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MS/33/1
The Journal of. A.O. Curle – 1913 to 1954.
Born 1866 at Abbey Park Melrose.
Died 1955 in Hospital in Edinburgh
Buried in the family plot in the Abbey at Melrose on the
On the same stone a memorial notice has been inscribed to Mary Christian
Curle – Born 1904. died 1970 whose ashes were scattered at her request – daughter
of A.O. Curle
This Journal has been microfilmed by the National
Library of Scotland – July 1968.
[signed] Alexander T. Curle
[Page] 1
A. O. Curle. |
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5th May 1913.
On this date I received at Capenoch,
among the letters brought to me by the car
from Dumfries, in which I was going to
pass the day in pursuit of Ancient Monuments,
a letter from Mr Mackinnon Wood, Secretary
for Scotland, offering me the position of
Director of the National Museum of Antiquities,
and some three days after came notice of my
formal appointment from the undersecretary.
In my new post from time to time I shall
have amusing experiences and these
it is my intention to record.
Dr [Doctor] Anderson, though my very good friend,
I must admit was by no means genial
nor did he with any grace tolerate a bore.
Shortly before he retired an elderly man
arrived in my office in a great state of
rage at the treatment which he had received
on proffering some undesirable relic to be
placed in the Museum “That old man spoke
to me as I’ve never been spoken to afore by a
man wi’ a gentleman’s coat on his back,”
was the way my caller expressed his grievance.
I soothed his ruffled plumage and after
much pressing visited his house, a large
villa on the South side, where he invited
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me to select anything I took a fancy to
for the museum to be transferred at once or at
his death. With a certain amount of delicacy
I indicated one or two objects and a few days
after my friend arrived in the office with
a large square based glass goblet, a smaller
one etched with fluoric acid, of a very rare
character, two spiral stemmed glasses, two
very nice punch ladles and a quaint brown
jug!
An incident occurred last winter which
caused me much annoyance. A man
from West Linton who occasionally brought
objects for sale produced a jet necklace
the terminal plates of which he had sold
previously to Dr [Doctor] Anderson. The necklace
was left and he agreed to the price of £2.
subject to the approval of the Council. If
the article was genuine the offer was too
small. Before the council met he asked
to be allowed to take the necklace away
to show to a friend and the next we heard
was that a man had arrived in a car
and given him £16 for it. Evidence soon
came to light which convinced me that
the fortunate purchases was none other
than Mr B-p. a voracious collector with a
long purse, at that time & now a member of
the Council! Recently the trader came back
to the museum & offered us four stone
axes and two polished discs of jet or carmel
coal. I never liked their appearance but
could not persuade myself that they were
“fakes” – so we gave £5.5/- for the lot. Having
more leisure after my return from Dumfries
I examined the objects more closely when we
observed on the discs the ripple marks
caused by the play of a tool on a lathe,
and the application of some chloroform
removed the colour from one of the axes.
An examination of the plates of the
necklace satisfied me that it was a fabri:
:cation so I have ceased to grudge its ac:
:quisition to the West Country collector!
Although we had paid for the axes we
wrote to the seller & said we did not think
it advisable to submit them to the
council. The result was a bank draft by
return and the annexed specimen of
calligraphy.
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23rd June 1913.
Having received notice of the issue of my
certificate of Qualification from the Civil Service
Commission for which they made me pay £5
forbye a guinea to a doctor to pass me as sound,
I sent in my registration as Secretary to the
Ancient Monuments Commission last Friday,
and this Monday morning I officially en.
:tered upon my duties as Director of the Museum.
It is not an inspiriting job. In the Director's
room are cupboards and chests of drawers
crowded with papers, portfolios, and
sketches, of which there appears to be no
register or record. Dust lie's thick over
all, for, I understand, the dusting of my
room is only done by the courtesy of the
upper gallery attendant, it being nobody's
set duty to see my premises are kept clean.
Half empty bottles of liquids of sorts, I
suppose to be applied as preservatives,
mingle with dubious specimens, book-
catalogues, and unopened copies of the
transactions for foreign archaeological societies.
Bundles of letters, none of them backed
up, tumble out of cupboards when the doors are
opened, and endless photographs, drawings
& "pulls" of blocks mingle in the confusion.
There has never been an official letter-book,
and the records outside the minute books
seem to be of the vaguest. Dr [Doctor] Anderson
having ruled supreme for over 40 years knew,
I suppose, where everything was, as for me
I reign in chaos. Miss Ker, my typist,
is buckling "manfully" to the work and ere
long I have no doubt we shall evolve some
sort of order. Mr Edwards, to make matters
worse, left today on his holidays, to Germany.
The Society are giving me every opportunity
by allowing me a typist and the telephone,
and I hope I shall be able to take full ad:
:vantage of it.
24th June.
Some weeks ago I happened to be passing
Lyon's curio shop on the Mound and
that being a haunt of mine when I
led the less strenuous life of a W.S. [Writer to the Signet] I looked
in to see if, by chance, bargains were still
to be picked up there. Two brass objects
Mr Lyon had just bought, and offered
them to me for purchase. I did not know
what they were, but as they were nice pieces
of brass, and skillfully engraved with lines
& figures, besides one of them bearing the
date 1657, I was quite pleased to give the
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eight or nine shillings asked and carried
them off in my pocket. A leisurely consider:
:ation of my new treasures disclosed to
me the fact of their being pocket dials,
the one a quadrant by [blank] and
the other an armillary dial by J. Coggs.
Knowing that John Findlay of "The Scotsman"
was a collector of such objects I enquired
of him their value. As he was anxious
to possess the pair he volunteered to
take the opinion of Webster, a well known
London dealer, and to make me an
offer at his valuation. Tonight I have
received a note from Findlay enclosing
a cheque for £15 being £10 for the quadrant,
and £5 for the other! This deal has
enabled me to buy a first-class second
-hand camera for nothing!!
11th July.
I have now had nearly three weeks resid:
:ence in the museum. and as far as my
own premises are concerned, have ef:
:fected a considerable change. A woman
now attends twice a week in the early morning,
and thoroughly sweeps and dusts my room,
which with its fresh paint, & carpet, and
walls hanging with my pictures, is quite
unrecognisable. The staff who used to com:
:mence the day's work at 10.0 have now
all to be at their posts at 9.15. George
Archibald the library attendant who has
slept away twenty years of his life under the
old regime, took rather badly to the ar:
:rangement at first, and broke down on
the second day, I suppose from stress of
work, as I had decreed that some portions of
the library must be dusted by him every
day. Now the machine is running smoothly,
we are to have a gang of women in to scrub
the floors once a month instead of once a
year! The amount of rubbish & dirt we
have got rid of is amazing and there is
still much to follow it. The latest innovations
are a loose leaf minute book into which in
future all our minutes will be typed, and
a letter filing cabinet with a subject card
index, wherein we shall preserve a record of
all our correspondence and of much more
besides, as the loan of blocks, slides &c.
A week ago, Mr. Symington Grieve, with whom
we had had some disagreement regarding
a paper he had written a few years ago,
called on me at the museum and
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told me that he had in his custody two
viking bowl shaped broochs and a pin
which he had persuaded the finder, a
farmer in Isle Oronsay, to allow him to
bring to Edinburgh to deposit in a Museum.
It seemed to be a mere chance that had
brought him to me rather than have taken
him to Chamber St. To make our position
secure I told him to get a letter at once
from the finder presenting the objects to
the national Museum, and to my joy
he came in on Monday last bringing
the letter and the relics. The latter consist
of two particularly fine oval bowl shaped
brooches both still retaining their iron
pins, though greatly corroded. (In a mass
of rust on one appears some of the fabric
through which the pin has passed) Further
a fine bronze pin with a moveable circular
head; a whistle formed of a cylindrical
piece of bone pierced across near its centre;
and a much rusted pair of iron shears.
I chuckled when I learned from Mr Bishop's
own lips that he and Mann had just
obtained permission from Lord Strathcone
to excavate the very mound from which
the relics came. Their emissary Mungo
Buchanan went to the island on Wednesday
of last week, and the brooches left it some
three days earlier!
Tomorrow (Saturday) afternoon I have promised
to conduct over the Museum a party of
lads from the student's settlement in the
Cross-Causeway. I expect about a dozen of
them. The other day I found a bevy of
maidens from a girl's school wandering
aimlessly in the prehistoric gallery and
gave them my services as guide for half
-an-hour. I am trying to instruct the
attendants not only by pointing out to them
objects of interest, but also by giving them
copies of papers relating to relics under
their charge. Someday I hope to have
an efficient guide attendant in each
gallery, and my latest dream is of models
of prehistoric structures in the window re:
:cesses of the stairs, and a reconstructed model
of the Roman Fort at Newstead during the
Antonine period.
6th August 1913.
This morning I received an announcement
to the effect that on the recommendation of
the Secretary for Scotland His Majesty
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had been graciously pleased to appoint me
a member of the Royal Commission on
Ancient Monuments, an honour I am
justly proud of.
Day by day I am working away with Miss Ker,
my typist, endeavouring to check the collections
in the prehistoric gallery with the catalogue.
So numerous are the interuptions to which
I am subjected that I make slow progress.
I have arranged to have the gold objects
displayed to proper advantage in dust-proof
boxes, covered with biscuit coloured linen,
instead of on open trays lined with faded
crimson baise, in which they have been ex:
:posed to the dust in the strong room nightly
for over 20 years till they are filthy.
3rd November 1913
Much of interest has happened since the
previous entry was written. At Rockcliffe
where we had rooms in the post office, I
excavated the Mote of Mark with results
far exceeding my expectations, for in
addition to discovering a vitrified wall
within a rampart of earth and stone, I obtained
very many fragments of moulds of fine clay
for castings of pins, Celtic brooches & other ornaments;
glass of remarkable quality which may turn out
to be Merovingian pottery, unglazed, not unlike
the similar ware found around mote hills, and
a number of iron objects.
While at Rockcliffe I acquired for the Museum
from Mr Houston a bronze rapier blade, one
of six, or possibly seven, found in the ditch of a
fort at Drumcoltran near Kirkgunzeon, many
years ago. I had heard of this find but no proof
of it reaching my ears I regarded it as apocryphal.
My joy was great, therefore, when an unknown
individual drew me aside while I was excavating
to ask if I could date some swords in his possession
of these he had three, all of which are now in the
Museum, the two others beside the one presented
being lent. A Mr. Bell at Torbeck:
:hill tantalised me all summer with a rather
well preserved Viking sword found while a
quarry was being opened on his property. I
was first told it, I should say, in April, when a
man reported its existence at the Museum and
said he thought Mr Bell would give it to us
if I asked him. This I did but received no
reply to my letter. A month or two later a Minister
from Bathgate called with a sword for my
opinion: As I Knew there could not be two
swords of the type knocking about I at once
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declared this sword must come from Dumfries-shire.
The Minister was somewhat taken aback but ad:
:mitted it, and suggested that I should return
the sword to Mr Bell & tell him its interest.
This letter eventually brought a reply to the effect
that if I would visit Torbreckhill near Ecclefechan
I might possibly be given the sword away with
me! Eventually I arranged for a visit in
September before I returned to Edinburgh, and
accompanied by Sandy, I duly reached the
place, up in the hills, some 8 or 10 miles
inland from Annan. We were very hospitably
entertained to lunch and tea, and returned
to Rock-cliffe with "Excalibur".
Ere I got back to town I also secured a
fine pair of Viking brooches, a pin, a buckle,
a wheel and a horse's bit, all found in
the sandhills at Reay, Caithness.
My time suffers much from interruption
by all sorts of callers, some profitable, some
amusing, and some intollerable bores. A
stout middle aged dame, with a red face
& wearing a hat rich with waving ostrich
plumes, flustered into my room one day
and asked if I would relieve her of an Egyptian
figure which she had received from a
favourite nephew some eight months previously,
as she had never been well since she took
it under her roof! I accepted the gift, a nice
ushabti figure, which I am told dated some 500 B.C.
and so far have suffered no inconvenience from
its presence.
My reorganising goes on apace. I have
had a recall of books to the library, also a
recall of slides; the cellars have been lighted
with electric lighting, and today Mr Edwards
and two labourers with handkerchiefs over their
mouths, have commenced to clean up.
Our first step is to get aid of empty boxes,
remains of obsolete show cases, turnstiles, broken
plaster casts etc. and our test will be to
try and remove some of the 20 years accumula:
:tion of dust so that we may ascertain what
lies below it. There appears to be quite
half a cart load of bones from excavations,
I suppose, many of them probably human,
mostly in boxes with no label to say where
they have come from. I am at a loss
how to dispose of the rubbish for unless it
is consumed in fire it may be brought
back again!! Mr Edwards's outer
room is being fitted up as a laboratory
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in accordance with the information he
learned from Prof. [Professor] Rattigen in Berlin.
I have now mounted five boxes, or cases,
of gold objects, and uncommon well they
look.
Mr A. J. Balfour having learned that I
had observed much of interest on Traprain
Law invited me to Whittinghame to stay
over Sunday, and yesterday I had the
pleasure of pointing out to him and his
party the remarkable defences that exist on
the hill. I was very pleased to have
an opportunity of making Mr Balfour's ac:
:quaintance, also that of his charming sister,
who keeps house for him. Though I was
somewhat nervous at the thought of discussing
anything with one of the keenist wits in the
country, my fears were foundless as I found
him exceedingly pleasant, and quite unversed
in my subject, in which, nevertheless, he took
some interest. He gave me permission
to conduct excavations on Dunpenden, as
the hill was called of old, and to present
any relics found, worth having, to the
Museum. Further he presented the museum
with a fine mould for bronze flat axes
which has been long coveted, and Miss Balfour
gave me an old lantern and a curious glass
vase.
At the last meeting of the Council I applied
for various additions to the staff, extra, or
rather new, window cases, and to have the
museum opened to the public on Sunday after:
:noon Some weeks ago I had
a jeweller in to wash the filth from the
gold exhibits, using only soap and water.
The result was marvellous as for years these
precious relics had been exposed every night
on open trays, in a dirty strong room, where
dust lay thick on every thing.
Today I have had locks fitted to all our
charter boxes, so that in future all valuable
mss. [manuscripts] may be under proper supervision.
I also have the cupboards containing the
mss. [manuscripts] kept locked, and the keys kept in
the key drawer. There has been no proper
control in the place for years!.
1st February 1914
In a matter of a week or two now I should have
finished the collection with the catalogue,
and then I must frame a report on the
condition of the Museum. It will require delicate
treatment if I am to spare Dr. [Doctor] Anderson, as I
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cannot say that it is at all in a satisfactory
state. Coles kept the register into which
every object was supposed to be entered on
its acquisition, and he also abstracted the
various entries to classified lists. This
last process was done irregularly, with the
result that the entries are incomplete, and
the numbers, which ought to be consecutive,
have been fequently duplicated. Moreover
there are numerous objects, and collections,
which have never been catalogued. How
many exhibits have been registered, and are
now missing, I have still to learn. The
administration has been characterised by
a lack of system. A little ingenuity would
have prevented many of the errors in the
abstract registers and in the register itself.
Last week I spent a pleasant week-end
at Crawford Priory with the Cochranes,
having been asked there to pronounce an
opionion on a fort, which Mr Cochrane thought
of excavating. We made several exploratory
openings but there was no trace of any level of
occupation, though the fort itself is well defined,
and has been strongly fortified.
To secure influence in Orkney, where Cursiter
the Kirkwall "Merchant" has for long had it
his own way and has secured a valuable col:
:lection, at my suggestion the Council have
recommended a young enthusiast named
Kirkness, as a corresponding member. I shall
intimate his appointment to the local papers,
and I feel sure he will serve me well. I wish
I had a number of such correspondents throughout
Scotland. Perhaps in time I shall find them.
We have had much agitation over the question
of Sunday opening. I little thought when I
suggested it that I was throwing down an
apple of discord. A reactionary party headed
by Dr [Doctor] Hay Fleming tried to get a snap vote on
the question at the Annual general meeting,
but failed through the experienced handling
of Sir Herbert Maxwell in the Chair. The
question was brought up at an adjourned
meeting called ad hoc and Hay Fleming's
motion defeated by some 24 votes on a
poll of sixty odd.
22nd March 1914.
The Treasury have finally passed the es:
:timates for reflooring and fireproofing the
Museum, at a cost of £15000 - £16000 so I
am now busily engaged making preparations
to transfer the whole collection into the
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National portrait gallery where it must
remain, inaccessible to the public until
the operations on our side of the building
are completed. The most awkward
objects to move are the prehistoric urns,
but I have had shelving placed around
the strong room on the first floor, and
on it I have safely deposited, I daresay
70% of the lot. The remover's men come
in on 1st. April, and thence onwards for
three months we shall live a strenuous
life as the workmen's hours are 8.0 a.m.
till 6.0 p.m, and either Mr Edwards or
myself must be present all the time.
I have finished checking the contents of
the Museum with the catalogue, and have
discovered that a few important objects
have disappeared, but not so many as
there might have been. I cannot find a
a number of silver medals, two bronze spear
heads found at Murrayfield, a facetted
stone ball etc. The general condition of
the Register and Catalogue abstracted from
it is very bad, as both contain many errors
of omission and commission.
Mr Edwards is now engaged for a portion of
each day in attempting to preserve iron exhibits
which have lain far too long neglected. He
is producing excellent results where the
neglect has not been for too long: most of
the iron objects are, however, absolutely
ruined.
20th. May 1914
Messrs Taylors' workmen arrived at the Museum
in 1st. April, and by the 25th all of the objects in
the collection, including the sculptured stones
and altars had been transferred to their tem:
:porary quarters, and that without anything
having been broken. All except the very heavy
objects were carried by our own men. I
took them out of the cases and placed them
in the hand-barrows while Mr Edwards trans:
:ferred them to their temporary quarters on
the other side of the building. All the tall
cases on the first floor had to be taken to
pieces, but fortunately the side cases for the
most part were carried down stairs with
their contents in them. We kept a book
showing the disposition of the contents of
each case, and can get access to almost
every one. The library has also been trans:
:ferred and the books piled in order on the
floor of one of the portrait gallery rooms.
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With the exception of my writing table, and
another table or two for my own & my typists
use, all the furniture has been removed
from our building.
We have now commenced work at Dunpender
Law and are finding many objects of interest.
We began on 6th. inst. and Cree is giving
personal & daily supervision for the month,
In June Mr J.G.A. Baird takes control, and
in July Mr Craw and young Murray. I
shall go there once a week to help and see
how matters are progressing. By this ar:
:rangement we shall always have some
one on the spot to direct the workmen.
Already we have found several good relics,
an iron spear head, a spiral bronze ring,
a bronze terret, a bronze dress fastener, a
bronze pin, a pierced hinge plate,
much pottery including a good many pieces
of Samian ware, a segment of a yellow glass
armlet, two segments of jet or lignite, a yellow
bead, a lead whorl, a playing-man of stone,
a glass ball inset with enamel colour.
The structural remains are most difficult
to make anything of, but in one hut site
we have clearly evidence of three occupations
but all the relics in it have belonged to the
?second & first. In the latest occupation much use was
made of large blocks of stone set on end or on
edge and so far we have found no remains of
actual building. The place has been so large
that it is more than probable we shall find
sites that have only had single occupations,
whereas if the enceinte had been smaller each
occupation might have made full use of the
whole area.
On Friday I am going to Skye to assist
Callander for a week in his survey of the
Ancient Mons. [Monuments] I have no doubt I can be of
use from my experience, and as a Member
of the Royal Commission, I get my holiday
for nothing.
The floors of the two cellars have all been
cemented and shelving put up around the
inner one. We have been busy all day
taking all the collection of rubbish which
formerly lay in a muddle all over the place
into it. What a collection it is - boxes & boxes
of stones, bones, old shoes, Roman pottery, orien:
:tal idols etc. We are going to have cupboards
all round the outer cellar & racks in the centre
of it, which will give us proper accommodation that
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will save my time.
3rd. June 1914
The Ancient Monuments Commission
are by means of their officials conducting
the survey of Ancient remains in the
Western Isles. As I believe I could
render assistance, and as I also desired
to see some of the duns of the west I
determined, as a Commissioner thus free
of all expense, to join J. Graham Callander
for a week or ten days in the Isle of Skye.
Accordingly I left Edinburgh on 22nd. May
having completed the removal of the
contents of the Museum, and travelled
that afternoon to Fort William where I
stayed overnight at a comfortable little
hotel the "Alexandra." Next morning I
continued my journey by train over the
West Highland line to Mallaig, where I
joined the SS [Steam Ship] "Glencoe" one of the most
ancient steamers afloat, and reached
Portree at 6.30. The railway journey
is one of the most beautiful in the country
practically the whole way from Glasgow,
as it first skirts the Clyde, then in
turn the Gareloch & Loch-Lomond, thence
by mountain, moor & loch too numerous
to mention, till the sea is reached. It can
never be more beautiful than it is at this
season with the fresh foilage on the trees,
the hawthorn & rowan just coming into
blossom, and, in favoured places, a
blue shimmer of wild hyacinths about
the tree roots. The day was fine on
which I made the journey, but unseasonably
cold. H.M.S. [His Majesty's Ship] Commonwealth, a large
battleship, lay in Portree bay, and the tars
on shore gave a jaunty air to the sleepy
little Highland town. It was interesting to
hear on all hands the highest praise of the
men's conduct.
[Photograph inserted here]
As Portree was not a convenient centre
we left it on Monday 25th for Uig on the
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West side of the Northern end of the Island.
As we made our way thither in our car
we jumped off and looked at various objects.
[Photograph inserted]
A stone near Tote, called the Clach Ard,
sculptured with
the early Christian
symbols is of
peculiar interest,
as it is one of the
very few monuments
of its kind to be
seen on the West
of Scotland, they
being almost all
confined to the
East side. It stands
at the edge of a gravel
pit by the road side
and as the photo
shows, it is badly
weathered. The mirror and comb symbols
are at the base but have not come out well
in the shots.
As our chaffeur announced when we
were still many miles from our destination
that the hand brake of the car had become
useless, we were both relieved when we reached
Uig in safety.
Uig is a large Crofter township stretching
round a beautiful bay, hemmed in by
high moors, from which the ground falls
rather sharply to the shore. The hotel stands
well up from the sea, and commands a
fine view across Loch Snizort.
[Photograph inserted]
The people are very "heeland" and all talk
Gaelic, in fact one woman told me that the
children do not get any English until they go to
school, "which makes it very difficult for the
teachers." Many of the primitive charac:
:teristics of Crofter life are rapidly passing
away, and I was very pleased to have this
opportunity of seeing much that in another
ten years will be only know by tradition,
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The process of sowing turnips as carried out in
Skye is a laborious one. We saw it on
one occasion. A woman straddling the
drills, waddling along sowing the seed
by hand, two youths followed 'happing'
it up, while the head of the family com:
:pleted the operation by rolling the tops of
the drills with an empty herring barrel.
I penetrated into several black houses.
The most primitive was one near Borna
Skittag. Three buildings formed sides to
a little court, one of these, the longest,
being the dwelling. Outside against the
wall leaned a cas-cromb, or foot plough,
a primitive implement we saw being used
over at Staffin. The only door to the house
gave direct access to a byre at one end
in which semi-darkness, though it was
bright and sunny outside, a wretched calf
was tethered. From the byre we passed
through a thin wooden partition into
the central compartment of the mansion,
the living room. In the centre of the floor
on an open hearth burned a peat fire
above which hung a kettle on a crooked
stick, suspended from the rafters. The
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peat reek from the fire being thick about
the roof till it found its way out through
a hole. Windows there were none worthy
the name, but two holes through the thatch
above the wall heads admitted a faint
ray of light. Beyond this room was a bed:
:chamber, also without a window, but into
it I did not penetrate. The peat reek
quite smothers any other smells that
one might expect to encounter in such
an ill-ventilated dwelling, and I have
been in crofters houses elsewhere of a
more advanced standard, which
were much more disagreeable to stay in
than a "black house." Stone built cottages
of two storeys, covered with sheet iron are
rising up in all the townships from
funds sent home by the emigrant sons
and the daughters who have gone to ser:
:vice in the South. They look "genteel"but
I am told lack comfort, for they are hot
in summer, and very cold in winter, for
iron is a poor substitute for thatch when
warmth is desired.
In the North end of the island we visited
many "duns" small stone forts occupying
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rocky hillocks, showing many of the
features which distinguish the brochs.
but larger in extent, and apparently
of only one storey. Chambers in the thickness
of the walls were often apparent, but in
no instance was there any indication of
a stair so placed. I saw more than
one dun with a double wall - an inner
portion, the main one some 6 ft [feet] thick faced to
the exterior, and built against it an
out casing some 3 ft [feet] thick. Such
walls occur in many of the French-Gaulish
forts but I have not come across one
here before, though I suspected some such
construction in a fort near Beattock.
I returned from Skye to find the transference
of the Museum contents to the Portrait
Gallery completed and my belongings
installed in a very comfortable room at
the same level as my own.
Some weeks ago a bronze age cist was
discovered by a man ploughing near
Arbroath and an urn was found within
it described in the local press as inlaid
with gold!! Learning that it had been
taken possession of by the local police
I made application to the King's Remembrancer
to secure it for the Museum. In reply I was
sent for perusal a correspondence which
included letters passing between Mr L. McL.
Mann, & the policeman in which the former
stating that he was acting on behalf of
certain professors of the University of Glasgow,
tried to induce the policeman to cede the urn
to him. I chuckled as I read the letters for I
well knew I was the last person in the world
the writer would have wished to to see them.
Sharp practice seldom pays in the long run!
I laid the case before the authorities with the
result that a circular letter was despatched
to all the procurator fiscals in Scotland drawing
attention to the Treasury requirements in regard
to finds! I got the remains of the urn in
hundreds of pieces but I have reconstructed
enough to show the shape & ornament.
13th Oct. 1914
Since my last entry much history has been
made in Europe for the war cloud which we
have all been conscious of on the horizon these
last ten years , but which most of us thought
would pass by, has burst and the most
terrible war that the world has ever known is
raging at this moment. Its progress will
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be related in many a printed book for years
to come as I need not dwell on it here. This
country from being split up into numerous
waring political factions became in:
:stantly welded together by the breaking
out of war; parties and creeds were laid
aside and patriotism, which one had
begun to deem a lost virtue sprang to
the fore. There was no undignified ebullitions;
the country kept its head nobly, everyone
realising what a serious condition of affairs
had arisen. There was a somewhat of a
rush to lay in stocks of flour and other
provisions by a few people, but calmer
councils soon prevailed and, with our
magnificent fleet controling the trade
routes, prices advanced very little. Now
after 10 weeks of a condition of war, with
perpetual fighting going on first across
the North sea, the country is going about
its business in the usual way. The town
is full of territorials and red cross motors
& conveyances of one sort or another are
dashing hither & thither. The poor-house
at the gates of Fettes is now the Craigleith
Military Hospital and there my assistant
curator Mr Edwards occupies an important
post as Sergt. [Sergeant] Major. The hospital is already
full of wounded heroes. All the attendants from
the Museum have returned to the ranks and
I am left with George Archibald & Miss
Dennison my typist. Although the Museum
was vacated months ago there are no signs
yet of the workmen commencing to the
structural alterations. As the building is
closed to the public I have few visitors and
not many objects are being offered for sale.
We closed the excavations on Traprain at
the end of August. Our success in relics of
first class importance was very remarkable
and with the exception of the Roman fort at
Newstead, no single site (in Scotland) has yeilded anything
like as much: further I am sure we may work
for many years to come with excellent prospects.
25th June 1915
War! War! All the civilized world nearly is at war,
and now after eleven months of it, we are just
awakening to the fact that our supplies of am:
:unition are inadequate and also our guns. All
which we knew some months ago, but the
late government lamentably failed, either to impress
the fact on the people and so rouse them to put
forth their best efforts, or to take other steps to
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[continued from page 17]
rectify the situation. Six months ago we fondly
believed that Russia was almost ready to
beleaguer Cracow, and that the invasion of
the Hungarian plains was iminent. Today
through lack of adequate supplies of Munitions,
Russia has been forced back till she is almost
cleared from Galicia. The cost of the war to
us is some £3,000,000 a day; all purchase
grants to the Museums have stopped; and
all expenditure not absolutely necessary curtailed.
Work on the Museum commenced last January,
but the progress has been lamentably slow.
Material especially, the steel beams for the
roof, are being delayed in arrival owing to the
requirements of the Naval & Military Authorities,
and when the material does arrive there is a
scarcity of men to handle it! Progress is very
slow and we may consider ourselves lucky
if by this time next year we are in a position
to move back the collections to our own side of
the building. The £500 which the Office of
works had set aside to provide new window
cases has now, from motives of economy, been
written off, and as the radiators in the
new system of heating are to be placed in the
windows and will consequently render
the old cases quite useless I foresee further delay.
Few people come about the Museum now, as the
library is not accessible, nor are the exhibits.
I have been busy cataloguing the Newstead
collection, marking every object with its registration
number by my own hand. Throughout the winter
and spring I have been constantly engaged
treating iron objects, which were going to disin:
:tegrate, by the process Mr Edwards learned from
Pro. [Professor] Rattigen in Berlin. Mr Edwards is still
engaged as a Sergeant Major in Craigleith
Hospital, so I have to do the work that otherwise
would have fallen to him. Poor Wishart, who for
the last six years was attendant in the upper
Gallery, an excellent light hearted fellow, always
cheery and keen about his work, rejoined the
colours as bugle major last Autumn,
went to the Dardnelles with the 5th Royal
Scots, and in the end of April was killed
on the Gallipoli Peninsula. George Archibald
still remains as my sole attendant and even he
occasionally suggests that he might go & serve.
Were he physically of any account I should of
course let him go. We have almost finished
arranging and labelling all the blocks for
for the illustrations of Proc. [Proceedings] a task which has
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[continued from page 18]
taken almost a full year to accomplish.
The card catalogue of the contents of the
Museum has been commenced,
Excavation on Traprain was started towards
the end of April and though we have found
a number of interesting things the results so
far are not so remarkable as last year.
I am a special constable for the period of
the war. At first our duties were nominal,
but now that 200 out of the 600 men who
constitute the police force have enlisted, we
are given more serious employment. On the
occasion of military parades or processions
we are called out to the line the streets. Every
third Sunday also we are told off to take a
policeman's beat for four hours. Hitherto I
have always been called out for an evening
eat, and my last beat, which I understand
will be my regular one lies round about
the Dean Bridge and out to the Ravelstone Park
A pleasant, respectable neighbourhood. My
hours have been 6.0 to 10.0 and as I
have to report myself on going on and
coming off at the office at Torpichen St.
I may add another ¾ hour to my attendance.
When my task is accomplished, I own to
feeling very tired.
3rd. Aug 1915
It will be a year tomorrow since this cruel
war began and the end still seems far off.
The Germans still occupy a large part of France,
almost the whole of Belgium, much of Poland
and in the last country they have been forcing
the Russians to retreat for many weeks so
that now at any moment we may hear that
Warsaw has been abandoned. The cost in fine
young lives has been dreadful, and yet the
worst of the slaughter is probably to come.
As for the expense, Millions, some three a day,
are being poured out of this country alone!
Today I was told that the War Office now es:
:timate the duration as at three years more!
Who will be left to fight by the end of that time,
and who will have the money to pay the piper?
One's usual occupations seem so trivial now
in the light of such happenings. No one
an care for the Museums or Archaeology. All
my attendants have now gone, and to save
as much as possible I have offered to carry
on till the end of the war alone with the help
of Miss Dennison, the Society's typist. George
Archibald the library attendant, whom we
all regarded as a nimcumpoop called on
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[continued from page 19]
me this morning in the uniform of an Artillery man
with a riding switch in his hand and spurs
on his heels.
31st October 1915
Still war-time, and no actual signs yet of the
end being in sight, though there are not wanting
signs of economic troubles in Germany, and of
deterioration in the morale of our enemies.
The country is gradually being bereft of all
its young men, and those capable and
still holding back, are to be seriously pressed
to enlist this month: failing these doing so
a resort will be had to compulsory service.
Everyone is economising to meet the increased
income tax, as well as the serious rise in prices
of necessary food stuffs. Margarine has largely
supplanted butter, the drinking of wine is
little done, and simpler diet with one meat
meal a day is being resorted to. Although one
encounters an occasional pessimist, and
though the tide of success ebbs & flows, on the
whole people keep persistently cheerful, and
no one now entertains doubts of the ultimate
issue.The Teutonic powers have sustained
casualties exceeding 5,000,000, the allies
perhaps a trifle less, but while the strength of
the Austro-Germans is waning, that of
the entente powers is steadily increasing both in
men and materiel. In the West all German
offensive movements for months past have ended
in failure; in Russia their victorious advance
has been brought to a standstill without their
having attained any decisive success, and already
the Russian "riposte" has begun; Italy is
pressing forward on the Austrian Tyrol; A
new campaign has been initiated in the
Balkans by the simultaneous attack on the
North & West of Serbia by the Teutons, and on
The S [South] & East by the treacherous Bulgarians.
Greece has refused to implement the terms
of their treaty by aiding Serbia, and stands
neutral; Roumania has not yet shown her
hand. Late in the day French & British troops
have been landed at Salonika & pressing for:
:ward towards Serbia, but the Bulgarians
have occupied Uskut & cut the railway at
various points, and the outcome of this
distraction is not yet clear by any means.
Should the German aims fail here, the end
may be in sight.
