own experience tell what a human being in like circumstances would be feeling, that this detail of the picture is so touching. And the saddest thing about it is not the present grief: it is the fact that the grief will so certainly fade and go. And no human power can prevent it. “The low beginnings of content” will force themselves into conscious existence, even in the heart that is most unwilling to recognise them. You will chide yourself that you are able so soon to get over that which you once fancied would darken all your after days. And all your efforts will not bring back the first sorrow: nor recall the thoughts and the atmosphere of that time. When you were a little boy, and a little brother pinched your arm so that a red mark was left, you hastened downstairs to make your complaint to the proper authority. On your way down, fast as you went, you perceived that the red mark was fading out, and becoming invisible. And did you not secretly give the place another pinch to keep up the colour till the injury should be exhibited? Well, there are mourners who do j ust the like. I think I can see some traces of that in In Memoriam. In sorrow that the wound is healing, you are ready to tear it open afresh. And by observing anniversaries: by going to places surrounded by sad associations : some human beings strive to keep up their feeling to the sensitive point of former days. But it will not do. The surface, often spurred, gets indurated: sensation leaves it. And after a while, you might as well think to excite sensation in a piece of India rubber by pricking it with a pin, as think to waken any real feeling in the heart which has indeed met a terrible wound, but whose wound is cicatrized. All this is very sad to think of. Indeed I confess to-thinking it the very sorest point about the average human being. Great grief may leave us: but it should not leave us the men we were. There are people in whose faces I always look with wonder; thinking of what they have come through, and of how little trace it has left. I have gone into a certain room, where everything recalled vividly to me one who was dead. Furniture, books, pictures, piano : how plainly they brought back the face of one, far away! But the regular inmates of the house had no such feeling : had it not, at least, in any painful degree. No doubt, they had felt it for awhile, and outgrown it: whereas, to me it came fresh. And after a time it went from me too.
You know how we linger on the words and looks of the dead after they are gone. It is our sorrowful protest against the power of Time, which we know is taking these things from us. We try to bring back the features and the tones: and we are angry with ourselves that we cannot do so more clearly. “Such a day,” we think, “we saw them last: so they looked: and such words they said." We do that about people for whom we did not especially care while they lived: a certain consecration is breathed about them now. But how much more as to those who did not need this to endear them! You ought to know the lines of a true and beautiful poet, about his little brother who died :—
“And when at last he was borne afar
From the world’s weary strife,
How oft in thought did we again
Live o’er his little life!
“His every look, his every word,—
His very voice’s tone,—
Came back to us like things whose worth
Is only prized when gone!”
I wish I could tell Mr. Hedderwick how many scores of times I have repeated to myself that most touching poem in which these verses stand. But I know (for human nature is always the same) that, when the poet grew to middle age and more, those tones and looks that came so vividly back in the first days of bereavement, would grow indistinct and faint. And now, when he sits by the fire at evening, or when he goes out for a solitary walk, and tries to recall his little brother’s face, he will grieve to feel that it seems misty and far away.
“I cannot see the features right,
When on the gloom I strive to paint
The face I knew; the hues are faint,
And mix with hollow masks of night.”
And you will remember how Mr. Hawthorne, with his sharp discernment of the phenomena of the mind, speaking in the name of one who recalled the form and aspect of a beautiful woman not seen for years, says something like this: When I shut my eyes, I see her yet, but a little wanner than when I saw her in fact.
Yes; and as time goes on, a great deal wanner. I have remarked that even when the outlines remain in our remembrance, the colours fade away.
Thus true is it, that as for the long absent, and the long dead, their remembrance fails. Their faces, and the tones of their voice, grow dim. And sometimes we have all thought what a great thing it would be to be able at will to bring all these back with the vividness of reality! What a great thing it would be if we could keep them on with us, clearly and vividly, as we had them at the first! When your young sister died, oh how distinctly you could hear, for many days, some chance sentence as spoken by her gentle voice! When your little child was taken, how plainly you could feel, for awhile, the fat little cheek laid against your own, as it was for the last time ! But there is no precious possession we have which wears out so fast as the remembrance of those who are gone. There never was but one case where that was not so. Let us remember it as we are told of it in the never-failing Record: there are not many kindlier words, even there:
“But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.”
