#anglo-scot

[scotianostra]

Then Anglo-Scottish nurse Mairi Chisholm was born 26th February 1896 in Datchet near Windsor.

Some sources say she was born in Nairn, indeed on source says she used-to ride a motorbike around the town.Another saus she was brought up in England but from very Highland stock

Mairi’s family were independently wealthy and when she was a child, the family moved from Scotland to Dorset. As a teen, she witnessed her older brother, Uailean, who owned a Royal Enfield 425cc motorcycle, competing at rallies and at the Bournemouth speed trials. Around this time, and against his wife’s wishes, her father bought her a Douglas motorbike. Chisholm spent hours in the family stables stripping down the bikes and repairing them. She was just 18 years old when, while roaring round the Hampshire and Dorset lanes, she met thirty-year-old Elsie Knocker, a divorcee and mother of a young son. They became fast friends and soon began competing in motorcycle and sidecar trials together.

When war was declared in 1914, Knocker wrote to Chisholm that there was “work to be done”,and suggested they go to London to become dispatch riders for the Women’s Emergency Corps.Chisholm rode her motorbike all the way from Dorset to the capital. It was while acting as a courier in this way that she was spotted making hairpin corners in the city by a Dr. Hector Munro. Munro was setting up a Flying Ambulance Corps to help the Belgians who had been caught unawares by the German invasion and invited her to join his team, as she describes in a June 1976 interview:

“Munro was deeply impressed with my ability to ride through the traffic. He traced me to the Women’s Emergency Corps and… said, ‘Would you like to go out to Flanders’ and I said ‘Yes, I’d love to’.“

Both she and Knocker ended up in Belgium as part of the corps. The sense of adventure the two women shared led to them spending an incredible four years the wounded on the Western Front.

Mairi and Elsie set up a medical post in the cellar of a house in Pervyse.

Their bravery and the physical and spiritual benefits which they brought to the wounded would lead the Belgians to refer to them as the 'madonnas of Pervyse’.

The photos are of Mairi, the other woman with her is her friend Elsie Knocker.

More on the lady here

The essence of nursing : a reflection

This blog formed part of a speech delivered at Erskine Home, Renfrewshire to celebrate the International Day of the Nurse 2023. As many of y

[scotianostra]

Today is the anniversary of the death of St Cuthbert, who died on 20th March 687AD.

St Cuthbert was a monk, bishop and hermit of Lindisfarne who lived in Anglo-Saxon Northumbria. A wee bit geography for you, during St Cuthberts time, the area that is now Scotland was divided into three areas: Pictland, a patchwork of small lordships in central Scotland, the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria, which had conquered southeastern Scotland; and the kingdom of Dál Riata in western Scotland. Anglo-Saxon Northumbria stretched from on the East coast, the Humber, where it got it’s name, on the west from the river Mersey, up the the Firth of Forth, and what is now Dumfries and Galloway in the west.

Cuthbert was born (perhaps into a noble family) in Dunbar, now in East Lothian, at the time the region was still largely Pagan, although King Edwin of Northumbria was spreading Christianity having been converted about ten years previously. Incidentally some claim that Edwin might have given Edinburgh it’s name, but it is generally accepted the name derived from the area being known as Eidyn, from the time the Roans left, into the dark ages, the name Eidyn itself’s origin is not known.

Back to oor Cuthbert, he is known to have grown up in what is now The Scottish Borders, we know that he tended sheep on the hills above the abbey at Melrose when he was older.

t seems, from stories about his childhood, that he was brought up as a Christian. He was credited, for instance, with having saved by his prayers, some monks who were being swept out to sea on a raft. There is some evidence that, in his mid-teens, he was involved in at least one battle, which would have been quite normal for a boy of his social background.

His life changed when he was about 17 years old. He was looking after some neighbour’s sheep on the hills. (As he was certainly not a shepherd boy it is possible that he was mounting a military guard - a suitable occupation for a young warrior!) Gazing into the night sky he saw a light descend to Earth and then return, escorting, he believed, a human soul to Heaven. The date was August 31st 651AD - the night that Saint Aidan died. Perhaps Cuthbert had already been considering a possible monastic calling but that was his moment of decision.