A few days ago a young W.S. [Writer to the Signet] called on
me at the Museum with two gold objects
in a card-board box which had been
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destined by a client for a Red Cross sale
shortly to be held at Dowells. Knowing nothing
of them he brought the objects for me to see.
They were a gold lunula, the neighbour to
one already in the Museum, found many
years ago in Lanarkshire, the only one in
Scotland outside the National Collection, and
a beautiful twisted gold armlet, from the
same region! Both had belonged to Adam
Sim of Coulter. I explained how undesirable
it was that such National Treasures should
go to the hammer, and I rejoice to say I
have them now awaiting the purchase
of the Council at a reasonable figure!
The council agreed to a price of £45 and the
objects were accordingly purchased.
4th April 1916.
Still at war and only today the Chancellor
of the Exchequer, budgeting for thousands of Millions
for the year, declares he has proof that the
war will last throughout this financial year.
With such a prospect it may well be three
or four years till the Treasury sees fit to
produce the necessary funds to take us
back from exile. There is a faint
prospect, however, that we may get back
the books to the library, and perhaps
be reinstalled in our own premises this
summer. Edinburgh has had its first visit
from Zeppelins. Sunday was a perfect
spring day, all the more welcome as following on
an abnormally long and stormy winter, which
a week previously had covered the country in
snow, torn up trees with storms of wind, &
played such havoc with the signals etc on the
main railways in England, that traffic was
quite disorganised. In the enjoyment of the
lovely afternoon I accomplished a ten mile
walk, going right round Barnton Park and
home by the Queensferry Road. Naturally
a little tired I settled myself after dinner in
an armchair with a volume of Henryson's
Poems for a pleasant evenings reading. My
enjoyment was of but short duration, for about
9.15 the electric lights suddenly sank to a
dull glow, the recognised warning for a
coming air-raid. Instantly we were all afoot.
(Chrissie was staying with us) and while Jocelyn
went to get Mary out of bed and down to the
basement, I retired to my room and changed
from my dress clothes into a tweed suit. A
horrible gloom throughout the house with the
filaments of the electric lamps merely showing
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red, tended to make one jumpy. In a very
few minutes we had Mary tucked up in
Agnes, the parlour maid's bed, and had
betaken ourselves to the kitchen. I filled my
flask in case of need; took some chocolate in
my pocket, and just as I was ready to go
off to my post at the Museum the telephone
Message "Take Air-craft action" reached me
from the police. Heaving on a motor coat
I dashed out into the darkened streets, rather
nervous least the Zepps.[Zeppelins] should reach the
town before I got to cover. Luckily I managed
to catch a tram car still running through
Stockbridge and so reached the Museum
about 9.40. The elderly police-man on duty
left at 10.0 and his place was taken by a
younger man with whom I was to spend the
greater part of the night. He had started
in life as a farm servant in Fife, but ten
years ago had joined the police force &
was just attaining the highest rate of pay
38/10-, [£1.18.10] I think, for a private. We sat talking &
reading papers, & were just coming to the
conclusion that the airships were not going
to arrive when about 11.30 we heard a
distant boom. It was not definite enough
to convince us that it was a bomb explosion,
but we had not long to wait for satisfaction.
The sounds of exploding bombs seemed first
to commence to the North of us and then pass
round by East to South, at times the ex:
:plosions being alarmingly loud. We counted
each one, and after about eighteen, as far as
I remember, there was a pause and we hoped
the attack was over. But the respite was only
for ten minutes, after which the evil work began
again and we added some 8 or 10 more ex:
:plosions to our enumeration. Then all was
quiet. We sat and wondered how much of
Edinburgh lay in ruins, and were not without
a little anxiety for our wives and families
with whom we had no means of communication.
Several times after the bombing had ceased we
looked out of the door and away in the sky to
the North East saw the glare of a great fire
which we thought must be Leith docks (it really
proved to be a whisky store.) Naturally one felt
nervous as the bombardment was in progress,
especially when one heard the explosions growing
louder as if the airship was drawing nearer,
raising an unpleasant expectancy that any
moment the Museum might be struck. The
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attack ceased about 12.30 but we had no
means of knowing when the enemy had
moved off. At last when I found that the
electric light was once more on, and that
the Cable was working on the adjacent
line of cable cars, I said good night to my
companion and left my post, some ten minutes
before 3.0. I was relieved to find no signs
of damage on my way home and more so to
know that my family had come safely through
the attack and without undue trepidation.
On the morrow though weary from excitement
and want of sleep I responded to a call
to repair at 2.0 p.m. to the West Port Police
Station to take duty as a Special. The tale
of damage in endless rumours was all
morning reaching one and on the whole
we had much cause for thankfulness.
The deaths numbered only 10, and the injured
about as many more. Of the former, no
less than five had been killed at one place
at the East end of Marshall Street on the South
side of the Street. Here five men instead of
taking refuge well inside the basement of the
house had gathered in a group by the
door. A bomb descended right in front
on the pavement and blew them all to pieces.
I visited the spot two days afterwards. A huge
crater in the pavement & street showed where
the bomb had struck, while the ruined stone-
-work at one side of the doorway, the great
dents in the walls and the complete destruc:
:tion of the window glass in the vicinity, evidenced
the force of the explosion. My post of
duty on Monday afternoon was at the
North entrance to George Watson's school in
Lauriston,and adjacent to the Royal Infirmary.
Here I had to stand at a gate and refuse
admission to the sight-seers, who wished to
see the damage caused by a bomb, which
dropped there. Here the explosion did cause
havoc to windows, woodwork etc and a good
deal of ugly, but not serious, damage to the
stone work. The bomb had dropped within
a few feet of the South East angle of the west
wing and made a crater in a 'solum', en:
:tirely made up of stone, some 10 feet in diameter
by 2 feet or so in depth. In the immediate vicinity
every window was entirely blown out, and the
wood work reduced to matchwood, while
in the rooms, and from the top of the portico
masses of plaster had fallen strewing the
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floors with debris. In the main walls
were pittings a foot and more in diameter
and several inches in depths, while at
several places on the steps leading up to
the doorway were round holes and even
perforations as if made by shrapnel bullets.
On one side of the school 50 yards or so
from the site of the explosion the windows
of the Infirmary were smashed, while
opposite, those of a row of private houses,
had likeways suffered. From my post
I could see evidence of destruction in
Lauriston ?Place. Here next door to Chalmers
Hospital a high explosive bomb passed
clean through the house of a doctor without
harming any of the inmates, though, as
elsewhere, doing great damage to glass etc
in the houses all round. From many
sightseers in the afternoon I learned stories
of the raid. In Leith a Bonded Store
had been set alight by the first bomb
dropped, and profiting from the glare of
the conflagration, some 5 or 6 others were
launched with terrifying effect to the poor
people in the old houses by the shore.
One bomb fell by the German Church
at the end of Bellevue Cres., one behind Gayfield
Square, four in the King's Park, one doing much
damage in a slummy neighbourhood by St.
Leonards where it partially destroyed the
front of a tenement, but, I believe, hurt none
of the large number of people inside; At
the Cross-causeway another fell, and, I believe,
did a lot of damage. Then in Marchmont
Road adjacent to a Board school another
exploded, passing through a house but
killing no one. It is said to have been an
asphyxiating bomb, and though no one was
asphyxiated it is said those in the house
are now (several days after) suffering from a
Skin irritation One bomb burst just in
front of the 'White Hart' Inn on the North
Side of the Grassmarket, and smashed
every window within a large radius. The Masonry
of the old house was not shaken, but the whole
front was scored in radiating lines upwards
where stones and fragments of metal had been
hurtled. The Castle was missed, but a bomb
just fell beyond the barrack buildings on
the west front onto the face of the rock. and ruined the windows
of Castle Terrace. An incendiary Missile
burned itself out harmlessly on the roadway
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of the Mound before the Black Watch
statue. In the Lothian Road a bomb
entered the County Hotel & wrought some
havoc there. Above the Belford Bridge,
by the Water of Leith, 4 or 5 were let off,
[Margin] There was really
only 1 there. ---
Another at Roseburn, & , I think, one near
Coltbridge, several in open fields in that
neighbourhood, and altogether explosive
and incendiary in the Edinburgh area
about 38 in a space of 40 minutes, - a
fairly hot corner! And after it all how
much damage! I believe all they did could
be more than made good by the cost of
the trip over here! Our stone built houses
dont collapse under the explosions,
and practically all the destruction is that
of window glass. There seems
to have been much signalling by spies
by means of lamps. I am incredulous
of most of the spy stories, but men whose
judgement I can rely on saw flashing
going on.
[Margin] The "spies" were
probably people
picking their way
in the dark with
electric lamps ---
The on dit is that at least six
spies were captured. It is also said that
a map was found, dropped from one
of the raiders showing the position of
every building of importance in the town.
That they should have come & gone skaithless
makes us boil with wrath, but, if all I hear is
true, on their next visit they will meet with a
more suitable reception!
7 April 1916.
Yesterday I received the first semi-official in:
:timation that the Secretary for Scotland
intends to offer me the post of Director of
the Royal Scottish Museum, and I go to
London on Monday to see him & Sir John
Struthers about it.
13 April -
I journeyed to London on Monday and the
following day had a meeting with Sir John
Struthers at the Scottish Office, and when there
was taken to see the Secretary for Scotland who
asked me if I was agreeable to accept the new
post. To which question I replied in the affir:
:mative. There was much consideration of the
arrangement to be made in regard to the
Museum of Antiquities, as the Treasury are
firmly resolved that the post of director there
must not be filled up at present. It was
finally settled that I was to continue as
Director without Salary, being allowed by the
Scotch Education Department, (my new masters)
to give as much of my time as was necessary
to looking after it. My salary commences at
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£650 and rises by annual increments of £25
to £750. so that I have most opportunely re:
:ceived an addition to my income to equalise
the increased taxation. My duties will
be much more responsible than in my
present post, and doubtless less free from
worries for I shall have a very considerable
staff under me, some of them men drawing
salaries not much inferior to my own.
I have never been afraid of responsibility,
however, and I think I have tact. I take
up my appointment on Monday 17th inst.
7th May 1916.
For nearly three weeks now I have been
active as Director of both Museums. I go
to Queen Street the first thing in the morning,
arriving about 9.45, stay there till about
11.0 by which time I have attended to my
correspondence and have arranged Miss
Dennison's work for the day. Then I dash
off to Chambers St to the Royal Scottish Museum,
which it takes me about ¼ hour to reach,
& stay there till 1.0. After lunch I visit
the Queen St. Museum till 3.0 & again
proceed to Chamber St. In the new
institution my work is of a very different
character to what it it was in the old.
As director of the Museum of Antiquities, a
knowledge of antiquarian matters was essential,
also, as the staff was such a small one,
the director had much more to do with the
detailed work of the Museum. In fact since
the war began, and the whole staff has gone,
I had to turn my hand to all sorts of jobs,
which not only interested me but have afforded
me a valuable training. In the Royal Scottish
Museum, however, the work of the Director is
largely administrative, and I occupy a
much more exalted position. The keepers of
the various departments are supposed to
supply the necessary acquaintance with the
subjects of their departments. In what may
be called the general aesthetic aspect of
Museum management I see where my
experience and taste may be called into
play. My predecessor, though his appointment
was considered a purely political job, and
much talked of, has been an admirable
organiser, and I am thankful that I did
not have to take over the place in the state
in which he evidently found it.
10th June 1916.
As regards the two Museums under my
charge I have little to record. At the Royal
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Scottish Museum, with its activities so curtailed
on account of the war, I have not so much
work to do as I should like, so from tomorrow
onwards I am going to work at munitions
in the Museum workshop from 3.30 to 7.0.
For three days a week I intend to do this.
We have a staff of about fourteen working,
with the exception of four, all amateurs.
There are nine lathes, I think, at work.
We are still being thrilled with details of
the great naval battle which took place
off the coast of Jutland on the afternoon
& evening of Wednesday 31st May. As the
Cruiser squadron based on the Forth bore
the brunt of the fighting the excitement in
Edinburgh was high as rumours began to fly
around. The first I heard of it was in a
chemists shop in Queensferry St. as I came
home on Thursday afternoon. There were
rumours then of a great fight, and these
had originated with the arrival of wounded
at Leith & Queensferry. On the Friday the
tales grew. One heard that the Warspite
had returned badly damaged to Rosyth,
that the Queen Mary had been destroyed
by a Zeppelin falling on the top of her,
that seven German ships had been sunk, then
that twenty seven were down and several of our
own. My Evening 'Despatch' of Friday published
at 6.30 contained no word of the fight, but at
a later hour special editions of both evening
papers issued an official communiqué,
unhappily worded, giving a long list of our
ships sunk, and a very brief one of the German
losses. This created great depression, and
unfortunately the feeling got abroad that
we had suffered a partial defeat at the
hands of the enemy. The 'Scotsman' next
morning published not only this depressing
statement, but also a later & more reassuring
one from Sir John Jellicoe, the latter putting
a rather different complexion on the result
of the fight, and daily since then, as more
authentic news leaked out, the conviction
has grown that our fleet obtained a sub:
:stantial success, which, but for the hasty
retreat of the German Fleet, and the failing
light, would certainly have ended in a com:
:plete victory. As it is the German losses,
both relatively, and absolutely, were greater
than ours, and it is not expected that
their ships will be in a condition to
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venture an engagement again of any
sort for some months.
Everyone seems to be working at some
war work, either Red Cross, Munitions,
Soldiers wives, Moss Dressings, gathering
literature for the troops, or something.
Prices of commodities especially of
meat are very high but as we long
ago gave up eating meat at night,
the prices do not affect us seriously.
The event of this week has been the great
Russian push in the Southern half of their
fronts, whereby they have broken through
the Austrian lines for a length of 100 miles
to a depth of 40 miles or so and have
captured to date 75,000 prisoners.
This country has now adopted the summer-
-time system by which we reckon time
an hour later than it really is from
April to October, thus prolonging the
daylight hours by one. Three weeks ago
at 2.o'clock on Sunday Morning, time
was officially changed, and, as convenience
suited, before or after that hour everyone
put forward their clocks & watches one
hour. The effect is that now as I write
the sun is just sinking behind the distant
Ochills at 9.50, and no light is needed on
a fine night till after 10.0. This
has been one of the coldest and wettest
summers on record. Now in mid June I
regret having ever left off my winter under-
-clothing.
Prices for food are as follows:- fresh eggs 2/- a doz. [dozen]
beef 1/8d a lb. [pound] - Mutton 1/6d a lb. [pound] New Zealand
Mutton 1/4½.
18 July 1916
What a wretched summer this has been. It is
speeding on rapidly and still no warmth or
sunshine and rain nearly every day. The popular
idea is that this condition is due to the tremendous
gunfiring in France, but the eminent meteorologists
will have none of such reasoning. It must be
getting serious for the country. The one good
point in it is that it reconciles those who are
making munitions to the long postponement
of their holidays. The great offensive has been
going in France for 10 days now and our
armies are making splendid progress. It is
almost beyond belief that men drawn from
trades & offices who never dreamed of shouldering
a rifle two years ago should have been trans:
:formed into such magnificent soldiers. No one
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has been more surprised at this than the
German, who thought them of no account, and
yet the other day in a bayonet engagement
the Prussian Guard was beaten. One of the
young assistant keepers from the Royal
Scottish Museum has fallen. I never saw
him but he seems to have been a promising
youth. Today I saw the Roll of Honour
of the W. S. [Writer to the Signet] Society. Including apprentices
it appeared to run to hundreds of names.
Young men of the better classes one never
sees now, and of the working classes the
few one meets bear the Munition worker's badges
Many a face I miss from the Queensferry Road
that I used to encounter on my walks
In offices and shops there is increasing
difficulty in carrying on business, and women
are being more and more employed. For months
girls have been acting as tram conductors; now
a "post-missie" delivers our letters. A few
thoughtless folk talk of the war being over
by September but those with deeper insight
regard another winter as certain,
and its duration till this time next year as
almost certain. We all know that the
price of victory will be a heavy one, many
of these brave youths who have answered their
country's call will return no more, but the
people do not flinch, and everywhere is a
spirit of absolute confidence in the victory
of the allies. There is no doubt that the Germans
are beginning to show signs of breaking down,
and the Austrians are much further gone.
We are going back to our former quarters at
NethyBridge on 1st August, but for one month
only this year instead of for two. Many people
are not going away for a holiday & some are
devoting their holiday time to the making of
munitions. Children must have a change, and
as I have not been away practically since
last September except for a day or two at
Christmas, I feel I need one too.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer announced yester:
:day that the war is now costing us £6,000,000 a day!!
(This statement was misleading as he included the sum paid for American securities)
30 July 1916.
Since my last entry was written the character of
the weather has changed and we have had ten
days of real warmth & sunshine, the shade
temperature varying from 70° to 80°. My old
Uncle Robert has been staying with us, a truly
wonderful octogenarian. Eighty four I think
is his age, yet his faculties are quite acute.
He neither suffers from deafness nor extreme
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loss of sight, and as for his memory it is fresher
I believe than my own. He reads most of the
noteworthy literature of the day and quotes it
freely. It is almost two years
since this terrible war broke over Europe.
How well I recollect the Sunday morning
when the news spread through the city that
we had broken off negotiations with Germany.
Jocelyn & Sandy were at Overwells and
Mary & I here alone. The news came to
all right minded people bringing relief
from a haunting dread that the radical
government in power would not take the
only course which honour demanded after
the violation of Belgian Neutrality, and which self-
-interest required. It was a near thing, and
many of the radical party who had approved
of the cutting down of the army, & who would
equally have starved the navy, were by no
means satisfied. What a loss of life there
has been to Europe in these memorable two years.
"The Great Push", as the British offensive is
called, is going on at this moment and
slowly but surely the "Boche" is being driven
back from France. But at a sad cost.
Today I have heard of the death of
Alick Herries, the only child of one of my oldest
friends. For a year at least he has been in the
fight with the K.O.S.B [King's Own Scottish Borderers] and hitherto escaped
even a wound. He was killed instantaneously
by a shell between Mametz and Montauban.
Since the war began of first cousin's children
there have fallen four - Pat, Charlie, and Walter
Lyon, and Jack Towers Clark; a more distant
relative, Jim Boyd of Faldonside; four of
my brothers-in -law have been in the fray,
Jim Tancred commanded the "Argyll", but she
unfortunately ran on the Bell Rock & since
then he has been King's Harbour master at
Invergordon; Wat Tancred, likewise a sailor,
is somewhere off the East Coast of Africa;
Tom Tancred, the gunner, is a Brigadier in
France, and John in the Indian Army, lost
an eye in the trences in Flanders. Various
Lumsdens, cousins in some degree of Sandy
& Mary, have been killed but none of them
I Knew. And the end is not yet. I thought the
Russians are advancing & taking prisoners
by tens of thousands, though we are hammering
on the Western front to some purpose, and
while the Italians are keeping the Austrians
busy in the Trentino, and there are signs of
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activity at Salonika against the Bulgars,
I do not think that peace will be concluded
before may of next year.
[Margin] Nethybridge ---
14th Aug. 1916
On the 1st. August we returned to our summer
quarters which we had occupied last year
on Speyside. We live in a little wooden
cottage at the edge of Abernethy Forest
with open birch wood before our door
and around, each with its patch of
garden, the timber cottages of the natives.
Villadom lies a little distance away
on the road that runs parallel with
the Nethy, and we are glad to live apart
from it. Since we arrived till today
the weather has been gloriously fine, if
a fault could have been found with it,
it has been a trifle too hot. We live
a very simple life. One maid comes with us,
chiefly to look after Mary, and the good
woman, Miss McCook from whom we rent
the house, does cook, house- & table maid
herself. There is an indifferent
golf course where every morning we play
a round of golf of 9 holes; Usually the family
fousome in which Jocelyn & Sandy play
Mary and me. I being allowed to drive off
each tee . As Mary is still a very primitive per:
:former we have very close matches. Sandy can
play an iron club with a certain measure of
success, but it is no use with a wooden one,
and does'nt take the trouble to acquire the
knack. We have all bicycles, and make
much use of them. Jocelyn, Sandy & I last
Monday made our way to Tomintoul,
said to be the highest village in Scotland,
and no one need grudge it its one quality
for it is indeed a dreary looking place.
We were much struck with the wild flowers
growing on the banks by the roadside,
and I picked from the ditch the mountain
Saxifrage which I had not seen before.
We lunched in an indifferent hotel at Tom:
:intoul, and thereafter bicycled over a
very bumpy road to Balindalloch, whence
after a most satisfying tea in a small
inn, we got a train back to Nethybridge. The
scenery down the Avon on the last fifteen
miles of our journey was beautiful,but the
afternoon was oppressively hot. On Wednesday
we took sandwiches with us and had a picnic
at Muckrach Castle. This is a picturesque keep
built on an L plan but with the short arm
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that contains the staircase, round at
the ground level, and higher up changing to
a square form to accommodate small
dwelling rooms, while the stair case passes
into a rounded turret in the re-entering
angle. The castle is, I fancy, an early 17th.
century type - a late castellated form. The
rounded or squared tower reminded me of
Ardvreck on Loch Assynt - One evening
last week I devised a new entertainment
for the children. The forest covers a great
extent of country all around, and through
it one may wander at will, for while I
believe it is occasionally driven in the
winter, it is too rough & thick to shoot through.
In the heart of it, here and there, are large
open spaces where peats have been much
cast in past times, and still are dug, and
to reach these run from different points
old tracks and roads. Furnished with
a compass and a map, both of which
I can use efficiently, one cannot lose one's
way, but to the ordinary wanderer such
an eventually might easily happen.
on the evening in question we set out to learn
a little woodcraft, taking in addition to
our map etc. a pair of field glasses . We struck
deep into the forest beyond the Duack Burn and
after crossing a high road found a peat track
which brought us to a peat bog. Getting over
this by following along the side of a ditch
we came into a part of the forest little ex:
:plored, I fancy, by the summer visitor. En:
:joining absolute silence we stole as quietly as
possible along an old track all alert for
any sign of game, with a rate of marks for
the first view of each quarry, - 10 for a caper-
-caille, 5 a roedeer, 4 a black cock, 3 a
grey hen, and 2 a hanging wasp's nest. Our
exploit was crowned with success for we
saw one caper', 3 roedeer, and some 5 or
6 brace of black-cock. The heather
is just coming into flower, and it grows
more than knee deep through the forest.
The white spikes of Goodiera repens may
be seen thrusting through it in many places.
We are expecting any day the arrival
of 150 German prisoners, who are to be lodged
in a camp near Causer, and employed as
woodcutters. At the front things
are moving steadily in the right direction.
Always gains to the allies and never now
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any success for the Germans. The Russians
are again pressing westward and have
once more occupied the Bukovina and
further North, the line of the Strypa. At the
end of last week the Italians captured
Gorizia, and are threatening Trieste. The
British & French troops are daily biting
into the German third line defences in
the region of the Somme, and the Turk,
who had the presumption to attempt
an invasion of Egypt, has had a salutary
lesson, and it seems as if few of his army
of 16000 men will manage to return whence
they came.
3rd Sept. 1916
Tomorrow we leave our summer quarters at
Nethybridge and return to Edinburgh. Except
for the first fortnight the weather has not
been very good, and in the middle of last
month our pleasure was much interfered
with by rain. Nearly everyday, however, we
all managed to play a game or two at
golf, and in consequence have all
improved a little. The course is a very
bad one in normal times, & this year
is worse than usual owing to the grass,
which has been allowed to grow up very long.
The lowest score which I have been able to return
for a round of 9 holes is 54! It is a terrible place
for losing balls, and conversely for finding them,
at which Sandy is particularly good. On searching
in the bog for a lost ball on one occasion we
found three others! We have all bicycled
a great deal when weather permitted. We, Jocelyn
Sandy, & I, were lucky last Wednesday in having
a fine day for an expedition to Loch Morlich.
It is a charming expedition, by bicycle and
foot, for the track from Forest Lodge to the
Little Green Loch beyond Ryroan is as a rule
too rough to ride over. the heather at present
is in full flower, and the colour effects be:
:neath the pines of the forest which it pro:
:duces, are a great delight to us all. We
eat our lunch by the side of the Green Loch,
& finished it with quantities of magnificent
blaeberries, which we found around it, each
one nearly as large as a small cherry. From
Loch Morlich we returned via the Sluggan Pass
& Boat of Garten Road. On pour way home
Sandy & I visited a mound behind Mains
of Gartenmore to which Mr Cameron, Coul-na-Kyle
had called my attention. He pronounced it
to be "undoubtedly defensive" and he was right
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It is a large natural gravel mound probably
containing ½ acre on its surface. Around it
though greatly destroyed are remains of a rather
V shaped ditch with a very sharp, clean cut
counterscarp. On the top I thought I could
recognise the foundation beneath the turf of
an oblong building such as might have been
a 14th. 15th century castle, and the size of the
masonry on adjacent buildings, suggested that
something of the sort may have stood here ori:
:ginally. I do not think the site is a pre:
:historic one. Sandy left on
Tuesday for home as he & his friend Maloney
are going on Saturday to spend a fortnight
in a tent at Weens. Yesterday afternoon
we bicycled to Tulloch where we left our bicycles,
& then taking our tea with us we wander through
the birchwoods towards the hills by roads
leading to remote little farms. The children
were delighted with the stags' horn moss and
Cranberries (or the berry which does substitute for
it here) which they gathered. We had a delightful
ramble through beautiful woods mounting upwards,
carpeted with heather & blaeberries through
which protruded masses of grey lichen-covered
rock. We eventually struck a road across a
moor from a croft called Tynamer which brought us
back to the road that passes round Tor Hill
near Straanruie, ¾ mile to the East of Aundorach
where we had left our bicycles. There is an
old road which leads across the moor and through
the Southern end of the wood between Chapelton
and Lynamer.
Cairns
Within the wood, adjacent to the
Road, and on the wooded moorlands to the East
of it, is a considerable group of cairns, which I
do not see marked on the O.S. [Ordnance Survey] map to which
I have access here. The cairns are of rather
larger size and are built with bigger stones
than those I have been accustomed to find
in groups, I estimate the diameter at about
15-18 feet . - A cairn crowns the summit
of the Blue Rock, a notable view point in the
wood, a few hundred yards to the South of
Revack Lodge, and a considerable group of
cairns of small size extends along the upper
edge of the haughs of Cromdale, to the South East
I think, of the Distillery, None of these are noted.
Christian has been staying with us on a visit
for 3 weeks.
17 Dec. 1916
Since my previous entry, in the battle of the
Somme we have made farther progress, but
of late, owing probably, to the state of the
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terrain, there has been little movement, but a
steady pounding of the German trenches.
In Rumania things have gone badly for the
entente, and the Rumanian army has been
forced backwards till Bukarest & Buzen,
to the North of it are in German hands. Greece
or its King & his military camarilla have
acted treacherously, and fired on the allied
troops at Athens, thereafter massacring many
Venezelist supporters. All this has had a
depressing effect. Suddenly in the Reichsdag
the German Chancellor announced that
Germany being in position of a victor was
prepared to consider terms of peace in a
magnanimous spirit! Nothing has so cheered
the allies for some time, for a while it is clear
to all that Germany has not the slightest hope
of such terms as she can offer being accepted,
it is realised that only a serious economic
condition could have compelled her to take
a step which for a brief period must fill her
half starved people with joyous prospects
only to be driven to lower depths of despair
on realising that the Allies will consider
no peace which does not entail the complete
overthrow of militarism in Germany & the
assurance of peaceful life, unmenaced by the
rattling of the German sabre for the future.
We have just effected a change of Government
Asquith with his "wait-and-see " methods having
given place to Lloyd George, who has shown won:
:drous energy & high principle throughout the war.
The spirit of the country is magnificent, and
everyone seems ready to make what sacrifices
he may be called upon to make with a good
grace. As the public were enjoined
to restrict travelling to necessary journeys from
now onwards, we have given up the idea of going
to Priorwood for Christmas so shall spend the
festival at home in a quiet way. Tomorrow
in Clubs, restaurants etc. a three course dinner
will be the rule and shortly we shall all be
compelled to have one meatless day in the week.
It will not be a hardship as already we are
practising it, except at breakfast, & for many
months we have greatly restricted our consumption
of meat. Yesterday we attended a lecture
by an American named Curtin who recently
passed 300 days in Germany. He gave us a
vivid picture of the condition of the Germans
under the strangle hold of our fleet. Milk
can only be obtained in a German household
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if it contains a child under seven years of age,
or a nursing mother; the egg allowance
is one per head in two weeks; each person
is allowed ⅛ lb [pound] of butter a week; meat is very
scarce; fat is practically unprocurable for
domestic purposes, and such as can be
had, is required for the making of munitions.
The war-weariness and depression of the
people is most noticeable. Here although
the war-widow is, alas, much in evidence
and there is hardly a family who has not
to mourn some one of its members, the
whole country is actuated by a stern de:
:termination to see the thing through till
Germany is beaten to her knees. The
U-boats have been playing havoc of
late with all shipping coming to the
United Kingdom, and as they are of much
larger draught than formerly they operate
out in the Atlantic & far afield. They spare
nothing and consider no laws for the
protection of hospital ships, or any harmless
unarmed passenger boat. As we skotched
the earlier pests so we shall these, but
their ravages may get sent upwards to
an unpleasant height the price of all
commodities in these islands. Eggs are
at present 4/6d [£0.4.6] a doz. [dozen] It costs 7/6d. [£0.7.6] to have
ones shoes resoled at one's Princes St. boot:
:makers. Sugar has been a scarce com:
:modity for long, and shortly there will be
a ban on all sugared cakes and sweetmeats.
Such things have quite disappeared from our
tea table. 'O' nights when there
is no moon the streets where there is only
gas illumination are in mirky darkness
so as to afford no indication of our whereabouts
to a wandering Zep. [Zeppelin] and most people have
had the edges of their steps painted white.
In the heart of the city there is a modest
amount of electric lighting permitted, as
so many accidents were occurring without it.
Lately I have become a member of a
small Society of art lovers. at present nine
in number. We meet throughout the winter
on one evening a month at 9. o'clock in
each others house. There is no subscription,
& there is no reading of papers. We
only meet together to enjoy conversation
on subjects of mutual interest. The host supplies
whiskey & soda, ginger-beer & biscuits.
We have had three meetings so far at which
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we have been concerned over our name
we started as the "Lamplighters Club" now
our fate is likely to be " The Ancient & Modern
Arts Club". a portenious title which I don't
much incline to, but will probably have to
accept. Our present members are, Pat:
:rick Murray, D. J. Cameron, the artist & Etcher,
Douglas Strachan. stained glass Artist, of high
repute, Morley Fletcher, Director of the College
of Art, Frank Deas, Architect, Sir Robert
Lorimer, James Paterson, Artist, - Warrack,
ship owner, I fancy, but also a man of
excellent taste & connoisseurship, and myself.
we sit late; it is invariably between 12.0 & 1.0
ere I get home. At the be:
:ginning of the year I was elected to a
dining club chiefly composed of University
Professors - in fact there are 40 members and
⅔ of these must be connected with the Uni:
:versity. We dine in the Free Church Assembly
Hall library, once a month during Nov. Dec.
Feb. & March. I have dined twice this
winter and enjoyed it though I am a
little afraid of my society, it is so erudite.
This has been for weather one of the
worst years on record. Much grain
in the Northern Counties rotted in the stooks,
in fact much of it was,I believe, never cut.
Potatoes were a failure in many places and
are now getting scarce. I believe the early ap:
:pointed food-controller is going to regulate
their distribution.
In the Museums there is little doing.
The structural work in Queen St. has been finished.
& there only remains the setting of wood blocks
on the floors, but these are hard to procure.
The office of Works holds out hopes of our
getting back into our library or rooms early
in the year but much water will still run
through the bridge before the collections are
back in their places & the Museum is ready
for public exhibition once more. A
short time ago I was informed by a lady
that she was finding wonderful relics in her
coals, spear heads, arrow heads, filagree &
enamel work. I suspected a mental problem
so asked her to send specimens. In due course
a box arrived containing samples of coal
& cinders such as might be picked out of
any hearth or coal box but in these this
Antiquarian visionary saw models of parrots,
eagle, elephants, horses, the "dog headed ape"
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locusts, deaths head-moth, the wing of a
tussore silk moth, and I know not what
besides. Some fragments she had polished
the surface of with methylated spirits believing
them to be silver. I have kept her letter as a
curiosity. Most politely I returned her
treasures with my opinion of them but I
have had no acknowledgement. Probably
while I set her down as a lunatic, she
regards me as a stupid dolt without per:
:ception.
15th. January 1917
We have passed into the new year very quietly
but with a growing optimism that before
the close of it the Huns may be thoroughly
vanquished. On the Western front our men
are full of confidence & fight and are already
sure that they have them beaten. We are
having a cold changeable winter with
a good deal of frost & snow in the country
districts but not much of either here.