So you see in that case the dear remembrance would never wear out but with life. The Blessed Spirit would bring back the words, the tones, the looks, of the Blessed Redeemer, as long as those lived who had heard and seen Him. He was to do other things, still more important; but you will probably feel what a wonderfully kindly and encouraging view it gives us of that Divine Person, to think of Him as doing all that. And while we have often to grieve that our best feelings and impulses die away so fast, think how the Apostles, everywhere, through all their after years, would have recalled to them when needful, all things that the Saviour had said to them ; and how He said those things; and how He looked as He said them. They had not to wait for seasons when the old time came over them; when through a rift in the cloud, as it were, they discerned for a minute the face they used to know; and heard the voice again, like distant bells borne in upon the breeze. No: the look was always on St. Peter, that brought him back from his miserable wander: and St. John could recal the words of that parting discourse so accurately, after fifty years.
The poet Motherwell begins a little poem with this verse :—
“When I beneath the cold red earth am sleeping,
Life’s fever o’er,—
Will there for me be any bright eye weeping
That I’m no more?
Will there be any heart sad memory keeping
Of heretofore?”
Now that is a pretty verse; but to my taste it seems tainted with sentimentalism. No man really in earnest could have written these lines. And I feel not the slightest respect for the desire to have “bright eyes weeping’’ for you; or to have some vague indefinite “heart” remembering you. Mr. Augustus Moddle, or any empty-headed lackadaisical lad, writing morbid verses in imitation of Byron, could do that kind of thing. The man whose desire of remembrance takes the shape of a wish to have some pretty girl crying for him (which is the thing aimed at in the mention of the “bright eye weeping”) is on precisely the same level, in regard to taste and sense, with the silly, conceited blockhead who struts about in some place of fashionable resort, and fancies all the young women are looking at him. Why should people with whom you have nothing to do weep for you after you are dead, any more than look at you or think of you while you are living? But it is a very different feeling, and an infinitely more respectable one, that dwells with the man who has outgrown silly sentimentalism; yet who looks at those whom he holds dearest; at those whose stay he is, and who make up his great interest in life; at those whom he will remember, and never forget, no matter where he may go in God’s universe: and who thinks, Now, when the impassable river runs between,—when I am an old remembrance, unseen for many years,—and when they are surrounded by the interests of their after life, and daily see many faces but never mine; how will they think of me? Do not forget me, my little children whom I loved so much, when I shall go from you. I do not wish you (a wise good man might say) to vex yourselves, little things; I do not wish you to be gloomy or sad: but sometimes think of your father and mother when they are far away. You may be sure that, wherever they are, they will not be forgetting you.
A. K. H. B.
END
Weekend is almost here and hope it's a good one for you.
Alastair
https://electricscotland.com/scotnews.htm
Electric Scotland News
I hope you are all doing well as we move into the Festive season. I know some of you will be well organised and have all the presents bought and wrapped but others will likely wait until the very last minute to buy some last minute items at good discounts from the big stores.
In these times of high inflation and high interest rates and expensive energy money for many will be tight. I've often thought that Christmas can be both a good and bad time. Good for those with money and bad for those without. In the pages of Electric Scotland you will find pages with tips on how to get by without much in the way of money. Donna Flood did some pages on frugal living as also did Jeanette Simpson so search for both to find suggestions that will help if you're short of money this Christmas.
Check out our Christmas page at:
https://electricscotland.com/index98.htm
There will be one more newsletter before Christmas.
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MyHeritage can be used to create some simple presents by using their various image tools. Like you can colour a black and white photograph and also use their new program to create a picture of a person in various time frames. Like have them dressed up as a Viking. Mind that you can use these with a free account which you can get on their site.
Scottish News from this weeks newspapers
Note that this is a selection and more can be read in our ScotNews feed on our index page where we list news from the past 1-2 weeks. I am partly doing this to build an archive of modern news from and about Scotland and world news stories that can affect Scotland and as all the newsletters are archived and also indexed on Google and other search engines it becomes a good resource. I might also add that in a number of newspapers you will find many comments which can be just as interesting as the news story itself and of course you can also add your own comments if you wish which I do myself from time to time.
How Australia took back control
If you want to see the deterrent effect of offshoring asylum seekers, look no further than Australia. The numbers arriving by boat plummeted thanks to offshoring, as did the number of tragic drownings. And, contrary to what critics claim, the scheme was nowhere near as expensive as you might think.
Read more at:
https://capx.co/how-australia-took-back-control
What the Hunter Biden scandal says about big tech’s political censorship
Twitter employees, unmasking their own political biases, moved quickly to suppress a story that could have affected how some people voted.
