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CONTENTS
Electric Scotland News
Electric Canadian
Canada and its Provinces
The Flag in the Wind
Electric Scotland
The Scottish Historical Review
Songs Of Scotland, Prior To Burns
The Annals of Scottish Natural History
Caledonia Monthly Magazine
Robert Burns Lives!
Lewsiana
British Artisan Expedition to America
The Criminal and The Community
The Working Life of Christina McKelvie MSP
Scottish Stories for Young Readers
Clan Leslie International
A Visit to Auch Melvich
Christian Isobel Johnstone
and finally
Electric Scotland News
This week I got my new logo embedded into a new look menu for the site. In the re-design I did move a few menu items under our Lifestyle menu which meant I took them off the main menu. These include News, Weddings and Haggis. In the old menu in the final column we showed Scots Diaspora with some countries under it. Well I still have Scots Diaspora but have now removed the individual countries as they can of course be found under the Scots Diaspora page.
-----
In our community I note that Hugh has started up the Enigma game that Doug Ross did many years ago now. I guess its a bit like a crossword. Hugh is posting one up each week under the Thread "Enigma Machine" which you can reach athttp://www.electricscotland.org/showthread.php/3899-Enigma-Machine
He is posting up one a week and thus giving us time to try and solve it and so discussions go on through the week and at the end of the week Hugh provides the answers. I confess I am terrible at these things myself but for those that are good at crosswords you may well enjoy the weekly puzzle.
-----
I was talking to a tourism chap this week and he was saying that he thinks this will be a poor year for tourism in Scotland. The reason he said was that so much was going on in 2014 that a lot of overseas visitors would be saving their money to visit Scotland for all the different things going on in that year that they will likely give a 2013 a miss.
I can well understand that as lots of visitors can't afford to go every year to Scotland and of course with the Commonwealth Games, Ryder Cup Golf and Homecoming all wrapped up with that critical referendum vote 2014 has you spoiled for choice.
In actual fact given the spread of events you'd likely want to spend a few months in Scotland in 2014 instead of just a week or so. That might mean you need to find some low cost accommodation and so a special deal with them for a long stay.
I am wondering how many will visit Scotland for the referendum just to be able to say they were there?
Electric Canadian
I intend to turn my attention back to this site next week as I've been building up some work for Electric Scotland these past several weeks.
Canada and its Provinces
I have now started to add these volumes and the idea is to make one volume available each week until complete. Should you be interested in this series then you'll be able to dip into each volume during the week and thus be ready for the next volume appearing.
Now added The Province of Quebec Volume 16 - Section VIII
You can get to this collection towards the foot of our Canadian History page at
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...nada/index.htm
The Flag in the Wind
This weeks edition was Compiled by Claire Adamson. In her column she's discussing Universal Services.
You can read this issue at http://www.scotsindependent.org
Electric Scotland
The Scottish Historical Review
We have now started on Volume 5 and added this week July 1908.
You can get to this at::
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...w/volume05.htm
You can read the previous issues at http://www.electricscotland.com/history/review/
Songs Of Scotland, Prior To Burns
This book is by Robert Chambers who is famous for collecting old Scottish Songs.
Added this week are...
Get Up And Bar The Door
Toddlin' Home
The Miller
You can get to this book at the foot of the page at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...ers_robert.htm
The Annals of Scottish Natural History
Now added Volume 7
You can read this at the foot of the page at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/natu...al_history.htm
Caledonia Monthly Magazine
Have added additional articles from this magazine...
Character Bureau
Mysterious Disappearance of Charlie Christie
Captain Clark-Kennedy
The Cross-Roads
You can get to these at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...pers/caledonia
Robert Burns Lives!