Last Monday (8th) I received from the "Antiquaries"
Club a beautiful silver salver as a presentation
for having acted as Secretary of the club for
fifteen years, i.e. since its inception till the
close of last session. The presentation was
made by George Macdonald. For the winter
of 1900 the idea occurred to my brother Jim that
it would a pleasant thing to have a small social
dining club connected with the Society of Antiquaries
Accordingly he invited a number of the Fellows
who took most interest in the Society's affairs,
to a dinner at the University Club before one
of the Society's evening meeting, in order to
discuss his proposal. The idea met with
unanimous approval; we had an excellent
dinner, and I well remember certain notable
Fellows falling asleep and snoring, during
the progress of the subsequent meeting. This
dinner was followed in its turn by one or
two others at the houses of other Fellows, while
the idea was being worked out. At last
I was asked to be Secretary, and a small
committee was appointed to approach 40
members of the Society to induce them to join,
and to draw up rules - One member of the
committee strongly urged that there should
be no subscription, I as strenuously maintained
that there should be otherwise there would be less
inducement for members to attend. My view
was accepted with the result that as only
about one half of our members ever attend
at one time, & some not twice a session, we
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have accumulated funds at a rapid rate.
I handed over to my successor nearly £100,
and we have voted to various appeals in the
past not far short of a similar amount.
Before the war our subscription was a guinea
We had four ordinary dinners on the nights
of our evening meetings and one “banquet”
on St. Andrews Night.
18th Feb. 1917
The Germans are getting desperate and
have instituted a violent submarine cam:
:paign against all shipping coming to or
from the United Kingdom. It began on the
first of this month, and though at first their
success was considerable they are not now
sinking an alarmingly large amount of
tonnage. No one is much perturbed, and
though the Admiralty keeps its own secrets
we have been given to understand that the
navy has the menace well in hand, and
that already many U. boats which were
taking part in the “Strafe” will not return to
Germany. As some 60 to 70% of the
shipping has been utilised for Military & Naval
purposes, there has been a serious reduction
in the food supplies being brought in from
abroad. In consequence we have all been
requested to put ourselves on voluntary rations
2½lbs [pounds] of meat, ¾ ls [pound] of sugar, 4 lbs [pounds] of bread, or
3 lbs [pounds] of flour per head per week. We are allowed,
however, to make up with oat meal and other
substitutes. At breakfast we never have any
other “dish” than porridge, and we use barley,
or wheat meal bread, and oat cakes as much as
possible. We all thrive quite well; personally
I never felt better. We have taken to consume
much more cheese than heretofore, and much
less meat. Last week I started helping
in the canteen connected with the Rest Hut
on the Mound from 10.30 p.m. to 2.30 A.M. We
reckoned we served nearly 200 soldiers & sailors
with supper; Two men did the cooking, pro:
:viding sausages, poached eggs, mutton pies,
sausage rolls, porridge & ham & eggs.
There were also Sandwiches, bread and butter, plain
cakes, and to drink, tea, coffee, cocoa, bovril,
oxo, and mineral waters. Each man paid
for what he got. We took the orders, shouted
them through the window to the kitchen, &
endeavoured to provide for the necessities of
other hungry men while the cooking orders
were being attended to. I found it very
difficult to bear in mind the uncompleted
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requirements of the various individuals and
to carry in one's head the amount of each
man's score. It was very interesting observing
the different types, old, young, gentle, & simple.
So tired was I by the end of my shift that
when I got to bed at 3.0 I could not sleep.
Next time I shall not find it so strenuous.
25 March.
In the middle of last month I took up an
allotment of 240 Sq. [Square] yards, 81 ft [feet] in length by 27 ft [feet]
in breadth, situated in ground which has been
lying waste for years, immediately to the West
of Learmonth Gardens. For this I pay 10/6 rent
and 2/- to the St Bernard's Allotment Associ:
:ation of which I have become a member.
Since I entered on possession every spare
moment has been occupied in trenching
my plot, and I have still a week or two
of work to do yet. My ordinary day's work
is from 5.0 to 7.0 but on Saturdays,
& when I can steal a half holiday, I
commence operations at 2.0. I rarely
have to work alone as either a friend or
some schoolboy comes & lends a hand.
My potatoes are all in the house ready
to be planted & they will be taken
into the smoking room tomorrow to induce
them to sprout. The great German retreat
from the Somme has now been in progress
for some weeks, & we are all hopeful that we
are entering the last phase of the war.
Potatoes are very scarce and we have given up
eating them, using semolina fried in little cakes
instead. This has been a long cold winter,
and we have had no springlike weather thus
far.
8 April. 1917
On Friday I finished, or rather we finished the
digging of the allotment, for Jocelyn, Mary, and
usually a friend of two, have lent a hand. Yester:
:day I completed the formation of necessary paths,
and thereafter we all gave our services to a neigh:
:bour, a working man, who only gets a chance to
work on Saturday afternoon. It is still far too
cold to plant cabbages or potatoes. Much snow
lies on the hills and the wind this afternoon
was cold enough for midwinter. The
submarine campaign is still very serious as
the Germans are sinking some 100,000 tons of
shipping a week, in consequence food economy
is being preached on all hands. We now make
great use of oatmeal, not only in the form of
porridge but as a substitute for flour and
find it makes most palatable bread.
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In place of sugar, we occasionally make use
of dates for sweetening a cake or a pudding.
The event of last week was the entry of the
United States into the war. It is a momentous
occurrence the full effect of which in the
future course of history no man can foretell.
For the immediate future it means the
guarantee of unlimited sources of money
& munitions for the allies. Some 700,000
tons of German shipping in American ports
have been seized, and should at an early
date go to take the place of the ships the
U boats have sunk. Though there are
undoubted food difficulties, shortage of sugar,
high price of ordinary commodities etc, one
hears no grumbling and no pessimism.
We have reduced our establishment by
getting rid of the housemaid, and we seem
to be getting along quite happily. It means
that everyone must get into the habit of
doing more for her- or himself. no bad experi:
:ence. I have today had a
Circular regarding the corps of Special con:
:stables to say that as some 50 of the regular
police are to be temporarily withdrawn for
agricultural work we shall be asked to
give much more service. In fact it proposed
that we should turn out on duty on every third
or fourth day for a spell of four hours, usually
from 6.0 to 10.0 p.m., or 10.0 to 2.0 a.m.
In consequence I shall have to give yo the
work at the Rest Hut.
11th Apr. 1917
The cold is intense for the time of year. Every
night there is frost, last night there being 12½ °°!
While the road at this side of the Dean Bridge
was being watered during repairs about noon
today icicles a foot long hung down behind the cart!
The great battle of Arras was begun on Monday
Morning and has so far been successful beyond
all expectations. Over 4,000 Prisoners & over
100 guns taken!
22nd Apr.
Suddenly the weather has grown milder & the
snow & frost, both of which were with us till a few
days ago, have vanished. Today we finished
planting our 4 stone of potatoes in the allotment.
4th Augt.
We have had one of the finest summers on record
following on a long inclement winter. Warmth,
sunshine, and no excessive drought: The hay
-crop all got in in perfect order, crops looking
splendid though in places a trifle short in the
straw. The crops in the allotment have
done splendidly, we have been eating our
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kidney potatoes since 16th July. We have had
since June Spinach, turnips, lettuce, and
more recently, cauliflower, peas and beans.
Throughout the summer we have worked on
our plot nearly every evening till 10. o'clock
& later. Owing to more Police being called
up for agricultural work etc the duties of the
specials were increased, and all through
the summer I have been out on duty every
Thursday evening from 6.0 to 10.0. This
has necessitated a meal at 5.0 and a
supper at 10.30. I find the work unexciting
but tiring. By good fortune I have now got
the beat on this side of the Dean Bridge
recognised as my own, and on fine evenings
it has been passingly pleasant. One has so
many acquaintances in the neighbourhood
that one has many chats to while away the
time. I have just completed a
course of twelve lessons in French conversation
with a Belgian Emigré Mons [Monsieur] Julian
Vanden Bossche, an advocate in the Court
of Appeal at Ghent. His daughter Heléne
has been taking Mary out for walks & talking
French to her twice a week. We have only
been out of town for three weekends since
last September and are now feeling in need of
a change. We have taken rooms at Woodlea
Melrose for two months. Mary has already gone
there, Sandy & Jocelyn join her on Tuesday and
I follow on the 25th. Till I go I have to do duty
on two weekday evenings as special constables to
take the place of men on holiday. Notwithstanding
that 50% has been added to railway fares &
travelling is very uncomfortable, as many people
as usual seem to be out of town, but they have
for the most part gone to places comparatively
near at hand. An order in council decreed
that no cartridges were to be sold for sporting
purposes owing to the difficulty of procuring
lead and for a time, we thought there was to
be no shooting. Now, however, that order has
been rescinded & the existing stock of cartridges
will be available. There is great difficulty
in getting about in the country as motor cars
are not to be hired for pleasure purposes, nor
is motor spirit available for people who own
cars unless for war work.
The war still goes on, but the allies have
dealt the Germans some serious blows inflicting
heavy casualties, and taking many prisoners.
We have just commenced a great battle to
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the north of Ypres. It has begun successfully
but bad weather has stayed progress.
The U boat campaign still continues to
be serious but the number of ships sunk
decreases slowly, and the country is fast
becoming self supporting – Potatoes which
a few weeks ago sold at 2/- the lb. [pound] are
now to be had for 1/- the stone! Sugar is
a commodity which continues scarce;
& often in the summer I have seen long
queus of women regulated by police awaiting
their turns to enter a grocer’s who had sugar
for sale. We have greatly reduced our con:
:sumption but have had enough for ordinary
purposes. Eggs now sell at 3/4d a doz. [dozen]!
The prices of beef & mutton are being controlled.
One no longer hears people predicting the
end of the war in a few weeks or months
as one did formerly. We are all quite satisfied
that victory is assured and determined to
hold on grimly till Germany has had
enough.
12th Augt. 1917
We had a great thrill while out on police duty
this afternoon through the visit of one of our
new airships of the Zeppelin type. It flew
over a considerable part of the town
and created a great excitement among the
populace. It looked enormous and the rumour
was that it was over 500 feet in length. Beneath
were two gondolas, and there were vertical
steering planes at the stern. There were heavy
masses of [drawing of airship inserted] cloud on the
sky, and [drawing of airship inserted] and as it sailed in
front of them, bright aliminium in colour, it
it looked very beautiful.
Jocelyn & the children are all in rooms at
Melrose and I follow on the 25th. Sandy
has now, I hope, attained his full height as he
is 6 ft 1½ ins. He goes up for his exam for Sandhurst
in November. My allorment has been
so prolific that I have great difficulty in con:
:suming the vegetables. I have had cauliflowers,
peas, beans, lettuce, potatoes, onions & turnips in abun:
:dance and the french beans are just com:
:mencing. One evening in the
spring of the year as I returned home I saw in
a dealer’s window in George St. two magnificent
goblets of glass commemorating naval events. Each
was some 15 inches or more in height. the bowl
more nearly hemispherical than usually is the
case. I entered the shop & examined them. One
bore the date of Nelson’s death and “England
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“expects etc.” with a certain amount of floral
decoration, while the other was richly
engraved with the picture of a sea fight
and the legend “The defeat of the French
Fleet off San Domingo” April 1812. I am
not sure of the date, it was however, subse:
:quent to that of Trafalgar. I examined the
glasses very critically in the shop, their
weight was satisfactory so was their “tint,
but I was not quite happy in my mind
about the shape, or the Trafalgar reference.
The price £15 if they were genuine was by
no means excessive. The dealer said they
were brought to him by a lady in whose family
they had long been, and while he would give
no guarantee he believed them to be genuine.
[Margin] 10th Mar. 1945
What a fool I
was! Only in this
month’s Black:
:wood did I
find out about
the defeat of the
French fleet of
San Domingo
The battle was
fought by Adm. [Admiral]
Keats one of Nel:
:son’s men and
a devoted admirer.
Hence the reference
to Trafalgar. The
episode has re:
:ceived but little
mention in history
I might have realised that a “fatsu” would not have produced a picture of
a battle hardly known. I believe now these glasses would be worth over £100! ---
I decided to buy them & had them sent home.
No sooner did I see them in my own house
in a good light than I at once felt convinced
that they were spurious. I drew a cheque
in favour of the dealer handed it to him &
asked him to send for his glasses & resell
them. “How much would I like for them
he asked” as he thought he could easily make
a good profit. I, however, said I wished
my money back & no more. An examination
of the goblets revealed the following conditions.
The general tint of the glass was greyish, looking
at the surface through a strong magnifying glass
I could detect that it had all been finely scratched
and that all the scratches & engraved lines were
filled with a dark composition which looked like
lamp. black. Around one of the goblets was
a band about ¾ inch deep of diamond cutting.
This band at one spot for a length of about an
inch was absolutely clean & bright while the rest
presented a uniform grey appearance. The
glass, which forms the bases of all the large
glasses I possess, is much striated as if the
metal had been rather thick when worked, in
modern glass the feet of such glasses are of
absolutely homogeneous material, perfectly
clear throughout. Of the latter quality was the
glass of the bases of the goblets. Lastly I could
not find that there had been any defeat of
the French fleet off San Domingo subsequent
to Trafalgar! There was no French fleet left
to defeat! I was very doubtful if I would
get my money back & rather disgusted with
myself for having been taken in. A week
or two ago the dealer informed me that he
had sold the glasses & sent me a cheque
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for the amount. Nor does the interest in the
story end here. The purchaser before com:
:pleting the deal submitted the goblets to a
London dealer named, Thomas, in Bond St.
I think, who not only pronounced them
genuine and worth £70 but offered to
buy them.? Notwithstanding the quhilk I
congratulate myself on having escaped,
and am firmly convinced that my judgement
is sound. [added in 1945] 1945 how true it is that a collector frequently
regrets most the chances he lost! I lost this fish by my own folly! ---
One often misses good bargains by want
of courage! After the above-narrated experience
I have been more cautious. A week or two ago
I passed daily on my way to Chamber St. a
curio shop on the mound. In one of its
windows there appeared for a week or ten
days a very nice antique chest of drawers
of walnut evidently old French. My instinct
told me it was good, but I had no place for
it, and did not wish to waste money in
these times, so made no enquiries about it.
It disappeared one day, however, from that
window & happening to be in the shop
shortly afterwards I enquired what had
become of it. It had been sold to another
dealer Whytock & Reid for £10. One day
last week finding it in the window of the latter’s
shop in George St. I could not resist going in
and enquiring what the style was & the price.
Louis XIV – price £25! A fairly handsome
profit on a simple transaction.
While writing about furniture I may record
how I came to purchase the Queen Anne escritoire
in the smoking room. In the autumn of 1907
I went with Sandy & Mary, both then very small,
to the hotel at Skinburness in Cumberland for
a week or two. Having occasion to go into
Carlisle one day & while awaiting the arrival of a
train, I strolled round the town, & thought I might
try & pick up an escritoire for Jim’s wife, who
wanted one. In an old furniture shop I spied
a beauty, the one I now possess, & on enquiring
the price was told that it was £12. I saw the
piece was good, & the price fair, so I said I would
take it & would pay if the dealer would forward
it to me in Edinburgh where I would be in Oct.
I knew Blanche would never give the price so I
decided to sell her my old one. Some days
after while out on a ride on a bicycle ride I entered the little
town of Wigton, and as was my custom enquired
at once if there was a curiosity shop there. I was
directed to a game dealer who occasionally
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had antiques. I purchased from him the
mahogany tea tray with the Prince of Wales
feathers inlaid in the middle – also the small
(?) Hepplewhite armchair with the pierced
oval panel in the back [drawing of panel inserted]. As I was
settling the transaction, he produced a photo
remarking that Here [?] was the finest bureau he
had ever had through his hands, but that
at present it was in Carlisle. I looked at
the photo, and at once saw that it was the
very article which I had purchased a few
days before. “What price did you ask” I
asked “£10 & not a penny less,” So-so I thought
& going out wrote a postcard to the Carlisle
dealer asking him why he put on £2 extra etc.
On returning to the shop for my goods I told
the owner that I had purchased the bureau
a few days ago, and that his agent had asked
£12. Now while I was out of the shop a letter
had actually arrived from the Carlisle man,
saying he had made the sale, inferring that the
price was £10, and that the purchaser would
not pay till November. The game dealer was
furious as he declared the man had been
cheating him for years & he had never been
able to catch him. “Leave it to me” he said
“and I shall fetch the bureau from Carlisle myself
“& forward it to you in Edinburgh and you shall
pay me £10.” All which I duly did. It was a
strange coincidence that I should find myself
in the shop of the actual owner of the bureau, al:
:most at the moment that the letter from the
dealer in Carlisle arrived announcing the sale.
23 Sept. 1917.
Woodlea, Melrose. Since the beginning of August the family have
been in rooms here, and most comfortable we have been. I
joined the party on 25th August. For a week Sandy removed to
the gardener’s cottage at St. Cuthbert’s where he lived the simple
life with his friend Robert Bairn’sfather, doing their own cooking, and
on rarer occasions, cleaning. The boys greatly enjoyed themselves
though the weather was far from perfect. On 8th Sept.
I took Sa’ to shoot at Morriston for the first time. Much
corn was still uncut, and the weather unpleasant. Partridges
were scarce, we only fell in with one covey. It was a happy day
as Sa’ shot a snipe, his first bird on the wing, and he
also bagged 2 or 3 rabbits and a hare. I have been shooting
on two occasions since, but have seen very little game.
A visit to Morriston is always a pleasure to me, as I have gone
there shooting since quite a small boy, and there is not a
spot hardly where I do not recollect shooting something.
When I first went there, the farmer, old George Henderson, grand
father of the present one, always came out to see us, never
without a tall silk hat on, his head and a black stock
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round his neck.
13th Jany. 1918.
Nearly four months have passed since I last wrote in
my Journal. Autumn has given place to winter. the British
summer offensive, carried on into December has
come to an end, and hard weather in France and
Flanders has brought operations to a standstill.
We gained much in the year but not all we hoped
for, thanks largely to the defection of Russia, where
a condition of absolute political chaos has followed
on the Revolution. Meantime the Germans are
endeavouring to patch up a separate peace with
them, and so obtain greater freedom of action in
the West. The submarine warfare still goes on,
and though we believe their powers for evil are checked
they are not yet overcome. We lose some 16 to 18 ships
over 1600 tons each week. It is said that we are now
sinking submarines at an ever increasing rate, and
that we have now reached a point at which we are
sinking them faster than the Germans can turn them
out. Meanwhile the supply of food grows less. Sugar
is already rationed, and you can only get ½ lb [pound] per head
per week from the grocer with whom you are registered.
Voluntary rationing is regularly practised, 2 lbs [pounds] of meat
per head, including bone, 10 oz [ounces] of margarine & fat, to be reduced
to 4 oz [ounces] in Feb. 4½ bread, 12 oz [ounces] cereals, are our
weekly allowances. Butcher meat is decidedly scarce and
we expect to have compulsory rationing shortly. To us
it will probably make little difference in the amount, but
it will mean a proper reduction to those in the working
classes, miners, munition workers etc who are making
huge wages and spending them extravagantly on
food. It is extraordinary what some such people
are making, & spending. A great fat woman whom
I have often seen seated on a lorrie, hatless & with
sleeves turned up, bringing fish supplies up from New:
:haven in the morning as I go to work, paid £700
mostly in cash down for a diamond necklace in
Dowell’s saleroom a few weeks ago. A Tank has
been here all last week gathering in subscriptions for
the War Bonds, and has done tremendously well.
The Tank stood on the East side of the Mound and
the queu of would be investors, albeit the weather, was
unusually cold, sometimes stretched 3 or 4 deep as far as the
Scott Monument. £4,000,000 were subscribed.
I am now a sergeant in the Special Constables, and no
longer go on a beat, but once a week on Friday nights,
and every other Sunday I go out on duty, which is
to visit every man in the Division on his beat. I have
plenty walking as I go from Torphichen St. Station as
far north as Golden Acre, and as far West as the
County boundary in Gorgie. There are usually
13 or 14 men to visit. The “Specials” have been given waterproofs.
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Sandy goes up to Sandhurst tomorrow. He went up for
his exam. on 6th November straight from school, and
came to Edinburgh to sit for it. When it was over he was
examined by a medical board in the castle who pro:
:nounced him only fit for sedentary occupation as he
was suffering from V.D.H. i.e valvular disease of the heart.
On asking if it was any use his appealing against this
decision, they replied not the slightest. This was a nasty
knock and I began to think that the law must be his
fate after all. Every one said “Why dont you take him
to Sir James Mackenzie in London, who is by far the
best heart specialist in the kingdom?” As Jocelyn was
going down South early in December to see her Aunts
we arranged a meeting with Sir James Mackenzie &
got Sandy up from school for examination, the result
was that the expert stigmatised the verdict of the
Medical Board as “absolute nonsence”. I applied for
a new board in London; sent Sandy up again;
and that Board has passed him. I am thankful
to have it so, but I greatly grudge the cost, from
£20 to £30 which I have been put to by the incompetence
of the first board. There is nothing doing
in the Museums – except that we have got back into
our library & offices in Queen St. I have picked
up a few pieces of glass of late, but there are many
collectors now and prices are high. A young
woman, a student at the university brought me for my
opinion some time ago a box full of jade ornaments
which she had purchased at an auction sale in Thurso
for 3/-! I bought a pin & some other trifles for £2
and I hope put her in the way of selling the rest.
What their true value was I don’t quite know, but I reckoned
she should get about £10 for the lot.
The weather is bitterly cold just now. Snow lies to a depth
of about 2 ins. [inches] and there is hard frost.
27th Jany. 1918
Sandy has got settled down at Sandhurst – in
the Staff College. He is evidently being hard worked
but is being well fed with quantities of meat three
times a day. Here we are being put on short
commons - with sugar & margarine rationed
and meat to follow at an early date. We have
one or two meatless days in the week. Fats are
the most difficult commodity to restrict. We are to
be allowed only 5 oz. [ounces] per head per week to include
butter, margarine, lard, oil etc. Eggs lately were at
5/6d. per doz. [dozen] There have been very serious strikes
& riots in Austria and Germany is evidently
in a bad way internally. We all look for
some tremendous offensive on the Western front
as soon as the weather permits and before the
American army is ready to join in.
We have had some very hard weather this
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month, I do not recollect such cold in Edinburgh
since the winter of 1894-5. On Friday 10 days ago
there fell 8 to 10 inches of snow, and as there was
a shortage of scavangers the mess in the
streets was awful. Fortunately the day after
the snowfall came a thaw and rain and
in a brief space all trace of the snow had
vanished. Isabella has been with us for a week.
& we took her to the Zoo this afternoon. It has
been a lovely mild day. Yesterday I dug man:
:ure into my allotment and have got that
unsavoury performance nearly finished.
21st. April 1918.
The winter has been long of passing; it is bitterly cold at
present and we woke yesterday morning to see snow
falling heavily, but luckily it did not lie.
The great German Offensive on the Western front burst
out on 21st. March and since then we have been
passing through the most critical days in the history
of the British Empire. Twice we have been within
an ace of sustaining serious disaster, and twice
has the unspeakable valour of our men held up
the thrust of the Hun when almost within sight of
complete success. We were led to believe that
our front at all points was so prepared & so
strong that a German rupture was well nigh
an impossibility; and the fear was freely
expressed that the Germans would not attempt an attack
so hopeless was their outlook. Nevertheless the storm burst
and by employing enormous masses of men, sent for:
:ward in dense formations in waves backed by a tremen:
:dous weight of artillery, the enemy attacking to the South
of Cambrai at the point of junction of the French & British
Armies overwhelmed our 5th Army under Gough, ruptured
our front and forced us to a retreat of some 15 – 20
miles over the old Somme battlefield. Fortunately our
line to N. and S. [North and South] held firm, and the Huns within a few
miles of Amiens, one of the main objectives have been
held up now for a couple of weeks without making any
progress. The German losses have been stupendous; ours
also have been heavy. Ten days or so ago a second
thrust was initiated further North, S. [South] of the Ypres salient,
at a point of our line held by the Portuguese. Though
resisting bravely they were overwhelmed, over 6000 being
taken prisoner, and the German wave swept forward
in the direction of the channel ports only some 50 miles
distant. Here also the flanks have held firm at Givenchy
and by the Messines Ridge, but in the North the Ridge has
been for the most part relinquished and we have with:
:drawn from Passchendale to make our line conform
to the retirement farther South on the Lys. A thrill of
anxiety passed through the country during these critical
days and I hear that in London the population
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were in a state of great depression. Here in the cold
splenetic North” we take longer views, and the faith
that is in us of the unconquerable qualities of the race
enable us to keep calm and never to lose heart. Every
week the Allied armies grow greater. In the first
fortnight of this Offensive we transported across the
channel nearly 300,000 troops without the loss of a
single man, while American soldiers are pouring
into France where almost 1,000,000, have already arrived
A great American navy has its base on the West Coast of
Scotland and from time to time many of the ships
visit the Forth. I think some have been here lately
& I fancy are out at present with our fleet
which is in daily expectation of an encounter
with the German fleet. On the other hand as regards
manpower, the German losses have been colossal,
& the wastage cannot be made good beyond a
limited figure from the maturing youths, & troops
which the defection of Russia enables them to withdraw
from the East. Writing in the middle of this period,
the most momentous in the history of our Empire
& of our Race, it is most important in a journal
such as this to record matters which the official chroniclers
may pass over, small details which posterity would like
to know of but which the historian will give no heed to.
We are now rationed in Tea, butter, (including sugar, lard, margarine etc)
Butcher meat, & bacon. Each individual has a card, for
meat for instance, on which are a number of detachable
coupons, four being allowed for each week, three to be
applied for the purchase of meat, while the fourth allows
the purchase of what is unpleasantly dubbed “offal”, i.e. such
things as sausage, kidneys, sweetbreads etc etc. The cards
for our household are left at our butchers, and instead
of getting small quantities of meat on 5 days in the
week we put all together & obtain a joint on one day,
our allowance being 1 lb [pound] per head. We have meatless
days on Wednesdays & Fridays & our joint cold usually
carries us over four days – “Offal” does for a fifth. Soon
we are only to be allowed 2 coupons for meat, one
being to be used for bacon. Sugar, margarine etc
are similarly supplied by the shops with whom we
have registered & which retain our cards. To make
allowances go farther, substitutes are used. Ladies
going out to tea carry little silver boxes containing
sacharine tablets if sweetening stuff is required. I have
seen one hand a tea allowance in a small packet to
her hostess! Fish is of course greatly used, & numerous
brands of tinned herring etc. have lately made their
appearance. Everyone takes all these restrictions
in the best spirit possible. I hear no grumbling
& as for any disorder in consequence there is
no trace of such a thing. While commodities were
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still unrationed and people, many of them bent on
getting more than their fair share, assembled in long
queus outside the food shops, there was an occasional
tendency to trouble which has quite disappeared.
We have all altered our diet of necessity to conform
and in 99 cases out 100, I am sure, the result has
been beneficial to health. Personally, I enjoy the
meatless days & never felt better. Living is
expensive; that goes without saying & will remain so
for years. Eggs were never cheaper this spring
than 3/6 a doz [dozen] in shops & at the present cost about 4/-
we have laid in 50 doz. [dozen] from Caithness @ 3/- a doz. [dozen] whereas
in pre war times we stored 200 doz [dozen] against the winter
at a cost of 9d to 10d a dozen. The prices of many
commodities are fixed by the food controller, but the
goods are not always forthcoming. Cheese at
present has been very difficult to procure, also
jam, though the latter has become a little more
plentiful of late. Food hoarding is rigorously
put down and, in the South, a number of people
were very heavily fined for laying in stores of goods
beyond their immediate requirements. Oranges
seem plentiful at from 2d to 4d apiece & there
has been no dearth of Apples all winter but at
a high price 1/4 & 1/6d per llb [pound]. Clothing is becoming
an increasing difficulty to procure. It is wonderful
for one has, owing to stress of circumstances, managed to
increase the allotted span of a tweed suit! Since the war broke
out I have had perhaps, at most, two suits, none since Nov. [November]
1916, and I shall manage to keep going without any ad:
:dition to my wardrobe. Boots are very dear. I considered
myself lucky in getting a pair for police work at
the stores last week for 38/-. I quite expected to
pay £2.10/- to £3, which I would have had to do for a
pair made to order, at my own bootmakers,
An Act has just been passed raising the age for
military service to 50. Everyone takes it philosophically.
It is necessaryto ensure victory in the greatest cause
for which man ever fought, therefore it must be faced!
We bear no more of strikes in these days, when the
country is passing through this crisis. The spirit of the
people in all classes could not be better.
In the Museum there is nothing doing. I have got
a start made with substituting a neutral tinted
material for the offensive red cloth covering the
staging in the cases in the Ceramic gallery in
Chambers Street. A great step forward from an
aesthetic point of view.
6th July 1918
We are having a most abnormally dry Summer.
Little rain fell in May, practically none in June, and
now the outlook for turnips & fodder are serious.
Small fruit is an absolute failure & constant
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watering is necessary in gardens & allotments
Jam is expected to be so scare next winter that
it is to be rationed at ½ oz. [ounce] per head per week.
Food conditions, never serious in Edinburgh, have
grown easier of late. We get quite enough meat,
especially as ham and bacon are unrationed,
and of butter we usually can acquire a little
more than our rationed quota at the end of a
week. Sugar as heretofore is a scarce commodity
marmalade quite unprocurable, and cheese only
to be had at rare intervals. No one is allowed
more than ½ lb [pound] of sweets at one time and an
early call at a sweet-shop is necessary to procure
that quantity. The food rationing has really
been very well done here, and such a thing
as a queu outside a shop is quite a
thing of the past. The temper of the populace
is admirable, and there seems to be no
wavering in the determination to see this
war through to complete victory. American
soldiers, it is authoritatively stated. are pouring
into France at a rate of over ¼ million a month.
The Germans have been every where held in
their offensive and a renewal of it, for which
we are said to be prepared at all points,
is overdue. The allotment, the
drought notwithstanding, has done well, and I have
practically kept the house in vegetables since the
beginning of May. Spinach has been especially suc:
:cessful but the want of rain is delaying the swelling
of the peas. We are going to rooms in
Gattonside for August & part of September this
year. Sandy at the R.M.C. [Royal Military College] gets only a fortnights
leave. I had a visit to Inverness lately to inspect
furniture etc. at Guisachan for the Inland Revenue,
a very pleasant 3 days trip, including a motor
run of 33 miles out & back There called
on me on Tuesday (2nd inst) in the Royal Scottish
Museum an individual who greatly aroused my
curiosity. He followed in his calling card, which
bore in printed characters " Charles Francis
Moray-Steuart" - No "Mr," and no residence other
than "Cockburn Hotel" scrawled in pencil. In ap:
:pearance he was short, rather thick set, and dark
with black hair and moustache, and, I should
think, about 44 or 46 years of age. He was well
dressed & and wore a grey tweed ulster of fashionable
cut with a short strap at the back. On the first
finger of his right hand was a ring with a
large red stone in cabochon & set with a
matter of four or six small diamonds. He
carried a cane with an ornamental head
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terminating in a piece of yellow spar-like stone, I
think called chrysolite. In conversation he occasionally
dropped his "hs" and mispronounced his English,
as for example he said controversy in place of
controversy. His object, he said, on calling on me
was to acquaint me with the decision, which I think
he said his cousin, Charles Fou [e W P r]
in Inverness had come to at his suggestion, to
bequeath to the Royal Scottish Museum an
extremely valuable collection of Japanese
armour, sword blades, swords etc. which this
individual had collected and which he had
just sold to his relative. To my enquiry if he
had obtained these things in the East, he said
"no" but that he had travelled all over Europe
as far as Petrograd in search of them.
He talked enthusiastically on the subject of Japanese
armour and metal work and seemed versed
in it. A suspicion of his bona fides aroused
by his general appearance, accent, & manner,
was not allayed by a statement of difficulties
he had got into over his want of a passport
at Inverness, and an explanation regarding
domestic irregularities, and a second establish:
:ment near Inverness which were the cause
of his writing letters opened by the authorities
in Inverness, and not covered by his explanation to
them of the cause of his visit to that place.
This liaison he informed me was unknown to his wife,
who, notwithstanding, was present with him in the
Museum, though she did not accompany him to my
room. I saw her afterwards as I was going
through the galleries and was no more favourably
impressed by her appearance than by his. I
took him to the Asiatic Gallery & showed him
our collection of sword-guards, which he certainly
gave me the impression of Knowing about. Not:
:withstanding appearances the man may have been
quite sound, but I liked neither his Scottish
name associated with a Cockney accent, nor
his flashy appearance - Moreover the name
Moray, so spelled, is very rare in Scotland &
if signifying any connection with the Earldom should
have been accompanied with Stuart, writ without
the e. I momentarily expected to be asked
to furnish assistance of some sort but no
such request was made. Time may show
what was at the back of this visit, mean while
I have recorded the details lest I forget.
4 August 1918
Four years today since this country presented an ulti:
:matum to Germany and the war still rages but
with the opening of the fifth year of the struggle
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the disastrous failure of the great German offensive
which was to take them to Paris & has au contraire
carried them back to the Aisne comes as a
happy augury. This morning I attended a special
service in St. Giles, as I did on that memorable Sunday
four years ago. I shall never forget that earlier service.
Mary & I went alone. Everyone was thrilled with
excitement & and full of doubts & anxieties as to what the
immediate future would bring forth, yet the stranger
who preached that day, departed not one syllable
from his written address and uttered no word to show
that he grasped for an instant the immensity of
the occasion. A row of young soldiers, Camerons, sat
in front of us. Mere lads they were. Often I wonder if
anyone of them has survived. How long will it last
still. An impression is abroad that 1919 will see the
end of it. The German reserves are being rapidly
used up. Their 1920 class to be mobilised in Sept.
brings the 400,000 fresh boys, but the Americans
are sending over 300,000, splendid fighting troops each
month. I have been out on police
duty this afternoon, visiting the dozen men or
so of my patrol. Jocelyn & Mary have gone
to the rooms we have taken at Braefoot Gatton:
:side & I follow next Saturday (10th Augt)
Food is becoming more plentiful, but jam
marmalade, & at times, cheese, are unprocurable.