Read more at:
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/twi...political-aims
Liberals rushing to help Quebec suppress English
In a country where fairness is a foundational charter principle and the bedrock philosophy of most Canadians, the idea one group of people should be, in George Orwell’s words, more equal than others should be anathema. And yet, that is what Official Languages Minister Ginette Petitpas-Taylor is
proposing.
Read more at:
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/and...ppress-english
Can Labour revive its fortunes in Scotland?
Labour has outlined proposals for a series of constitutional reforms aimed in part at reviving the party's fortunes in Scotland.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland...itics-63312368
Presentation of Guidon to Royal Canadian Dragoons
Speech from the Governor General
Read more at:
https://www.gg.ca/en/media/news/2022...adian-dragoons
Damning report on Scotland's protected nature areas reveals overall decline
Around 18% of land is legally protected for nature but in many areas the measures are not working, a hard-hitting environmental report found.
Read more at:
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/s...ature-28660556
Revisiting one of Scotland's rarest Viking burials
One hundred and forty years ago Victorian antiquarians excavated a rare Viking boat grave in the Inner Hebrides. What they uncovered on the coastal meadow, called machair, at Kiloran Bay in Colonsay remains Scotland's single richest male Viking burial site to be found so far.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland...-west-63920517
K-pop: The rise of the virtual girl bands
Since releasing their debut single I'm Real in 2021, K-pop girl group Eternity have racked up millions of views online.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-63827838
Nuclear fusion breakthrough will go down in history as code cracked to unlimited energy
Nuclear fusion has been tipped as the holy grail solution to generating clean, near limitless energy.
Read more at:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/scien...limited-energy
Scotland snubs trial of game-changing pregnancy technology
Scots maternity units will not join a landmark trial of technology designed to alert midwives and doctors to pregnant women at risk, we can reveal.
Read more at:
https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/scotla...cy-technology/
Canada's train that takes hitchhikers
Compared with Canada's more celebrated routes, the Skeena is far lesser known. But it's one of the world's most beautiful rail journeys and remains vital for local communities.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/2...es-hitchhikers
UK Inflation slows to 10.7% and may have passed its peak
Today's inflation figures have raised hopes that the worst may be behind us. The challenge for the Government now is to convince workers that life will get better next year, and that big wage rises will make them wealthier in the long run.
Read more at:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/...ssed-its-peak/
China Covid: Hospitals under strain in wave of infections
China's hospitals are already under so much pressure, following the country's rapid 180-degree shift in Covid policy, that doctors and nurses could be infecting patients.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-63944861
Nick Gibb shows the power of having the right person in the right place
If you want to see the impact that one determined person can have by being in the right place at the right time, look no further than Schools Minister Nick Gibb. His success in improving reading outcomes is admirable in itself, but also underscores a vital point about political strategy.
Read more at:
https://capx.co/nick-gibb-shows-the-...e-right-place/
Scottish Budget: 5 things you need to know from John Swinney's tax rising statement
Ahead of his statement Swinney apologised to the Presiding Officer after details of his Budget were leaked to the media, saying no-one was authorised to do so.
Read more at:
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/p...s-you-28742515
A first glance Scottish budget 2023-2024
Early today, the Deputy First Minister announced the Scottish Government’s draft budget. This is (hopefully!) the last of many fiscal statements this year affecting Scotland.
Read more at:
https://fraserofallander.org/a-first...get-2023-2024/
Electric Canadian
Builders of the Canadian Commonwealth
By George H. Locke with an Introduction by A. H. U. Colquhoun (1926) (pdf)
You can read this book at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/make...di0000lock.pdf
Down the Mackenzie and up the Yukon in 1906
BY Elihu Stwart, Formerly Superintendent of Forestry for Canada (1913) (pdf)
You can read this book at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/life...00stewuoft.pdf
Agar Adamson
Lieutenant Colonel, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry
You can read this biography at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/forces/agar-adamson.htm
Always A Patricia
Documentary about the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry Regiment. Added this video to our page for the regiment along with a couple of others.
