What do Scotsmen wear under their kilts?

June 12 & 13.



Headed off for Brighton with an overnight stop in Mansfield.



This time we drove down the A68 from Edinburgh through the Northumberland National Park (as recommended by another "newly acquired' cousin, this time from Los Angeles) where we discovered that it's much nicer getting lost there than it is in Perth...



Overall we did 1,604 miles and assuming that we averaged 23 mpg and I was using Shell V Power whenever I could which was usually about £1.45 per litre then the fuel bill comes to £460 - OUCH!



The AC performed excellently but with a bit of steering wheel judder under heavy braking which will hopefully get sorted when it goes back to Thunder Road Speed Shop next month.



Then we're due to go to the AC National day at Stonor Park to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the AC Cobra (and also my birthday)









And lastly here are some more photos; this one of two Le Mans AC Cobras and a 1938 DHC.

Finally, one which tickled the navigator...





Ken Dodd beware!

Where have you been all my life?

June 11.

This was a strange day; until then I had only ever spoken to three "Craik"s in my life - my sister, my father and my grandfather. Today I met a cousin and her granddaughter and later in the day I got to speak to two other cousins who lived just over the Tay and probably could have been seen from the Premier Inn where I was staying.

It must be a little like an adopted child finding its parents. Suddenly I've found about fifty relations - that's a lot of Christmas cards to write!

Having lunched on Haggis at the Fisherman's Tavern we spent a couple of hours going round the RRS Discovery.



http://www.rrsdiscovery.com/index.php?pageID=54







Why, oh why couldn't they have restored the Cutty Sark in the same way?

Desperate Dan

June 10.



Drove over to the Eastern Cemetery in Dundee to see the "newly acquired" family grave; actually it's been there for eighty-two years, it's just that my sister and I didn't find out about it until a "newly acquired" cousin in Australia sent me a photo and a map. (see Preamble, 29 May).



It seems that not only am I descended from a family of a dissenting religious order but also a family of stone masons.



What I'd also found out was that my family had been jute mill workers from the beginning of the industry in Dundee. A fascinating, and again heart-rending story which began in 1820 with the first cargo of jute from India.



Dundee which used to be referred to as the City of the Three "Js"- Jam, Journalism and Jute. In fact it was once known as Juteopolis. "Between 1841 and 1901 the population of Dundee tripled, from 45,000 to 161,000. In 1883 over 1 million bales of raw jute were unloaded in Dundee. By the turn of the century the industry employed more than 50,000 people in over 100 mills" (Source: http://www.museumsgalleriesscotland.org.uk/member/verdant-works



The heart-rending part of the story refers to 70% of the workers being women and children with young boys who reached the age of 18 frequently being sacked as they would want adult wages. Their living conditions were also very third-world with outside lavatories at tenement blocks, with no running water either.



On a brighter note, I mentioned Journalism and Dundee is still home to D.C.Thomson and nearly everyone of my age will associate them with the Beano and Dandy...

And here you see Desperate Dan (The Dandy) and Minnie the Minx (Beano) in City Square

The Black Watch

June 9.
Having established that my grandfather's grandfather's grandfather was in the Black Watch and fought at Waterloo (presumably the Battle of Quatre Bras) I decided to go along to the Black Watch museum which co-incidentally is about four hundred yards from where he was originally a shoe-maker. Lovely museum with rooms for every theatre of war in which they took part - some of it is quite heart-rending. On a brighter note I loved the tale of the American who commented that it was about time they got new flags in the Napoleonic room...they were of course the originals from 1815.

Just had time to spot a few more churches frequented by the Dissenting Congregation of Perth and then it was regretfully on to Dundee; Perth really is a lovely little place. Unfortunately a lot of its inhabitants want it to regain city status - as someone who doesn't live there, I do hope they don't get it.

We were booked in the the Premier Inn at Discovery Point exactly beside the River Tay and next door to the RRS Discovery.