Eggs are at 5/6d a doz. [dozen] in town! From the allotment
I have supplied the house almost entirely with
vegetables since early in May. My peas are just done
& French Beans are beginning. This has been a
wonderfully dry summer but we had good rains last
month.
10th Oct. 1918
The dry summer came to an end in August
and we have experienced very indifferent weather since.
In August we went out to a small house called
"Braefoot" at Gattonside and stayed there till 9th Sept.
when I returned to town, preparatory to going off later
on for some interviewing work in Aberdeen, Dundee,
Glasgow, Edinburgh and Newcastle for the Civil Service
Commission. Our stay at Gattonside was pleasant on
the whole. We managed a few excursions. Jocelyn, Mary
& I had a delightful excursion by bicycle & on foot
to the top of the Black Hill & later on to Dryburgh
where unfortunately we were caught in rain &
had a wet ride home. We visited Weens on another
day, taking the train to Hawick & and going from there on
our bicycles. It was a pathetic sight the old home
with all its cherished memories, neglected & desolate,
the garden overgrown & covered waist high with
weeds & grass. Here and there, from the rose beds,
that my dear Mother-in-law loved so well a rose
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had managed to thrust out a flower to the air.
The house was as it had been left. The curtains
still hung by the windows, the chintzes on the chairs
& the prayer books on the side table in the dining lay
ready for morning prayers as they had lain for
20 years. Now I hear the old place & all it contains
are for sale! Our landlady, Miss Key, at Braefoot
was too managing for our supreme comfort, and
grudged doing anything beyond the recognised
routine, but she cooked well, & the little house was
clean & comfortable. Mary went off to school
at Downe House, Kent on 19th Sept. Jocelyn
took her up to London with Penelope Hog, and
next day handed them over to an escort taking a
party to Orpington, their railway station. Travelling
at present is far from comfortable & very expensive.
Trains are so crowded that one must travel first
class on a long journey, & the fares are increased
50%. Arrived at your destination a vast crowd
emerges to find few porters and a dire scarcity
of cabs. On 21st Sept. I went N. [North] to Aberdeen
For the greater part of the journey the crops were
standing in the stook & a magnificent harvest. I
fear the continuous wet weather will have done
much harm to it. At Aberdeen I stayed at
the “station hotel”, but should have stayed at the
Palace. The former was a commercial establishment.
I visited various Antiquarian Shops but saw nothing
that tempted me. At Dundee I stayed at “the Royal”.
Mainly commercial; old fashioned but comfortable
enough. I enjoyed here the fashion of the house
a hot bottle in my bed! In my tour of the town
I found a curio shop kept by one A. Mackenzie
Fleming in So. [South] Tay Street, where I made numerous
purchases. 1 pair brass candlesticks with oval bases 16/6d
A brass Burmese peacock 18/- 2 brass mounts - in the
form of vases of flowers 8/-. a brass case containing
pen, knife & ? ruler 4/- a brass lamp with Chi Rho mono:
:gram for handle 2/- a brass boar 3/- and a jug
of yellow pottery 4/-. I purchased also one or two iron
objects for the R.S. [Royal Scottish] Museum. My companion on
this tour was a Mr Casswell of the Revenue & Excise
Dept. [Department] From Glasgow we had considerable dif:
:ficulty in getting away owing to the restricted train
service & the immense crowds trying to get away
for the Glasgow holiday on the following Monday
We only managed to obtain tickets by sending
to the station master & explaining that we
were Government officials with important business
to attend to in Edinburgh on the following day.
We had a forenoon’s work in Edinburgh on
Sat. 26th & left for Newcastle on Sunday
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evening. In Newcastle I visited several curio shops
and bought for 15/- a small glass tumbler
enamelled with a bird catcher, a cage on his
back & and a staff & some other object in his hand.
I omitted to record that in Dundee I obtained
for 5/- a nice little tumbler engraved with hops
& barley & the letters I.W. My work finished
at Newcastle I went on to London & joined Jocelyn
at the Rembrandt Hotel. which we found as
comfortable as ever. My principal reason for
going to London was to see my aged Uncle Robert
who recently had a bad accident. Though he
has evidently failed a good deal, for the age of
86 or 87 he is a marvel. His mind is remarkably
clear & fresh and he quoted to me with no difficulty
almost the whole of Keats’s “Ode to a Grecian Urn.”
We were greatly elated at the prices being asked
for old glass in London. We saw one small
sweetmeat glass priced £25 - I have 5 similar
which cost me on an average not more than 7/6 each
A glass resembling my tallest baluster stem glass
was marked £100! Such prices have induced
me to part with a few duplicates & I have
sent off to Lord Carmichael, who offered to
sell them for me - 3 small sweetmeat glasses,
2 baluster stemmed glasses, a glass boot,
a cut glass candle stick and two odd pieces – the
whole cost me originally about 50/-. It will be interesting
to see what I get for them. I purchased in London
from Webster, to whose shop I was taken by Girdwood,
four enamelled glass bottles for 25/- 1 with a fox
carrying some birds in a basket on his back, one opaque
white, another, a small one, with chamfered & fluted angles
& the fourth a blue one with white wavy lines on it.
From London we visited Mary at school and
found her very happy. we also had Sandy up to
town for Saturday afternoon & evening. We had
an excellent lunch at the Trocadero & afterwards
saw a perfectly rotten comic opera of Sandy’s
choosing, called the the “Lilac Domino.” We returned
from London on the 8th Oct. the train very long
& very crowded but we arrived to time. Yesterday
I picked up at Sibbald’s a glass toddy lifter
for 7/6! I was asked 30/- for one in Newcastle.
Today I have invested in a number of pieces of
glass at Miss Jones’s meaning it to be a re-in:
:vestment of the money, or a small part of it, which
I hope to get for the pieces I am selling.
The war is progressing at a great rate. day
after day brings news of fresh victories & so many
fresh names are appearing in the communiqués
that it is difficult to keep abreast of the news.
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Bulgaria has concluded an armistice, Turkey is
evidently on the eve of doing the same, Austria is
in a hopeless state & there is a rumour tonight
that the Kaiser has abdicated. Every one is
very hopeful that by next summer at latest
& perhaps before Christmas we shall see the
end of this period of horror. Coal is being
drastically rationed - we expect to be allowed
10 or 12 tons in place of 20, our last years
consumption. Eggs are now 6/- a dozen –
Jam is to be rationed at 4oz [ounces] per head per week.
Those who can afford it can live quite comfortably
as there is lots of food of sorts though one cannot
get always everything one would like.
3rd Nov. 1918
History is being made at a marvellous rate! Turkey having
suffered a series of overwhelming defeats in Palestine and
in Mesopotamia has applied for & been granted an ar:
:mistice which will permit the occupation of the forts on
the Dardanelles & the entry of an allied fleet to the
Black Sea where it may encounter the ships of the
Russian fleet now manned by Germans. Austria
defeated by Italy has fallen to pieces. Hungary has
declared itself an independent state, the Czecho Slavoks
& the Jugoslavs have set up independent govern:
:ments, the Emperor Karl has fled from Vienna and
to-night we hear that an armistice has been
granted to Austria – so she too is out of it. Germany alone
remains being hammered at daily. Since March she has lost
over 780,000 prisoners and in casualties since the beginning
of the year 1,200,000 men! The abdication of the Kaiser is
daily discussed & expected. the country is evidently torn with
dissensions & peace before Christmas is the prevalent belief.
If it were not that it would entail greater losses of life to
us many of us would like Germany to suffer invasion before
the end. Eggs are now 7½ ea. [each]! Apples 1/8 a piece! Food,
however, is quite plentiful, though dear. A suit of clothes
which before the war cost £8.8/- at my
London tailor’s, now costs £11.11/- Yesterday
I had a visit from Mr Arthur Churchill, a London
dealer, to see my glass. He looks, & has the reputation
of being honest, and has offered me most remarkable
prices for some of my pieces. He came down on Satur:
:day afternoon with a nice little lady-like wife, and
went all over our treasures, giving as values for them.
The six dining room chairs with the two arm chairs
he valued at £200; my old side-board £40. He
is to give me £60 for the three sweetmeat glasses, the
candlestick & heavy baluster stemmed glass, which I
sent up to London; he attaches no value to the
other pieces sent. For my fine Whig glass inscribed
“His Highness Duke William in a Bumper” which I
originally bought in 1899 with 2 others for 15/-
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at Dowells, he has tempted me with an offer of £90.
A glass of large capacity with a pedestal or baluster
Stem bought in Bristo St. for 30/- he offers £60 for.
A sweetmeat glass bought many years ago from
Montford, Market Drayton for 3/6 he will give £25 for.
Three days ago in Wilsons in George St. I spotted an
unusual object of glass in the bottom of a showcase.
On having it brought out I discovered it to be a
revolving sweetmeat-stand of cut glass. I realised that
it must be an object of great rarity and very cheap
at 40/-. It was not an attractive piece from an
aesthetic standard, but knowing that Mr Churchill
was coming I bought it forthwith. My opinion re:
:garding it has proved to be correct and £30 is his offer,
which I have accepted. Tomorrow he makes me
a valuation of all the pieces I have in the R.S.M. [Royal Scottish Museum]
& I seriously think of letting him have £400 or £500
worth. He offers me £324 for pieces that have cost
me £7!!
7th Nov. 1918.
Two days ago I completed my glass deal. For the
last 20 years when occasion offered I have never
lost an opportunity of picking up old wine glasses
of the 18th century, or earlier, provided the price was
within my means. When I commenced my collection
these objects sold for very little - the usual price for
white spiral stems was 3/6d and I occasionally
bought examples for less. As the value was so trifling,
however, the supply was limited, and there was no induce:
:ment for people to route out such things from the glass
cupboards and storerooms of old houses. Hartshorne’s
splendid monograph had, however, just been published
at a price of £3.3/- and was speedily followed by pot-
-boiling articles in magazines, & gradually by cheaper
works. With the increase of information available, the
demand increased & gradually the price mounted
upwards. Ten years ago, I disposed of several
pieces to a dealer and having obtained £10 or £12
for what had cost me 50/- thought I had done
very well . Alas, among the lot I sold was one which
though it only cost me nine pence I could have got
£12 for today! In 1906 -10/- a piece was the current
price for white spiral stemmed glasses. I studied
the literature of the subject, and trained my eye
by frequent visits to Museums, so that my knowledge
became considerable. My luck was great, as
for example one of my earliest purchases was
three glasses in one lot in Dowell’s saleroom for
15/- the lot! One was a magnificent glass with an air
spiral stem set on a beaded bulb on a domed base.
Around the lip ran the legend “His Royal Highness Duke William
in a Bumper” evidently referring to Cumberland,
while the bowl was etched all over with emblematic
[Margin - sketch of glass with note]
This glass many
years later was
sold in London
for 200gs [guineas]
[initialled] AOC 19/2/41 ---
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flowers & figures, done with the point of a diamond.
Another of the trio, also with an air spiral stem, is
still, perhaps, the most beautiful glass I possess.
Three glasses with baluster stems cost me 9d each
in Rose St. Rarely did I pay more than 10/- for
a specimen. Recently I learned that glasses had
risen in value to an enormous amount, so when
in London Jocelyn & I made enquiries at the shop
of a man Goodholmes, off Oxford St. who advertised
largely in the “Connoisseur.” A sweetmeat glass of a
type which I owned five of I found marked £25,
so I bethought me of disposing of my duplicates.
I did not care to trust them to a strange dealer for
his offer and on mentioning the matter to Lord
Carmichael, whom I saw in town, he at once vol:
:unteered to act as broker for me. On taking the
pieces to Mr Goodholmes that crafty personage
at once “crabbed” them & made an offer of £10 piece
Carmichael naturally refused and made enquiries
elsewhere, at length getting into touch with Mr
Churchill, whose offer of £60 I have related
already. The transaction I have now com:
:pleted disposes of 23 glasses which have cost
me in all £15.0.3d. for a price of £476 Stg [Sterling] !!
Nor am I deprived of the most beautiful
specimens in my collection though he has
taken most of the largest, and presumably the scarcest,
with the exception of one or two which I declined to
part with. A note of the prices I gave originally and
what I have obtained & worth recording.
Original price Price obtained
Tall glass with baluster stem 30/- in 1907 £60}
Glass bought from a Dutchman in 1906 3/6} baluster stems.} } £100
Bought from Miss Begbie in 1907. 9d} }
A small common looking glass, bot. [bought] in Dumfriess 1912 - 2/9d £4
A cut sweetmeat bot. [bought] in Blaikies for 7/6d £20
“Whig glass” Duke William in a Bumper” 5/- £90
4 Small sweetmeat glasses with dentelles round the lip £48
A baluster stemmed glass bot. [bought] from [Bu Ho] 5/- £12
A cut glass candlestick. 7/6d, I think. £12
A baluster stemmed glass bot. [bought] in 1900 for 9d £10
A large stemmed, straight sided goblet on a
domed base. ? [“AHoggan”] glass bot. [bought] in
Dowell’s for 12/6d £15
A drawn tavern glass with a pressed, reticulated
bowl bot. [bought] 3 years ago 12/6d £10
A glass with white spiral& blue edge to spiral 17/6d £20
A sweetmeat glass bot. [bought] about 1902 from
Market Drayton for 5/6 £25
A sweetmeat glass with cut bowl, stem 7 base, 35/- £20
another with a rather ugly baluster stem 15/6 £12.
A tall sweetmeat glass 14/6. £20.
A glass with a “ball” baluster stem. 15/-. £10.
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12th. Nov. 1918
Yesterday was truly a Red Letter Day in the Calendar
of the British Empire for on it the Armistice was
signed which brought hostilities to a close, and signified
the total defeat of Germany, and the passing of the
German Empire, as we have known it, with its creed
of militarism, and its sabre brandishing Emperor.
That individual abdicated on Saturday and fled
to Holland. On Saturday evening plenopotentiaries
from the German government arrived at the French
Head Quarters, & on Sunday morning or late on Sat. [Saturday] night received the
terms of the armistice from Marshall Foch. The
broken moral of the German armies, the abdica:
:tion of the Kaiser, and the reports of revolutionary
outbreaks in Germany, thoroughly prepared most
people for the acceptance of the Armistice terms
and when at 11. o'clock yesterday morning we heard
that the acceptance was an accomplished fact, and
that the war was at an end it was no sudden
surprise. An occasion for wild rejoicing, however
it certainly was, and Edinburgh really let itself
go in a way I have never seen it do before. There
were the pent up feelings of joy untrammeled by
any grim forebodings, to be let loose. Hardly had
the news been received in the city when the fog
-horns on the ships in the Forth began to boom,
Church bells rang out, aeroplanes in numbers
appeared overhead rushing hither & thither in joyous flight,
firing vèry lights, and behaving in as frolicsome a way
as an aeroplane can. Shouting & laughter came
from all directions, workers were let loose, & crowded
in to Princes Street, flags appeared in all directions, not
only on buildings but in the hands of most of the women
& children along the streets. Every one was full of jollity & fun
and there was no rowdiness. In the afternoon
I walked home by Princes St. about 4.30. The pave:
/ment was crowded densely and so was the roadway,
almost up to the tramlines. It was a glorious
day so for once our weather lent aid to the hilarity.
At night we went to the opera, 'Magic Flute'.
We sang "God Save the King", after which the curtain
rose showing the stage crowded with the performers,
who, amidst great enthusiasm, sang Elgar's "Land of
Hope & Glory". When we got out of the theatre we found
that all the trams had been taken off on account
of the crowded streets. In Princes St. the crowd
indulged in ring dancing and I hear that a
throng surrounded the police man on the points at
the end of Hanover St. and danced round him till
he grew giddy. A sailor wearing a Union Jack climbed
onto Wellington's Statue in front of the Register House,
& settled himself on the shoulders of the statue,
while an American tar took a place with the Stars
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and Stripes on the back of the horse. Finally two
Australian soldiers got a footing on the base and
the crowd grew wild with excitement, singing all
the patriotic songs they knew & shouting themselves
hoarse. Well: Germany has had "Der Tag" she
toasted, and longed for. I hope she appreciates
the result. Tonight we are having Robert Scott
Moncrieff & his wife to diner to crack a bottle
of Paul Roger 1906 long marked for the occasion
and a bottle of 1820 sherry - my only one, but no
occasion can ever more worthily merit the drawing
of the cork.
7th. Jany. 1919.
My luck in glass collecting has not left me! From
interest there is hardly a shop window from a "fleshers"
to a fruit shop that I do not look into as I pass
along the street and as for a curiosity shop, a
broker's, or a cabinet maker's, each comes in for a
good survey, for one never knows what treasure
may be lurking there. As I returned to the police
station on Sunday forenoon, tired after an arduous
morning, I passed at the foot of Morrison St. an
upholsterer's shop with its blinds drawn, but some thought
prompted me to step aside into the doorway and
peer behind the blind. I was surprised to see
standing on a piece of furniture a nice drawn
glass with an air spiral stem & beyond it
apparently another. A glance was sufficient to satisfy
me from the high instep and the execution of the air
twist that at least the specimen nearest me was un:
:doubtedly genuine. It is always a rule of life with
me to act promptly when I have made up my mind,
so instead of going direct to the Museum on Monday
morning I betook myself to Morrison St. To my an:
:noyance I reached the shop before it was opened, but
reckoning that a respectable shop was certain to be
open before 10.0 I proceeded to walk the pavement, till
erelong I saw a woman dive in & pull up the blinds.
I was not long in following, and inside to my joy, found
not two glasses, but five, all of the same type drawn
air spirals & in good order. The class of shop did not lead
me to expect a long price, but I never anticipated
the figure named 5/= [£0.5.0] each! I would have paid that
for them in the early days of my collecting, & would
not have been surprised had the price of these been
25/= [£1.5.0] apiece. In London I would not have got them
under a couple of pounds at least & possibly a
pound or so more. My promptitude was well rewarded,
& I was interested to know that a lady was after
them but was trying to find out if they were genuine
first before committing herself. Great was my delight
too to be told that a gentleman from the Museum
was to come & look at them! Evidently myself, but
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for whom? the lady? I let the Museum have a
good specimen and have kept the other four.
I am now collecting old brass candlesticks, of the
18th century and earlier. Already I have got nearly
30 including, however, some early 19th century pieces
which I acquired in the course of learning my
subject. Today I picked up a very nice one
of bell-metal which must date near the reign
of Queen Anne. It has a baluster stem and
mouldings on its stem quite suggest the stems
of glasses or the legs of certain pieces of furniture
of that time. It is remarkable how certain
fashions of design are adapted & repeated at
a given period in all sorts of different productions.
A few weeks ago when on police duty my eye observed
rather an unusual iron-bound box in a small
shop at the corner of Thistle St. & Hanover St.
Monday morning early found me there. The
box is an interesting specimen - casket-shaped -
made of oak, & covered with pierced iron bands
laid over strips of mica. I date it as of early
17th century make - possibly Italian. I did not
hesitate to purchase it at the price of £4
which was ridiculously cheap.
23rd. Feb. 1919
In the December number of the Connoisseur there appeared
an advertisement by one Kate Delomosne illustrating five
glasses all from the lot I recently sold. I tried to find out
the price asked, but they were sold before my enquiry
reached the dealer. Lord Carmichael told me recently
that Churchill only made £40 profit on the deal he
did with me! This has been a very open winter up
here, and we have only once had a fall of snow and
that so light as hardly to merit the name. Of frost
too we have had very little, but the weather has been
cold, sunless, and damp. We are now enduring
the second epidemic of influenza followed by septic
pneumonia, which is proving rather a deadly
scourge. Many people have died from it, and
last week, or the week before, the Edinburgh death-
-rate was 48% the highest on record.
[Margin] ? ? 100s! ---
Sandy went North on the 13th and joined the 3rd
Battln. [Battalion] of the Gordons the following day in Aberdeen.
He is quartered in the Botanic Gardens & his fellow
officers are evidently good examples of the "temporary
gentleman" class. Sandy reports that some of
them sleep in their day shirts, they take no baths,
& because he speaks not with an Aberdeen accent
they considered he must be an Englishman!
He is having rather a dull time with very
little to do. A committee has
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recently been formed here under the auspices of the
Royal Scottish Academy to assist local committees
in regard to the choice & erection of war memor:
:ials, and I have been placed on it. I am in
doubt if it will accomplish much as there are
some fiery elements, in it and rather a lack of
common sense. A memorandum has just
been drawn up for the guidance of the local
committees, which is long enough to occupy a
place in a reference library, and much too long
for consideration by the people for whom it is
intended. I have at last completed the
writing of my Rhind lectures and have been
busy for the last week getting slides in order
and dictating to Miss Dennison the précis
for the papers. The subject "The Prehistoric
Monuments of Scotland" is really too large
to be treated of in six lectures. I have
been compelled therefore to be much more
sketchy in my treatment than I would
have liked. I commence tomorrow week
(3rd. March) and am not too happy about it.
Prices of all commodities are still very high
eggs controlled at 5/6d. [£0.5.6] a dozen. Apples &
oranges are fairly plentiful, but dear.
There has been a great quantity of venison
in the butchers shops this winter and we have used it
much. The cost of furniture of all sorts is tremendous
For a small arm chair which before the war cost
probably £6 or £8 you are now asked £15 or £17!
The coal rationing is a nuisance. We have had
a barless grate put in in the drawing room and
find that it heats the room much better than the
previous one at a much smaller consumption
of coal. We only have one fire on, beside the kitchen
one, & use our electric radiators in the dining room
& smoking room. The Peace conference is
sitting in Paris and the Germans are, at last,
having it driven into their obtuse pates that they
are a conquered nation. Their presumption is
beyond belief. Actually they imagine that peace
has only to be signed, and all will be forgotten &
forgiven, so that the German invasion of Britain
may begin again, & trade be reestablished as of
old. From the feelings of our own folk and
the French, many years will roll by ere, knowingly,
any decent citizen of either England or France
has any truck with a hun. The labourers
whom we employed at Traprain Law, as far
as they served, having successfully come through
the war, I am making arrangements to re:
:commence operations there on 28th. April.
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16th. March. 1919
The Rhind Lectures which have obsessed me for the
last three years have been delivered, and I am freed
from their incubus. My subject "The Prehistoric Monu:
:ments of Scotland" I divided into two main heads,
3 lectures devoted to each 1) Monuments of the Dead.
2) Monuments of the Living. In the first I included
Cairns (Neolithic or Bronze Age) Stone Circles, Standing Stones,
Cup & Ring markings, & Stone Alignments: In the second
Hut Circles, Earth-houses, "Wags", Forts and Brochs"
To my no small surprise on the opening day there
were more people than there were seats for in the
Royal Arch Hall, and on the last day there was
almost as large a crowd. There must have been
from 150 to 200 people each day and it was parti:
:cularly gratifying to see the same people there
day after day. My friends tell me the course
was a great success. I have always felt myself
that the infringement on my leisure, which the war
entailed in police duty etc. prevented my putting
a great deal more work into the lectures than I
actually did, but I suppose I started with as
much knowledge as my audience required, and
any more might have overloaded the subject.
Well! I thought I was risking any little reputation
I had, and it really seems as if I had enhanced it.
On Saturday a week ago Sandy in the slang
of the day "blew in" in the afternoon in a great state
of excitement under orders to report at once to the
C.O. [Commanding Officer] of a battalion of the young Army at Tillicoultry
with the view of leaving for Germany on the following
Monday. He left this at an early hour on Sunday
morning, and I accompanied him to the Caledonian
Station to say farewell. All week we have imagined
him crossing the seas and making his way to the
Rhine, whereas we learned by wire on Friday that
he had never got beyond Tillicoultry, and he turned
up in person last night & left again this morning.
He may depart any day & thinks his regiment
will probably go to Brussels for farther training before
going on to the Rhineland.
On Tuesday I go to Sheffield. Recently there died
near Worksop a Mr Cowan Smith, an exile Scot,
who left to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland,
such of his old china and old silver as they
might select. and I am going to Bothamshall
Hall where he dwelt to make the selection. I am
doing it in the hope and belief that I shall be able
to get such articles as I select on permanent loan
for the Royal Scottish Museum. Such an arrange:
:ment will not be quite in accordance with the terms
of the will, but the Board of Trustees as residu:
:ary legatees are the only people with any
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status to object and I don't think they will.
I am taking a day in Sheffield to see the Museum,
and on Thursday night I return to York where
Jocelyn joins me and we stay till Monday.
The Society of Antiquaries have voted me £60,
two years of the Gunning Fellowship to visit
Museums this year, so my summer holiday
will be pleasantly and profitably spent.
Living is still very dear but commodities generally
are becoming more plentiful & I hear that all
rationing is likely to cease in a month's time.
On 28th. Feb. I did my last evening parade as
a special constable and I heartily rejoice at
having seen the end of a tiring job. Most of
us have signed on for Sunday duty & emergencies,
but the former only entails about one forenoon
in two months & even that I am told is not likely
to continue much longer. Though I am glad
that the work is practically over for it was very
tiring, I am sorry to part company with many
excellent fellows, drawn from all walks of life,
who have stuck it out together for the last four
years. The most serious case that ever fell to my
lot was helping to run in a drunk & incapable
at Xmas time - so I got off easily.
14th. May 1919.
Summer warmth & sunshine at last after
a long protracted winter. Only about a fortnight
ago we had a heavy snowstorm & blizzard one
Sunday. The snow in London lay to a depth of 8 or 9
ins. [inches] I was out on my last Sunday morning
patrol as a Special, and for part of the time
the weather was, perhaps, the most unpleasant
I have been out on during my four years service.
Sandy is in Germany on the Rhine with the
53rd. Gordons, Young Army, having a great time.
His regiment, by some curious arrangement, are
in charge of the Carabiniers Horses. Kilted cavalry
seems quite on a par with horse Marines.
On Monday evening, after I had left the Museum
in Queen St a telephone message was received
from East Linton to say that Pringle had found
something, (not grasped in the message) and would
like me to go down on the following morning.
I could not go in the morning being too busy in
Chambers St., but I lunched in town and
got the 1.40 train to East Linton. It was a
glorious afternoon, & I stolled up leisurly to
the hill taking a photo here & there as I went,
not expecting that Pringle's "find" was anything
of importance, in fact from what was gathered
from the telephone message I suspected he
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had merely struck bottom unexpectedly soon.
Imagine my surprise on reaching the site
of the digging to see, ranged against the bank at the
edge, a great collection of what appeared to be
strange, battered & broken vessels of silver, much tarnished
though in places still bright, and even in places gilded.
The turf had all been cleared away, and the level
below, which I had called G/0 (G/1) had been planned.
It in part had been cleared off, and while Pringle
was gently working down on the surface of G/1 (G/2)
with a pick he turned up a piece of metal.
Following the clue he discovered more & then re:
:moving the soil round the spot in a circle with
a radius of some 3 ft. [feet] they exposed two large
stones set in level G/2 (G/3) and about 1 ft. [foot] apart.
Between these two stones and partially on the top
of the flatter of them to the North of the other, lay a
mass of silver objects in a heap about 1½ ft [feet] in breadth!
All mixed up were cups, chalices, spoons, platters,
pattens, dishes, crushed & cut fragments, a
wonderful assortment! Some of the objects had
been left in situ for me to see, and among these
was a curious, triangular, deep dish, with beaded
border, the most perfect dish recovered! The bottom
of the mass rested on the floor of level G/2 (G/3) and
as the top of it was only just below G/1 (G/2) I incline
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to think that the deposit had been made during
the latest period of occupancy of the site. It
is significant that my plan shows no stones on
the surface of G/0 at that spot. The excitement
of the three workers, Pringle, Young, & “Johnny”,
who have been our staff since we started on the
Law was immense, but they had kept their heads,
and shown great judgment & good sense.
Johnny had been despatched to East Linton
to telephone to me on Monday night, but so
cryptic was his message, least he should give
the show away, that it was not properly under:
:stood. Pringle had got boxes ready, & as far as
possible my requirements were anticipated.
As it was impossible to carry the loot to E. [East] Linton,
I sent Johnny in to order the car, & Pringle &
Young helped me to carry down the three boxes,
my bag etc., to the roadside, there to await my
car. Meanwhile in consultation with Pringle,
I decided to motor direct to Edinburgh, in
order to avoid the scrutiny at the railway station,
& the risk involved in travelling, with the spoil in:
:sufficiently packed. Unfortunately the local
car was engaged to meet a 6. o’clock train &
take someone to Biel, so for 1¾ hours I
guarded my boxes by the roadside. The
only people who passed were a minister and wife in
a dog cart, they stared inquisitively, while I glowered
arrogantly, till they averted their glances. I got back
with my treasure by 8. o’clock, & reported to Macdon:
:ald, who was greatly thrilled, & arranged with
him to come over after dinner for an inspection.
Our meal over we got out card tables & unpacked
the boxes. It was a wonderful collection & as we
cleared the earth away we discovered more & more
objects of supreme interest. Two parts of a goblet
decorated in repoussée with the ‘Fall of Man’ &
‘The Adoration of the Magi’; here and there a piece
with a Chi Rho Monogram; another bearing
the word AVE: in fact sufficient evidence to
show that the hoard belonged to Christian times
& was probably ecclesiastical. The Art especially
where human figures were concerned was so good
that a native origin seemed impossible, and so
truly classical were these figures in style that they
could only belong to an early period. In some
aspect a Celtic element in the ornament seemed
apparent - but the general character was too
early for the vessels to belong to native celtic
Christians. Loot it must have been. Who then
was it looted from and by whom? This morning
I was strongly of opinion that it was from
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Gaul; this evening I think of Italy itself, perhaps
even farther East! I have had a great day.
Jocelyn, Clare, & I worked at cleaning etc. till nearly
12 last night & carried all the treasure up to the
nursery. This morning I woke with my mind
full of it & with a headache: Little wonder! I
called early & reported the discovery to the King’s
Remembrancer to avoid any difficulty & to get
Sir Kenneth Mackenzie interested. Then I had a
Council meeting of the Society at 2.30 & made
a brief general statement, getting them, through
Macdonald, to vote £5 to each of the work men.
After tea ‘Sir Kenneth’ & Findlay came down to
see the haul, & were duly impressed & I think
funds will be forthcoming to have some of the
pieces, that have been doubled up, opened out.
I have been asked to be one of the judges for
the diplomas on design in the College of Art.
It may be amusing.
A few weeks ago I got Mr Hobson of the British
Museum to come down for a Sunday & value
for me a collection of early Oriental Ceramic,
(Chinese & Korean) lent to the Royal Scottish Museum
by Lt Col. [Lieutenant Colonel] Dingwall. & offered for sale at what I
thought reasonable terms. Mr Hobson valued
the collection after withdrawal of sundry
undesirable specimens at £3000 & at that figure
I have acquired it. It is to be paid as to £2000
this year & £1000 next or over the next two years.
This is a nice collection of a class unrepresented
in the Museum & enables me to get rid of a lot of
rubbish into the cellar. I am effecting great altera:
:tions. I have reorganised the glass collection and
am now overhauling the china & pottery. The gallery
has a changed appearance now to what it had.
29th. June 1919
The Treasure of Traprain has created a great
sensation throughout the country. For a fortnight
we kept it in the house only breaking the news
of its discovery to a few trusty friends, being a
little afraid of interference by visitors to the digging.
But when I found that rumours were rife in East
Linton, I realised there was no use sitting on a
lighted Mine, so I got George Macdonald to
write an article to the “Scotsman” while I
contributed one to the “Glasgow Herald”. Before
doing this, however, I had the treasure all
conveyed to my own room in Queen St. &
put into a case borrowed from the R.S.M. [Royal Scottish Museum]
The result of publication was to bring me many
congratulatory letters and visits from numerous
people, interesting & otherwise. In due course
I had the silver weighed & found that we
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had over 770 ozs. [ounces] An analysis showed
94-95% pure silver, 4% copper and 1% gold
There is now no doubt that is has been loot from
the continent, christian, & pagan, ecclesiastical
& secular, and that the date of deposit was
close on the year 400 A.D. Four coins were
found, two of them in washing the soil that came
off on the night of its arrival, are those of Valens
& Honorius help to fix the date.
A few weeks ago I was honoured at the
Museum with a visit from Sir Douglas Haig.
The circumstances are amusing. A sister
of his wrote to me some time ago about a
sword which had belonged to some of her
forbears and which she desired to acquire
for her brother. Happening to meet Skeoch
Cumming one day I broached the subject
to him, he being interested in weapons.
Strangely he seemed to know the sword in:
:timately and electrified me by subsequently
writing to me that it had been sold by its late
owner “to a sister of Sir Douglas Haig.” Now
My Mrs Haig had apparently been hunting
for its whereabouts for a long time. She was
delighted by my news and effusively grateful
to an extent quite unwarranted by any
trouble I had taken. So pleased was she that she
had asked Sir Douglas Haig to come & thank
me when he was in Edinburgh. I never dreamed
of his doing so, and was greatly flattered when
he & his staff arrived at the Museum in
Chambers St & he came & called on me. Since
then I have felt a fraud for the sword I
had found was not the right one after all!