You can view these at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/forc...t-Infantry.htm
Thoughts on a Sunday Morning - the 11th day of December 2022 - Advent III
By the Rev. Nola Crewe
You can watch this at:
http://www.electricscotland.org/foru...022-advent-iii
Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry War Diaries 1914-1919
Transcribed by Michael Thierens, 1914, 1915 and part of 1916 proofread and commented on by Donna Walker & Ross Toms. The Complete War Diary was proofread by Stephen K. Newman (pdf)
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/forc...d1914-1919.pdf
Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry
Regimental Manual (pdf)
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/forc...tal-manual.pdf
The Escape of a Princess Pat
Being the full account of the capture and fifteen months imprisonment of Corporal Edwards, of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, and his final escape from Germany into Holland by George Pearson (1918) (pdf)
You can read this account at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/forc...00pearuoft.pdf
Electric Scotland
Beth's Newfangled Family Tree
Hi Everyone. Hope your Thanksgiving was filled with family and friends and all folks who could get home ok after the feast. At least you could pack sandwiches for their trip home.
Tom is up for plastic surgery on his rump I am concerned but know this is the normal procedure in non-healing cases such as his. Please pray for us. We do not know precisely yet when the surgery will be. I am trying so hard to be calm and and cool, but I am afraid I am failing miserably.
I also learned this week via Christmas cards that two of my life-long best friends have died recently My beloved June Hafstad Bondurant, a wonderfullly talented artist and more wonderful talented friend. I shall always miss her and also also love her always. I also miss her family very much. My dearest buddy in the world, Roscoe Gay, also passed away last August. I've not quite been able to stop crying yet. His new wife wrote me and give me word that his son, Sam, is ok. Sam always claimed me as a cousin. I hope he still does that... The world shrank considerably with the loss of these two. There is no limit when to grief when you love folks like these.
We hope that you have a wonderful holiday filled with so much love...and so much joy.
Please be careful on your travels. Please cherish those you have to love.
Tom says we should just cherish each other more and more...and I agree.
Happy Christmas.
Love,
beth
You can read this issue, January 2023, section 2 at:
https://electricscotland.com/bnft/index.htm
Scottish Society of Louisville
Got in their December 2022 newsletter which you can read at:
https://electricscotland.com/familyt...ille/index.htm
Beth's Video Talks
December 14th 2022 - The French Republican Calendar Beware
You can view this at:
https://electricscotland.com/bnft/index.htm
The Scottish Pulpit
Came across this series from the State Library of Pennsylvania and thought they'd be of interest to anyone interested in the Scottish Church as they come from 1845 in a series of 5 volumes. Have added volume 4 to the site and will add the last one next week.
You can read these at:
https://electricscotland.com/bible/scottish-pulpit.htm
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman
By T. P. O'Connor, M.P. (1908) (pdf)
You can read about him at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...00oconuoft.pdf
The Serpent-Shaped Mound of Loch Nell
An Account of Some Recent Excavations in Argyleshire
You can read this account at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...hapedmound.htm
Old Pictures of Glasgow
Put up two videos to the foot of our Glasgow page which shows old photographs of Glasgow going back to around 1860.
You can watch these at:
https://electricscotland.com/history/glasgow/index.htm
Scottish Society of Indianapolis
Got in the December 2022 Newsletter which you can read at:
https://electricscotland.com/familyt...olis/index.htm
Ross-Ter 2022
End of Year Report which you can read at:
https://electricscotland.com/familyt...ross/index.htm
A Mother's Funeral
By The Late Norman MacLeod, D.D.
A poem which you can read at:
https://electricscotland.com/poetry/mothers-funeral.htm
How a Fort Ditch was Plumbed
An article by J. Cave Browne in Good Words (1872) (pdf)
An interesting article which you can read at:
https://electricscotland.com/lifestyle/fort-ditch.pdf
Communism
A Parish Lecture by J. Llewelyn Davies, an article from Good Words (1872) (pdf)
And yet another interesting article which can be read at:
https://electricscotland.com/lifestyle/communism.pdf
John MacLeod Campbell D.D.
By Norman MacLeod in Good Words (1872) (pdf)
An interesting biography which you can read at:
https://electricscotland.com/bible/j...d-campbell.pdf
The Ratha Jatra of Serampore
By Alex. Allardyce, an article from the publication Good Words of 1872 edited by Norman MacLeod D.D.
Added this to our Scots in India page which you can read at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...atha-Jatra.htm
Story
Remembrance
An article from Good Words 1863 edition
Shall I, because I have seen the subject which has been simmering in my mind for several past days, treated beautifully by another hand, resolve not to touch that subject, and to let my thoughts about it go? No, I will not.
