I Told You

Added by Thornie on 19 June 2024

I was looking at a feature article, “The Edge of Empire”, in the Courier, More explicitly, at the large diagrammatic map topping the page. And my blood pressure was rocketing. I could hear a ghostly chuckle and then Uncle Con saying, “Dixi vobis”. I told you. And indeed, he h...

And Then There Were None

Added by Thornie on 22 June 2022

Perhaps I should have paid them more attention. They were, after all, the most exotic of Murthly’s residents. I’m speaking here of the two “Red Indians”, Native Americans brought back by Sir William Drummond Stewart in 1839 to look after the buffalo (American bison) he had ...

Murthly 1 and the Albatros

Added on 26 September 2021

On 24th July 1918, Lieut. Carl Frederick Falkenberg, flying Murthly No.1, an SE 5a fighter recently acquired by 84 Squadron, was leading “B” Flight on early evening patrol over Peronne in the Somme valley. They chanced upon some Albatrosen of the German Luftstreitkräfte . By 18.45 a...

The Asylum Mikado

Added by Thornie on 24 August 2021

“I have often seen ‘The Mikado’ played by amateurs, but I do not think I have ever more enjoyed a production than I did at Murthly Asylum last night.” An arresting first sentence: for the location alone. Well, to our eyes perhaps, but readers of the Perthshire Advertiser in F...

Tully-Veolan Claimed

Added on 15 August 2021

Given the way in which he rhapsodised over the Border Country, wild and rugged Highlands, and watery Trossachs, people have often missed that Sir Walter Scott also had a fondness for Perthshire. “The fairest portion” of Scotland is but one of many compliments scattered through The Fair M...

Rohallion

Added on 07 July 2021

The doyenne of early 20th century Scottish poets, Violet Jacob (1863 – 1946) wrote mostly, extensively, of her “ain countrie” – Angus – in the vernacular. Thanks to her peripatetic life as a soldier’s wife, with postings to India, Egypt and South Africa, she also...