Yesterday the Germans signed the peace
treaty, so the long war is over at last. I don’t
think people in Edinburgh were much excited
over it. They had let themselves go to an unwonted
extent when the armistice was signed, and
the signing of the peace treaty was too much
of a foregone conclusion. Sandy is on
the Rhine & with his regiment was ready
to leap across the neutral zone & carry war
into Germany had the Germans refused to sign.
This has been a very dry summer and June
an abnormally windy month. We sorely need
a good nights rain. I was at Traprain
all day yesterday. My procedure is now to
rise at 5.45 – have a cup of tea & slice of bread
& butter then catch the 7. o’clock train for East
Linton. Arrived there, I have a good breakfast
at the inn & drive out to the hill in a car.
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This enables me to be on the spot shortly
after 9.0. A few weeks ago I tried the
experiment of spending a weekend in
a room of the derelict farm house of Traprain
occupied by the ploughman & his wife.
My bed was spotlessly clean, but the mode
of life was altogether too primitive to be
good for one. The working man's meals
are not as ours, and I found myself
threatened with very short commons, so on
Saturday afternoon I walked into Dun:
:bar and had a good dinner at the
Bellevue Hotel! The only hot water I
got was brought to me in a tea-cup; a
bath was an article unheard of, likewise
other conveniences regarded as necessities
by the well-to-do.
3rd. Nov. 1919
I have been very remiss in writing up my
journal! We had a wonderful summer. In the
East and Central Scotland the drought was ex:
:cessive, and the crops in consequence suffered
considerably. The Allotment crop of potatoes
was much lighter than that of the last year. I broke
in the bank at the side of the house, which had
become almost overgrown with dandelions, and
planted potatoes there, but on the slope the
drought was felt worse than elsewhere & crop
was a poor one. I am at present engaged
in trenching the bank & manuring it with the
intention of taking another crop of potatoes off it
and then setting it out with rockeries & flowers.
Every Saturday throughout the summer I went
down to Traprain, and never had a wet day.
It kept me thoroughly employed in my leisure
hours, however, and my garden & allotment
rather suffered in consequence. When the
latter end of August came, we set out on our
holidays. The first week we spent at St. Cuthberts
and, thereafter, went on tour down the West
of England with the primary object of
visiting Museums, and the secondary one of
seeing old churches, cathedrals, castles, & all
objects of interest. We went first to Chester
where we put up at the 'Westminster Hotel'
near the station. It was clean & fairly com:
:fortable, but not first class, and I would not
go there again. The weather was bad, and except
on our first Sunday when we walked out towards
Eaton Hall and down the Dee from Eccleston
Ferry, it rained almost every day. Chester was
a little disappointing, the rows are quaint, but
so many of the old buildings have been reconstructed
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that a good deal of the atmosphere of antiquity
has vanished. I prefer York. From Chester
we, i.e. Jocelyn, Mary, & myself, made our
way to Ludlow spending the best part of a
day at Shrewsbury on route. Shrewsbury has
many nice old houses, a fine Church near
the Station, & a picturesque grammar school,
now the Museum etc. Ludlow is delightful!
Here we put up at the "Feathers Inn" a 15th. cent. [century]
house, only fairly comfortably. We stayed from
Friday to Monday in glorious weather, & enjoyed
every minute of our time. The town stands on
a hill, the apex of which is crowded with a
grand perpendicular church, with a lofty tower
'The Terne' flows past one side of the town &
between it & the church, above a sheep wooded
bank, is the castle - a historic border fortress
with a great courtyard, containing a Norman
keep, a circular Norman church, & much
building of 15th & 16th. Century date. On Saturday
afternoon we made our way by train to
Stokesay. a delightful moated manor house
of the 14th. or 15th. cent. [century] near Craven Arms, in
fine preservation & well looked after. It was
interesting to find in the Caretaker a retired
Dumfriesshire Ironmonger, who, when I
disclosed my nationality clung to me as a brother Scot.
From Ludlow we passed to Gloucester taking Here:
:ford on the way, and at both places it poured. Here:
:ford Cathedral is of more interest than I expected,
and has some good Norman work in it. I
was interested to see the tomb & effigy of Sir Richard
Pembridge whose Heaulme is in the Royal Scottish
Museum, having formerly being on the wall of the
Cathedral above the tomb, but was taken down &
presented by the Dean to Sir R. Meyrich, the well
known collector of Armour! It was an iniquit:
:ous act, and can't be undone now though
dearly would the present Cathedral authorities
like it if it could be. At Gloucester we stayed at
"The Bell", a large old fashioned Inn, comfortable
enough. From Gloucester we passed on to Bristol.
Here it poured every day. We made an excur:
:sion to Bath, saw a couple of nice Art
galleries, the Roman remains at the
Pump room, and lastly listenend to a concert
in the pump room, &, to Mary's delight,
watched the visitors taking the waters. We saw
fat people drinking and weighing, & were amused
at their efforts of reduction. At Bristol
we stayed at the Royal Hotel, College Green,
quite a good Hotel. The Cathedral is nearby
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and is interesting. The Nave is modern but
the Chapter house, is Norman, & there are
interesting tombs & details in the chancel.
The Verger who showed us round was as a
delightful example of unconscious incompetency
as I have met. He lectured the crowd of
sightseers with great volubility talking absolute
nonsense with the assurance of a professor.
His acquaintance with architectural terms was
slight & faulty. "There aint no ambulance nor
Triphonium in this Cathedral." was one of
the many gems he let drop. In the party
was a knee-breeched cleric of some sort, who
took the creature seriously, & had not enough
humour to let him ramble on uninterruptedly.
The Cleric asked embarrassing questions, which
the Verger answered somewhat resentfully, and I
was much amused when he passed an
aside to me "I'll have to be careful there
seems to be some sort of Antiquary in this
party." At Bristol our party broke up, Jocelyn
& Mary going going off to pay a visit at Crab Hill,
while I continued my Museum tour by
myself. I visited Taunton, Dorchester,
Salisbury, Devises, Reading, stopping at
the two D,s & eventually joining the party
at Crab Hill. The weather had improved & the day I
travelled thither. 16th Sept. I think was one of the
hottest I remember in this Country. The shade
temperature in London was 82°. The day after
I ran up to London to see my old Uncle Robert
who was dying, a wonderful old man nearly 86
with his mind as clear as a bell. He was
interested in my accounts of my travels & we
conversed for ¾ hour. "It's this damned old age
that is the matter" he said with a smile. From
Crab Hill we went to Tetbury to visit the Pellys
for a week & when there saw Cirencester, & Malmesbury.
Then on 23rd. Sept. we returned to London & returned
Mary to school. Here we intended to stay for a
week the length of our visit depending however, on
Uncle Roberts illness. As he was clearly sinking fast
we did not expect that it would be long. We
wrote for Sandy to come down from Catterick
as the old man wanted to see him & he
arrived on Friday 26th. That night all the
railway employees in the Country went out
on strike. Uncle Robert had died on the 25th. The
cessation of all train services including "Tubes"
& Underground, threw all the traffic of London
onto the streets. With lightening rapidity the
government mobilised immense numbers of
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motor vehicles & assemble them in Hyde Park
which they closed to the public. A milk collection
& distribution was organised & arrangements
for feeding the people completed. In the "Rembrandt"
we hardly experienced any shortage & before
the strike was over the milk supply was better
than it had been before. The only inconvenience
we experienced was in getting about. Buses
were crowded where they started from, and
it was very difficult to room on one en
route. Taxi's were scarce. Every one who
could was helping. Crowds of men & women
volunteered & took up jobs of one sort or another,
people with cars took pity on those who had
none, & it was a common sight to see a
car filling up with odd women who had
to get to some distant point of the city, or
the suburbs, where their days work was
done. Before the end of the week many trains
were being run by volunteers, & a fair service
was going on the Tube. I went into Town
once or twice by it. The way the public took
the strike was splendid. No panic & every:
:one determined that such a high handed
attempt on the part of one small section of
the community to hold the country to
ransom must be frustrated, and it was! On
Sunday 4th Oct. a settlement was effected, and on
the Tuesday morning Jocelyn & I returned North
having quite a comfortable journey.
Since my return I have had some trouble in
the Museum with a certain keeper who caused
my predecessor much annoyance. We require
an assistant for the Art department. After
much search & enquiry I heard of the very man
for the post & put matters in train to get him
appointed. My "friend" took upon himself to call
a meeting of officers & sent me a protest in
the ground that all appointments had to be
by limited competition & should got to the men holding
university degrees. I learned that Dr [Doctor] G. had
been originally thrust into the Museum by
influence & without examination & I knew
that the other keeper concerned had no degree
I made myself as unpleasant as I have
ever done to anyone & now all goes happily.
How long the happiness will last remains to be
seen, but if more trouble arises I feel quite
competent to deal with it!
Sandy has been appointed to the 2nd. Gordons &
is at present near Dublin.
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25th January 1920
We have had so far a horrible winter the weather
being so unsettled. Since early in November when
we had a very cold snap we have had no severe
frost nor any snow to speak of but it has been
very wet & inclement. Though Sandy did
not get home for Christmas, he put in an
appearance before the New Year, and stayed
at home for a fortnight. He left for Litchfield,
& three days after set out with an advance
party of the regiment of Cologne, en route
for Oppeln in Silesia, where they will stay
till after the plebescite has been taken.
Mary has returned to school very happily.
I think Downe House under Miss Willis
must be the most pleasantest of schools. This
has been a very gay holiday for the child.
She had invitations to no less than 28 parties,
and accepted the majority of them. We had
a dance of our own in the Kintore Rooms,
Queen St. on 8th. Jany from 3.30 - 6.30
for children over 10, and a few recently
emerged youths & maidens. We all worked
hard seeing that all enjoyed themselves,
and we have had the satisfaction of knowing
that the entertainment was a complete
success. On 12th. Jany I
gave my report on last year's Traprain excava:
:tion to the Antiquaries. It was quite an event,
and in place of the usual 20 or 30 I had
an audience of about 150. As long ago I
learned that it is best to lecture without reading,
I discarded my paper except for a few
pages of peroration at the close, & kept
my audience, I believe, interested for an hour
and a quarter. I had lots of slides & the
silver was exhibited in cases on the table.
On the following night I lectured to the Literary
Society at Melrose. Next month I lecture at
Glasgow & Haddington, and in April to the
Society for promotion of Roman Studies in
London. On 1st Dec. I handed over
the case of the Museum of Antiquities to
J. Graham Callander, but to help him
I call there almost every morning on my
way to Chambers St. The Duke of Buccleuch
has lent me various things for the Royal
Scottish Museum from Dalkeith House.
These should attract the public. Last year
our attendance increased over 60,000 &
we have already an increase this year of 3,000.
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10th July 1920
For six months I have failed to write a line
in my journal, sheer laziness! In April
I was feeling ragged & was off my sleep so
Jocelyn insisted on my going to see my doctor.
I did so and after a careful examination
was pronounced quite sound, but in much need
of an absolute change & rest for three weeks,
& was ordered away as soon as possible.
We left in a few days time making a brief
tour in East Anglia to begin with. We
visited in turn Lincoln, Ely, Norwich, Col:
:chester, & Bury St. Edmunds. We thereafter
stayed in London at the 'Rembrandt' for a
week, & thence went to Crab Hill for a few days.
We got back about 7th May. Since then
we have had a very depressing summer.
To commence with it was cold, and now
that it is warmer it is very wet indeed.
The vegetables in the allotment look well,
but we have had quite enough rain to
last for some time.
Today there has finished a notable visit to
Edinburgh by the King, the Queen & Princess
Mary. They arrived last Saturday evening
the 3rd., and I was on duty as a special
to assist in lining the streets. The weather
by good luck was fie and many people turned
out to greet them. Their driving to the Palace in a
closed car caused a little disappointment, but
no doubt precautions had to be taken in our
uncertain climate. On Sunday morning the
Royal party visited St. Giles & again I was
on duty, first of all in the High Street & later
at the West End. It was a picturesque sight he
crowd lining the High Street, composed largely
of the poorer classes, with little groups of dirty
children sitting on the kerb at the edge of the
pavement. Again the closed cars caused dis:
:appointment as the people in the flats could
see nought but the roofs. It was the usual
voiceless Scottish crowd & I was much amused
by a man remarking after they had passed.
"They should have had a rousing cheer even
though it is the Sabbath." I did not think so
much respect for the sanctitty of the Sabbath
still survived in the Old Town. On
Monday the King held an investiture in
front of Holyrood. On Tuesday there was
an afternoon reception at which some 1100
people were presented, or made their bows. It
was my debut in Court circles & I was
presented by the Secretary for Scotland. Jocelyn
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Chrissie and Isabella was presented by
Mrs Baillie. Their majesties shook hands
with everyone and the presentation was
not at all a formidable performance,
though some of the women folk were osten:
:sibly nervous. After passing out of the
presence we sat down in the entrée room,
& watched for a time the throng passing
forward in a continuous line along one
side of the room. Jim stood on the exit
side as an archer, too conscious of
the humorous side of his service as shown
by the smile playing about the corners of his
mouth. All classes were there from duchesses
onwards. As I left the presence
the Duke of Atholl drew me aside to tell
me that the King and Queen would
visit the Royal Scottish Museum on the
following day to see the Traprain Silver,
which has now been restored, & which I
have borrowed for exhibition there for a
period of 6 months. The visit was to
be a very hurried one as it was to be followed
by a visit to the Castle. Mrs Macfie
kindly lent us her car to take us to Holyrood
& back & we were thus saved the great
expense that many people were put to. The
taxi hirers charging 3 or 4 guineas for the after:
:noon while a horse drawn cab could not
be got under two. The visit to the Museum
was to take place about 11.30. George Mac:
:donald as representing the Department
joined me. About a quarter to twelve the Royal
car drew up to the side of the pavement, & I
bolted down the steps, but before I got to the
foot the Queen was one or two steps up
followed by the King. The Duke of Atholl pre:
:sented me, and both shook hands. We
proceeded to the stair in the North West corner
of the Main Hall the King all the time asking
me questions about the Treasure & its finding,
& thus we made our way to the cases in the
middle of the North Gallery. I had ordered
the doors to be closed when the Royal
party arrived, but I was requested to
allow the people to come freely in. Mr
Ward stood by & opened the cases, & I
took out the most interesting pieces for
their Majesties to handle. Both were
greatly interested & appreciative. At the
suggestion of the Duke a visit was paid
to the British Hall where the Bird groups
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were much admired. The King was greatly
interested in the case of deer, & enquired who
shot the stag etc. On leaving I accompanied
them down the steps & they both shook hands &
said how much they had enjoyed their visit
The Queen several times remarked on the
fact, which surprised her, that she had never
heard of the Museum before, & asked me
what it was called. They had a look at
the model of the Castle & the Queen questioned
me as to whether I considered the scheme a
good one. I replied that it had many points
to commend it. "I wonder why Lord Roseberry
is so opposed to it" she said. A visit to
the Castle followed on that to the Museum,
and at the suggestion of the Duke I went on
there with the Duchess of Atholl in her car.
We all got out at the esplanade, & the King
inspected the Coy. [Company] of the Scots Guards that had
been brought down for the occasion. I
felt rather out of place posed among the
gentlemen in waiting, while the public
thronged round the drill ground. We were
at the Castle for an hour or so & went
all over it. I had some talk with Lord
Sandhurst, who was in attendance & who
seemed much pleased with the visit. When their
Majesties left they called me up, and shook
hands on saying goodbye. I got home
just in time to prepare for the garden party
at Holyrood in the afternoon. So difficult was
it to obtain a car in Edinburgh that the
sisters hired the Melrose car for the day, took
us with them to the party, & motored home
in it afterwards. Though the weather was
very uncertain it kept up beautifully all afternoon
and we had a delightful entertainment. There
were between 3 and 4000 people present, yet
the garden was not crowded. Heaps of people
had come in from all parts of Scotland and
one met numbers of friends. When the King
& Queen came out we stationed ourselves in
the King's circle which happened to be near
where we were standing, and when His Majesty
came past, he recognised me, and again
shook hands, and also shook with Jocelyn.
The mixture of people & styles of clothing were
very quaint, some people extremely smart, &
others extraordinarily frumpy. The
provosts from some of the provincial towns &
such like cut quaint figures. Entrance
to the gardens was through a gate in
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the wall towards the King’s Park, or on the
North side of the palace. There was excellent
tea, with ices & strawberries in various
marqueés. We got home quite pleased with
ourselves by about 6.0. On Thursday I
was lunching with Prof. [Professor] Sayce and when I
got back to the Museum I received a
message from the Duke of Atholl to the effect
that Princess Mary was coming up to see
the Traprain silver shortly after 5.0. Jocelyn
came to join the party and before 5.0 Lord
Linlithgow came to take part in the show. It
was about 5.20 before H.R.H. [Her Royal Highness] arrived ac:
:companied by the Duke & Duchess of Atholl,
Lady Mary Trefusis, & Lady Joan Mulholland.
It was a delightfully informal visit, especially
as it was after closing hours & there were
none of the public present. The Princess was
greatly interested in the Treasure, & after
seeing it she had a look at the glass & china.
On hearing that “her mother” had not seen
that, she said she was sure she would
like to. Before she left at her request she visited
the British Hall & was much delighted with
the bird groups. On leaving she had the
patrols & attendants present paraded, spoke
to each individually & thanked them for staying
after hours. I had intended to go down to
Traprain Law on Saturday, but as the weather
was so unsettled I decided not to venture. It was
a fortunate thing I did so, for just as I arrived
at the Museum in Queen St, I was rung up on
the telephone by Lady Mary Trefusis to tell me that
the Queen wished to visit the Royal Scottish Muse:
:um sometime after 11.0 to see the China.
I took a taxi & rushing home changed into
my “Sunday” kit & top hat & thence straight to the
Museum. It was a wet morning & numbers
of people were in the Museum. By 11.0 I
stationed myself near the door on the watch.
About 11.20 the Royal Car drew up, & I dashed
down hatless to the foot of the steps. Not quite
aware of the management of an umbrella in
the presence of Royalty I did not put it up.
The Queen on alighting at once, however, relieved
my doubts & told me to put up my umbrella.
Accompanying her were the Princess Mary.
Lady Minto, and Lady Mary Trefusis. We
crossed the Main hall & went up the S.E. [South East] stair
to the glass collections & on to the china. The
Queen looked interestedly at nearly every case.
She admired the Venetian glass & asked if
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it was our own or on loan. She appreciated
the effect of the 18th. Cent. [Century] Venetian decanters, &
tumblers in the lower part of the case of
enameled glass. She had a look at the
Persian & Spanish Glass, and as we passed
along I drew her attention to the choicest
pieces of early Oriental. She showed a
knowledge & familiarity with the subject of
china that rather surprised me. The Princess
had told me that her Mother had a room
full of Wedgewood at Windsor, & I was sorry
we had so little to show her. From the
China Gallery we passed to the textile
gallery, & there Her Majesty had a good
look at Lord Morton’s sewed work, Mrs Leslie
Melville’s Curtains on which I showed her
the crowned cipher with the 8 and 5 beneath.
She especially admired the two buhl tables
lent by the Duke of Buccleuch, and
also Monmouth’s saddlery. To finish she
graciously consented to have a look
at the ships & models in the Makinery
Hall. By her request no restrictions were
placed on the movements of the numerous
visitors, & she was inconvenienced in no
way. It was altogether a delightful
visit as Her Majesty seemed quite to enjoy it,
and was so pleasant. At one point we met
Jocelyn & Blanche, & Lady Minto presented
them. As we were going towards the door
the Queen asked me who the two ladies were
whom Lady Minto had presented to her. I told
her, & added that my brother had had the
honour of an interview some years ago
when he took the Newstead helmets to Holy:
:rood. “I remember” said Her Majesty “and
I think I saw him at the Garden party
on Wednesday.” What a memory! When
we came to the top of the steps to depart
she suggested I should not come down
as it was wet, but I said I should like to
& accompanied her to the car. She shook
hands & expressed herself as much pleased
with her visit, and waved a farewell as she
drove away. This visit particularly
pleased me for I take the full credit for
the rearrangement of cases & the display
of the objects in the Ceramic Gallery which
induced it. Her Majesty has no liking for
the overdecorated continental porcelain and
dislikes as much as I do the modern jewelled
Sevres & the other disagreeable specimens of
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the Mackie bequest.
7th Nov. 1920.
How delatory I have been writing up my
journal. This year we have had one of
the worst summers in the memory of man.
Within the last week or two there was still corn
out in fields in the Lothians and on Tweedside
Cold & wet has been its character. In one
period of 24 hours early in August, or rather
about the middle, rain fell in Edinburgh &
various places in the South & Central
Scotland to the amount of nearly 3 ins. [inches]
We were lucky! We took our holiday in the
North West and really had some glorious
days. On 11th Aug. we left Edinburgh and
travelled to Arisaig by the West Highland
line, a never ceasing panorama of glorious
scenery. Our destination was Camus-darroch
near Morar, where we were to stay with the
Hoods. What a lovely spot it was! The house
set back a few hundred yards from the sea,
looked out over a foreground of grey, green
bents to a stretch of the purest silvery sand
edging the blue sea, with the mountainous
hills of Rum crowning the horizon in the
misty distance. The evening we arrived
the sun set in a glorious vision of colour
and we sat watching it on Rum till rose changed to
madder, & madder to purple, and the purple
gradually gave place to mirk & darkness.
Once or twice I fished on Loch Morar. It is
a beautiful loch, but I don’t think the trout
run large in it. leastwise those I caught were
small. From Camus-darroch we
set out for Glenelg. Our route was by train
to Mallaig thence by boat to Glenelg. When
we reached Mallaig it was raining heavily
and we stood miserably on the exposed pier,
looking down into the steamer which the
highland sailors were emptying of its cargo
of tourists & sheep, with characteristic slow:
:ness. The mist lay low on the hills, & as there
was no view to be seen, & only rain & wind
to be endured on deck I preferred to sit
in the stuffy cabin. At Glenelg there is no
pier for the steamer to tie up to, so she lies-
to out in the bay, whilst ancient sailor:
:men bring out a ferry to transfer the
visitors & their goods to the shore. It was
raining & blowing when we leaped down
into the ferry & began our adventurous voyage.
I thought we would never make the shore.
The ferrymen with monstrous long oars
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tore at the waves & we made barely any
progress. However, at last they ran the
bow on a shelving beach, about a mile
from the hotel. We were by no means high
& dry, so there was nothing for it but to leap
& trust to getting off with nothing worse than
wet feet. Mary & I went first. The sailor
-men insisted on helping Jocelyn with the
result that she probably was the wettest of
the three. We made our way to the hotel
& were not at all favourably impressed by
its appearance. Our luggage lay afar off
on the beach until a cart could be got for
it. So there was nothing else to be done
than rid ourselves of our lower garments
& slip into bed! When our boxes &c. did
turn up many of their contents were soaking,
for the rain had got in! An unexhilarating
start for our adventure! However, after
a couple of days the weather cleared,
the hotel though not first class, proved not
as bad as it looked, & the scenery & walks
to enjoy it all around were all that we
could desire. Fishing there was prac:
:tically none, except on the day after
a flood. Though there are several miles
of water there are no trout in it and only one
good salmon pool. I had some luck for the
day after we arrived I raised three salmon
in the foresaid pool, hooked two, & had one of
these on for a few minutes & the other for a quarter
of an hour. Early in our stay I made
the acquaintance of an excellent old sea-
-fisher Mr John MacLeod, a man of much
information & well read, who had been at one
time a fairly prosperous "Scotch Draper in Birmingham" but
had failed to be a permanent success, and
returned to his native hamlet to end his
days. He had a good boat with a mast
& sail and we had several delightful days out
fishing with him. The office of works left to me
the superintendence of the completion of the upper
broch at Glenbeg and I was fortunate enough
to find in the courtyard, all the holes for the
wooden posts, which had supported a lean-
-to roof resting on a scarcement. Such scarcements
exist in nearly all brochs, at a height of about
8 ft. [feet] above the ground level, and while I have always
regarded the existence of post holes as certain,
no one had found them. This discovery will
throw a new light on the broch mystery.
From Glenelg at the end of a fortnight we
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passed on to Campbell's Hotel, Broadford, Isle
of Skye, where we stayed for a week. The Hotel
is a Temperance one, but more comfortable than
that at Glenelg. Here we did long walks to
Torran, etc. The weather broke down before we
left but on the last Saturday we hired the car
and went off to see duns on the coast near
Elgol, which lay on the other side of Loch Slapin
beyond Torran, & near to Loch Skavaig. These
particular duns were very interesting, being
built on narrow promontories, and while
not being brochs, still in their hollowed walls
& superimposed galleries showing features
characteristic of brochs. A Mr Sayce, a
young archaeologist, lecturer at Aberystweth
University, whom we met in the hotel, came
with us. From Skye we returned
home on 6th September. Since then I
have lectured in the Museum to the Glasgow
Archaeological Society, to the Women's Institute
at East Linton, when I stayed with the
Dundases at Phantassie, at Whittingham,
when I stayed with Mr Balfour & was honoured
by having him presiding; & to the Egyptian
Students Research Society in Edinburgh, all
on the Traprain Law finds. Mr Balfour was
a very charming host, and much interested in
the find of silver & the results of our excavations.
The party to attend the lecture consisted besides
my host, of Miss Balfour, Lady Wemyss, the widow
of the late Ld. [Lord] Wemyss, & Lady Elcho.
This has been a year of great gardening
operations. On the East side of our garden
we made a new bed partly on the site of the
path & put the path where the bed had been,
The soil was so bad that we had to dig it out
to a depth of 2 ft. [feet] & get it removed. To take
its place we had to get 10 cartloads of good
loam from the field beyond the allotments.
This little operation greatly exceeded my
expectations in the amount of labour and
including the manure cost me £10. Then
I got in more manure, & trenched all the
other beds also from the bottom of the bed
on the west side I removed a ft. [foot] of bad rub:
:bish & filled up its place with the top spit
from the old bed on the East side, putting
the rubbish there to form the path. These com:
:plicated maneouvres over, we have replanted
our beds with many fresh plants including
a number of fine new delphiniums from
wells at Merstham, Surrey. On the bank
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to the west I have planted great numbers
of Iris Germanica. Many of these are new
varieties, which I obtained from Wallace
at Colchester. The Irises I have set out
in triangular formation and have filled
in the spaces with oriental popies, erigerons,
pyrethrum, and polemonium, with masses
of the little wild Swiss rose which my father
brought back from the Furka Pass some
40 or 50 years ago, & which my sisters & I have
kept going since.
[Margin]
Feb. 1941. The 'Turka
rose still flourishes
among my heather
at Ornmore.' ---
I reckon I have about
50 different varieties of Iris on the bank.
I am going to give them a good dusting
of basic slag shortly to start them, but
it will be a year or two before those which
I have planted this autumn will flower.
Prices are as high as ever for food. An egg
costs 6d. As for butter we have not had any
in the house for ages. Margarine serves
our turn perfectly. A suit of clothes with
two pairs of trousers which I got recently
cost £25! There is very little entertaining
now-a-days and such as it is, is on a
much simpler scale.
19 November 1922.
Two years since I wrote a word in this book!
I have been very busy and most of my time has been
taken up working on the Traprain Law Silver book.
It is far advanced towards completion. I have
revised the paged proof and have written several
pages of introduction. Of such a work fortun:
:ately the illustrations are the most important
part and as in these there will be reproduced prac:
:tically every detail of ornament as well as
actual vessels and fragments so that scholars
may form their own opinions, my descriptions
and conclusions do not matter much.
Messrs MacLehose of Glasgow are the publishers.
Mr Craig Annan is producing 21 photogravures,
and there are numerous line blocks & some half
tones as well. Mr John Bruce of Helensburgh, who
has taken great interest, and given much help
in the excavation &c. has agreed to subscribe
for at least 200 copies at £2.2/- each, to be
presented by the Soc. [Society] of Antiquaries of Scotland to
the leading libraries of the world. The purchase
price to members of the general public will be £3.3/-
I have so much to write up for two years that it is
difficult to know where to begin. During the
last two years I have been much in request to
lecture on Traprain Law. I have been to Inverness,
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Dundee, Aberdeen, Falkirk, Lanark, Melrose,
Gullane, Dunbar besides lecturing to two or three Societies
in Edinburgh. This winter I am to lecture in
St. Andrews, Edinburgh (3 times.) Milnathort, Cargil:
:field and Cambridge. Since my last entry
the Treasury have raised the whole of the officers
in the Museum with beneficial results to myself.
Taxation, though we have got one shilling off the
income tax, is still very high. (Income tax 5/-!)
but the cost of living has come down con:
:siderably, and feeding is coming back to
pre-war quality. Margarine is now only an
unpleasant memory, and as one eats good
butter one wonders how we ever faced the loss
of it with equanimity. Clothes are cheaper,
but still much above pre-war prices.
Last year, 1921. we made a great expedition,
Jocelyn & I, to Italy along with our friends the
Gordons, the parson of St. John's & his wife. It was
a glorious summer, we were detained here
till 13th September by the meeting of the British Association
& a conversazione in the Museum. We left on
a Monday, spent a night in London at the
Grosvenor Hotel, & next day crossed to Calais
where we boarded the trans continental express
1st class sleeper and travelled right through
to Basle where we arrived early in the morning.
There we had time for baths & breakfast & left about
10.0 a.m. for Italy. Such a glorious journey as
it was I never experienced. Through Switzerland
all agog to get the first peep of the Alps, then
through Lucerne, and most splendid of all
the journey over the St. Gothard, mounting up
with the little swiss houses perched ever higher on the
flanks of the hills, and the roaring torrents deep
in the gorges below us. Then the crossing through
the tunnel into Italy, the sudden change in
the character of the villages, the appearance of
the chestnut woods, and as the afternoon wore
on, the glimpses of the lakes. At Milan
we arrived about 7.0 and left the comfortable
train we had travelled in from Basle. We
dined in the big railway restaurant, not a
very satisfactory meal, we were all tired & no
one knew what they wanted. We secured four
corner seats in a corridor carriage, there being
no sleeper on the train, and it was not long
ere the two other seats were taken by a man &
woman, husband & wife, or mother & son, I
could not make out which. It was a
hot stuffy night, the train was crowded
with people lying asleep stretched out in the
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corridors and altogether it was rather a night-mare
journey. We were thankful to reach Florence about
5.0 in the morning. How impressive was this
first sight of an old Italian, city arriving in
an antiquated cab past Santa Maria Novella
& under the massive walls of the Strozzi Palace,
as we made our way in the breaking dawn to
our quarters across the Arno in Via Romana.
We had taken rooms in a pension on the first
floor of a palazzo, and there we remained
for ten days, very happy, and working hard
every day in gorgeous weather seeing sights,
and such sights - Pictures, statues, palaces,
intensely thrilling. I have never since my youth
enjoyed anything so much. Our rooms at the
pension, "Analena" by name, opened on to a broad
balcony overlooking a garden, and there
we had our breakfast every morning, &
there also we sat & talked in the evenings after
dinner till it was time to crawl off to bed.
During our stay we paid a brief visit to
Siena. The motor bus by which we elected to
travel left at 6.30 & as we had to be at the starting
place by 6.0 we were up early, & made our way
through the dimly lighted streets before the dawn.
It was an eventful journey. We had
gone some 12-15 miles when the motor broke down
& we all had to dismount. On one side of the
road was a vineyard, & on the other a derelict
piece of land, on which a few prickly
bushes & some sparse grass & weeds managed
to exist. On this we settled ourselves scattered
about in groups while the chauffeur tinkered
at his motor. The case was, however, a serious
one & a fresh car had to be sent for from
Florence. Hours sped on and at last the fresh
car arrived, but instead of taking the hapless
passengers aboard, & conveying them to Siena,
its chauffeur joined his fellow in repairing
our old bus, and it was 11.o'clock before
we again took the road,
16 Oct 1939.
Dear me! How many years have sped past
since I last wrote in my journal, years of
ill fortune and years of good, but through all
the good has predominated, and my life has
been long and happy. From So. [South] Learmonth
Gardens we moved to a house in Barnton
Avenue then called 'Elmlie Lovat,' a nice
little grey harled house, placed as near a
position in the north east angle of a rectangular
acre, or almost that Measurement, of grounds
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This move we carried out just about Christmas
in 1933. The name had no interest or attraction
for me, so after much thought, we called the place
‘Ormsacre; in reference to my second name
‘Ormiston’ The place particularly attracted
me from the extent of ground available for
layout to my own taste, the Southern ex:
:posure, and the excellent soil. And so I
have built up a fine collection of Alpine
plants, with two little glasshouses, and a
still smaller one in which I raise seeds.
I do not intend to write up my biography -
My life has not been sufficiently important.
I retired from the Royal Scottish Museum
in 1931, on my 65th birthday. A few years
previously H. M. [His Majesty] King George V. conferred on
me the Companionship of the Victorian Order
in Buckingham Palace, and the University
of Glasgow some years afterwards honoured
me with an LL.D. [Doctor of Laws] I have done much
excavation since I retired, in Shetland,
and in Caithness. The pages of the Proceedings
of the Society of Antiquaries will bear ample
testimony to my energy, and discoveries,
so I need not go into the matter here.
Life has passed pleasantly with Mary
and me, going off to excavate for a month
or six weeks in the early summer, and
to the continent in the autumn. In
Edinburgh I had much to do on various
committees. For a number of years I was
on the Board of the College of art, acting as
Vice chairman, the ex. officio Chairman being
the Lord Provost, for several years. I was on
the executive Committee of the National Trust,
and a member of its permanent Bursaries Com:
:mittee. The Society of Antiquaries, the Royal
Commission on Ancient Monuments, the
Advisory Board, and the Disposal Board
of the Office of Works, the Board of Manage:
:ment of the Orphan Hospital, and other
bodies, claimed my attention from time to time.