It was a little disheartening, no doubt, when I looked yesterday at a certain June Magazine, to find what I had designed to say, said far better by somebody else. But then Dean Alford said it in graceful and touching verse: I aimed no higher than at homely prose.
Sitting, my friend, by the evening fireside: sitting in your easy chair, at rest: and looking at the warm light on the rosy face of your little boy or girl, sitting on the rug by you: do you ever wonder what kind of remembrance these little ones will have of you, if God spares them to grow old ? Look into the years to come: think of that smooth face lined and roughened; that curly hair gray; that expression, now so bright and happy, grown careworn and sad; and you long in your grave. Of course, your son will not have quite forgot you: he will sometimes think and speak of his father who is gone. What kind of remembrance will he have oi you ’ Probably very dim and vague.
You know for yourself, that when you look at your little boy in the fight of the fire, who is now a good deal bigger than in the days when he first was able to put a soft hand in yours and to walk by your side, you have but an indistinct remembrance of what he used to be then. Knowing how much you would come to value the remembrance of those days, you have done what you could to perpetuate it. As you turn over the leaves of your diary, you find recorded with care many of that little man’s wonderful sayings: though, being well aware that these are infinitely more interesting to you than to other people, you have sufficient sense to keep them to yourself. And there are those of your fellowcreatures to whom you would just as soon think of speaking about these things, as you would think of speaking about them to a jackass. And you have aided your memory by yearly photographs: thankful that such invaluable memorials are now possible; and lamenting bitterly that they came so late. Yet, with all this help: and though the years are very few; your remembrance of the first summer that your little boy was able to run about on the grass in the green light of leaves, and to go with you to the stable-yard and look with admiration at the horse, and with alarm at the pig, voraciously devouring its breakfast; is far less vivid and distinct than you would wish it to be. Taught by experience, you have striven with the effacing year of time: yet assuredly not with entire success. Yes; your little boy of three years old has faded somewhat from your memory: and you may discern in all this the way in which you will gradually fade from his. Never forgotten, if you have been the parent you ought to be, you will be remembered vaguely. And you think to yourself, in the restful evening, looking at the rosy face, Now, when he has grown old, how will he remember me? I shall have been gone, for many a day and year ; all my work, all my cares and troubles, will be over all those little things will be past and forgot, which went to make up my life, and about which nobody quite knew but myself. The table at which I write, the inkstand, all my little arrangements, will be swept aside. That little man will have come a long, long way, since he saw me last. How will he think of me? Will he sometimes recal my voice, and the stories I told, and the races I used to run? Will he sometimes say to a stranger, “That’s his picture: not very like him;” will he sometimes think to himself, “There is the corner where he used to sit: I wonder where his chair is now?”
Cowper, writing at the age of fifty-eight, says of his mother: “She died when I had completed my sixth year, yet I remember her well. I remember too a multitude of maternal tendernesses which I received from her, and which have endeared her memory to me beyond expression.” For fifty-two years the over-sensitive poet had come on his earthly pilgrimage, since the little boy of six last saw his mother’s face. Of course, at that age, he could understand very little of what is meant by death; and very little of that great truth, which Gray tells us he discovered for himself, and which very few people learn till they find it by experience, that in this world a human being never can have more than one mother. Yet we can think of the poor little man, finding daily that no one cared for him now as he used to be cared for: finding that the kindest face he could remember was now seen no more. And doubtless there was a vague, overwhelming sorrow at his heart, which lay there unexpressed for half a century, till his mother’s picture sent him by a relative touched the fount of feeling, and inspired the words we all know:
“I heard the bell toll’d on thy burial day:
I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away:
And turning from my nursery window, drew
A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu!
But was it such?—It was.—Where thou art gone,
Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown.
May I but meet thee on that peaceful shore,
The parting word shall pass my lips no more!”