Kerachers, the best meal ever

June 8. Said our goodbyes to everyone and then headed for Perth and didn't get lost this time. Parked the AC in the station car park next to a space which bears the sign "Reserved for Ladies" - nice. The Station hotel has even more patina than the Alvis and is just what you'd expect from an old fashioned Victorian station hotel - it's vast and the website refers to its ability to host events for up to 1,000 people - a small shrub growing out of a chimney stack on top of the roof almost matched the hanging baskets.

Whilst the plumbing in the Alvis is thermo-syphon, the plumbing in the hotel is just LOUD!

As we were early we wandered into town; I had previously watched a Nicholas Crane programme on BBC TV so knew some of the things to look for - such as why the church of St John appears to have sunk. It hasn't, but they have raised the level outside as the skeletons in the grave yard appeared to be rather too close to the surface.

Originally it was a medieval church and John Knox preached there in the 1500s. There were a couple of elderly gentlemen there who were volunteers and were very helpful; when I mentioned that I was looking for "Sandemans" they very helpfully sent me in the direction of the archive part of the Perth library (it used to be housed at the Sandeman building which has now been turned into the sort of pub beloved by people wanting to watch football on TV - there were 9 of them - or hen parties)

Went to the library and looked up the people recommended to me and they unearthed books such as a register of Perth burials, The Sandeman Genealogy (a limited edition book which I've been trying to find for years) and several other books on religion as the Sandemans appear to have been keen proponents of the Dissenting Congregation of Perth - a break away group of the Scottish church.

Two hours well spent so we went out for what must be the best meal I've ever had; we went to Kerachers which is the Gallic name for Farquharson.

I had a 8mm slice of slow cooked belly pork served with three of the tenderest scallops ever. This was followed by roasted Argyll halibut and king prawn tails with green pesto and then I had vanilla creme brûlée, a coffee and a delightful malt whisky called Bunnahabhain from the north of the Isle of Islay. Toni had a mackerel parfait followed by a trio of monkfish, trout and seabass which was nearly as good as mine!

If I'm ever asked what my last meal would be - not that I've any intention of getting extradited to the USA on a murder charge - it's very simple, any meal at Kerachers.
http://www.kerachers-restaurant.co.uk/

Fish # 1,763, the one that got away?

June 7. Day off, so we didn't have to do anything.

It was my turn to want to do a bit of retail therapy as I'd been wanting to buy a Harris Tweed jacket for ages...well about 50 years since the last one.

I'd earmarked a few places in Pitlochry and Toni was quite happy to accompany me to the shops....

To cut a long story short I didn't buy anything but we did find a fish ladder. This is not the sort of thing you find on the River Thames where I grew up but it is essential if one wants to allow the salmon to keep spawning.

The ladder is simply a series of little locks with a permanent hole at the bottom of each one where the fish can swim up about 20 centimetres each time. The whole thing is rather interesting as there's a visitor centre with a glass window through which you can watch the fish swim up the ladder.

When we got there we found that 1,760 fish had been for a climb this year, according to their fish-counter - this seemed as exciting as paint etc, so we went inside the visitor centre and saw their very good exhibition only to see when we exited that two fish had gone up the ladder without us seeing.

However we were lucky enough to see Fish Number 1,763 being helped on his way by some keepers.

To cross the river we had to use the Glas Sandeman footbridge - I'm not sure if I'm related but it was some sort of religious sect.

And then we saw this little gem for sale...a Citroen 2CV Hoffman.

Rest and Be Thankful, you're not kidding...

June 6.  The Rest and Be Thankful speed hill climb.


I'd often heard about this and if you're of a particular age you'll know that a certain Mr. J Stewart cut his teeth on this in 1961.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rest_and_Be_Thankful_Speed_Hill_Climb

It's 1,425 yards and rises 400 feet; the AC Cobra Mk IV CRS is not the car of choice for this as its ground clearance is only 3.5 inches - still, its silencers act as quite effective skid plates.