At one time I was a member of the Council
of the London Antiquaries, but as I was
only once able to attend, I ceased to be so
after one year. My great interest in the
cultivation of Alpines caused me to be elected
president of the Scottish Rock Garden Club,
but owing to the exceedingly discourteous
and irregular behaviour of certain individuals,
at the annual general meeting in 1938,
I have retired and declined to have anything
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[Margin]
Subsequently the
Alpine & Rock Garden Club
made me their per:
:manent Hon. [Honorary] Vice
President. Sir William
Wright Smith being
President. ---
more to do with it Now after these brief details
of an active life, I may come to the stirring
events. which have caused me again to take
out my journal and write in it.
Since 3rd Sept. 1939 we have been at war with
Nazi-Germany, and the face of Britain has
changed. Everywhere are young men in
uniform, and swift aeroplanes dash
across the sky at intervals all day, keeping
constant watch. Every few hours there are
news broadcasts on the wireless and, to me,
most notable of all, has been the cessation
of all my pre war activities in Edinburgh.
The Contents of Museums and galleries
have been packed up, and sent to places
of safety, and most of my committees
have been laid up in flannel till peace
comes again. Mary is a F.A.N.Y [First Aid Nursing Yeomanry]
in plain words, one of an organised body
of women motor drivers, and her particular
task, from head quarters of the Scottish
Command, is to drive Staff Officers hither
and thither – mostly in the neighbourhood of
Edinburgh. She passes somewhat comfort:
:less nights in a large villa at Colinton with
the other members of her corps. To begin
with discipline was applied to a laughable
extent, and red tape made life almost
unendurable. But as accounts of the conditions
got bruited abroad discipline was relaxed
somewhat, and under the advice of superiors,
existence became easier. Meanwhile I
live on here, engrossed in my garden, and
very unwilling even to go into town. I inter:
:view Catherine our cook, who has been with us
over 20 years, every morning – arrange about
my simple meals, and settle domestic matters,
There is a quiet, but unquestioned determina:
:tion expressed by all throughout the
country to see this thing through; and so
manage matters that Germany will never
again be in a position to break the peace
of Europe, and act as a gangster among
the nations. Everyone behaves with quiet
dignity. Heavy burdens are cheerfully borne,
and infringements of liberty accepted without
complaint. Our petrol, coals, gas, & electricity
are all rationed, and shortly, we shall receive
food cards rationing our food.
So far though we have been at war for nearly
six weeks. we have suffered little from war’s
alarms. I have constructed an air raid
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shelter behind the house by encasing a hut,
formed by sheets of corrugated iron, which I have
long possessed, in turf to a considerable depth.
The turf was taken from my little apple orchard,
and on the site I shall grow potatoes etc.
This afternoon we had our first realisation
of the ubiquitous nature of modern war. I had
gone into town to see my dentist at 2 o’clock,
and my doctor at 2.45, both on trifling
matters, and as I proceeded from one to
the other, I heard the sound of guns, and
observed many people on the streets, and
doorsteps, gazing up into the sky. But there
had been no air raid warning, and no
one seemed to the slightest extent fussed.
When at Dr. [Doctor] Croome’s in Rothesay Place, the
firing increased, and seemed to be coming from
the Forth, and even from the city, and from
guns of various calibres. But the absence
of a warning led everyone, I suppose, to
attribute it all to a “dress rehearsal”. By
the time I reached home it had practically
ceased. Sir George and Lady Macdonald
had just arrived to tea, when suddenly it
started anew, and as I went to the door
to greet them two huge monoplanes,
in close pursuit one of the other, crossed
the house from west to east, just above my head
at what seem a height of little above the roof.
The pursuit plane was firing. I think, for I
saw a spurt of flame, and the noise
was terrific. For some seconds after they
passed the roar echoed from the east
wall facing the line of their departure.
Now we learn from the B.B.C. [British Broadcasting Corporation] that this
was a real attack on east coast ports
and that there have been no casualties, and
no damage to property.
17th Oct. 1939
The raid of yesterday was indeed no dress
rehearsal, but a serious attack on the fleet
in the Forth, by from 12 – 14 German airplanes
coming on in groups of 3 or 4 at a time.
The attack went on from shortly after
2.0 till a little after 4.0 p.m. and the
scurry that we came in for was the hot
pursuit of the last of the Germans by one of
our ‘spitfires’. How serious it was may be
judged from the fact that from the garden
of the Gardiners’ house, a little more than 100
yards away, 40 empty cartridge cases from a
machine gun, have been picked up. A number
were found in Notman’s Nursery Garden behind
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the station, one of which was given to me. A
bullet went through a window of Sir William
Baird’s house at the commencement of Barnton
Avenue, and lodged in a bedroom wall, while
a woman in the village suffered some slight
damage from a richoché bullet and broken
glass.
[Margin]
Note These were not
our planes. They
went to Dunbar
& there munitions
having given out
the ‘Spitfire’ relin:
:quished the pursuit. ---
The progress of the two planes
was seen down to Willowbrae road
and thence towards the Pentlands where
the German is supposed to have come down.
And so we have had our first air-raid
experience, under circumstances of
particular interest and considerable danger,
and yet I am thankful that I did not
miss the experience, sealed up in my turf
protected shelter. As the battle raged over:
:head the servants were out at the back door
watching! If a bombing attack on
Edinburgh should eventuate later on in
this war, there may be a different story
to tell.
Later. It seems that the German, who nearly
hit our roof, was pursued to Dunbar, when the
chase was abandoned by the pursuit plane as his
amunition was exhausted. The German plane
was wobbling as it made out to sea so possibly
never reached home. It was another ‘plane which
passed Willowbrae Road. Though it was said to
have crashed in the Pentlands - its carcase
not yet been found.
30th Oct.1939
The last few days have been without incident.
The weather has been beautiful with slight frost
at night, and warm sunshine in the middle
of the day. I should mention that one of the
troubles that afflict the just who wander about
after dark, is the difficulty of getting about
on streets and roads that are entirely without
lighting, while the extremely restricted lighting
permitted to motorists makes the motor a great
danger. Over 1000 lives were lost on the roads
in Sept. mostly of pedestrians, as against
about half that number in Sept.1938.
I had not been into town since Monday
so as I wished to see Mr Edwards, the director
of the Museum of Antiquities, I decided to
go today. I was on the point of
starting when suddenly the sirens
began to voice their warbling note. I forth:
:with summoned the staff and Robb the
gardener, one of whose working days is Friday,
and we retired to the shelter. For the first
few minutes I felt myself shivering as if
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[continued]
from a chill, though I was not in the least
nervous or frightened. That condition soon
passes as we sat in our comfortable hut.
with its wooden floor, walls and ceiling. I talked
all the time cheerfully, and kept up the
spirits of the women. Robert who had been
through the great war, would gladly have gone
on with his work, I believe. The sun was
shining from an almost cloudless sky,
and we heard neither bombs nor guns.
Occasionally Robert peered out at the door
and listened, but there was nothing to break
the silence. Our two 'Pekes' 'Peter' and 'Sung'
sat calmly on the knees of Catherine and
Margaret, with complete composure as if
the situation was quite normal. We waited
for nearly ¾ hour, I believe, before the all clear
signal came to release us. There was still
lots of time for me to get to town and meet
Mary at the New Club, at 1.0, to lunch with
me somewhere if she could get away, so I set
off once more. Alas! when I reached the foot
of the Avenue, a man leaving the Church hall,
which is at present being used for soldiers,
told me they they had just had word that
another warning was imminent, so
I turned my steps homeward, but I had barely
reached Ormsacre ere we had once more to get
into our shelter. On this occasion I had
secured a rug for the floor which added
much to our comfort, and I arranged for a
supply of rugs for our knees to be forthcoming to make us
still more comfortable - while we discussed
further ameliorations of our lot. We were kept
for about 10 minutes on this occasion, again
without hearing any guns, or bombs, but it
is announced tonight on the wireless that
in the first instance a reconnaissance plane
was spotted above the Forth, and later some
other planes, but no attack eventuated.
21st Oct [October] 1939
This has been another fine day, suitable for
air raiding, but though one heard the noise
of planes among the light clouds, nothing
eventuated here. One step to increase the
defence of the Forth basin has, however, been
taken - a balloon barage had been raised,
and I counted at lunch time 15 blimps,
hanging suspended in the air, at different
elevations. Mary got an afternoon off,
and came to lunch, which was pleasant.
It seems likely now that some building
about Melville St. will be secured for her corps.
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Rumour has it that the balloons were
brought from Glasgow, and also that, since
Monday's performance, our anti-air craft
batteries have been supplied with guns
of a later pattern than they possessed.
Before the war, certainly among the public,
it was thought unlikely that the North would
be much raided. It looks as if the authorities
had held similar ideas!
23rd Oct. 1939
Shortly after 12. o'clock today when I was at work in
the garden, I heard the 'warble' of the sirens and so
summoned the household to the shelter. We are
getting quite accustomed to air. raid warnings,
so we are no longer flustered by them. There is instead
irritation at the interruption in the day's work, which
they cause. Catherine instead of being nervous today
seemed only to fear that the pheasant for lunch,
in process of being cooked, might be spoiled!
That there is need to take shelter was quite apparent
to me when the Director of the Royal Scottish Museum
showed part of a shell case and smaller piece
of iron that fell through the glass roof of the Museum
in Monday's raid. We had only a short
imprisonment in the shelter today and heard no
firing.
28th. Oct. 1939.
This was a lovely autumn morning after a night
on which there had been a few degrees of frost and a
shower of hail, the 'stones' from which still lay here and
there in the shade, when I went out before breakfast as
usual to open my houses. Just as I was reading
my 'Scotsman' after breakfast I was disturbed by a
noise like the rough movement of furniture overhead,
so much so that I put my head out into the hall
and asked what it was - 'Guns' said Catherine,
'No' said Margaret, but when I went outside
I realised that 'guns' it was, but far distant in
the east. They must have been the new type of guns
recently. brought here from the South. The explosion
seemed a double one - Could it have been the noise of
a shell leaving the gun and its explosion.
The 1. o'clock bulletin brought the explanation,
'a German reconnaissance 'plane brought
down near Dalkeith. This is really a
most interesting place to live in, and we are
so used to 'have alarms' that they don't really
alarm us any more.
As this journal may be of interest to Christian
Margaret sometime in the distant future, when
wars are no more and peace, justice & mercy
have been established on the earth, she may like
to know what she herself was like at this date.
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After spending the first three months of
her life with her Mowbray parents near Sevenoaks
she was to come here with her mother and
pay us a lengthy visit. However, the political
situation steadily deteriorated, and after being
here only a week, it was decided that a
more 'healthy' place would be more suitable
for an infant, so she and her mother went
off one Sunday afternoon to a farm house
near Harden, in the Hawick neighbourhood.
Having left that, at the end of a month, she
has been transferred to 'The Loaning' Peebles,
a nice little place belonging to a very old
friend of mine, Prof. [Professor] Bryce, a widower, and
now a martyr to rheumatism. So Christian
you are safe in a lovely, healthy, environ:
:ment providing interest to a lonely old
man. You are a perfect baby. Always in the
best of health and so with a happy disposition
and cheeks like rosey apples.
29th Oct. 1939.
The guns we heard yesterday were not so remote
as I fancied, for today talking to a Romanes, who
lives at the bottom of the Avenue, on the way back from Church.
he informed me that they were firing at the plane. when
above us here, and that shrapnel fell on the golf course
and in the village. Quite possibly it fell here too!
4th Nov. 1939
We have had no raids or warnings for a week.
The 'plane, which caused the sensation last week,
was driven down in the foothills of the Lammermuirs
near Gifford. Two of the occupants were dead, one
wounded, and the pilot unscaithed
In great contrast to the last war on the
break out of this one, the country was almost
over organised, and great preparations were
made for evacuating women and children
from certain dangerous urban areas, on which
bombing raids. following Nazi practice, might
be expected. The evacuees were to be taken
to houses in the country where accommodation
for them had been arranged for. No inspection
of them was made before they were sent off,
nor does the suitability of the evacuees for the
establishment they were sent to, seem to have been
considered. Thus far the scheme has only
been a moderate success. No raid of the
kind contemplated has yet occurred, though
it may still be expected, and most, of the
women children finding the country too dull
for words, have returned home. The condition
of the children, especially from Glasgow, was a
disgrace to our civilization - As I heard a
man remark in the Club. 'They were not even house
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trained. I think it well to record what a friend
Lady MacGregor wrote to me this morning of
their experience. “Just before war broke out an avalanche
of the very worst Glasgow slum-children descended upon
us. We had about 130 in Lochearnhead and 16
here. Only 3 out of the 130 were not crawling with
vermin. They had impetigo, and every sort of
horror. They stoned the cows; pulled down the
haystacks; swung the gates off their hinges;
and finally burnt the whole of Mr [?] Cameron’s
hay crop. I am thankful to say only seven
now remain, practically the whole ‘boiling’
having returned to Glasgow.”
21st Jany. 1940
We have no war experiences since I last wrote
The elevation of balloon barrage around the
Forth Bridge & basin appears to have been a
complete deterrent The clash of arms which
we have expected week in and week out since
the war commenced, has not yet taken place
So far the war is confined to the sea and
to the air: From time to time we have to face
some misfortune; the sinking of ship of the navy
by torpedo or mine, but slowly but surely the
seas are being cleared of all enemy ships and
our airmen and the French seem to have es:
:tablished a superiority, not least in aircraft
over those of the enemy. Though we have no
personal experiences of the war to record,
the wintry weather, which we are enduring is so
exceptional as to be worth mentioning. Those of us
who are old enough, have cause to remember the
winter of 1895-6. Since the New Year came
in we have had almost continuous frost.
At the beginning of this week we had a snow
storm which left a few inches of snow on
the ground. On Thursday we had a renewal
of it and the afternoon of that day was one
of the most unpleasant of the century. It was
bitterly cold, and heavy snow scurried past
the windows, driven on by a strong north
west wind. On Thursday night there were 18°
of frost here in the garden, and last night
21°. At 11. o’clock this; Sunday forenoon,
though the sun was shining, the thermometer
registered 12°. At 6. p.m. there were 17° of frost.
30th. Jany. 1940
What a severe winter we are having! Since
I last wrote my journal we have much severe
frost, (21.° on several nights) and snow lying to a
depth of six inches or so. On Saturday (three
days ago) we had a fresh fall. but very slight.
However over the country generally that
fall with drifting has produced the
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greatest traffic chaos known in living memory
So as not to furnish the enemy with any meteoro:
:logical data no information of the weather is
permitted in the press. So although we are told
of people spending the night in snow drifts,
in buses, or in station waiting rooms, and
being refreshed after hours of starvation with
only bread and tea, snow is never mentioned
nor frost until long after they have been of interest
One train that left London (Euston) at
9.15 p.m. on Sunday only reached Glasgow
this (Tuesday) morning In one case at least
passengers were shivering in coaches in which
both lighting and heating had failed! The
roads here are very bad with the trodden snow
occasionally thawed slightly in the sun
and thereafter frozen anew.
Here nothing sensational happens.
We do not even hear the guns on the sea
Nor have we the plane. constantly circling
above us as we once had. Every one goes
about his or her business as if war conditions
were quite normal, and determined to see
this job through once for all. The tales of
murder by airmen and nazies generally;
the machine gunning of defenceless fishermen
and lightship-keepers, and the deliberate attempt
to depopulate Poland by every foul means,
makes ones blood boil. Forty years ago one
would never have believed that the civilized
world of the Victorian Age could degenerate
to such bestiality.
21st. Feb 1940
After almost continuous frost since the end of
Dec. today the last of the snow has disappeared
and there came a feeling of spring into the air.
The birds are twittering and singing; a few winter
aconites were opening their little golden cups, and
the first snowdrops were freeing themselves from
their sheaves of leaves. Oh! how weary we have all been
of this winter. It has been the most severe we have
had since 1895, and yet here we did not suffer so
much as many places. The thermometer never
recorded more than 21° of frost and that only on
two nights, but the frost was almost continuous,
and for weeks the snow lay white over the lawn
and flower borders. On the continent it has
been such a winter as they have not known
for many a long year, and in England,
as so often happens, it has been worse than
here in Edinburgh!
20th July 1940
We have had a wonderful summer. The weather
in June established a record in Edinburgh.
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It was dry, and it was warm. Over a fortnight
of it I spent at St. Cuthberts and greatly en:
:joyed the change. Unfortunately I slightly
strained my heart by walking to Faldonside
& back, 7 ms. [miles], in the heat. I did not realise what
was the cause of the slight discomfort in my
chest, and I walked to the summit of the
east Eildon, and visited other favourite haunts
in the neighbourhood. It was not till I visited Dr. [Doctor]
Groom on my return home that I found out what
was the matter. “Go slow for a month or two
and if possible spend a couple of days in bed”
were his recommendations. These instructions I am attending to.
The war with all its vicissitudes, draws out
its weary length, The main events are matters
of history, and the histories of the future
will contain them. so I shall not fill my
pages with such material. What must be of
interest to my descendant, who years hence
may read this, is some account of how we
comported ourselves here in Scotland during
the greatest war in history. As I pass
my days here at Ormsacre chiefly working
at my garden, except for the frequent
sight of aeroplanes in the sky, and the
restrictions on diet, owing to rationing, one
would hardly believe that we are at war, and
as subject to air raids at any time possibly
in the fighting. My household is quite calm.
Today at lunch I heard a quick succession of
violent explosions. “Are these guns? I asked of
Margaret, the parlourmaid – “Catherine thought they
were guns” – was the reply – but lunch went on
just as if there was nothing to be disturbed about.
Here we have been little disturbed by air
raid warnings. A week or two ago we
had two in the middle of the night, and
a loud explosion due to the bursting of a
bomb near Dalmeny. I was not awakened
either by siren, or bomb, but my sleep was
duly disturbed to join the household in our
retreat. As the risk of a direct hit on an
isolated house like this is small, I prefer to
meet such a fate, if it comes, comfortably in
my own house, rather than in risking an
attack of pneumonia as well, by retiring to a
chilly, outside shelter. When the warning
sounds its dismal wail, we partially clothe
ourselves, and take up our position outside
the dining room door and in and around
the recess under the stair. This is the centre of the
house, and with two walls on either side,
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the safest place in the house. We make ourselves comfortable in armchairs with
rugs etc around us & patiently await our release. I usually sleep
As we have
thick linen blinds. and heavy curtains on
all our windows which, I believe, would
stop the crashing of glass from a bomb
burst. our panes being small and not
filled with heavy plate glass. I have not gone
to the great expense of providing wooden
shutters to the windows. Some people
have covered the plate glass of their windows
with strips of paper, others have covered
them with a thin sort of muslin net, pasted
on, while others coat the glass with a
varnish preparation, I have treated
our stair window in this fashion as it is
above our retreat. To facilitate the
handling of any explosive bomb that
might penetrate the roof. I have had to
remove the accummulation of travelling
boxes, pictures, and general miscellaneous
rubbish from there, and pile it up at the
back of the garage. There are buckets of
sand and water at various places
in the house, also a shovel into which
the yet unexploded incendiary bomb
is to be coaxed by the aid of a garden
rake! In accordance with instructions
the bath throughout the day stands half full
of water in case a water main is severed by
an explosive bomb. Our comparative free:
:dom from raids may be due to the whole-
-some dread of the Forth area inspired in
the Nazi airmen by our fighters. One young
prisoner confessed that it was known as
the Suicide “ Allee” among them.
Daily our airmen are taking a heavy
toll of the enemy in the south. During the
last week at least 40 Nazi planes
have been accounted for in contrast to a
small number of our own – probably not
a dozen – While this evening’s news at 6. o’clock
told of a great fight in the South of England
when a surprise attack was attempted on a
port and the enemy lost 15 planes at least
to our one! We are living under the
threat of invasion, and though we have
expected it for the last week or two none has
so far been attempted. Meantime our
defences grow stronger. All flat fields
in which an aeroplane could land and
leave troops have their surfaces obstructed
with poles and other impediments, and
block houses of brick, loop holed for guns,
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are making their appearance on our streets
& squares. One occupies a commanding
position at the foot of the Lothian Road;
another in the west end ‘circle’ frowns
down Queensferry St., the South end of the
Dean Bridge, commanding the Queens:
:ferry Road and the roads to Belford
and the Village of Dean respectively
carries another. Even the shore at
low water by the mouth of the Almond,
and west & east where the tide runs far
out, bristles with poles. Volunteers
with guns or rifles are organised into
a defence corps the ‘Home Guard’ and
are on duty long hours during night
& day to give the invader a warm welcome.
These men will be disappointed if they
dont get a whack at him.
Mary is now a sergeant in the F.A.N.Y’s [First Aid Nursing Yeomanry]
and is very hard worked. She manages
to get out here usually for one evening
in the middle of the week. and also for
dinner on Sats. [Saturdays] and Sundays.
The country is full of soldiers. And walking
along Princes St. One may encounter besides
our own Tommies, Norwegians, Poles,
Frenchmen, and of course men from our own
Dominions. Prices for com:
:modities are being kept better in check
than during the last war, and in consequence
they have not risen to such heights Butcher Meat & sugar
are the rationed foods most controlled, but
we find no difficulty in making good for the
former with such things as ox-tails, sweetbreads
etc known as offals, and the homely rabbit.
Personally I am not much of a meat eater
and on no occasion touch it at night. Catherine
produces delicious egg dishes, and as we
have abundance of vegetables I really seem
to live better than I did in times of peace.
19th. Oct. 1940
Autumn is now far advanced and the
trees are rapidly shedding their leaves. Still
this war drags on its weary length and there
is no indication yet of it drawing to an end.
Thanks to the conspicuous success of the
R.A.F. [Royal Air Force] in repelling the heavy attack of
the Nazi aeroplanes, and to the destruction
they have caused, and continue to cause, to
the Channel ports, whence the invading
force was to have sailed, no invasion has
so far been attempted, and our defences
by now are so well organised that it is
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[continued from page 97]
most unlikely to be attempted in the near future
In that Hitler has failed conspicuously.
Meanwhile daily and nightly he vents his
wrath on London, where the people carry on
with most marvellous coolness & bravery.
thousands, or millions sleeping night after night
in ‘tube’ stations, or shelters. Though many
buildings of note. hospitals, churches, and tons
of workmen’s houses, have been destroyed
besides many more substantial buildings in the
centre, I am told by people who have been there
that you notice little damage as you
go from street to street. Nightly in Germany
and the occupied countries across the
channel, the R.A.F. [Royal Air Force] by bombing Military
objectives are dealing much more deadly
blows. Here we continue to be left in
peace. At rare intervals our sirens
wail out their dismal warnings and
more rarely a bomb drops. A few weeks
ago in one evening – a whiskey bonded store
near the Haymarket was burned out, and
a tenement in a working class quarter of
new houses near Crewe toll was destroyed
and two children killed. But beyond that
we have had nothing to alarm us.
Mary is now Coy. Sergt. Major [Company Sergeant Major] and changes
in the officer staff, and consequent reorganisation,
have brought about happier conditions for her.
Life is of course greatly modified by the
constant military activities and restrictions.
Rationing has restricted the supplies of cer:
:tain commodities, most noticeably of sugar,
and butter. Meat is rationed, but we get
quite as much as we require. Eggs are a
scarcity; and after 1st. Dec. are to cost 4d. Each
this of course due to the cutting off of
our continental supplies.
Jim, Chrissie, and I went last month for a
fortnight’s holiday to the hotel at Nethy Bridge
The Management own a farm, so butter,
chickens etc were abundant, and we hardly
felt the effects of rationing. As everywhere
else, the district was full of troops, as the
army gathers its strength for an ultimate
offensive on the continent. Meantime
the Axis powers are thrusting out towards
the S. [South] east and at the moment absorbing
Roumania. But it cannot be well with
Hitler’s army! It has remained inactive
for months, and during that period the
‘blitzkrieg’ has effected nothing. The British
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[entry scored out]
[Inserted a brown envelope – the back of which is viewed on page 99] |
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[Page] 99a
Envelope
Letters from friends in London
and Surrey giving experiences
during the blitzkreig of Autumn 1940
A.O.C. [Alexander Ormiston Curle]
To be kept in my journal |
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[continued from page 98]
Empire, which was to have been destroyed
first in June with the collapse of France,
and later with the invasion of Britain
in August, still blocks the way, grows
more powerful, and hits back harder.
4th Nov. 1940
Raiding in this neighbourhood during the last
fortnight has been continued night after night
as far as weather permitted. In fact, I think,
we have had only three, or at most four peaceful
nights. But although the sirens wail, and
we take shelter, no bombs are dropped, and
only on two occasions have the guns been in
action. The fact, I believe, is that the planes
are either busy laying mines in the Forth,
or attempting to bomb warships anchored
there. So far all their efforts to produce any
notable results have been in vain. The
bombing of London still goes on, and last
night was the first peaceful night the Londoners
had enjoyed for 56 nights. Meanwhile as the
forces of the R.A.F. increase so does the nightly
air attack on Germany intensify and especially
on Berlin. While we confine our attacks to
Military objectives, which our airmen manage
with great daring to bomb despite A. A. guns &c
the Germans can only in very small numbers now
reach London, and when there, drop their bombs
at random from a height of 5 miles or so! In
Friday night's raid over Berlin a fire was started
in a power station which soon covered an area
a quarter mile square, and ere the last airman
was out of sight, had extended for a mile. Great
damage is also being caused to the lines of
communication, especially railways, which are
regularly bombed, and the stations and goods
yards put on fire. Here our railroads have
hardly been disturbed and only a few of the
large London termini bombed.
The invasion of Greece by Italy seems
likely to give a fresh complexion to the war.
The rumour got about that it was done by
Mussolini without the concurrence of Hitler
as regards the moment of attack, but it seems
more probable that both ruffians had agreed
on the step, but Mussolini may have attempted
a bluff in the expectation of being able to present
his confederate with the fait accompli but the
Greeks have called his bluff satisfactorily, and
all is not going well with Mussolini's bravos.
Sandy is now back in Kenya Colony after
having been in British Somaliland, taken part
in the battle of Hargeisa; been evacuated with
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[continued from page 100]
only the clothes he stood up in to Aden; thence
almost immediately thereafter sent South with
his Abyssinian assistants. In Brit. [British] Somaliland
he lost gun, rifle, camera, rifle, equipment, in
fact all he possessed.
19th Feb. 1941.
As far as Edinbrugh is concerned nothing of
moment has happened since I last wrote here
except the falling of some five bombs at
Corstorphine a month or two ago in the middle
of the night. The noise of bombs and guns
was the most shattering we have experienced
but strange to say the damage done was
neglible. Two bombs fell in the Zoo Park
where the casualties were a few parrots and
an aged lizzard. the damage to glass was,
of course, considerable but that is not a
serious matter. One bomb fell in the park
before Beechwood House, but broke only one
window there, though it made a large crater.
Another fell in a pt [part] -disused quarry and scattered
lumps of stone about the neighbourhood, and
I believe another fell on a roadway. It is quite
remarkable that so many high explosive bombs
could fall in a populous area and yet not
hurt a single human being. Since then we
have numerous alertes but never followed
by any action.It seems that the Forth and the ships
on its susrface, battleships or convoys are of greater at:
:traction than the city. During a snow storm this
morning, just after breakfast, the siren sounded,
Probably a Nazi plane was attempting to lay mines
in the Forth for we heard nothing, Nowadays we
don't disturb ourselves, and unless there was a
regular cannonade, I doubt if my household would
get out of bed. Personally I don't mean to in any
case unless there is a really serious bombing
attack. What a long winter this
has been! Up to the last day of December the
weather had been unusually open, but on the
night of the 31st winter really commenced. First
we had a heavy snowfall of some 4 inchs without
drifting, followed in due course by hard frost
Here we never had more than 20° of frost, but at
Melrose and some other places in the Tweed valley,
the thermometer sank to 15° below zero. The pipes
froze; the gas ceased top run through the pipes &
there was no water for the fixed basins; the only fire
for cooking was in the servants hall &c &c. Such was the
state of affairs at St. Cuthberts. Since then
we have had intermittent snow storms, but at
last, though we never have had a mild day,
the birds were beginning to sing, the snowdrops
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[continued from page 101]
were just out; beneath the cherry trees day by day
more little golden cups glittered on the brown earth
as the winter aconites opened up, while on
my wall spears. of bulbous irises, frittilaries,
satin flowers, and tulips were thrusting through
the surface, while here and there little groups
of crocus chrysanthus, E. A. Bowles & others
were giving a fresh joy to life. Now again
the book of spring is closed. All yesterday
afternoon snow showers drifted along, melting
where the flakes fell, but with the coming on of
night, the snow overcame the opposition of
the wet earth, and settled over everything. This
morning it lay to a depth of three or four
inches, and ever since it has snowed. and still
at 2.45 it continues but in a tired listless
fashion as if it could not last much longer
This makes the fourth considerable snow
-fall since the year came in, and it is the
heaviest. If precedent is followed then one
day soon the snow will suddenly vanish,
before a soft South wind, bringing forward
the real spring, which has been waiting to
come from behind these white curtains of
winter, and with its coming there will be
such a rushing forward of spring flower.
and singing of birds as will fill our hearts with
joy and hope, regardless of Hitler and his inhumanities.
Sandy is somewhere is southern Abyssinia,
in command of the 2nd. Ethiopian Irregulars
(Curle's), I imagine he is with a South African
corps to the North east of Lake Rudolph.
It will not be long before they will march into
Addis Adeba!
20th. Feb. 1941
More snow has fallen during the night and now
it lies to an even depth of ten inches, without
any drifting. The effect is very beautiful as it
lies like a white blanket on lawn and shrubs,
and outlines twigs and branches with a deep
cresting of white. It is many years since I
recollect such a heavy fall and still more is
falling and the 'glass' remains abnormally low.
Again this forenoon the sirens sounded and
we were at attention for some 20 mins. [minutes] or so. There
was no sound of bombs exploding or guns firing.
There must have been an enemy plane some:
:where, probably attempting to lay mines in the
snowstorm.
1st. March.
Two days ago the thaw came and yesterday
morning, after a night of high wind, all the snow
had disappeared except in very few places where
it had been heaped high & was sheltered. But
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[continued from page 102]
it is still cold, and this evening we had a
shower of hail - What a delight it is to see the
aconites and snow drops in full flower, and
here and there an early crocus. To help
the scanty supply of eggs procurable in Davidson's
Mains, I am getting a couple of doz. [dozen] on alternate
weeks at 2/9d a doz [dozen] plus 6d on postages. I also
get a couple of rabbits weekly from Dalbeattie.
I don't mind the meagre meat ration as
I eat little and am more dependent on eggs.
I consume a large dish of porridge every
morning, and that, with coffee & milk, & two pieces
of toast, constitutes my breakfast, I ask for
nothing better.
6th. March 1941
For the fifth time this winter the ground has been
covered with snow. Last night I lectured
to the Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow
on some Homes of the Prehistoric People in Scotland.
It was a very wet night but I had a large
and interested audience. Prof. [Professor] & Mrs Mackie
put me up and after the lecture Col. [Colonel] (Prof) [Professor]
Edington entertained me to dinner at the
Automobile Club. The party consisted of, beside
the host, Mackie, Prof. [Professor] Hindle (Prof [Professor] of Zoology)
and one Alison a C.A. [Chartered Accountant] who collected glass etc.
in a mild way. We had an excellent 5 course
dinner and contrary to my habit, drank wine.
It is the first time I have attended a dinner
party of any sort for a year or two and I
greatly enjoyed it. nor did I feel any the worse
for it this morning. On the high ground
between this and Glasgow the snow was
lying to a depth of from 3-4 inches. Here
it is rapidly disappearing.
Friday 14th. March 1941
What a night we have had! Last night Mary was
at home on a 24 hour leave. The moon was full and
the weather calm with clear sky. We were just listening
to the news at 9.10 when off went the sirens, (as I
write 8.45 AM - they have just started again!) We sat on listen:
:ing to the wireless expected that the “all clear” would
sound after the usual half hour with nothing having
happened. Nothing happened till about 10.30 when
we heard the sound of distant firing, seemingly
in the direction of the Mouth of the Forth. This
continued at varying intensity with intervals
till 1.30 when it seemed to have come to an end.
So, Mary having previously gone to bed, I did the
same. I slept till about 3.15 when the guns at
Pilton opened out and their roar shook the
windows & even seemed to shake the house. This
was alarming so I rose & dressed lying down,
on my bed. By 5.30 all firing had stopped
for some time so I undressed & got into bed.
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[continued from page 103]
But I got little rest for the firing stared with in:
:creased intensity, and so continued till nearly
6.0 the 'all clear” finally sounding at 6.30.
After the longest 'alerte' we had experienced since
the war began. Are we in for it all tonight again?