He went to the monastery at Melrose, also founded by Aidan, and asked to be admitted as a Novice.

For the next 13 years he was with the Melrose monks. When Melrose was given land to found a new monastery at Ripon, Cuthbert went with the founding party and was made guestmaster. In his late 20s he returned to Melrose and found that his former teacher and friend, the prior Boisil, was dying of the plague. Cuthbert became prior (second to the Abbot) at Melrose.

In 664AD the Synod of Whitby decided that Northumbria should cease to look to Ireland for its spiritual leadership and turn instead to the continent the Irish monks of Lindisfarne, with others, went back to Iona. The abbot of Melrose subsequently became also abbot of Lindisfarne and Cuthbert its prior.

Cuthbert seems to have moved to Lindisfarne at about the age of 30 and lived there for the next 10 years. He ran the monastery; he was an active missionary; he was much in demand as a spiritual guide and he developed the gift of spiritual healing. Cuthbert was said to be an outgoing, cheerful, compassionate person and no doubt became popular. But when he was 40 years old he believed that he was being called to be a hermit and to do the hermit’s job of fighting the spiritual forces of evil in a life of solitude.

After a short trial period on the tiny islet adjoining Lindisfarne he moved to the more remote and larger island known as ‘Inner Farne’ and built a hermitage where he lived for 10 years. Of course, people did not leave him alone - they went out in their little boats to consult him or ask for healing. However, on many days of the year the seas around the islands are simply too rough to make the crossing and Cuthbert was left in peace.

At the age of about 50 it is written that he was asked by both Church and King to leave his hermitage and become a bishop. He reluctantly agreed. For two years he was an active, travelling bishop as Aidan had been. He seems to have journeyed extensively. On one occasion he was visiting the Queen in Carlisle when he knew by second sight that her husband, the King, had been slain by the Picts doing battle in Scotland.

Feeling the approach of death he retired back to the hermitage on the Inner Farne where, in the company of Lindisfarne monks, he died on on this day in 687AD.

His body was brought back and buried on Lindisfarne, well for a time anyway, after long journeys escaping the Danes his remains “chose”, as was thought, to settle at Durham, causing the foundation of the city and Durham Cathedral. The St Cuthbert Gospel is among the objects later recovered from St Cuthbert’s coffin, which is also an important artefact.

[scotianostra]

Happy birthday Golfer Sandy Lyle, born February 9th 1958.

Sandy was born in Shrewsbury, England but considered Scottish, Lyle was one of Europe’s top golfers during the 1980s. He is one of the golfers credited with breaking American domination of golf on the world stage.

Lyle was introduced to golf as soon as he would walk. His father, Alex, was a teaching professional at Hawkstone Park GC and had his son playing with miniature clubs from the age of 3. Lyle had an outstanding amateur career culminating in victory in the English Amateur Stroke Play championship in 1975 and 1977. He also served on the Walker Cup squad twice.

He turned professional in 1977 and was nominated Rookie of the Year in his first full season a year later. His first professional victory was the 1978 Nigerian Open. As a player, Lyle is renowned for his cool temperament and focus. However, his form is not always consistent and tends to play either exceptionally well or exceptionally bad.

Lyle won his first Major, the Open, in 1985. Perhaps the highlight of his career was victory in the 1988 US Masters. He was the first non-American to win the event, a victory made sweeter because of the intense competition between America and Europe in all aspects of golf. Lyle has also played on 5 Ryder Cup squads and represented Scotland 3 times in the World Cup.

On a personal level, Lyle has an amiable character and is modest despite his success and stardom. He enjoys Chinese food and is somewhat of an expert. He is also a keen enthusiastic of motorbike scrambling. In 1989, Lyle’s form began to slump. His last victory was the Volvo Masters in 1992 and since then has quietly retired from the main tour.