My objective was to beat the time of the Mercedes...(set in 1906)...and you can see how we fared here, but listen closely to the navigator's advice and helpful comments...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdZ8y4cSExM


The hill climb itself is fun, but getting there over the unmade gravel road was a nightmare; it was a close run thing with the Mercedes but we made it! (with 20 seconds in hand)

The Top

East Nuek, the seaside

June 5. We went to the seaside.

We drove through Perth and then tried to drive through the Dundee roadworks and we eventually crossed the River Tay - it's positively enormous! And then we drove on to East Neuk. East Neuk comprises a lot of golf courses, notably St Andrews and a lot of very pretty fishing villages.

St Andrews was where we stopped for a bit of retail therapy but that only went as far as getting some coffees as we had to drive on to our lunch stop.

Sadly this was not owned by one of the relatives I was trying to track down.

Then we drove on through Crail to Anstruther where our local member was an ex-member of the RNLI crew so we had our own private tour around the lifeboat station.

Looking like a collection of brightly coloured bats, this is the correct way up for the photo...it does of course ensure that any water does drain out rather than sitting in the tips of the boots waiting to give you a nasty shock on a cold day.

As we headed back we drove through Cupar where one of my Scottish ancestors ran an Italian Licensed grocery shop in the early 1900s; I popped out to photograph the whole street as I didn't know what number his shop had been...only when we returned to Brighton did I discover that Google's Street View car had got there earlier...

Balmoral, while the Queen's away...

June 4. And our first chance to take part in the Diamond Jubilee celebrations. Whilst the Royals were dodging the rain in London we were taking advantage of their absence by picnicking on their lawn at Balmoral, in the sun. It had been claimed that the picnic would be prepared by the Royal kitchens; the navigator was somewhat miffed to discover that this meant sandwiches prepared by the Balmoral cafeteria - still the cars looked rather good in front of the castle.

We had a lovely drive to Balmoral through the Cairngorms National Park, past Braemar and supposedly the highest road in the UK.

Dunkeld, journey's end

June 3. Another lovely drive along the A7 and then crossing the Forth bridge and on to Perth, where we got lost for the first (but not the last) time and then on to Dunkeld.

Notice the Police pacifier of the Black Watch tartan on the driver's hood hoop just in case we got stopped for speeding...I thought I was fairly safe with that tartan and it was worn by one of my ancestors.

By the time we got to Dunkeld we were too early to check in to the hotel so we went into the village and I had a pint and a Haggis Pannini...what else could I do?! Once we'd checked in we went to the AC lounge to watch the Thames Diamond Jubilee procession...sorry to rub it in but whilst you were getting drowned in the south we were basking in...well, not rain anyway, and it only rained once in those two weeks.

A view from the gardens of the Dunkeld Hilton.

And then it was time for dinner and the sounds of the lone piper on the balcony...and shivers down my spine.

Border country

June 2. Had a day off yesterday and explored the shops, Betty's, the pubs and restaurants; the Italian we went to was charging London prices.



David, (well-known to Ringmer Multimarquers), had said that we must travel by the A7 from Carlisle to Edinburgh and what good advice that was - it's a lovely road which goes past Selkirk and then on to Edinburgh.



We were heading for Selkirk to stop for the night but at lunch time we arrived at Longtown. Now I'm used to people staring at the AC but this was strange until we realised that we were just the warm up act and they were waiting for their village Diamond Jubilee parade so we stopped off to enjoy it too.

And so we pushed on to Selkirk where I discovered in the local churchyard or "Kirk in the Forest" as this was known, that Wallace (aka Braveheart) was pronounced Guardian of Scotland just over 700 years ago on this very site.

And right opposite the hotel was not only Sir Walter Scott's courtroom but also where the Selkirk Bannock was first baked in 1859.

Sadly the shop appears closed but good old auntie has a nice looking recipe.

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1129665/selkirk-bannock