The raid was actually on Glasgow, where a good
deal of damage is said to have been done. Here,
despite the racquet, no bombs were dropped
on Edinburgh nor in the neighbourhood
15th. March 1941
Last night's raid was again on the ship-building
yards etc. at Glasgow, and a good deal of
damage is said to have been done but no
details are given. Here the first 'all clear'
was sounded just after mid-night. Now
in case of an alerte I partially undress,
put on a dressing-grown and under
my 'duvey' sleep comfortably, except when
the guns become noisey. Last night I was
able to go correctly to bed when our first
raid ceased. At 5.30 a.m., or thereabouts,
came a second alerte and shortly
thereafter there was a short, and fierce
outbreak of gun-fire. The all-clear came at 6.15. Just before it finished
I heard a plane cross the sky above the house
It must have been German for within a
few seconds the gunfire came. There was one
regular burst then four noises like hitting wood in
quick succession followed by the total silence
of the night. I wonder if the plane was brought
down and if so by what agency? The
night fighters are no longer having it all their
own way. Forty two of them have already been des:
:troyed this month which is considerably more
than for any complete month hitherto.
Rationing is more extensively applied in this
war than the last, and there is difficulty in obtaining
our rationed allowances of certain things – Meat, &
sausages for instance. Jam, Syrup, and treacle
are to be rationed next week, and there is even
a talk of their rationing eggs! Now I dont
trouble whether I eat meat or not. For breakfast
I have a large bowl of rough porridge & milk,
with coffee and milk; for lunch, frequently
at the club, a dish of meat, rarely butcher meat,
and stewed fruit, for dinner an egg dish
or fish and a milk pudding - Twice a day
after a meal I take a tea spoon full of malt
and cod-liver oil – and except for slight
sciatica, which is brought on by cold, I never
felt better in my life. In the recent visits
of Nazi planes, which were en route to & returning
from Glasgow – no bombs were dropped, except
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[continued from page 104]
it is said, a few incendiaries, which fell clear
of any buildings in the Abbey Hill district.
It was rather misty this afternoon and about
3.o'clock the siren sounded for the third day
in succession. There was a little activity by
our planes racing across the sky to the Forth,
but no sound of firing reached us. It was probably
a mine-laying adventure on the Forth. The
'all clear' was sounded about 1½ hours later.
26th. March 1941
We awoke this morning to find the country
white for the sixth time this winter under
2-3 inches of snow, but by 6.0 p.m. hardly a speck
remained so rapidly had it melted under the
combined action of rain and a South west wind.
I fear there will be flooding in some river valleys
from such a rapid thaw.
As is usual every 4 or 5 days the sirens
sounded, after lunch, but the alerte only
lasted for about 30 mins. [minutes]
30th. Mar. 1941
Is this winter never going to end? Last night we had
our seventh fall of snow and this morning it lay
to a depth of about 2 ins. [inches] By tea time under a
warm sun it has almost entirely disappeared.
To my surprise a few days ago I received a
letter from Sir William Bragg O.M. [Order of Merit] K.B. [Knight of the Order of the Bath] etc. etc.
inviting me to give a lecture at the Royal
Institution in Albermarle St. London on 13th May.
[Margin] (Sir [gap in text]
Principal of
Edinr. Univ. [Edinburgh University]
years after
told me that
he had given
my name) ---
on any of the subjects I have done so much work
on. How he ever came to have heard of me as a
lecturer I do not know, but I suspect his know;
:ledge has had some connection with my Glasgow
lecture, especially as I think he also was to be, or
had been a lecturer to the Philosophical Society.
However, it is to me a great compliment and I have
accepted. As I get an 'honorarium' of £10
I shall take the opportunity of prolonging my
journey to Dorset and see Cecil & little Christian.
We had the usual half hour alerte this afternoon
without guns or bombs! We are all greatly
elated by the sudden change of attitude in Yugoslavia
whereby the young king has ascended the throne and
defied Hitler, as well as by the fall of Kiren, and a
Naval victory in the Mediterranean.
1st. April 1941
This is to record the eighth considerable fall
of snow, which greeted our eyes yesterday morning
It lay to a depth of 3 inches. but began to thaw
at once. As the air is bitterly cold there are
still small patches lying in sheltered places,
we have had no alerte so far today (6.30 p.m.) but had
one yesterday of 10 mins. [minutes] duration & 2 the day before.
8th. April 1941
Last night we had the longest “blitz” since the war
began, and yet not a bomb seems to have fallen
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[continued from page 105]
in the town. We were coming to the end of the
9 o'clock news bulletin at 9.15, when the sirens
sounded. As we had had alertes of very short
duration on each of the previous days, which I
presumed were reconnaissance, and as there
was much shipping in Leith Roads, I feared we
might be in for some bombing. Exactly at 9.30
firing commenced. I went into the hall and
found Catherine and Maud, (our new highland
maid), seated in the recess by the cellar door, and
to keep their courage up I joined the party,
reading my 'Times' beneath the single lamp
suspended nearby. As we never imagined the
raid was going to be of longer duration than
those we have frequently had, we never got out
comfortable chairs or cushions, nor did we have
rugs till later, when I procured them from the
big chest in the dining room. From 9.30 onwards
guns of various calibres all around crashed
and banged, sometimes near, sometimes far
away, and looking out of one of the windows
to the North across the Forth, I could see the
reflection of continuous fire at one time, but
so far away that the sound was inaudible
We could hear the bomber planes distinctly,
approaching from the west, somewhere
above us, and then after a few seconds the guns at
Pilton open fire on them. At times we thought
we heard bombs exploding, but in the turmoil
of anti-aircraft barrage there are many sounds
strange to our ears, which are not bombs, for
when we imagine the bomb has fallen in the
night, in the morning there is nothing.
So it went on all through the night;
with occasional pauses of never much more
than half an hour. Then at last at 5.30 A.M.
the 'all clear' sounded, After nine hours!
I expected to learn of much damage in Edinburgh,
but on making enquiries in the Club, where I
had gone for lunch, I learned that only in
Leith had bombs been dropped, and that
there the damage was not serious. Sir Hog of
Newliston told me that 56 panes of glass were
broken in his house, and that there is not a
pane of glass in the village of Winchburgh.
I was told that a number of incendiary bombs
had landed on Barnton Golf Course, evidently
intended for the Turnhouse aerodrome. There
was said to be a bomb near Dundas,
Genl. [General] Weston told me that he had just been
to Greenlaw where four of his young soldiers
had been killed & 7 injured by the collapse of a house
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from the bursting of a land mine in the street -
a few feet in front of it. Such tragedies in
obscure villages & towns are usually due
to someone having left a light exposed.
Many of the planes at the end of the
attack were really returning from the West,
but we have not yet heard details of damage there
As the moon is full we may look for a
repetition tonight!
6th. May 1941
Glasgow was again bombed last night, and
we got the benefit of the hostile air-craft flying
over us and being bombarded by our guns.
The moon is waning, but it will not be full for
nearly another week: the sky was clear. There
have been heavy raids on Liverpool and Plymouth
in the last few days, also Belfast, so a return
to Glasgow was probable. I believe the warning
siren sounded about 11.30, but, as since the
leaves began to come on the trees the sound is
dimmed somewhat. I managed to sleep through
it, as I had done on two nights previously.
I was, however, awakened by the guns at 12.45
and then onwards till 3.30 or so they crashed
away, near and far, at frequent intervals,
We never heard any bombs dropped, which was
reassuring. As usual I put on many clothes
& joined Catherine outside the dining room door
occasionally dropping off to sleep. We have got so used
to gun fire now that we are not disturbed unless
something (exceptionally) (preturnaturally) heavy goes off probably
from some ship in the Forth. In the club at
lunch I learned of the casualties. An air warden's
post had been struck near Portobello and three
peope killed. Some thing had happened near
Longniddry, the dropping of fire bombs or some-
-thing of the kind, and the bomb had fallen
in Lord Elphinstone's garden at Carberry,
destroying one range of glass houses, smashing
down the garden wall & creating havoc gener:
:ally, while another had fallen in his park
cutting through an old Scots fir as if it had
been butter and throwing it some distance away.
This has been a most unpleasant spring
with wind continuously from East or north east
for many weeks. Even during the last few days
when it has been bright and sunny the
air has been cold. Vegetation is terribly
far back. Only now are the leaves beginning
to uncurl on the thorns. My lecture is ready
and my slides will be put in order tomorrow
I shall not stay a night in London but travel
South on night of Sunday 11th. and on Monday forenoon
go down to Crab Hill. to stay with Butlers
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coming up to town to give my lecture & returning
to South Nutfield after it. The worst of making
all such arrangements in these times is, that
you never can tell if any London stations may
be in existence when you wish it, or if your
train will be comparatively punctual in arriving
or many hours late!
7th. May. '41
Practically a repetition of last night's performance
but not quite so intensive. It is said that Greenock
was badly bombed. Edinburgh again seems
to have escaped. On the 8th. and 9th. the sirens
sounded but as I have now acquired the faculty
of sleeping through them, and as there was
really no firing there is nothing to record.
11th. May Sunday, '41
Today spring has arrived and the air is
warm. Tonight I travel up to London en route
to Crab Hill. As the Metropolis got badly battered
last night, I may have many difficulties to
overcome before I reach my destination.
However, at least 33 enemy planes were brought
down – a record!
28th. May. '41
Spring indeed! During all the time in which
I was in the South, mainly in Dorset, I was
never really out of my winter's clothing though
for a day or two I modified it. For a few nights
there was hard frost, (as much as 12° one night
it was said.) Whatever the intensity the young
foliage on oak and beech was brown & withered.
When the night express left Edinburgh at 10.0 p.m.
on 11th. May it was only the night following the
worst raid, which London had experienced, and
it was doubtful if the train would be able to get
into King's Cross. & passengers were all warned
to be ready to alight at Finsbury Circus. As a
matter of fact we ran into King's Cross 1 hour & 40 mins. [minutes]
late, chiefly due to delay owing to a raid on
Newcastle – of which I heard nothing in the steel
built coach. At King's Cross the section containing
the booking offices had been wrecked and
several platforms were put out of use. 'Don't
you think we were really very lucky to have only
that?' Asked my porter. To me it seemed
tremendous destruction but by the time I
had made journeys from Victoria, Waterloo,
and Paddington, I understood what the man
meant and was inclined to agree with him.
The hotel at King's Cross had mercifully escaped
with a few broken windows & was carrying
on with a limited service so I went there for
breakfast. As I was going to visit the
Butlers at Crab Hill I took a taxi to Victoria.
Going past the front of the B.M. [British Museum] and on across
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Oxford St into Trafalgar Square there were signs
of destruction at frequent intervals in fact
there was hardly a street in which some house
had not been destroyed, but the Londoners
were going about their business as if it
was a commonplace occurrence. There
were no gaping crowds, no terror stricken
females – Perhaps it was the absolutely de:
:serted aspect of the ruined houses that
struck me most and yet it was but natural
that they should be so. There was little or
no damage in Trafalgar Square. Earlier on
my driver I had seen daylight coming through
a roofless wing of the British Museum,
and later on I saw a large house quite
near Buckingham Palace with the front
blown off and the backs of the rooms with
the iron fireplaces exposed. Victoria Station
had been hit in the administrative buildings
and traffic was dislocated owing to a great
reduction in the number of platforms, but
everyone carried on without fuss.
As the train passed out of the station
we saw an area extending to, perhaps 2 or 3
acres on which the houses had been razed
in an earlier raid. A gasometer had been
hit and all along the railway for some
distance beyond Victoria there were houses de:
:molished or streets of small dwellings burnt out.
On Tues. [Tuesday] I returned to London to give my lecture,
I lunched with Madeline Balfour at the Café
Royale in Regent St. and after lunch she took
me round some of the streets near Piccadilly
to see the devastation. The block of buildings on
the west of the entrance to Swallow St. where I
think, there had been a hatter's shop, was demolished.
St James's Piccadilly was an empty shell and
the rectory was a ruin. The Centre of Piccadilly
was completely blocked with debris, I suppose
from a bomb, Fortnum & Masons' had been hit
but carried on: Christie's was a shell; the
Orleans Club had disappeared; there was damage
in Jermyn St. and neighbourhood: St James’s St. had
escaped, but St. James's palace had been hit.
We crossed St. James's St. into St. James's Place
and in [gap in text] Sq. beyond was a large mansion
overlooking the Green Park, I think Bridgewater
Ho, [House] which belonged to Lord Ellesmere. It was
entirely burned out and it was strange to stand
looking into its ruin where in happier times there
had been so much splendour & gaiety with
all around as silent as the grave: not a soul
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[continued from page 109]
in the street. and still an acrid smell of burning
in the air. The railway stations and the
houses in their vicinity had suffered most;
also the House of Commons, which had been
wiped out. Westminster Abbey had been hit
but the damage was said not to be serious
and none of the monuments had been harmed
Notwithstanding the bombardment on
Saturday night I had quite a good
audience to my lecture and as it is to be
printed I presume it was suited to requirements.
I did not meet Sir William Bragge as the dislocation
of traffic had prevented his return to London.
I returned to Crab Hill that evening and next
day went by train from Paddington to stay
with Mrs Bond, a gardening friend, near
Shepton Mallet for a night. There I met Cecil,
who next day drove me to Chilfron Cottage
where I stayed for six days with her & her
parents enjoying a sight of Christian.
22nd.
23rd. Jany. 1942
Since I wrote last nothing has happened in Edinburgh
to distract us. Occasionally at long intervals
during the summer and autumn the sirens sounded
but no raids eventuated and at night our slumbers
were never disturbed. Elsewhere in the war areas
there has of course been much activity & events have
happened that history will record. It had been
my intention in Sept. to take a fortnight's holiday
at Melrose, but a week or two before the date of my visit
word arrived that my niece Barbara with her two, young
children, who had been since the outbreak of the war, in
Malta had managed to get a passage home & were
returning to St. Cuthberts, where in consequence there would
be no room for me. So I quickly re-arranged my plans,
going first for three days to Halnaby to see Kate
Wilson Todd & break the journey, and later to Chilfrome
Cottage where the Mowbrays had kindly consented to have me
My visit to Halnaby gave me an indication of
what must be the fate of such large and ancient
mansions as this, in an impoverished post-war
Britain. The spacious lawn before the house and
the broad grass verges, formerly trimly cut by a
mowing machine, had been mown with scythes
to save labour and the large walled garden, which
used to be so well kept free from weeds,
and full of flowers was now, for want of labour,
much overgrown with weeds, its borders unkept
and the dahlias , gladioli, etc. which in other
days helped to make it bright, alas! are there no more. So
will it be with most of the gardens & grounds
of large houses, which aforetime were so resplendent.
They will no longer be suited to the changed
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standards of living. Christian a very attract:
:tive, bright little girl of 2 years 5 months, was
the delight of the household at Chilfrome Cottage
but though she produced many sounds of
her own, she refused to use human speech!
I returned by Stockbridge, breaking my journey at
North Houghton Manor, to visit my sister Mabel
Maxsted. When there we had ten alertes and heard
guns & an occasional bomb exploding in the
distance. It must be an uncomfortable
place to reside at for there are numerous
aerodromes in the vicinity and it is near
enough to Portsmouth to be affected by the
numerous raids on that port.
Travelling is not comfortable at present
on the side lines as trains are very crowded,
mostly by soldiers burdened with equipment,
but everyone is pleasant and, as far as I
observed, helpful. My train took me to London
Bridge, whence I had to take a taxi to King’s Cross.
As I got into my taxi & had just sat down a
tough old soldier bundled in his pack & followed
without so much as ‘by your leave’! It appeared
that he was going North to Durham on leave
and that the taximen refused to take such as
he. Though mannerless he was a decent
creature, & offered to pay his share of the taxi fare, and
when I refused; to act as porter and take my luggage to
the train. He had been 15 years in the gunners.
Ormsacre
Since the autumn travelling has become more difficult &
trains are fewer; restaurant cars have been taken off;
and journeys by civilians by pleasure are not ap:
:proved. War time privations and
restrictions hem us in on every side but the
people accept them and do their best as they
understand the need for them – all, perhaps,
except the egg rationing scheme, which I have
not heard anyone approve. Two eggs each a
month, and these often are of doubtful antiquity
benefit no one. Milk is rationed to
2 pints a week for adults, but here we
suffer from difficulty of delivery and our
meagre allowance seldom, if ever, comes
in time for a late breakfast. Shop keepers
in town no longer send delivery vans out
here, except in one or two cases and that once a
week. Every day Catherine has to walk
the mile into the village to do her shopping
and get supplies. Meat is very strictly
rationed and on several occasions there
has been no meat at all in Edinburgh.
Oranges are released from time to time in
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small quantities for children and there is an
an almost complete absence of apples. For:
:tunately, I had a fairly good crop on my
small orchard of 33 trees and still have
several doz. [dozen] “King of Pipins” and a quantity
of “Blenheim’s Orange”, the latter from Melrose,
which supply me with a morning apple for
some weeks. We have an excellent
kitchen garden and have been well supplied
with all sorts of vegetables. For smokers
there is a great scarcity of tobacco especially
in the shape of cigarettes. Occasionally
one sees a queue at a tobacconists, and
much more frequently at a sweet shop!
Owing to the Occupation in France and
removal of all French wines to Germany,
largely to be made into alchohol, red wine
is almost unprocurable, Sherry, the most
popular pre war liquor, is almost ceasing
to exist. Supplies everywhere are running
very low and, when to be purchased, costs any:
:thing. Even whisky is very scarce and
costs £1 a bottle or thereby. Members of the
New Club are rationed to one small whisky
for lunch & one for dinner. Catering
for meals in the Club is a very great difficulty.
Haggis, white puddings, and sausages make fre:
:quent appearance. Another great difficulty
for the householders is the conscription of women,
which has taken from domestic service by far the
greater proportion of servants. Many people
have none and, where there is no amateur Cook
in the establishment, must needs go to restaur:
:ants in town, which, in consequence, are crowded.
Few if any, houses have more than two servants and
most, only one. I am particularly fortunate
for my faithful Catherine is still with me and,
to take the place of a delightful house parlour:
:maid from Bettyhill in Sutherland, who had been
with us a few months, procured an elderly
sister of her own, who had just retired from long
years of service as a housemaid. The feeding-
-problem has been complicated by the entry of
Japan into the war for not only does it call
for greater demand on our Merchant navy
for Military transport, but it will directly interfere
with trade from Australia and the Dutch East Indies.
Certain compensating advantages have arisen
from the entry of America into the war and the
consequent greater protection to our convoys of food.
The war affects nearly everything we use and re;
:strictions are applied in nearly every case. – rubber,
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iron, tin, paper etc.etc. Though we had a
very open winter before the New Year we have
had some hard frost since -10° to -12°, and now
we have had two heavy falls of snow this week,
on Monday night - 5ins. [inches] and on Wednesday night
some 10ins [inches]. Today, Friday 23rd. Jany, there has been a
rapid thaw and heavy rain. The storm was
probably general, for although there are no
weather reports at present, it is stated in today’s
‘Scotsman’ that it took a party of M.P.s [Members of Parliament] some
23 hours to travel from Glasgow to London!
Mary has been at Brockinghurst in the New
Forest for three weeks taking a course for N.I.Os [National Intelligence Officers]
and I rejoice to say, returns to Edinburgh early
tomorrow travelling tonight.
7th Aug. 1943
Little of excitement has happened in Edinburgh
since I last wrote in my journal. There may have
been one or two occasions on which the sirens
sounded but only on one. I think. were any bombs
dropped in the Edinburgh area. and, on that oc:
:casion, part of a tenement was demolished at
Restalrig and a man and a boy, (I think, killed.
Domestic life has been completely revolutionized
by the calling up of women for various war services.
and I doubt if there are a hundred homes
in Edinburgh in which there are two or more
domestics. In Barton Avenue I am, I believe, the
only householder with two regular servants and
for that I am eternally thankful. A cook can
practically call for any wages she likes, and £120
to £150 is not infrequent. A lady (save the mark)
sent a message to Catherine recently trying to
tempt her away by an offer of £130! but Catherine
refused the bait and remarked to me when she
told me of the incident - ‘Money is not everything’
I heard of a friend of my own, who lives in Summer
some miles away in the hill ground above Dun:
:blane, having gone into a Labour Exchange
and in desperation offered £4 a week to any
woman who would go and ‘do’ for himself
and his wife! As my income reduced by
heavy taxation and a serious fall in a
life rent, I receive from Henry Butler’s Trs [Trustees], I cannot
keep pace with the rise of wages so I have
transferred a number of war saving certificates
to Catherine, which I had taken up some years ago.
Last Sept. first when I returned from a
holiday with the Mowbrays in Dorset, my
gardener, Robb, who had been with me since
I came here, died after an operation In the Infirmary.
He was a born gardener and though he had
started his life as an engineer he had, at a
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comparatively early age, taken to gardening
and after some considerable time passed
in the Botanic Gardens and with Messrs
Cunningham & Fraser, had eventually ended
as a jobbing gardener with Notman at
Davidson’s Mains. To me, he was indispensible.
Though somewhat slack. he was willing,
pleasant and knowledgeable. From his training
he had a great knowledge of plants, especially
of Alpines, and under his care and guidance
my collection grew and in the Alpine houses
we grew many rare Alpines and had ac:
:quired a fine small collection of show
Auriculas. He hired in the Village, and,
if I was from home over weekend or
for longer, Robb managed to keep an eye
on the plants. With his death all that
has changed. The man or men, for I
have two working on two days a week, are
good enough kitchen gardeners, but neither knows
anything of the culture of Alpines, in fact one is
merely an indifferent labourer while the other is
busy making up for his fellow workman’s deficiencies
So it is that I must abandon my collection
of plants in my Alpine house before they
perish from lack of attention, when I happen
to be absent from home. Already all my stage
Auriculas have gone to the Botanic Gardens!
where they were allowed to perish by the Curator planting them out in his own garden!!
At times I almost entirely lose interest in my
garden, so neglected has it become. Hedges are
unpruned: crops perish from lack of attention
e.g. [for example] the fly has taken all the carrots, and weeds
abound everywhere.
I take a great delight in the birds that
frequent my garden and, especially, the
rose beds in front of the house. In the centre space
between the beds is a bird bath, which we
endeavour always to keep well filled. I shall
set down a list of the birds which are generally
present in season - Song Thrush, Black bird,
Starling; House Sparrow; Tree sparrow, Hedge Sparrow;
Green Finch; Rose Linnet, Yellow Hammer, Robin;
Water Wagtail, Chaffinch; Blue Tit; Great Tit; Chiff-
-Chaff; Wren. In the air:- Swallow, House Martin, Swift;
Rook, Carrion Crow (v. [very] occasionally) Sparrow Hawk & Kestrel. At times.
Pheasant; Partridges, Pigeon. tawny owl. Seen on agricultural
land across the railway. Mallard, Magpies; wood
pigeons: Curlew; Green plover; Golden plover etc.
15th Sept. 1943
This afternoon as I entered the gate, three bullfinches
rose from among the blue poppies, where they had,
no doubt, been feeding on the seeds. It is the first
time that I have clearly seen these birds here.
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The garden is getting into a sad state
of apparent neglect. and I am gradually
ceasing to cultivate rare plants in my
alpine-house as I have no one to look after
them when I am from home. A full-time
gardener is now quite beyond my means
wages have risen so high. As it is I pay
2/- an hour for a jobbing man! My
collection of Stage Auriculas with mealy
leaves have been given to the Botanical
Gardens as I had dermatitis all the time
I cultivated them. As I have been absolutely
free of it since they left there is no doubt that
they were the source of the trouble.
19th Sept. 1943,
This has been one of the worst early autumns
we have had for years! Crops cut a month
ago are still standing in stooks on the
stubbles and there has been an abnormal
fall of rain throughout the country with
only occasional fine days.
As on the last two years, largely in order to
give Catherine and her sister a good holiday
to visit their aged mother in Inverness, I went
South for a month, First I visited my old cousin
Kate Wilson Todd at Halnaby some eight miles
from Darlington, staying there some four days.
Thereafter going to So. [South] Nutfield to visit Mabel
Butler, for a couple of days. Lastly I proceeded
to Maiden Newton, Dorset, to pay a long visit to
the Mowbrays and enjoy the society of Cecil
and little Christian before they eventually
left for Ethiopia, to join Sandy, a journey,
which now has the approval of the Foreign Office.
Thus far I was lucky in my travelling ex:
:periences, being lucky in obtaining the
help of occasional porters to carry my heavy
suit case, and not having to wait long in a
queue for taxis. My heavy luggage I sent
in advance for the modest sum of 1/2d plus
insurance, and found it at Maiden Newton
station awaiting my arrival. My visit to
Chilfrome Cottage was as usual, a happy one.
To one who has to live alone and is socially
inclined, it is a delightful privilege to be
received into the family of one’s son’s in-laws.
as if one, in fact, belonged to it. The wet
weather, unfortunately aggravated my rheu:
:matism and kept the grassy meadows on
which I would fair have wandered, in a
soaking condition. However, the evil
was not really serious for I soon recovered
when I got home. I broke the journey in
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London staying the night with Monty and
Madeline Balfour, very dear friends. There
are few establishments in the country where
subject to rationing life is still
carried on in much the same style as
before the war. My own is one such home
thanks to Catherine & her sister, and the
Balfour’s is another, where the admirable
Blancheflower and his wife, keep up a
proper standard of living! Before I reached
home on my return journey. I vowed that
never again, unless in an absolute necessity,
would I venture South of the Borders until
porters returned in sufficient numbers
and competitions for seats in trains grew
less acute. At the Waverley station I had
to haul a heavy suit case along the
suburban platform, up and down the
crowded staircases leading to & from the
station bridge, and finally stand for half
an hour in a queue waiting for a taxi!
I was a weary traveller when I got home!
22nd March 1944
Since the middle of June last year I have occupied
the greater part of each weekday assisting in the
Royal Naval Libraries Section in Edinburgh
where books are collected for H.M. [His Majesty’s] Ships and
transferred to London for distribution. Volumes
that come to us in a tattered condition are cleaned
and rebound by voluntary lady workers and
my task is to hand-print, with pen, or brush,
the titles on the backs. Though at first I was not
very expert, continuous practice has enabled
me to make a very creditable performance
Cecil and Christian after a long, weary wait,
ready for the voyage at short notice, departed
from this country about a month ago and
after a voyage in convoy through the
Mediterranean have reached Aden, as we have
learned by cable. If they have not done so already,
in a few days the family party will be united
after a long separation.
On 1st March my brother Jim died at St.
Cuthberts, Melrose, 3.30 in the afternoon,
passing away peacefully in his sleep,
within a few days of his 82 birthday.
Though wonderfully robust he was never,
what I would consider, a very sound man,
but it was only in the last year of his life
that some of us noticed signs of failing
health. He had an attack of influenza,
which, as frequently happens, affected his
heart and he suffered from breathlessness.
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Though his daughters and I knew from the
report of a specialist (Dr. [Doctor] Gilchrist) called in
for consultation, that he never could re:
:cover, some weeks before he died, that
view of his condition never seemed to dawn
on him, which was a merciful circumstance.
I went out to St. Cuthberts for a couple
of week-ends when he was so ill, to spend a
short time with him and relieve my nieces
Christian and Barbara. He was in
many ways an unusual man, endowed
with many gifts and distinguished by
wide culture. Our Mother had a lovely
voice and used to sing to us much as
children and Jim had inherited that
gift, especially as a boy, when he sang
the solos in the Fettes Anthems on Sunday
evenings & concerts and was credited in
possessing the finest treble voice any boy
had ever possessed at Fettes. My Mother
always declared that the authorities at school
had made him sing too much, for, after
his voice cracked, the fine quality was
gone. But he inherited other musical gifts
beside a fine voice. Though no talented
musician, he could play the piano
sufficiently well to entertain himself, and
at one time he played both flute & cello toler:
:ably well He possessed one curious and, at
times, embarrassing [t.] musical habit, that of voicing
operatic recitatives wherever he went; quite
unconsciously. I well remember when Mary
& I got separated from him in a Museum
in Innsbruck, we being on the ground floor -
we had only to stand and listen and we
were soon guided to the Gallery he was in
by his operatic endeavours! Our father,
though one could hardly term him an Antiquary,
yet possessed, a great interest in the subject
and when he had a day in Edinburgh
rarely failed to spend some time of it
in conversation with Dr. [Doctor] Joseph Anderson.
then the distinguished Curator of the National
Museum of Antiquities, at that time occupy:
:ing the foremost of the two galleries on the
Mound. As we boys had often, rather un:
:willingly, to take part in such visits, we
grew up with an elementary knowledge of
the Cases of modern archaeology, which, in
consequence, we never required to learn, we had
in fact absorbed it among the museum cases in
those early days of our lives.
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Beyond collecting coins I do not remember
that Jim showed any particular interest in
archaeology. He never dug in the Orchard
in front of the Abbey as I did at Priorwood, nor
collect and study early tobacco pipe bowls as I
did when a boy at Fettes, but the germ was in
him and after passing his W.S. [Writer to the Signet] exam and
before being received into the family business at
Melrose, he was sent to travel with our Uncle
Robert Anderson, a very knowledgeable tourist;
for several months in Italy. On that occasion
Jim made the best of his opportunities, visited
most of the principal towns, viewed the
interesting objects in the galleries & museums
and all in a thoroughly intelligent manner
This tour, I believe, laid the foundations of Jim’s
scholarly reading, and interest in art.
The finding of a broch at Torwoodlee and his
description of it in 1896
forms his first entry, into the field of Archaeological
studies. His paper and consideration on
compative method of the relics found shows
that already he was well equipped to take up
the greater study of the fort at Newstead in
1906 which will keep his reputation as an
excavator and author in high repute for
many a year. Our parents had yearly taken
their holiday travelling on the continent and
Jim after his great experience in Italy had
always the urge to go abroad. He possessed a
great desire to visit Scandinavia and I think
it must have been in 1889 or 1890 that he paid
his first visit to Sweden with Andy and me
[Margin]
July 1888 according to a letter [initialled] AOC] ---
joined on, as our father always seemed to think
that such a family grouping was desirable. As
the youngest member of it my recollection is
that it was not the happiest of combinations.
Jim in his research for knowledge, and inter:
:views with Museum directors etc. naturally
did not appreciate being furnished with a
somewhat unintelligent tail! On this occasion
Jim & the party paid their first visit to Wisby in the Island
of Gotland and there made the acquaintance
of Capt. [Captain] Lindstrom, a retired militia officer, who awaited the arrival of
the steamer from Stockholm in order that he
might attach himself to any chance English or
American tourist and act as guide, in return
for which services he received, at least, a free meal or two.
Jim in this visit found a wealth of relics
in the watchmakers or silversmiths shops
and through the instrumentality of the Major
formed the basis of the remarkable collections
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of Viking relics, which he amassed over a number
of years and which he subsequently disposed
of, for, I think, about £1000 to the British
Museum, as he felt it was more suitable
for a public, than a private collection.
The price paid did not exceed by much, if at
all, the cost of making the collection and
its value was, probably, greater.
In 1906 Mr Roberts, proprietor of the fields
at Newstead, known as the Red Abbeystead,
farmed by Mr Porteous of Leaderfoot Mill
decided to lay a series of field drains in one
of the fields. Jim learned of this and ‘jaloused’
that here was a Roman camp. Kitty and I
were staying at Priorwood at the time so
one day, arrayed in ‘putties, & armed with
a spade I proceeded to Newstead to make
a trial dig. I remember the hole I dug
and the mass of sooty soil & stones I turned
up, on what I subsequently learned was the
site of the baths. I then interrogated the
farmer and learned that over certain
parts of the adjacent field he was unable
to drive in posts of sheep nets. This we presumed
to indicate the position of roads though probably
it was the lines of walls of buildings.
I then gathered a collection of shards of Roman
pottery off the surface of the fields, which I took
to Edinburgh and subsequently laid before
the council of the Society of Antiquarians, who thereupon decided on ex:
:cavation. At this point I retired from the ‘show’
but I well remember Jim’s remark after my
preliminaries. ‘If you are going to excavate
at Newstead you will have to find someone
else to look after it, for I am not going to
trudge down there every day.’ How little we can
oppose the fate that awaits us. ‘We a’ maun drie
the weird that God decrees to bind.’ Not only
did Jim superintend the excavation of
Newstead but his description of the excavation
and of the finds has rightly won him a European
reputation and must long remain a model
for work of its kind. The study of the
buildings of the fort, its defences, and of the
relics brought him into contact with
many scholars and excavators in this
country and abroad, as his Scandinavian
collection had brought him into contact with
Swedish & other Scandinavian archaeologists
Among the former was George Macdonald, who
till the day of his death was a warm friend
to Jim and myself. Jim’s interest in
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Roman remains in this country never
faded and to the end he was aquainted
with any research going on During the
Newstead period which, continued over a
number of years, he paid several visits
to Homburg V.D.H. [vor der Höhe] and when there was
a frequent visitor to the reconstructed fort
of the Saalberg, where on one occasion he
was presented to Kaiser Wilhelm II and had a
a conversation with him. Besides
his archaeological interests he had literary
interests. He was a wide reader of good
literature and possessed an excellent
memory. He loved fine books, and beside
his Gotland relics, books were his chief
hobby. He possessed a number of the
issues of the Kelmscott Press, Vols. [Volumes] of the Doves
Press etc including among the former a copy
of the ‘Chaucer’. He, at one time, collected
autograph letters having as a basis for
his collection a number of letters in the
handwriting of Sir Walter Scott, who had
been a client of our grandfather’s. One
of his chief treasures used to be a letter from
Mme de Maintenon, until one day on exhibiting
it proudly to a French savant, the learned
man remarked that neither was it in the hand-
writing of Madame nor was it in any way in
her style! Our grandmother, Lady Anderson,
was reputed to be the wittiest woman of her day
in Glasgow and the sense of humour, which we all
possess, has no doubt been inherited from her, but
on Jim especially descended the Mantle of her wit.