Edited by Frank Shaw
A Tribute to Professor G. Ross Roy
Susan and I made our way to Columbia, South Carolina on Thursday, April 25, 2013 to attend the memorial service for G. Ross Roy, a dear friend, fellow Burnsian and member of our family. Over the past few months we had realized this day was coming but had hoped against hope it would happen much farther down the road. He passed away during the early morning hours of February 19th. Ross fought a good fight, knowing there were other tasks he wanted to complete. While that was not to be, it is clear that many excellent works regarding Robert Burns and Scottish literature had been accomplished by him. Not only did we drive to Columbia with heavy hearts, but we went knowing so much had been accomplished by one who had blessed our lives by knowing him.
We were not the only travelers journeying from the Atlanta area to celebrate Ross’s life. Several members of the Burns Club of Atlanta, President David Grant, Vice-President Woody Woodward, and Past Presidents Tom Todd, Jim Montgomery and Jim Powell, also attended to pay tribute to this greatly respected honorary member of our club. And, flying in from Scotland, was the Past President of the Robert Burns World Federation and current editor of the Burns Chronicle, Bill Dawson.
The memorial tribute was held in the prestigious Ernest F. Hollings Special Collections Library, a place dear to Ross’s heart. I share below a few thoughts and quotes I jotted down that afternoon.
You can read the rest of this article at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/fami...s_lives172.htm
Other articles in this series can be read at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/fami...rank/burns.htm
Lewsiana
Or Life in the Outer Hebrides by W. Anderson Smith (1875).
This week we've added the following chapters...
Lobster-Fishing
The East Coast
Ness
Uige
Carloway
The Lews Antiquities
The Lews Fauna
Here is how the chapter starts on Lobster-Fishing...
IN certain rocky districts this is generally a most remunerative fishing to the Hebrideans. It is prosecuted in stout boats of 15 or 16 feet keel, carrying a lugsail, and costing the fishermen about £15. The most successful, because most assiduous, bold, and energetic, followers of this branch of marine industry, are the inhabitants of the Island of Bernera, Loch Roag, whose boats may be seen beating up amid the dangerous islets at the mouth of Loch Roag in the most tempestuous weather. Each boat carries a crew of four men, supplied with from twelve to twenty lobster creels, which completely occupy the boat, and give scant room for working, thereby much increasing the danger in rough weather.
But our boat is swinging at anchor in Carloway “harbour,” and as the sea is good and the wind favourable, we shall run down the rugged, dangerous, rocky coast beset with sunken “boes,” and see what Neptune will send us to-day. The creels are shipped under the thwarts, about the bow, in every conceivable part of the available space ; the mast is stepped, and, as the sail is set, we slide round the rocky point, and are soon running out the well-sheltered inlet known as Carloway Loch.
As we approach the mouth, a halt is made to raise the spiller line set overnight, in order to secure bait for the creels. Anxiously hook after hook is watched as the line comes in handover-hand, with an occasional gurnard or flounder to repay hours of trying labour.
Sufficient bait is now secured for the day’s fishing, sail is again set, and we glide past the “bo” at the entrance, and so through the Sound of Cragum—that sound through which the sea seems always rushing like a mill-race, and where so many stiff pulls on a lee shore, against wind and tide in trying weather, have tested alike our muscles, our endurance, and our tempers. But we leave these adjacent grounds for fishing in rough weather, and our boat dances merrily past the Raven’s Cliff, the Rock of Scarts, and the many other beetling precipices and breaker-haunted “boes” that fringe this savage coast. At length we reach the entrance of the open, unprotected sea loch of Garnin, having baited our traps on the way by fixing half a flounder or a gurnard in the centre of the trap, so as to swing in an enticing manner in the haunts of the aristocratic Mr. Lobster.
You can read the rest of this chapter at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist.../chapter08.htm
You can read this book at http://www.electricscotland.com/history/lewsiana
British Artisan Expedition to America
Equipped and sent out by and at the expense of the Dundee Courier and Dundee Weekly News Newspapers.
We've now added a further chapter...
Chapter 8 - Chicago to Pittsburg
You can read this chapter and the rest of the book at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...expedition.htm
The Criminal and The Community
By James Devon (1912)
We're now onto Part II of this book and the first chapter of this part is about Drink and Crime which actually works well with the current discussion on Scotland on the minimum price of alcohol.