On turning 50 in 2008 he played on the Champions Tour and the European Senior Tour winning his first tournament in 19 years when he captured his first European Senior Tour title at the 2011 ISPS Handa Senior World Championship, held in China.

Sandy was inducted to the World Golf Hall of Fame in May 2012, he now lives in Scotland with his wife Jolande and children Lonneke and Quintin.

[scotianostra]

Anglo-Scottish physician Ian Donald was born on December 27th 1910.

There are differing versions of Ian Donald’s birthplace, one gives it a Cornwall, another vaguely states Scotland, while Wiki was non committal  and just gave his date of birth when I last posted on this, in the year since it has plumped for Liskeard inn Cornwall.

Donald does however have a strong Scottish heritage, he was born to John Donald and Helen née Barrow Wilson in 1910.His father was a general practitioner who came from a Paisley medical family,his grandfather also a GP, and his mother a concert pianist. Donald was the eldest of four children; his siblings were Margaret, Malcolm, and Alison Munro, who later became a leading headmistress. attended Warriston School in Moffat, and he attended Fettes College, Edinburgh, for secondary education. However, Donald never completed his education in Scotland, as the family moved to South Africa due to his father’s poor health

Ian continued his education at the Diocesan College in Rondebosch, subsequently obtaining a BA from the University of Cape Town.

 He then studied medicine and was awarded MB BS at London University in 1937. During 1942-1946 he served as a medical officer in the RAFVR; was mentioned in dispatches and awarded the MBE for rescuing airmen from a burning aircraft. He is considered a Scot though, so we’ll claim him.

So apart from being a brave guy what else has he done? Well during his wartime service he became interested in radar and and sonar technology and with this in mind he worked with T G Brown of the the scientific instrument makers Kelvin & Hughes to create the first diagnostic ultrasound machine, and in 1958, with Brown and John MacVicar, he published his findings in The Lancet. Donald’s idea of using ultrasound to diagnose humans was ridiculed. However, after a large ovarian cyst was diagnosed in a female patient, practitioners took the technology seriously.

He was involved in the planning and design of the Queen Mother’s Hospital in Glasgow, which opened in 1964 and was Regius Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Glasgow University, from 1954 to 1976.

In honour of Professor Ian Donald, Professor Asim Kurjak founded the Ian Donald Inter-University School of Medical Ultrasound in Dubrovnik, Croatia in 1981. It is one of the world’s largest school of medical ultrasound and each year many celebrated students come through their advanced courses in medical ultrasonography.

In recognition of his pioneering work in Ultrasound, an Ian Donald Gold Medal was awarded each year by the International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology to the person whose pioneering work is considered to have the most profound influence in the development of Obstetrical and Gynecological ultrasonography.

[scotianostra]

January 17th 1883 saw the birth of Compton Mackenzie, in Hartlepool in North East England.

Compton Mackenzie is today best remembered for writing two comic novels set in Scotland – The Monarch of the Glen, which inspired the BBC drama series of the same name, and the much-loved Whisky Galore, which has twice been adapted for cinema. The story of a fictional Hebridean island taking advantage of a ship wreck full of spirits at the height of wartime rationing has entertained generations since it first appeared in 1947. The most recent cinematic version, starring Gregor Fisher, is a decent remake and worth a watch.

But Mackenzie was much more than a gentle chronicler of the Highlands and islands in the mid-20th century.

He was, at various times, an actor, soldier, Government spy, political activist, journalist, Jacobite supporter, cultural commentator, snooker enthusiast, raconteur and, in 1928, a co-founder of the National Party of Scotland – the forerunner to the modern SNP.

Andro Linklater, who wrote a biography of Mackenzie, commented: “(He) wasn’t born a Scot, and he didn’t sound like a Scot. But nevertheless his imagination was truly Scottish.” Edward Montague Compton Mackenzie was born in West Hartlepool in 1883 and raised in London. His was a theatrical family – many of whose members used Compton as their stage name.