It was no trenchant instrument in his hands that cut
and wounded, but always pleasant & kindly. His
humour found a medium of expression in the
sundry sets of doggerel verses, which from time to
time, he wrote to celebrate some event in the
family life or in the history of the community of
Melrose. Of these Mary possesses a collection.
It was his good fortune for a long number of
years to be served by a devoted friend as steward
on Millmount farm, one Thomas Purves. Thomas
was a fine specimen of a Border Scot. honest
and straightforward as the day, possessed of the
pawky humour of his race, and gifted with an
unusual power of expression. Almost daily, as
his father and grandfather had done before
him, Jim walked to the farm after office hours,
and in the course of talks about crops, hogs,
gimmers etc. gathered up in his memory the
gems that Thomas let drop. I urged him to
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commit them to writing but I fear he never did.
There was Thomas’s description of an indifferent
farm high on Gattonside hills. ‘A cauld peasweepy
kind o’ place’ etc. and his remark when Sandy the ploughman,
who had an unpleasant wife, was troublesome.
‘It’s her that mak’s the ba’as for Sandy tae fire’
and his scathing denunciation to the lady herself
‘Wuman! It rins in ma heid ye hae carried a
basket.’ Probably a reference to a humble occupation
before her marriage.
17th Nov. 1944.
Steadily the might of Germany is being
compressed into the Reich. The allied
armies of the west have almost entirely
liberated France and Belgium. They
are well into Holland and almost
as far North as the Po valley in Italy,
while the Russians are moving steadily
forward from Buda Pesth westwards.
Here we live in peace. Only once in recent
months have our sirens sounded except
for the monthly try out and then only when a
solitary reconnaissance plane appeared
over the east coast. Notwithstanding
the rationing we live very well and seem
to thrive on the diet. We, in this establishment
are wonderfully fortunate in being
served by our faithful Catherine, now in her 28th
year of service, and by Annie her elder sister, who
came into our service early in the wartime.
We must be one of the very few dwellings in
Edinburgh, who still carries on, subject to war
conditions, in our pre war standard of life.
I have been striving to get the garden brought
into order and at last am seeing it assume
a tidier aspect, by the removal of weeds etc. Two
men, or rather I should say 1½ men, for one of the
two neither in stature or capability could hardly
be considered a man, though I have to pay
him a full man’s wage 2/- an hour. As soon
as the regulations permit, Russell, the good man
of the pair, is coming as a full time gardener,
and I do not think his doing so will cost
me much more than I pay at present to
Notman, through whom I have to hire him.
Mary has at last got her discharge from
the army having nearly broken down with
a tired heart from over-work and worry.
She has now been home for over two months
and is looking in much better health.
Priorwood is for sale and the Town Council
of Melrose are considering the purchase of
the property for a building area, but in
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order to preserve some record of the long
association of the Curle family with Melrose
and to increase considerably the amenity
of the Abbey I proposed to my sisters and
the members of the next generation, that
we should acquire from Jim’s trustees the
acre of ground in Priorwood, lying to the
north of ‘Matie’s’ burn and the area
of the gardens and present them to the
Ministry of works to be added to the
Abbey enceinte in the family name. The
proposal was readily taken up by the
family and the Ministry of works will be
delighted if the transfer can be accomplished.
The matter is simplified by the action of
the Board of Health as planning Authority
in prohibiting building on the site,
The area amounts to a little over 4 acres,
The weather this autumn has been phenomen:
:ally vile, crops rotted on the ground: it has
been cold with early snow on the hills, and
as a sample – every day this week from
Sunday to today (Friday, has been a
wet one!
22nd Feb. 1947
How dreadfully remiss I have been in
writing up my journal when several momentous
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[Newsletter article inserted here]
events have been taking place. These historic
occasions the public records will take care of.
The things which should be recorded in a private
journal are the intimate happenings from
day to day, illustrative of our manner of life
and general well being. Since I last
wrote – Priorwood has been sold to the
Youth Hostels Association for £3500. and
they have sold off the gardens to a market
gardener. My scheme to acquire & present an
an acre or so to the Ministry of Works for inclusion
in the Abbey grounds came to nought.
When the war came to an end in 1945
everyone thought that, in due course, we
would return to more normal lives and
escape from the austerities of the war period.
Alas! Owing to impoverishment, through
having to bear for so long on our shoulders
the main burden of the war; to lack of ships
from destruction by our enemies; to general
impoverishment of allied and enemy
peoples in Europe, and to our own shortage
of man power etc. matters have not turned out
as we expected and today our rations are
more meagre and altogether living is more
difficult than it was two years ago. Practically all
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all our food is rationed. Meat is very scarce
but we manage to supply its want with occasional
rabbit, most of it imported, or wood-pigeon.
Venison in season is a great luxury. We
are looking forward to a supply of whale
meat to arrive shortly from the antarctic
and said to be excellent! Milk is in very
short supply as so much of the diminished
output now goes, rightly enough, to school
children and nursing mothers. Our allowance
at the moment is 1 pt. [pint] daily for 4 people though occasionally
we manage to procure an additional
pint when the dairy has an extra supply
This enables us on such occasions to have porridge. Bremner,
my excellent foreman in Caithness,
nearly wept when he learned last summer
that we had only had the miserable ration
of eggs throughout the war, sometimes only
one a month, while he could have sent us a
doz. [dozen] a week - Now we receive the doz. [dozen] regularly.
We still have coupons for all our clothes
and prices are very high, so one buys
as few as possible. No longer does it matter
if one wears a frayed collar or a patched
jacket. I have not had a new pair of shoes
since about 1939! The uppers of most are
cracked and shabby but nobody troubles about
such details. Taxation is very heavy, income
tax still 9/6d, with the result that few owners
of large houses can continue to live in them.
and if they could do so could rarely find servants.
Few people in houses such as we have, have
more than one maid; many have none! The
price of small residences such as this in
Barnton Av. [Avenue] and in comparable districts
around Edinburgh have risen to a preposterous
figure. - ‘The White House’ in Barnton Av. [Avenue] sold
recently for £10,000, while ‘Lankswood’ next
door is said to have brought £9,600!
To add to the troubles of humanity - there is a
great shortage of coal and we are being
afflicted with the gloomiest winter we have
had for years. The frost in Edinburgh has
not been excessive, but we have now had
snow covering the ground for over a
month and just when the outlook was
becoming brighter with the melting of the
snow in the sunshine, we have had a fresh
fall last night and now it lies to a depth
of 4 – 5 inches. Owing to the fuel crisis
our electricity has to be off from 8.30 A.M
to 11.30 and from 1.30 to 3.30. We are
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fortunate in still having our invaluable
Catherine and her old sister Annie in our
service. Last June as I was paying so
much for the services of a jobbing gardener
four days a week and not, even then, getting
all the work done, I engaged an excellent
gardener as my permanent servant, who
had been here jobbing for two years. With
taxation so high I ought not really to
afford it, but I am old and even if I do
draw on my capital I cannot reduce
it much in the next few years. Meantime
my pleasure in my garden is enormously
increased. Last summer I returned
alone in August to the Portland Arms
Hotel Lybster, and resumed the exavation
of ‘the Wag’ in which I had been interrupted
by the outbreak of war in 1939. Though
I found few relics the revelations I made
established, to my mind at least, the close
relationship between the Wags and brochs.
but as the accounts of my excavations
from 1931 to the present day are
being published in book form by Blackwood (1)
[Margin]
(1) This did not eventuate ---
I need not dwell on them here. The hotel
at Lybster was very moderate and the feeding
was remarkably good - 15/- a day as against
the usual charge in larger hotels of £1.1/-. Though
throughout Britain generally the weather in
Aug. was deplorable, in Caithness it could
hardly have been better. I return with Mary
this Augt. Sandy, his wife and Christian
are in Addis Ababa, where he has the post of
Consul General, on the staff of the minister.
He has a very pleasant post.
1st March 1947
I cannot allow this winter to pass away without
leaving a note to its memory, for it has been the
gloomiest and most unpleasant in my
recollection. Not entirely on account of the
weather but on the attendant circumstances
We have a Labour Government in power
with a preponderating majority more bent
on trying out socialistic schemes than in
governing the country. Suddenly they
have awakened to the fact that a serious
fuel crisis is upon us. Instead of the mines
producing enough coal to form the
basis of our export trade they have not been
producing a sufficient quantity to meet
our domestic and home needs. In the
government there is a complete lack of ef:
:ficient leadership - There is no man to call
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the people to ‘arms’ and give a lead. Mean:
:while we are going through one of the worst
winters in my memory. I have not seen a
green blade of grass from my windows for
5 or 6 weeks and today after the worst
blizzard I ever remember in Edinburgh
there is a foot of snow on the ground.
Last night we had 22° of frost and last
week on three consecutive nights we had
20°, 20°, and 24°! Scores of villages are snow
bound, some are being supplied by air.
In the South the worst weather occurred in
the earlier part of the winter when we had
comparatively mild conditions, now
that is all changed! Rabbits are doing
immense damage in the country eating
the bark off trees: hares are destroying
young plantations and farmers are at
their wits end to find hay for their flocks.
Meanwhile we exist uncomfortably. Our
electric supply is cut off at 8.0 every
morning, though nominally at 8.30
just when I am getting up so my dressing
has to performed uncomfortably in
the bathroom. It is off again from
1.30 to 3.30 p.m. and not infrequently we
have sat in the dining room wearing great
coats and with rugs round our knees. How
welcome are the parcels that come from
friends in lands of plenty. An old friend
Mildred Parker, whom I used to meet at the
Balfours in London, has been most mindful.
Marmalade, tins of cheese, cooking fat,
beef stew, soap (toilet and flakes) all come out
of such parcels. Our meat ration is very
meagre and frequently to relieve the
household, Mary and I lunch at our
clubs in town, where we are excellently
fed. But for the deep snow this has been a
lovely day with bright sunshine.
13th. March 1947
What a day! After heavy snow last night
all was white again this morning. The few patches
of green that had appeared at the edge of the lawn
were once more hidden and a heavy cresting of snow
bedecked the trees and hedge-rows. It has snowed
almost continuously with light dry flakes all
day, driven forward into drifts in places by a
strong east wind. It is with difficulty that I have
been able to keep warm indoors: It was arranged
that I should accompany my friend Blackwood,
to a geographical lecture on travels in western China
in the Usher Hall. dining at his house beforehand
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Late in the afternoon our attendance at
the lecture was cancelled on account of the
weather and subsequently I had to telephone
and ask to be excused going out to dinner,
for though the Blackwood’s house, Cotswold, is only
about 200 yds. distant I could not have
reached it dry on account of the snow! The
unfortunate postman had been above his
knees in a drift bringing our afternoon letters.
This is said to be the worst blizzard in
Scotland in living memory and I well believe it.
The loss to farmers in sheep and lambs must
be exceedingly high.
21st. March 1947.
At last this long dreary winter is past, a
soft west wind blows this evening
after an unpleasantly wet day passed in Edinr. [Edinburgh]
and now the snow is rapidly disappearing.
Aconites bloom around the cherry bed: the
groups of snowdrops along the front are
just coming into flower; there is a crowd of
spear points, where the Iris reticulata are
emerging and in the troughs by the Alpine
house door, the Iris histrioides is in flower:
The saxifragas & primulas in the troughs look
well, the former covered with buds. In the
alpine house many primulas are in bud,
- Allionii, of three pink varieties and a white one;
- Berniniae Windrush, Marginata Cerrulea, Linda
Pope: Mrs G.F. Wilson; Faldonside: Barbara
Barker, almost as lovely as Linda Pope, and
sundry others. Oh! how one has yearned for
this day of release from a winter, which was
the dreariest and most depressing in living
memory.
21st. Sept. 1947
Early in May of this year I travelled to Falmouth
breaking my journey for a couple of nights in London
with my friends Monty Balfour and Madeline his wife.
It appeared to me a reaction from the horrors and
desolation of the wartime to see how beautiful the
dreary garden in front of their house in Gloucester Sq [Square]
had become. Borders of lovely Japannese ?cherries flowered
in borders round four sides of the square with other
flowering trees and flower beds and lawns
filled the middle. Both on my railway travels
and in the hotel I stayed in at Falmouth well bred
people are no longer to be seen. A new class, the
munition workers and war profiteers are now the
wealthy class. From Falmouth I passed on to
Bath to see my other sisters and repeat bath
treatment which I imagined did me good
two years ago. Alas! The result was the opposite
and I left Bath miserably crippled with severe
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pains in my right leg and ankle. It was
cold when I commenced my treatment and perhaps
I got a chill - More likely - I think, I was suffering
from veins as Dr. [Doctor] Kelman Robertson decided and
not from rheumatism. On returning home
my movements were sadly restricted so I soon
visited my doctor, who ordered me to wear an
elastic stocking and to do certain simple
exercises three times a day. I have followed the
instructions with the greatest regularity even
when out on the Caithness hillside con:
:ducting my excavation at Forse Wag’, with
excellent results and now I can walk
with comfort except to any great extent on
the pavement. In Bath I met the first
of the heat wave which lasted for some time in
the South. On 28th. July Mary and I left home
for Caithness in the car. We broke our journey
for tea with Barbar Linehan at Perth
and stopped for the night at Fisher’s Hotel
Pitlochrie. The next day in perfect weather
we had a most lovely drive to Inverness.
The view of the distant hills slightly veiled in
mist over a foreground of heather clad moors
with bright patches of bell heather, was
inexpressively beautiful. We stayed at
Inverness in the L.M.S. [London Midland and Scottish] Station hotel, which is
one of the best managed hotels I know. Next
day after another lovely drive in perfect weather
we reached Lybster in time for tea. As we
got North we noticed that food became
more plentiful! We were welcomed as old friends
at the Portland Arms Hotel, which I visited
first in 1910 and subsequently in 1939 and ’46.
On Monday I commenced work at the Wag
with Simon Bremner as foreman, an old
friend and an admirable foreman as he is
an antiquary and unusually intelligent.
As usual I had a nice team of workmen.
We were joined at the hotel by Col [Colonel] & Mrs McClintock
old friends of mine from Surrey, a few days
after our arrival. Mrs McClintock is a very
good artist as well as being endowed with
various other accomplishments. The Col [Colonel] who
was in R.E. [Royal Engineers] did me invaluable service by
making a plan and sections of the Wag.
The weather throughout our stay continued
gloriously fine, though occasionally a sea
fog would creep up for an hour or so in
the forenoon. My expectations were not
fulfilled at the Wag, for search as I would I
could not find any occupied site of the
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Early Iron Age folk - Traces I obtained but
they let practically to nothing . However
we found a hearth resembling that which
I found in the dwelling in No. IVc [?] at
Jarlshof . at the upper level and in the
peat-ash which lay beside it we found a
few unimportant relics. Three times I
nearly gave up the quest as I did not
consider that results justified the
expenditure . However, three days before
the day fixed for our cessation we found
a remarkable construction – a low four
sided building with a cist on the top
covered by two rectangular slabs and
presenting sundry curious features.
What it is I have not yet ascertained
It is either tomb, altar, or shrine but
I am awaiting a discussion with
Prof [Professor] Stuart Piggot, before making up
my mind. We returned to Edinburgh
in the same way as we went up at the
beginning of Septr. so as to enjoy some of
the entertainments of the Edinburgh Festival
10th January 1951
I am sadly remiss in writing
up my journal , especially blameworthy in such a
time as this when war rages in Korea, Malaya etc and
we live in the dread of outbreak by Russia. The
necessary expenditure in military measures to
put the country in a state of defence and to
make preparation for a titanic war with the
soviet state if it should come, is going to make
such a drain on our resources that we shall
be inevitably driven to a lower standard of
living than we even now subsist on. The
prospect of the world at war is so terrible that
it may never materialize. Now to a
more ?pleasant topic which I think should
be related. In 1937 my friend Mrs
de Pree, subsequently killed when an aero:
;plane doing a practice flight, struck her
House, Beechgrove nr [near] Haddington, exploded,
wrecking a considerable part of the house
and killing my friend, her grandchild,
its nurse, and a visitor, gave me a
seedling of mecanopsis grandis (nepal
var [nepalensis varietas]) which with others she had received from
the Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh
28 Jany 1952
How remiss I have been in writing this up.
Much of last year I spent as an invalid
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the valves of my heart being out of order
How this had come about I cannot tell but
think it may have been due to a bad fall
I had in Caithness followed by another
when I crashed at the front door and
struck my head with great violence against
the glass panel of the inner door. After
months of restricted walking I am at last
sound, I see I omitted to note in
1950 an event of great interest in my
life. The University of Aberdeen arranged
with the Scandinavian archaeologist
a congress in Lerwick, in Shetland
in July of that year to which I was
invited and asked to deliver two
lectures, one on the Jarlshof excavations
and the other on brochs. Mary and I
took rooms in the Queens Hotel and thoroughly
enjoyed our experience. The weather
was exceptionally fine and we had only
one wet day in the 12 days we were on
Shetland. There were archaeologists from
Norway & Sweden, England and several
Scots; some forty altogether. My lectures
were early in the programme and I
had excellent audiences. We went
various excursions and made a number
of friends. As usual I gave my lectures
without reading, but had numerous lan:
:tern illustrations, which are as good as any notes.
I retired last year from the Anc. Mons. Com [Ancient Monuments Commission]
as I could no longer attend the meetings also
for the same reason I was able to retire from
the Holyrood Trust, which I have served on
since its inception some 20 years ago. In
fact I no longer serve on any public body
In my day I was first Secretary then a member
of the Royal Commission on Anc. [Ancient] Monuments,
the Ancient Monuments Board, concerned
with the preservation of Anc. Mons. [Ancient Monuments] the council
of the Soc. [Society] of Antiquaries of Scotland; the
executive Committee of the National Trust,
the Com. [Committee] of the College of Art, and for some
time its Chairman, the Scottish Rock Garden
Club and at one time its chairman: Dir:
:ector of the Mus. [Museum] of Antiquities also of the
Royal Scottish Museum. This
last summer Mary and I spent a
delightful holiday at Melrose where
Christian Pitman invited us to stay at
St. Cuthberts and to continue there when
she went abroad which we did. It was on
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an Autumn of glorious weather and we
had but one halfday wet from the last
week of August to the 12th of Sept.
Several afternoons in each week we
made excursions in the car among
the Cheviots, a region I knew well
from a distance but had never
penetrated except to the Carter,’ We
enjoyed our trips beyond words,
June 1952
How desultory I have been writing up
my journal ! As one grown old one loses
initiative and finds it difficult to
exert one’s brain. To ease to think is to
take the high road to dotage! Having
something to record I have taken up my
journal again and shall endeavour to
continue writing in it. The matter of
moment is our decision to sell ‘Ormsacre’
and to retire to a small house in Melrose.
My motives are two: First, I am now in my
87th year and though, on the whole, active
I cannot disguise the fact that I have no
longer the vision I had till a few years ago.
A slight illness, such as I have had recently,
has left me easily tired. Then comes a more
important motive. I could not bear the
thought of Mary having to wear out her life after
my death in a flat in Edinburgh. Fortunately,
there recently came into the market a small
house in Weirhill Place, Melrose, which, small
and with a correspondingly small garden,
was evidently built by an Architect, sound
in construction, pleasantly situated, with a
view from its windows to the east down the
Tweed valley and away to the hills above
Bemersyde
[Margin]
Aug 1954
‘Weirknowe’
I have learned
was actually
built by the
famous firm
of builders
‘Smith of Darnick,
in 1850 ---
It must have been built at least
a century ago.
[Margin]
It. was built
in 1850. ---
for when my brother Andy
& I were very small boys, I suppose of 6 or 7 years old,
and the family living in ‘Abbey Park’, we
came to this house to receive instruction from
an elderly governess called Miss Isaacs,
and I remember so well news having
just been published of the meeting of Livingstone
and Stanley in central Africa, that Miss Isaac
unrolled a large map, the greater part of
which was devoid of names, and indicated
to us where Stanley had contacted Livingstone!
I also remember how we had ‘gardens’ in
Miss Isaac’s garden and how she rewarded our
diligence with pansies. How strange it is that
the wheel of time should again take me to
Weirknowe and that in that garden I shall
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plant pansies and much more besides!
Yesterday I visited the house & garden again.
We have paid £2250 for the place, but there is
much to be done both outside and in.
Ormsacre is a most attractive place, its
garden & beds full of choice flowers. I
have collected many old fashioned
roses, rosa of the Scotch variety, moss roses,
Gallica roses and other varieties, besides the
finer teas and hybrids, I have - of late
acquired a number of geranium species
and I have a considerable collection
of gentiana. As far as possible these
will be removed to the Weir Hill.
The area of the new gardens is very small,
but as it consists of a 10 – 12 feet flower
border, around the little lawn, there is
some scope for gardening. The house
is to be advertised forthwith with entry
to the purchaser in November. Already I
have heard of two couples looking out
for something of the sort. There is
a considerable amount of work to be
undertaken on our new home. Mary is
delighted; so am I, for when I ‘pass
out’ she will be among friends in a
home of her own. There has been a tragedy
in the family - My niece Pamela Murray, wife
of Col. [Colonel] Granville Murray, died in hospital,
from a tumour in the brain and left three
children, the eldest, a girl of fifteen, and
the youngest a boy of seven. The second one is
also a girl. I am glad to say that both
Sandy and Mary approve of the new purchase
at Melrose. I shall miss the great
wealth of flowers there is here, but - I shall find
compensation in the human contacts. I am
pleased that both Sandy and Mary are
delighted. I have a letter from the former
every week. It is an excellent habit this
regular intercommunication. All my
life I practised it with my sister Chrissie
and I don’t think since I went to school
that a week has passed when we did not write
to one another, except when one or other was
hindered by illness. What a change
there has been in our standard of living since
the late war began! We live now happily on
a meagre standard, that 20 years ago we
would have thought could hardly keep us
alive! Dinner at home never consists of more
than two meagre courses! I see
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I have omitted to record a notable change,
which I observed at Melrose last year, the
erection of numerous council houses on
the field on the Prior Walk directly to the
east of the site of the stables, The houses
seem excellently planned, each building
containing two or four dwellings and to each is
allotted a little garden, before or behind
14th July 1952
Mary became proprietress of Weir Knowe
yesterday and we hope the workmen will
enter at once to carry out the various alterations
and repairs recommended by our architect.
[margin]
5th Dec. Workmen
are still busy
over garden and
garage! ---
These are not likely to be finished till
the end of October, so it may be that our
entry cannot take place till then. Meanwhile
‘Ormsacre’ is being advertised for sale. Yester:
:day we had Prof [Professor] Swann, a newly appointed
professor here with his charming wife and a
small boy having a thorough look over house
and garden. We sincerely hope they may be
our successors for they were tremendously
taken by the outlay of the ground. Other people
came last, Sunday, following our first notice
in ‘the Scotsman’ and two different people are
coming this afternoon & on Saturday. So much
for the result of our first advertisement.
In our advt. [advertisement] we say “Offers above £7000 will be con:
:sidered” and I would not sell under £8000 & would
like more. Places out here are much sought after
even in difficult times, by distillers, medical specialists etc.
The professor was immensely appreciative!
I must record the great change that is going on in
the character of Edinburgh Streets. Princes St. has
ceased to be the great shopping centre, and nearly
all the best shops have removed to George St., while
Princes St. now houses large general stores, res:
:taurants & hotels! Very clever floral displays
have been introduced at the west end, a difficult
corner for traffic, by the introduction of stone
walled stands, filled with flowers, which are
regularly changed. Flower beds have been
placed at numerous points inside the city
helping to regulate the traffic – even in the suburbs.
27th July 1952
In the evening, two days ago, I learned by telephone
that “Ormsacre” had drawn my desired price £8.000.
after sundry approaches from £7,500. This I at once
accepted, it being the value, which I had some time
ago settled on the place. It is curious that
Prof. [Professor] Swann, who was I think, the earliest visitor
we received to view house and garden, should
have been the purchaser. A considerable
number of people had viewed ho. [house] and garden
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but professor Swann is the
only one, who made an offer. My belief is
that sundry visitors, although they greatly
admired the place, were deterred from
making an offer for it by the cost of
upkeep. With the wage of a part-time
gardener, at 24/- a day. - such cost is a
serious detriment. It is pleasant to note
that the couple, who will follow us here
are exactly what my choice would have
been, had I been left to make a selection
We have had a marvellously fine summer
and though ‘the glass’ has fallen and
heavy clouds hang on the horizon
the much needed rain keeps off.
5th Aug.1952
Our successors are greatly pleased with their
purchase according to their letters. Work
has not yet started on Weirknowe, where
various restorations and minor changes are
being effected, but a commencement is
expected any day. The long spell of dry
weather has broken, just as plants in the garden
were beginning to wilt and now the weather is
unpleasantly cold and unsettled. Now that rain
has fallen the garden looks full of flower
and I mark with white tallies such plants
as I may desire to take away or of which I can
take pieces. I shall take as few as possible.
29th Sept. 1952.
Ever since I wrote my last entry the weather has
been cold and unpleasant. On 3rd Sept. Mary and I
drove out to Melrose, via Soutra, to stay at Burt’s
hotel, where I had taken rooms for three weeks. Now
we have lately returned after a delightful holiday
I was not too well when I arrived, but within a few
days, what with my native air and a most liberal
diet, with good butcher meat twice a day, I soon
picked up and am now as well as I could wish to be.
Melrose has changed little in late years and
on studying the masonry of many of the houses
I can detect:- in the exposed walls of backs & sides,
evidence of considerable antiquity, though the
fronts have been modernised. The hotel was
very comfortable – a good second class hotel,
with a clientele to correspond. We spent nearly
every forenoon at Weirknowe, where Mary
kept an eye on the workers and I did light work
in the garden. By arrangement, Miss Cunning:
:ham, who put on paper my ideas for Orms:
:acre, came out from Edinburgh one day
and discussed the treatment of the garden,
which at present has no flowers in it safe some
18 carnations which I took out from Edinb [Edinburgh]
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On another day we had a visit from the
College of Agriculture adviser for Peeblesshire, his
fellow for Roxburgh being unwell. He surprised me
by pronouncing the sandy, gravelly soil of
the garden to be very fertile and capable of
growing anything! Certainly the display
of roses etc. on the neighbouring house
earlier in the year showed that it could not
be unfertile. Nearly every afternoon we went
motor excursions into the surrounding
country in every direction - beyond towns to the
south, up Yarrow, beyond Selkirk, - to Kelso etc.
The cottage gardens nearly everywhere were
lovely with bright displays of dahlias. The
leaves have just taken on their autumn tints
on the trees. We returned a few days
ago, sorry our holiday was over, at least I was
particularly so, for I find Barnton avenue
a very dreary, depressing place to live in.
The shops in Melrose are very good and
the place seems prosperous, Daily in summer
motor coaches, on tour, arrive from numerous
cities in the South. We expect to get into
our new home in the end of next month and
I shall return to Burt’s hotel a week earlier to be
out of the way!
23rd Oct.
Said farewell to Ormsacre For the last few
weeks I have been collecting offsets of plants, as
far as possible and have taken up about a score
of the old fashioned roses, moss etc. Kind neighbours,
the Halls and Roney Dougalls will keep such as
we cannot take direct, till we are in a position
to receive them, - I have stayed at Burt’s
Hotel for three weeks, going out to Weirknow
every day, where Mary and Catherine are settling
in while various tradesmen, electricians, plumbers etc.
are finishing off. I have secured the services
of a retired gardener, who was for 12 years in the
service of the Riddell Carres, to come on one day a week,
but so far (Dec. 5th.) except for digging the side border
nothing has been done in the garden
5 Dec. 1952
Here we are settled and the last tradesman has
left the inside of the house, but they are now
busy erecting the garage, in fact – re-erecting the
North wall owing to our neighbour having made
herself disagreeable by reason that the first
erection rose slightly above her’s & cut off
a minimum of light Work has at last com:
:menced on shaping the scree in the garden
and I hope in a weeks time we may find ourselves
in peace! This has been a most disagreeable
autumn with most unusually cold & stormy
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weather though much less so than has been the
case in England. We have seldom been
without frost for weeks. Tweed has several times
been in high flood, but we have had quite a lot
of sunshine. I enjoy much being ‘home’ in
Melrose where more than one native has said
‘We knew you would come back here.’ The Curles
have been people of importance here for nigh on
150 years. My grandfather came from his home
in Kelso, when his father made a second marriage
I recollect old Oliver, a well known Jedburgh
man telling me when I was engaged, about 1897
“Your grandfather was just like a king in
Melrose and your Aunt Maggie was the Queen!
My father occupied a very similar position
but Melrose by his time had ceased to be the
quiet little town and had become a burgh and
the growth of Galashiels had brought
many fresh residents, Men in business in Galashiels,
who made their homes here
7th Feb. 1953
We are now completely settled in Weirknowe
and the last tradesman, with the completion
of the garage, has left. We are exceedingly
happy to find ourselves among many friends,
old and new. The work of laying out the
garden, under the expert professional advice
of Miss Norah Cunningham, has been commenced
and I am finding pleasure in furnishing the
screes on either side of the steps leading up
to the lawn. Six or eight years ago I obtained
at a show in London an especially fine alpine
primula – p. [primula] Allionii, which is always in
high demand by nurserymen and, annually,
I dispose of 50 to 60 offsets to Ingwersen at a
price of 3/6 ea. [each] and obtain Alpines in lieu of
cash. This year I shall procure a number of
plants for the screes. Sandy has been
having interesting experiences in Africa having
accompanied his chief, who was going to
climb Mt. [Mount] Kenya, to the foot of the mountains,
he set off by himself on a trip to the Belgian
Congo and the lakes. He has completed his
tour and now, is probably back in Addis Ababa.
Christian and Cecil are coming home very
shortly, as the latter is going to a school in
England. A terrific gale blew over Britain
a week ago and caused immense damage
In Scotland, the fishing fleet in the North
suffered, but that was nothing compared to
the havoc wrought on the So. [South] East Coast of England
and in Holland. So fierce was the gale that I
put myself in danger of being blown over
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[continued from page 135]
down the Weirhill past the church and was
forced to move behind the protection of the
houses down Weirhill Place, The loss of life and
damage to houses and shipping in the South and in Holland
was tremendous! There is much motor
traffic through Melrose now-a-days, especially
of char-a-bancs, which carry on a constant
traffic with Galashiels, Earlston etc. It must
have reduced the railway traffic. greatly
16th April 1953
We are fully settled in our new home
and are most comfortable. Catherine
Fraser - our much valued cook-housekeeper
and friend of many years, is still with us.
nor must I omit to mention a much
beloved and devoted friend ‘Dwight’ the Pekin:
:ese, who joined the party some 6 years ago as a
small puppy on the day that Genl [General] Eisenhower
visited Edinburgh. Even for a Pekingese his
sagacity is remarkable. As a friend he has
every quality of his breed, intense devotion
and matchless courage. He has few animosities
and some large dog such as a golden Labrador
in Barnton Av. [Avenue] are almost always the object
of it. We are thoroughly settled here and
supremely happy. It is good to have a
firm link with the past in the place in which you
make your home. Mary has many friends
‘forbye’ the cousins, who live nearby., but I feel
so much at home when I go into Melrose with
its familiar aspect and its friendly shop:
:keepers. It must be a busy place for all
shops are flourishing and there is a
large country region around to supply.
It flatters one’s vanity to be hailed by all
and sundry as a fellow native! My
grandfather came here from Kelso in
1798 to live with an Ormiston uncle and
some 20 years later joined Erskine of Sheilfield
in forming the firm of Curle & Erskine, which
grew till it was said to be the largest Country
business in Scotland. If that is true I do
not know, but it was a great & wealthy firm
in the end of the 19th century. - To come
to the present day, Fred Curle my cousin is
the last of the race to be head of it and
with his departure the old family con:
:nection will pass away.
8th July 1952
Life flows on pleasantly in Melrose It must be
a busy little place for there are many well-to-do trades:
:men in it and it is peaceful. The heavy drinking,
which too many of its inhabitants indulged in in
my youth, perhaps owing to the high cost of
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[continued from page 136]
whisky, appears to be a practice of the past; There is
an edifying absence of rowdyism. It is much
visited by touring charabancs, who come to see
the Abbey, and the fishing, which seems to have
improved much since my youth, attracts a
certain number of visitors. It is now
well provided with recreation grounds, for football,
lawn tennis, skating, golf etc. What a change
it is from my life in Edinburgh, where one had
no permanent links and did not much desire
them. Here we are in a pleasant motoring
distance and friends frequently come out to
see us and Mary motors in on her own
concerns once a week the journey taking
about 1½ hours.
24th. Aug 1954
Life rolls on very peacefully. Mary goes into Edinburgh
usually once a week [etc?] in and out by car, but I have to
stay for the rest of my life living peacefully at home
as my nervous condition, the result of a football
accident in my youth cannot tolerate the noise & bustle
of travel or town. I manage by the aid of car or bus
to go out from Melrose on frequent excursions. It
is a frequent expedition to take a bus at 2.35. to
Newstead from our wall end and walk home. Or I cross
the river and explore Gattonside, finding pleasure
in viewing the numerous cottage gardens which
are scattered over the hill side, bright with flowers.
There is a delightful lack of planning in the
layout of the cottages – Only in the more recent
erections do their sites seem to have been
determined with relation to one another. I am
not sorry to learn that owing to the inadequacy
of the water supply further building is to be stopped. |
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