You can get to that chapter at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...2chapter01.htm
The rest of the chapters can be read at http://www.electricscotland.com/history/criminal/
The Working Life of Christina McKelvie MSP
We now have up her column for 2nd May 2012 which you can read at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...vie/130502.htm
Her other columns can be read at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...lvie/index.htm
Scottish Stories for Young Readers
Having discovered from our stats that we have a lot of young readers coming to the site to read our many children's stories I decided to publish some old children's stories which are also very readable for adults as well.
The first book is by Mrs Blackford (Later Lady Stoddart) where there are three stories which I'll publish over three weeks. I do have others I've found which I'll also add to this page in the coming weeks.
You can get to this first book at http://www.electricscotland.com/poetry/stories/
Clan Leslie International
Got in a copy of their April 2013 newsletter which you can view at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/fami...ters/leslieint
A Visit to Auch Melvich
By Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, Bart.
Found this very interesting article about a visit made to this area by the Duke of Sutherland.
January, 1847
The site of the little township of Auch Melvich, in Sutherland, is, perhaps, one of the most singular of the many spots which have been occupied by thriving hamlets and villages around the extensive coasts of that interesting country. It is in the district of Assynt; and although we shall attempt to describe it to the best of our power, yet we have no great hope of doing so with such success as to place it very vividly before the imagination of our readers. It consists of a considerable cluster of cottages, flanking either side of narrow, tortuous, irregular ways, which, as yet, cannot very well claim the title of streets, and which run hither and thither over a gently swelling, sandy piece of ground, chiefly covered with bent grass. This slopes easily towards the north into a flat, formed of the same white calcareous and, all of which has been accumulated by the wind drifting it inwards from the shelly shore of a bay which bounds it in that direction. To the west the hamlet is sheltered from the sea by a range of high grounds, running from this bay on the north to the entrance of Loch Roe on the south. These present rugged, rocky points to the ocean; and their eastern side, towards the hamlet, affords a perfect sample of the general face of the Assynt country, being very irregular in its surface, and covered with round of blisters of primitive rock, rising all over it in numerous knolls, and having the intervening hollows all cultivated, in patches of oats, bear, and potatoes, so that not even the smallest portion of soil, of a few feet square, is left without culture.
These bright green spots, which are of the most whimsical shapes, some of them being like polypi, and others like stockings, or shirts, or other more unmentionable articles of apparel, give a most extraordinary appearance to the general face of the hill side, whilst they speak well for the industry of the people by whose hands they were erected. To the east of the hamlet the mountain rises in a bold craggy steep, where Nature bids defiance to the efforts of man to put any trace of his dominion upon it. To the south of the hamlet there lies a considerable mossy flat, of a circular form, surrounded by the features we have described. This is the dried alveus of a fresh-water lake, which occupied it until within these few years back, when the Duke of Sutherland, by cutting, at his own expense, through the low rocky hillocks which shut it in from Loch Roe, to the south, opened a passage for its evacuation in that direction, and thus rendered its broad surface easily available for cultivation, by the inhabitants of the cottages among whom it was lotted out, so that it now forms the most important and valuable part of their little agricultural domain.
You can read the rest of this article at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...ch_melvich.htm
Christian Isobel Johnstone
A famous author
I already have up a page on this author but decided to provide links to a couple of her books which are a great read. You can get to this page at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...johnstone2.htm
And finally...
Naive Applicant
A dad told me that his teenage daughter had left school and was applying for a job to tide her over before going to college. Under "previous employment" he encouraged her to put "babysitting", to show that she at least had a work ethic.
When he was checking the form for her later, he noticed that after putting in babysitter, the form asked "reason for leaving", and his daughter had written: "They came home."
-----
Wishful Thinking
"I managed to make love for an hour and five minutes non-stop at the weekend," said the chap in the bar proudly.
"But I later discovered that the clocks had gone forward an hour."
-----
And that's it for now and hope you all have a great Weekend.
