Building Bridges - Sepia Saturday

Back in 1955 I went to St Andrews University to start my studies there. My first trip, by train, took me over one of Britain's iconic bridges.

East Coast Express crossing the Forth Bridge (1928)

Alan's prompt this week is of a flimsier bridge.

Rough Wooden Bridge Over River, Group With Dog on the Shore

[The image  comes from the Phillips Glass Plate Negative Collection, at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Australia. The Museum provides no further information the location of the bridge but the brilliance of on-line communities is  such that information is soon forthcoming : the footbridge was in Mosman Bay on the north shore of Sydney Harbour. The location of the photograph is not the only question posed by the title - it takes a sharp eye to spot the reported dog.]

The route to St Andrews takes the train over the River Tay. At that stage in my journey I knew nothing about an ill-fated journey on 28 December 1879.

Original Tay Bridge - seen from the north

William McGonagall, claimed by some to have been the worst poet in history, began his 1880 poem, "The Tay Bridge Disaster" with the words:

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.

The whole poem and some notes about the disaster may be read  here  - 75 people lost their lives when the bridge collapsed and took their train with it.

River Tay Bridge, middle section collapse, - 1880

Aged 18, I knew nothing about this but I did wonder what it was I could see in the water.

Tay Bridge (1981)

If you look closely you will see, to the right of the bridge, the plinths on which the original bridge stood.

During my time at St Andrews I studied geology as a subsidiary subject. This involved a number of field trips. During Easter 1957 we visited the island of Raasay off the West Coast of Scotland.

The Isle of Skye (viewed from Raasay 1957)

We travelled to Raasay by boat but never got to Skye. These days,of course, there is no need for a boat to reach Skye.

The Skye Road Bridge

 I'm sure you all will have heard of the Scottish folk song recalling the escape of Prince Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) from Uist to Skye after his defeat at the Battle of Culloden in 1746. The song tells how Charles escaped in a small boat with the aid of Flora MacDonald, disguised as a serving maid.

I hope you will like this version:

While I was at St Andrews there was a debate in the Students' Union about the need (in those days) for a Forth Road Bridge. The English undergraduate who demanded to to know what had happened to the first three was howled down!

I've driven over the bridge that was built later and also over the suspension bridges over the River Humber and the River Severn. Not wanting to leave without a reference to dogs, this pair used to swim in the River Severn alongside their home.

Milly and Cara (Irish Water Spaniels)

But as this post has mainly been about Scotland perhaps this is more appropriate.

Poppy (West Highland Terrier)

I thought about ending with the theme from the Bridge over the River Kwai but settled for this instead.

Now it's up to you to march off to see who's on parade at sepia-saturday-154

Attributions:

• LNER East Coast Express Photo by  L&NE Ry; scanned from Alan, Cecil J (1928) The Steel Highway; scanned by Andy Dingley
• Original Tay Bridge before its collapse, seen from the north (between 1878-1879); scanned by Peterrhyslewis 2007.
• River Tay Bridge, middle section collapsed, photographed by Valentines in 1880; scanned by Peterrhyslewis 2007.
• Tay Bridge (1981) The bridge that replaced the ill-fated original; Anne Burgess for geograph.org.uk - CC BY-SA 2.0
• The Skye Road Bridge connecting the Isle of Skye to mainland Scotland - 10 June 2005 - by Jörn Albring.
•  Youtube - Paul Robeson - Skye Boat Song, Uploaded by Alberto Truffi on 11 Mar 2010
  From the compilation An Evening with Paul Robeson a famous Scottish folk song performed by the great singer and actor. Taken from an Emitape mono 3 3/4 ips of the early sixties.
• Youtube - Music Video for The Movie The Devil's Brigade -  uploaded by Johnnyquest

Dogs in My Life

From an early age I was used to playing with dogs, The first I remember was an Airedale named Punch, then Laddie, a white Labrador/Lurcher, followed by a whippet named Flick. But the first photograph I have is this from the 1950s.

Major

Major belonged to my wife's sister, but was looked after by her parents. We have never owned a dog ourselves but our younger son and our daughter have made up for this. My son has had three Irish Water Spaniels over the years, two of them at the same time.

Milly and Cara

You may read about Milly and Cara here

Sam and Maxie were my daughter's first two Golden Labradors who became known as the Dogs of Troy.

Sam and Maxie are the stars

The pictures in the video also appear with a commentary at this post.

Later they became part of the gang of four known as the Deer Trail Hounds.

Gem, Sam, Jack and Maxie.

Gem is still alive; Sam suddenly went blind when he was 10 but survived another two years; Jack was known as the brown bomber because of the havoc he could cause while Maxie found fame as the Trash Queen in Dogs Today.

Gem now has to share the house and grounds with three Retrievers - Lily, Scout and Cody. Lily is the youngest and always in trouble but will run for miles after a tennis ball. Scout spoils the games by hiding the balls and has earned the title of Scouty-Two-Ball, which is strange because he hasn't any, as he can run with two in his mouth at once.

Lily and Scout in water; Cody and Gem on land

But Alan's prompt was, let me remind you, man and dog,

So here's one of me.

Cody - more in hope, than expectation.

For more shaggy dog stories you need to check out others at sepia-saturday-111

The Man Who Talks to Dogs

A-Z Challenge – ‘D’

Because of my interest in dogs I started to write about the dogs in the village where I live. The outcome – I suppose I now know as many dogs as people and I’ve heard people call me, “The man who talks to dogs.”