His grandfather Henry Compton was a well-known Shakespearean actor of the Victorian era. A history graduate of Magdalen College, Oxford, the young Mackenzie published his first novel in 1912 but his writing career was stalled by the outbreak of war. He quickly signed up and saw action at Gallipoli. In 1915 he was recruited into the fledgling Secret Service and was posted across the eastern Mediterranean. Although he would later be awarded a knighthood, Mackenzie was no darling of the British establishment. In 1932 he was hauled before the courts and fined for breaching the Official Secrets Act for writing Greek Memories – a candid reflection of his time as a spy. At a time when the British public was scarcely aware of the security services, Mackenzie freely outlined its organisation. It was withdrawn from sale and was only published in full as recently as 2011.

In 1933 he took revenge on the Secret Service with Water on the Brain, an obvious swipe at the Service. Despite its satirical cover, he managed to include a few genuine morsels – such as the fact that the chief of the Service always wrote in green ink. At story’s end, the location of the Secret Service’s headquarters is revealed in a spy thriller and the spooks have to move out. The building becomes an asylum for “the servants of bureaucracy who have been driven mad in the service of the country”. By this point Mackenzie was already resident in Scotland and had become close friends with the poet Hugh MacDiarmid and the influential writer, thinker and adventurer Robert Cunninghame Graham. Together they helped establish the National Party of Scotland in 1928, which emerged in 1934 as the modern SNP.

Mackenzie settled on the Hebridean island of Barra and concentrated on his most ambitious project, The Four Winds of Love. Gavin Wallace, another of his biographers, later wrote: “The Four Winds of Love, published in six volumes between 1937 and 1945 and containing almost 1 million words, is one of the most ambitious Scottish novels of the twentieth century, an enormous historical odyssey which anatomizes the politics of peripheral nationalism both throughout Europe and in Britain, again through semi-autobiographical character development.” But it was Mackenzie’s comic novels that won him UK-wide fame and fortune. Whisky Galore, based on a real-life incident in Eriskay in 1941, was first adapted for the big screen by Ealing studios and released to popular acclaim in 1948. The enduring appeal of the novel was later summed up by one Scotsman literary critic: “So what if it perpetrates the old, cliched ‘Brigadoon’ myth? Scots, English, American or Martian, no-one can resist this tale of ill-gotten whisky gain on a Scottish island in wartime. It’s simply hilarious.” Such was Mackenzie’s status as an elder statesman of letters he was knighted in 1952 and remained a much-respected cultural commentator for the rest of his life.

In later years he lived not too far from my flat, in Drummond Place, in Edinburgh’s New Town, where he died from cancer aged 89, in 1972.

Lavish tributes followed his passing Dr Robert McIntyre, president of the SNP and the first Scottish nationalist elected to parliament, described Mackenzie as “the Grand Old Man of Scotland”. Novelist Eric Linklater said he was a “consummate stylist, who, unlike most writers, also lived with style.”

Oh and what I like most about Compton is he loved cats, as seen in this quote....

For me, one of the pleasures of cats company is their devotion to bodily comfort.

[scotianostra]

The folk singer-songwriter and playwright Ewan MacColl was born on January 25th at Salford, England.

Now and again I post about Anglo-Scots, those born over the border in the home of our closest neighbours England, McColl is a man who was proud of his Scottish heritage, there is no doubt, but there is also no doubt he took much from his upbringing in Salford, most evident in the song about the city Dirty old Town. MacColl also did an album of songs by the other man of today, Robert Burns,, released on 4th April 1959.

MacColl recorded a huge volume of traditional Scottish and English folk songs, as well as creating a vast body of his own work, which ranged from satirical protest songs to tender love ballads, the latter most popularly renowned in his composition, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, written for his wife, Peggy Seeger (another folk singer), but made most famous by Roberta Flack. He recorded many of the Child and Ruud Ballads

He wrote over 300 songs, himself, some of which have been recorded by artists such as, the Dubliners, Dick Gaughan, Phil Ochs, the Clancy Brothers, Elvis Presley, Weddings Parties Anything and Johnny Cash.

