It is cloudy, muggy, misty, rainy and foggy on most days of the week but saturdays (the day I travel outside E'burgh) have always been sunny ever since I arrived in bonnie Scotland. Now that I have mentioned it, I can expect next saturday to be depressing, misty with a lot of rain! Wanting to make use of the sun today, I decided to spend the day in Dundee.
Dundee is about 61 miles north of Edinburgh and is situated...
It is cloudy, muggy, misty, rainy and foggy on most days of the week but saturdays (the day I travel outside E'burgh) have always been sunny ever since I arrived in bonnie Scotland. Now that I have mentioned it, I can expect next saturday to be depressing, misty with a lot of rain! Wanting to make use of the sun today, I decided to spend the day in Dundee.
Dundee is about 61 miles north of Edinburgh and is situated on the Firth of Tay (what is a firth? you might ask. Later). As soon as I stepped in the bus, the sun played truant. And thanks to a mist during the ninety minute bus drive, i did not get to see any sheep or cows!
Despite the fact that it is Scotland's fourth largest city, Dundee has a princely population of 1,50,000 only (a crowd which we, in India, can collect in less than the time it took Roger Bannister to run the mile.). Dundee is famous for 3 Js - Jute, Journalism and Jam. And there is an India connection too.......Read on......
The main city square is like a trafficless square of any European City - people sunning themselves, musicians strutting their stuff and women running from one designer store to another whilst precariously balancing large shopping bags in their hands. There was a band playing soothing music (the main lead was a xylophone!) that added to the general laziness of the ambience. Somehow this band caught the fancy of all the toddlers in the area and most of them flocked to where the band was playing, and one could see kids of all shapes and sizes trying to show their best dancing moves with the proud parents looking on. The square had a farmers market today with the agriculturists selling cheese, breads, jams and even home-brewed beer!
The statue in the city square is not of Walter Scott or of Robert Burns (like in all the other Scottish cities) but of 'Desperate Dan' from the comicbook The Dandy. Thats "J No. 1". Show of Hands. How many have read 'The Beano' series of comics? 'The Beano' is published by DC Thomson Comics which is based in Dundee. Apparently DC Thomson is the largest employer in Dundee and it also publishes 'The Dandy'. (Btw, this 'J' is for Journalism for those who are wondering!)
Dundee is sometimes called the "City of Discovery" because "The Discovery" is afloat here in a protected dock. The ship "RRS Discovery" was built in Dundee in 1900 for the Polar Expedition to Antarctica in 1901 but now the ship has been converted into a museum. The ship was captained by Robert Scott, one the most famous Dundonians.
William McGonagall is another Dundonian who is famous (but for the wrong reasons!). He is often referred to as one of the worst poets in the English Language (I thought that epithet was reserved for me in poetry class!). He is criticised as being deaf to poetic metaphor, unable to scan correctly, guitly of churning out inappropriate rhythms, having weak vocabulary and ill-advised imagery (all of which I am also culpable of in my writing!).
Coming to "J No. 2". Jute. Dundee was once one of the richest cities of Britain - Dundonians owned most of the Jute mills in India (not a happy reminder for us) and thanks to this, in the 19th and early 20th Century, Dundee apparently had the maximum number of millionaires per head of the population (in the whole of Britain!). But the fortunes of this city also reversed with the decline of the Jute Industry.
For lunch I walked into a shop called "Fat Jackets". The menu listed "chilli and cheese" and "Cheese, Mayonnaise and Eggs" and other such options. Thinking them to be sandwiches I ordered one. Now I am not one who is adventerous as far as culinary options are concerned. but lunch turned out to be a mis-adventure. "Fat Jacket" was a fat (naturally) unpeeled boiled potato which was cut into two and then filled with the topping I had selected. Only 1 million calories. Fortunately I was walking throughout the day so hopefully some of the illeffects would have worn off by the end of the day.
Lunch brings me to "J. No. 3". The invention of marmalade jam is credited to Janet Keillor of Dundee in the late 18th Century. Apparently, a Mr. James Keiller bought a cargo of Seville oranges very cheaply from a Spanish ship. But the oranges were so bitter that no one was willing to eat them as fruit. So his ingenious wife made them into a jam, and breakfasty history was born! The Keillor factory existed till 1988 when it was shifted to England.
Dundee has it own version of Arthurs Seat. It is called "Dundee Law" (affectionately known as DunLaw)- the highest point in the city. From the Mt.Everest-eque height of 174 metres, I got a 360-degree view of the city, and the Firth and the 2 bridges - Tay Road Bridge and the Tay Rail Bridge. The latter was the longest bridge in the world (another piece of trivia) when it was constructed in 1887 but it was destroyed in a storm 2 years later when a train was passing on it. Mr. McGonagall penned "The Tay Bridge Disaster" when it collapsed.
Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.
Apparently 75 and not 90 people died in the accident. So one can add inaccuracy to the list of Mr. McGonagall's poetic shortcomings!
One of the biggest churches in Dundee is St. Mary's church and there seemed to be an unusually high number of weddings today as the bells were peeling for most of the afternoon. I saw one couple step out of the church and it was interesting to see a couple where both the bride and the groom were wearing skirts!
Dundee Contemporary Arts Museum had an interesting exhibit on "Killing time" which had real sets of a house, a meadow, a stage, and a basement. Another section had film shots of these sets which depicted people waiting and doing mundane activities. The exhibition was supposed to be an experiment in 'the experience of time'.
I ended up killing so much time there that I almost missed my bus back to Edinburgh! Very filmi, bag in one hand, camera in the other!
So what is a Firth?
It is the Scots word used to denote various coastal waters in Scotland. It is usually a large sea bay, which may be part of an Estuary, or just an Inlet, or even a Strait. It is cognate to fjord, which has a more narrow sense in English, whereas a firth would most likely be called a fjord if it were situated in Scandinavia. Bodies of water named "firths" tend to be more common on the east coast, or in the southwest of the country, although the Firth of Lorne is an exception to this.
(Oct, 2006)