The first dog I remember was when I was very young, I’m not sure that I was old enough to go to school. The only photograph (now lost) that I saw of my father was him kneeling on the front lawn with Punch. Punch was an Airedale with a simple attitude to cats – he hated them. Mind you he took it to extremes when he killed the landlord’s cat for being on his lawn.

The first dog that I was allowed to take out for a walk was a white Labrador/Lurcher named Laddie, the gentlest dog you could imagine. He kept us in rabbit meat during WWII. Poor Laddie came to an untimely death when he was chased out off an alleyway behind a village pub straight under the wheels of a lorry.

Flick, the Whippet, came from South Wales. She covered herself in glory in a very short time by catching a hare almost as big as herself. I once wrote a short story based on this event called ‘The Chase.’

Major the Springer Spaniel had a demeanour to match his name. I’ll swear he sat to attention while his photograph was taken. Major was owned by my future wife’s family in Stamford, Lincolnshire.

 Major

My wife and I have never had a dog. One of my sons and my daughter have made up for this. Milly and Cara were the last two Irish Water Spaniels owned by my son. Milly was the most intelligent dog I’ve ever met and not a bad footballer either. She craved chicken bones and was the scourge of the neighbourhood raiding refuse bins for the remains. (You may read about Milly and Cara at http://bobscotney.blogspot.com/2010/04/irish-water-spaniels.html).

Milly and Cara

My daughter who lives in America had two golden (yellow) Labradors, a brother and sister, named Sam and Maxie. They are the stars in my blog post ‘Dogs of Troy’ at http://bobscotney.blogspot.com/2010/09/dogs-of-troy.html

Gem, Sam, Jack and Maxie

 When my daughter moved house, the pack increased to four with the addition of Gem, a black Lab mutt, and Jack, the chocolate Labrador know affectionately as the ‘Brown Bomber.’ Jack is my Lucky Dog (http://bobscotney.blogspot.com/2010/12/lucky-dog.html)

 

Jack

 Only Gem of the ‘originals’ is still alive and she has been joined by the elder statesman, a Retriever named Cody – the most obedient dog I know. He loves fishing in the lake.

 Cody

Scout and Lily are the younger Retrievers in the house. I have been told that it’s my job this summer to train Lily to behave. Wish me luck when I talk to the dogs.

[Posts and photos on North Yorkshire Village Dogs may be found in my blog archives in December 2009, January, March, June, July, September, October and December 2010]

Irish Water Spaniels

Cara, the 4 year old Irish Water Spaniel, cannot claim to be a Yorkshire dog and she doesn’t even live in a village. Her house is one of six at the end of a lane leading to the Severn river.

A Lincolnshire breeder’s dog, as soon as she was old enough she travelled to live with Milly, another Irish Water Spaniel, who had been Barnsley born and bred – so there is a Yorkshire connection after all.

At 6 months Cara was entered in what her owners thought would be a small local dog show. To Cara’s delight there were ‘hundreds’ of dogs of all breeds, shapes and sizes. In the puppy class Cara was to be handled by her owners’ 8 year old daughter.

While waiting their turn for judging Cara became distracted, slipped her lead and raced round all six judging rings. When eventually cornered and restored to her lead, everyone watched in amazement as she calmly waited; she even let the judge examine her without resorting to play or nipping him, before sedately walking round and running on her lead across the middle of the ring as was required. She did not win her class but a good time was had by all.

Milly on the left; Cara on the right.

At home Milly had the arduous task of keeping madcap Cara in check and as Cara grew stronger there were times when Milly had to remind her forcibly who was in charge. Milly was the one who led young Cara on expeditions to empty bins, including those of neighbours, where there was any scent of Milly’s favourite chicken. The pair must have had a thing about bins since they always hassled the lorry and the men who came to empty them.

‘Tug-of-war’ with an old knotted rope was their favourite game, and it wasn’t long before Cara became strong enough to hold her own and sound just as fierce as Milly. However she never became as adept with a ball as Milly who would have made Yorkshire proud of her version of Norman ‘bites yer leg off’ Hunter.

Irish Water Spaniels live up to their name; on walks one or both of them would visit any water and the river Severn to emerge coated in oozing black mud which earned them a hosepipe bath.

When Cara was 3, poor Milly died aged 9, from poisoned food discarded indiscriminately by some unknown so-and-so. The madcap Cara left alone has become a placid dog much to the surprise of everyone. Nevertheless, with only one or two exceptions, she always wants to play with any dog she meets. She was forced to admit defeat in her latest attempt to catch a lurcher - it literally ran in circles round about her.

Cara loves children and anyone who will stroke her tummy. She walks well on or off a lead, sitting down quietly to wait, tied to a bus stop, when anyone takes her shopping. She sleeps in the kitchen on a covered duvet beneath the wooden staircase; then when everyone is in bed she goes upstairs to sleep upon the landing. This is strange because the boards are bare and Cara likes comfort, especially ‘her’ couch in the conservatory.

Cara challenges anyone, and all dogs, who intrude into the lane outside the house with characteristic barks, letting them know that this is her domain.

[I wrote this some time ago. Since then Cara has been the victim of a hit and run incident and had to be put to sleep]