Alastair
Electric Scotland News
Electric Canadian
Canada and its Provinces
The Flag in the Wind
Electric Scotland
The Scottish Historical Review
Songs Of Scotland, Prior To Burns
The Annals of Scottish Natural History
Caledonia Monthly Magazine
Robert Burns Lives!
Lewsiana
British Artisan Expedition to America
The Criminal and The Community
The Working Life of Christina McKelvie MSP
Scottish Stories for Young Readers
Clan Leslie International
A Visit to Auch Melvich
Christian Isobel Johnstone
and finally
Electric Scotland News
This week I got my new logo embedded into a new look menu for the site. In the re-design I did move a few menu items under our Lifestyle menu which meant I took them off the main menu. These include News, Weddings and Haggis. In the old menu in the final column we showed Scots Diaspora with some countries under it. Well I still have Scots Diaspora but have now removed the individual countries as they can of course be found under the Scots Diaspora page.
-----
In our community I note that Hugh has started up the Enigma game that Doug Ross did many years ago now. I guess its a bit like a crossword. Hugh is posting one up each week under the Thread "Enigma Machine" which you can reach athttp://www.electricscotland.org/showthread.php/3899-Enigma-Machine
He is posting up one a week and thus giving us time to try and solve it and so discussions go on through the week and at the end of the week Hugh provides the answers. I confess I am terrible at these things myself but for those that are good at crosswords you may well enjoy the weekly puzzle.
-----
I was talking to a tourism chap this week and he was saying that he thinks this will be a poor year for tourism in Scotland. The reason he said was that so much was going on in 2014 that a lot of overseas visitors would be saving their money to visit Scotland for all the different things going on in that year that they will likely give a 2013 a miss.
I can well understand that as lots of visitors can't afford to go every year to Scotland and of course with the Commonwealth Games, Ryder Cup Golf and Homecoming all wrapped up with that critical referendum vote 2014 has you spoiled for choice.
In actual fact given the spread of events you'd likely want to spend a few months in Scotland in 2014 instead of just a week or so. That might mean you need to find some low cost accommodation and so a special deal with them for a long stay.
I am wondering how many will visit Scotland for the referendum just to be able to say they were there?
Electric Canadian
I intend to turn my attention back to this site next week as I've been building up some work for Electric Scotland these past several weeks.
Canada and its Provinces
I have now started to add these volumes and the idea is to make one volume available each week until complete. Should you be interested in this series then you'll be able to dip into each volume during the week and thus be ready for the next volume appearing.
Now added The Province of Quebec Volume 16 - Section VIII
You can get to this collection towards the foot of our Canadian History page at
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...nada/index.htm
The Flag in the Wind
This weeks edition was Compiled by Claire Adamson. In her column she's discussing Universal Services.
You can read this issue at http://www.scotsindependent.org
Electric Scotland
The Scottish Historical Review
We have now started on Volume 5 and added this week July 1908.
You can get to this at::
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...w/volume05.htm
You can read the previous issues at http://www.electricscotland.com/history/review/
Songs Of Scotland, Prior To Burns
This book is by Robert Chambers who is famous for collecting old Scottish Songs.
Added this week are...
Get Up And Bar The Door
Toddlin' Home
The Miller
You can get to this book at the foot of the page at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...ers_robert.htm
The Annals of Scottish Natural History
Now added Volume 7
You can read this at the foot of the page at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/natu...al_history.htm
Caledonia Monthly Magazine
Have added additional articles from this magazine...
Character Bureau
Mysterious Disappearance of Charlie Christie
Captain Clark-Kennedy
The Cross-Roads
You can get to these at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...pers/caledonia
Robert Burns Lives!