My favourite song by Ewan MacColl is Dirty Old Town, it’s not about Dublin, as many believe but Salford, because the Dubliners made it famous I think that’s where the confusion comes from. Ewan must have been very proud of his daughter Kirsty, who followed on from her dad as a singer songwriter.

In 1979 he suffered the first of many heart attacks. The next ten years saw a steady deterioration in his physical condition, but he continued to work, tour, lecture and write songs. In 1980 he wrote his last play, The Shipmaster, the moving story of a sailing ship captain who cannot adapt to the coming of steam. In 1987 he began to write his autobiography, Journeyman. In the same year the University of Exeter presented him with an honorary degree.

On October 22nd 1989, he died of complications following a heart operation. The University of Salford awarded him a posthumous honorary degree in 1991.

[scotianostra]

Lord Byron, the Romantic poet, died in Missolonghi, Greece, on April 19th 1824, he was only 36.

Born as George Gordon Byron ,I won't bore you with all the details about his Scottish credentials, just take my word for it.

He grew up in Aberdeen, and inherited his family's English title at the age of ten, becoming Baron Byron of Rochdale. Abandoned by his father at an early age and resentful of his mother, whom he blamed for his being born with a deformed foot, Byron isolated himself during his youth and was deeply unhappy. Though he was the heir to an idyllic estate, the property was run down and his family had no assets with which to care for it. As a teenager, Byron discovered that he was attracted to men as well as women, which made him all the more remote and secretive.

Byron studied at Aberdeen Grammar School and then Trinity College in Cambridge. During this time Byron collected and published his first volumes of poetry. The first, published anonymously and titled Fugitive Pieces, was printed in 1806 and contained a miscellany of poems, some of which were written when Byron was only fourteen. As a whole, the collection was considered obscene, in part because it ridiculed specific teachers by name, and in part because it contained frank, erotic verses. At the request of a friend, Byron recalled and burned all but four copies of the book, then immediately began compiling a revised version—though it was not published during his lifetime. The next year, however, Byron published his second collection, Hours of Idleness, which contained many of his early poems, as well as significant additions, including poems addressed to John Edelston, a younger boy whom Byron had befriended and deeply loved.

By his twentieth birthday, the young nobleman faced overwhelming debt. Though his second collection received an initially favorable response, a disturbingly negative review was printed in January of 1808, followed by even more scathing criticism a few months later. His response was a satire, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, which received mixed attention. Publicly humiliated and with nowhere else to turn, Byron set out on a tour of the Mediterranean, traveling with a friend to Portugal, Spain, Albania, Turkey, and finally Athens. Enjoying his new-found sexual freedom, Byron decided to stay in Greece after his friend returned to England, studying the language and working on a poem loosely based on his adventures. Inspired by the culture and climate around him, he later wrote to his sister, “If I am a poet ... the air of Greece has made me one.”

Byron returned home in the summer of 1811 having completed the opening cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, a poem which tells the story of a world-weary young man looking for meaning in the world. When the first two cantos were published in March of 1812, the expensive first printing sold out in three days. Byron reportedly said, “I awoke one morning and found myself famous.”

Byrons fame was with the upper classes, the main poetry readers in this era, but the thing I like about Young George is he used his position, not to ingratiate with those he rubbed shoulders with, his time in The House of Lords, the second chamber of our parliamen he spoke in favor of workers’ rights and social reform, as well continuin to publish romantic tales in verse. His personal life, however, remained rocky. He was married and divorced, his wife, Anne Isabella Milbanke, having accused him of everything from incest to sodomy. A number of love affairs also followed. By 1816, Byron was afraid for his life, warned that a crowd might lynch him if he were seen in public!

Forced to flee England, Byron settled in Italy and began writing his masterpiece, Don Juan, an epic-satire novel-in-verse loosely based on a legendary hero. He also spent much of his time engaged in the Greek fight for independence and planned to join a battle against a Turkish-held fortress when he fell ill, becoming increasingly sick with persistent colds and fevers.

When Byron died on this day 1824, at the age of thirty-six, Don Juan was yet to be finished, though seventeen cantos had been written. A memoir, which also hadn’t been published, was burned by Byron's friends who were either afraid of being implicated in scandal or protective of his reputation.