Nobody likes the idea of being quite forgot. Yet sensible people have to make up their mind to it. And you do not care so much about being forgotten by those beyond your own family circle. But you shrink from the thought that your children may never sit down alone, and in a kindly way think for a little of you after you are dead. And all the little details and interests which now make up your habitude of life, seem so real, that there is a certain difficulty in bringing it home to one that they are all to go completely out, leaving no trace behind. Of course they must. Our little ways, my friend, will pass from this earth : and you and I will be like the brave men who lived before Agamemnon. A clergyman who is doing his duty diligently, does not like to think that when he goes, he will be so soon forgotten in his old parish and his old church. Bigger folk, no doubt, have the same feeling. A certain great man has been entirely successful in carrying out his purpose; which was, he said, to leave something so written as that men should not easily let it die. But that which is nearest us, touches us most. We sympathise most readily with little men. Perhaps you preached yesterday in your own church, to a large congregation of Christian people. Perhaps they were very silent and attentive. Perhaps the music was very beautiful, and its heartiness touched your heart. The service was soon over: it may have seemed long to some. Then the great tide of life that had filled the church ebbed away, and left it to its week-day loneliness. The like happens each Sunday. And many years hence, after you are dead, some old people will say, Mr. Smith was minister' of this parish for so many years. That is alL And looking back for even five or ten years, a common Sunday’s service is as undistinguished in remembrance as a green leaf on a great beech-tree now in June, or as a single flake in a thick fall of snow.
Probably you have seen a picture by Mr. Noel Paton, called The Silver Cord Loosed. It is one of the most beautiful and touching of the pictures of that great painter. I saw it the day before yesterday: not for the first or second time. People came into the place where it was exhibited, talking and laughing: but as they stood before that canvas, a hush fell on all. On a couch, there is a female figure, lying dead. Death is unmistakeably there, but only in its beauty. And beyond, through a great window, there is a glorious sunset sky. “Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw herself: for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.” Seated by the bed, there is a mourner, with hidden face, in his first overwhelming grief. Looking at that picture in former days, I had thought how “at evening time there shall be light:” but looking at it now, with the subject of this essay in my mind, I thought how that man, so crushed meanwhile, if the first grief do not kill him (and the greatest grief rarely kills the man of sound physical frame), would get over it: and after some years would find it hard to revive the feelings and thoughts of this day. People in actual modern life are not attired in the picturesque fashion of the mourner in Mr. Noel Paton’s picture: but it is because many can from their own experience tell what a human being in like circumstances would be feeling, that this detail of the picture is so touching. And the saddest thing about it is not the present grief: it is the fact that the grief will so certainly fade and go. And no human power can prevent it. “The low beginnings of content” will force themselves into conscious existence, even in the heart that is most unwilling to recognise them. You will chide yourself that you are able so soon to get over that which you once fancied would darken all your after days. And all your efforts will not bring back the first sorrow: nor recall the thoughts and the atmosphere of that time. When you were a little boy, and a little brother pinched your arm so that a red mark was left, you hastened downstairs to make your complaint to the proper authority. On your way down, fast as you went, you perceived that the red mark was fading out, and becoming invisible. And did you not secretly give the place another pinch to keep up the colour till the injury should be exhibited? Well, there are mourners who do j ust the like. I think I can see some traces of that in In Memoriam. In sorrow that the wound is healing, you are ready to tear it open afresh. And by observing anniversaries: by going to places surrounded by sad associations : some human beings strive to keep up their feeling to the sensitive point of former days. But it will not do. The surface, often spurred, gets indurated: sensation leaves it. And after a while, you might as well think to excite sensation in a piece of India rubber by pricking it with a pin, as think to waken any real feeling in the heart which has indeed met a terrible wound, but whose wound is cicatrized. All this is very sad to think of. Indeed I confess to-thinking it the very sorest point about the average human being. Great grief may leave us: but it should not leave us the men we were. There are people in whose faces I always look with wonder; thinking of what they have come through, and of how little trace it has left. I have gone into a certain room, where everything recalled vividly to me one who was dead. Furniture, books, pictures, piano : how plainly they brought back the face of one, far away! But the regular inmates of the house had no such feeling : had it not, at least, in any painful degree. No doubt, they had felt it for awhile, and outgrown it: whereas, to me it came fresh. And after a time it went from me too.
You know how we linger on the words and looks of the dead after they are gone. It is our sorrowful protest against the power of Time, which we know is taking these things from us. We try to bring back the features and the tones: and we are angry with ourselves that we cannot do so more clearly. “Such a day,” we think, “we saw them last: so they looked: and such words they said." We do that about people for whom we did not especially care while they lived: a certain consecration is breathed about them now. But how much more as to those who did not need this to endear them! You ought to know the lines of a true and beautiful poet, about his little brother who died :—
“And when at last he was borne afar
From the world’s weary strife,
How oft in thought did we again
Live o’er his little life!
“His every look, his every word,—
His very voice’s tone,—
Came back to us like things whose worth
Is only prized when gone!”