Edited by Frank Shaw
A Tribute to Professor G. Ross Roy
Susan and I made our way to Columbia, South Carolina on Thursday, April 25, 2013 to attend the memorial service for G. Ross Roy, a dear friend, fellow Burnsian and member of our family. Over the past few months we had realized this day was coming but had hoped against hope it would happen much farther down the road. He passed away during the early morning hours of February 19th. Ross fought a good fight, knowing there were other tasks he wanted to complete. While that was not to be, it is clear that many excellent works regarding Robert Burns and Scottish literature had been accomplished by him. Not only did we drive to Columbia with heavy hearts, but we went knowing so much had been accomplished by one who had blessed our lives by knowing him.
We were not the only travelers journeying from the Atlanta area to celebrate Ross’s life. Several members of the Burns Club of Atlanta, President David Grant, Vice-President Woody Woodward, and Past Presidents Tom Todd, Jim Montgomery and Jim Powell, also attended to pay tribute to this greatly respected honorary member of our club. And, flying in from Scotland, was the Past President of the Robert Burns World Federation and current editor of the Burns Chronicle, Bill Dawson.
The memorial tribute was held in the prestigious Ernest F. Hollings Special Collections Library, a place dear to Ross’s heart. I share below a few thoughts and quotes I jotted down that afternoon.
You can read the rest of this article at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/fami...s_lives172.htm
Other articles in this series can be read at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/fami...rank/burns.htm
Lewsiana
Or Life in the Outer Hebrides by W. Anderson Smith (1875).
This week we've added the following chapters...
Lobster-Fishing
The East Coast
Ness
Uige
Carloway
The Lews Antiquities
The Lews Fauna
Here is how the chapter starts on Lobster-Fishing...
IN certain rocky districts this is generally a most remunerative fishing to the Hebrideans. It is prosecuted in stout boats of 15 or 16 feet keel, carrying a lugsail, and costing the fishermen about £15. The most successful, because most assiduous, bold, and energetic, followers of this branch of marine industry, are the inhabitants of the Island of Bernera, Loch Roag, whose boats may be seen beating up amid the dangerous islets at the mouth of Loch Roag in the most tempestuous weather. Each boat carries a crew of four men, supplied with from twelve to twenty lobster creels, which completely occupy the boat, and give scant room for working, thereby much increasing the danger in rough weather.
But our boat is swinging at anchor in Carloway “harbour,” and as the sea is good and the wind favourable, we shall run down the rugged, dangerous, rocky coast beset with sunken “boes,” and see what Neptune will send us to-day. The creels are shipped under the thwarts, about the bow, in every conceivable part of the available space ; the mast is stepped, and, as the sail is set, we slide round the rocky point, and are soon running out the well-sheltered inlet known as Carloway Loch.
As we approach the mouth, a halt is made to raise the spiller line set overnight, in order to secure bait for the creels. Anxiously hook after hook is watched as the line comes in handover-hand, with an occasional gurnard or flounder to repay hours of trying labour.
Sufficient bait is now secured for the day’s fishing, sail is again set, and we glide past the “bo” at the entrance, and so through the Sound of Cragum—that sound through which the sea seems always rushing like a mill-race, and where so many stiff pulls on a lee shore, against wind and tide in trying weather, have tested alike our muscles, our endurance, and our tempers. But we leave these adjacent grounds for fishing in rough weather, and our boat dances merrily past the Raven’s Cliff, the Rock of Scarts, and the many other beetling precipices and breaker-haunted “boes” that fringe this savage coast. At length we reach the entrance of the open, unprotected sea loch of Garnin, having baited our traps on the way by fixing half a flounder or a gurnard in the centre of the trap, so as to swing in an enticing manner in the haunts of the aristocratic Mr. Lobster.
You can read the rest of this chapter at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist.../chapter08.htm
You can read this book at http://www.electricscotland.com/history/lewsiana
British Artisan Expedition to America
Equipped and sent out by and at the expense of the Dundee Courier and Dundee Weekly News Newspapers.
We've now added a further chapter...
Chapter 8 - Chicago to Pittsburg
You can read this chapter and the rest of the book at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...expedition.htm
The Criminal and The Community
By James Devon (1912)
We're now onto Part II of this book and the first chapter of this part is about Drink and Crime which actually works well with the current discussion on Scotland on the minimum price of alcohol.