Today, Byron’s Don Juan is considered one of the greatest long poems in English written since John Milton’s Paradise Lost. The Byronic hero, characterized by passion, talent, and rebellion, pervades Byron’s work and greatly influenced the work of later Romantic poets.

Lord Byron, while writing primarily in English, incorporated various Scottish words and phrases into his poetry, reflecting his connection to Scotland and its culture. He often used these words to create a specific tone or evoke a particular setting. Some examples include "Auld Lang Syne," "Loch na Garr," and words related to Scottish attire like "plaid" and "bonnet.

h the Culloden memorial happening today on Drummossie Muir it is only fitting to end this post with a poem that holds it's origins on the battlefield that day.

A year after Waverley appeared, anonymously, Byron wrote a shorter poem honouring the death of a Scots hero at Culloden, the 1746 battle in which George “Stinking Billy” the Duke of Cumberland defeated Bonnie Prince Charlie: battle with which Waverley climaxes. The poem – which wasn't published till after Byron's death is named after its hero, “Golice Macbane” others will know the man as Gillies MacBean, or MacBain.He was a 6ft 7ins captain in the Mackintosh regiment, became a jacobitehero due to him killing fourteen Hanoverians at Culloden before being killed himself.

“The clouds may pour down on Culloden’s red plain, But their waters shall flow o’er its crimson in vain, For their drops shall seem few to the tears for the slain, But mine are for thee, my brave Gillies MacBain!

“Though thy cause was the cause of the injured and brave; Though thy death was the hero’s and glorious thy grave, My sad heart bleeds o’re thee, my Gillies MacBain!

“How the horse and the horseman thy single hand slew! But what could the mightiest single arm do? A hundred like thee might the battle regain; But cold are thy hand and heart, Gillies MacBain!

“With thy back to the wall and thy breast to the targe, Full flashed thy claymore in the face of their charge: The blood of their boldest that barren turf stain, But, Alas! Thine is reddest thee, Gillies MacBain!

“Hewn down, but still battling, thou sunk’st on the ground – Thy plaid was one gore, and thy breast was one wound; Thirteen of thy foes by thy right hand lay slain Oh! Would they were thousands for Gillies MacBain!

“Oh! Loud and long heard shall thy coronach be, And high o’er the heather thy cairn we shall see; And deep in all bosoms thy name shall remain But deepest in mine, dearest Gillies MacBain!

“And daily the eyes of thy brave boy before Shall thy plaid be unfolded, unsheathed the claymore; And the white rose shall bloom on his bonnet again Should he prove the true son of my Gillies MacBain!”

[scotianostra]

On February 19th 1594 Henry Frederick Stuart, first child of James VI and Anne of Denmark, was born at Stirling Castle.

Henry Stuart would become the king who never was

He was thought to have great promise as a Prince although he had violent anti-Catholic opinions. Accomplished in sports he was also a patron of the arts and an avid collector. In 1610 he was created Prince of Wales. But he died suddenly, probably due to typhoid fever, on 6th November 1612.

His body lay in state for a month at St James' Palace until his funeral at Westminster Abbey on 7th December (parallel funerals were also held in Oxford, Cambridge and Bristol). Two thousand mourners attended in the procession accompanied by the music of fifes and drums and people of all ages lined the streets. Archbishop Abbott gave the funeral sermon. A magnificent hearse was erected on which was placed his richly clothed funeral effigy. The robes were those worn by the Prince at his creation as Princes of Wales in 1610. This effigy was made by Richard Norris with the plaster face modelled by Abraham Van der Doort. Unfortunately only the wooden frame of the effigy now remains. The robes had been stolen as early as 1616 and the head had gone by 1872. This is the earliest surviving effigy in England of anyone other than a king or queen.

He was buried in the vault of his grandmother Mary Queen of Scots in the south aisle of Henry VII's chapel.

Read more on Henry Stuart here http://www.unofficialroyalty.com/henry-frederick-prince.../