I wish I could tell Mr. Hedderwick how many scores of times I have repeated to myself that most touching poem in which these verses stand. But I know (for human nature is always the same) that, when the poet grew to middle age and more, those tones and looks that came so vividly back in the first days of bereavement, would grow indistinct and faint. And now, when he sits by the fire at evening, or when he goes out for a solitary walk, and tries to recall his little brother’s face, he will grieve to feel that it seems misty and far away.
“I cannot see the features right,
When on the gloom I strive to paint
The face I knew; the hues are faint,
And mix with hollow masks of night.”
And you will remember how Mr. Hawthorne, with his sharp discernment of the phenomena of the mind, speaking in the name of one who recalled the form and aspect of a beautiful woman not seen for years, says something like this: When I shut my eyes, I see her yet, but a little wanner than when I saw her in fact.
Yes; and as time goes on, a great deal wanner. I have remarked that even when the outlines remain in our remembrance, the colours fade away.
Thus true is it, that as for the long absent, and the long dead, their remembrance fails. Their faces, and the tones of their voice, grow dim. And sometimes we have all thought what a great thing it would be to be able at will to bring all these back with the vividness of reality! What a great thing it would be if we could keep them on with us, clearly and vividly, as we had them at the first! When your young sister died, oh how distinctly you could hear, for many days, some chance sentence as spoken by her gentle voice! When your little child was taken, how plainly you could feel, for awhile, the fat little cheek laid against your own, as it was for the last time ! But there is no precious possession we have which wears out so fast as the remembrance of those who are gone. There never was but one case where that was not so. Let us remember it as we are told of it in the never-failing Record: there are not many kindlier words, even there:
“But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.”
So you see in that case the dear remembrance would never wear out but with life. The Blessed Spirit would bring back the words, the tones, the looks, of the Blessed Redeemer, as long as those lived who had heard and seen Him. He was to do other things, still more important; but you will probably feel what a wonderfully kindly and encouraging view it gives us of that Divine Person, to think of Him as doing all that. And while we have often to grieve that our best feelings and impulses die away so fast, think how the Apostles, everywhere, through all their after years, would have recalled to them when needful, all things that the Saviour had said to them ; and how He said those things; and how He looked as He said them. They had not to wait for seasons when the old time came over them; when through a rift in the cloud, as it were, they discerned for a minute the face they used to know; and heard the voice again, like distant bells borne in upon the breeze. No: the look was always on St. Peter, that brought him back from his miserable wander: and St. John could recal the words of that parting discourse so accurately, after fifty years.
The poet Motherwell begins a little poem with this verse :—
“When I beneath the cold red earth am sleeping,
Life’s fever o’er,—
Will there for me be any bright eye weeping
That I’m no more?
Will there be any heart sad memory keeping
Of heretofore?”
Now that is a pretty verse; but to my taste it seems tainted with sentimentalism. No man really in earnest could have written these lines. And I feel not the slightest respect for the desire to have “bright eyes weeping’’ for you; or to have some vague indefinite “heart” remembering you. Mr. Augustus Moddle, or any empty-headed lackadaisical lad, writing morbid verses in imitation of Byron, could do that kind of thing. The man whose desire of remembrance takes the shape of a wish to have some pretty girl crying for him (which is the thing aimed at in the mention of the “bright eye weeping”) is on precisely the same level, in regard to taste and sense, with the silly, conceited blockhead who struts about in some place of fashionable resort, and fancies all the young women are looking at him. Why should people with whom you have nothing to do weep for you after you are dead, any more than look at you or think of you while you are living? But it is a very different feeling, and an infinitely more respectable one, that dwells with the man who has outgrown silly sentimentalism; yet who looks at those whom he holds dearest; at those whose stay he is, and who make up his great interest in life; at those whom he will remember, and never forget, no matter where he may go in God’s universe: and who thinks, Now, when the impassable river runs between,—when I am an old remembrance, unseen for many years,—and when they are surrounded by the interests of their after life, and daily see many faces but never mine; how will they think of me? Do not forget me, my little children whom I loved so much, when I shall go from you. I do not wish you (a wise good man might say) to vex yourselves, little things; I do not wish you to be gloomy or sad: but sometimes think of your father and mother when they are far away. You may be sure that, wherever they are, they will not be forgetting you.
A. K. H. B.
END
Weekend is almost here and hope it's a good one for you.
Alastair