You can get to that chapter at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...2chapter01.htm
The rest of the chapters can be read at http://www.electricscotland.com/history/criminal/
The Working Life of Christina McKelvie MSP
We now have up her column for 2nd May 2012 which you can read at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...vie/130502.htm
Her other columns can be read at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...lvie/index.htm
Scottish Stories for Young Readers
Having discovered from our stats that we have a lot of young readers coming to the site to read our many children's stories I decided to publish some old children's stories which are also very readable for adults as well.
The first book is by Mrs Blackford (Later Lady Stoddart) where there are three stories which I'll publish over three weeks. I do have others I've found which I'll also add to this page in the coming weeks.
You can get to this first book at http://www.electricscotland.com/poetry/stories/
Clan Leslie International
Got in a copy of their April 2013 newsletter which you can view at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/fami...ters/leslieint
A Visit to Auch Melvich
By Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, Bart.
Found this very interesting article about a visit made to this area by the Duke of Sutherland.
January, 1847
The site of the little township of Auch Melvich, in Sutherland, is, perhaps, one of the most singular of the many spots which have been occupied by thriving hamlets and villages around the extensive coasts of that interesting country. It is in the district of Assynt; and although we shall attempt to describe it to the best of our power, yet we have no great hope of doing so with such success as to place it very vividly before the imagination of our readers. It consists of a considerable cluster of cottages, flanking either side of narrow, tortuous, irregular ways, which, as yet, cannot very well claim the title of streets, and which run hither and thither over a gently swelling, sandy piece of ground, chiefly covered with bent grass. This slopes easily towards the north into a flat, formed of the same white calcareous and, all of which has been accumulated by the wind drifting it inwards from the shelly shore of a bay which bounds it in that direction. To the west the hamlet is sheltered from the sea by a range of high grounds, running from this bay on the north to the entrance of Loch Roe on the south. These present rugged, rocky points to the ocean; and their eastern side, towards the hamlet, affords a perfect sample of the general face of the Assynt country, being very irregular in its surface, and covered with round of blisters of primitive rock, rising all over it in numerous knolls, and having the intervening hollows all cultivated, in patches of oats, bear, and potatoes, so that not even the smallest portion of soil, of a few feet square, is left without culture.
These bright green spots, which are of the most whimsical shapes, some of them being like polypi, and others like stockings, or shirts, or other more unmentionable articles of apparel, give a most extraordinary appearance to the general face of the hill side, whilst they speak well for the industry of the people by whose hands they were erected. To the east of the hamlet the mountain rises in a bold craggy steep, where Nature bids defiance to the efforts of man to put any trace of his dominion upon it. To the south of the hamlet there lies a considerable mossy flat, of a circular form, surrounded by the features we have described. This is the dried alveus of a fresh-water lake, which occupied it until within these few years back, when the Duke of Sutherland, by cutting, at his own expense, through the low rocky hillocks which shut it in from Loch Roe, to the south, opened a passage for its evacuation in that direction, and thus rendered its broad surface easily available for cultivation, by the inhabitants of the cottages among whom it was lotted out, so that it now forms the most important and valuable part of their little agricultural domain.
You can read the rest of this article at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...ch_melvich.htm
Christian Isobel Johnstone
A famous author
I already have up a page on this author but decided to provide links to a couple of her books which are a great read. You can get to this page at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...johnstone2.htm
And finally...
Naive Applicant
A dad told me that his teenage daughter had left school and was applying for a job to tide her over before going to college. Under "previous employment" he encouraged her to put "babysitting", to show that she at least had a work ethic.
When he was checking the form for her later, he noticed that after putting in babysitter, the form asked "reason for leaving", and his daughter had written: "They came home."
-----
Wishful Thinking
"I managed to make love for an hour and five minutes non-stop at the weekend," said the chap in the bar proudly.
"But I later discovered that the clocks had gone forward an hour."
-----
And that's it for now and hope you all have a great Weekend.
Alastair