St Andrews

Welcome to St Andrews!

What a beautiful day to be out in Scotland as well. Azure skys and chilly breezes.  

We wandered about the town and the kids allowed themselves to be dragged into the museum and for me to do my arty shots int he graveyard and ruins of the cathedral.

Some interesting points about St Andrews I hand't known till I got here.  Its has the worlds third oldest universities. Far out. I knew it had a good name and was well established and all..

There has been a Cathedral there since the 8th century. It supposed to be the resting place for St Andrew. Its claimed that a monk brought a number of bones supposed to be the saints's arm, kneecap, three fingers and a tooth and they are believed to have been brought to the town by St Regulus. The medieval times were a pretty gross time with all those bones and bits of saints being touted about. 

The one thing that most people know of St Andrews is that it is the home of golf. Its the most frequent venue for The Open Championship, which is the oldest of golf's four major championships. 

People  travel to St Andrews  to see and play in several courses ranked amongst the best in the world. I can say it sure beats the rough old course in Stanthorpe and Warwick!

I have a number of photos from today - mostly the cathedral.

This is the ruins of the castle which was erected around 1200 as the residence, prison and fortress of the bishops of the diocese. It had a few major rebuilds as the town gained popularity and power, but as soon as the reformation happened and the Cathedral was ruined, the castle came down as well.

I am pretty obsessed with ivy... and there are plenty of old homes covered in it..  

David Livingston Museum

We visited the David Livingston Museum today. I remember coming here when Age and I did a motorbike trek round Scotland years ago, but I don't remember being as touched or affected as I was today.

Most people know Livingston as a daring explorer who 'disappeared' into Africa during the romantic Victorian age or exploration and archeology.

I hadn't quite grasped what a visionary he was, that he was also a linguist, writer journalist, missionary, botanist AND abolishist. The things he set in place changed he face of slavery and in journalism. What an incredible man.

The museum is housed in Shuttle Row along the river Clyde in south Scotland. Its a tenement which the Livingstones shared with 23 other families ( incredible!  most modern families would complain that the entire place was too squishy just for them)

Its packed with items relating to his explorations in Africa with maps, journals, letters and navigational equipment, as well as dioramas of significant events in his travels.

It gave us a much broader and better understanding of him and his life. I had assumed he was one of he moneyed explorers, who was some lower peer or some such. Instead I was humbled to find he was the son of a cotton mill worker, who started off in the cotton mills, read and studied while he worked in horrible conditions, applied and got into bible college ( the only education institution available for 'his' type) and became a doctor, missionary and writer - all wrapped up in one. He had a keen interest in biology and set about collecting samples of plants, as well as making notes on the tribes and people he met.

Out the front of the museum is a statue depicting the time he was a attacked by a lion. I'm sure he epitomised the 'proper' English gentlemen with the "just a flesh wound' comment.

Suffice to say, I was deeply moved by his humanitarian views surrounding slavery and his commitment to collecting information and sharing it with an ignorant world

Fire festival in Battle

All of November has an excuse in one town or another to have bonfires and fireworks in the UK. Dating further back than pagan roots, the fire festivals are  a plea to the gods to ease the chill and harshness of winter, spare the people from starving or freezing to death and to bring spring quickly. In some places a criminal was placed in a wicker cage and thrown onto a huge bonfire as a sacrifice. I'm sure this practice stayed for a long time, but it was replaced by a figure.

November also celebrates the only man who entered Parliament with honest intentions. Guy Fawkes was from York, but secured his explosives from a company in Battle, Sussex. In 1605 on November the 5th, he was betrayed and handed over to the authorities. Poor old Guy is now the figure who is paraded up and down the main street and then thrown on top of the bonfire.

This month also recognises the burning of the Sussex protestants in the mid 1500s. After Henry the 8th died, Bloody Mary took the throne and went about making the country Catholic again, persecuting the protestants. A number of them were burnt at stakes for reading the bible in English - not the proper latin. ( apparently that was enough to say you were a heretic)

In all a pretty awful festival of bloodshed and murder.  The Battle festival was absolutely haunting, brilliant, loud and boomed with energy.  I found the parading of the damned ( witches and Guy) chilling. Dummies stood with hands tied in front of them and were pulled along in a cart as the crowd cheered and booed them.  The parade went up and down the main street three times and ended in front of the Battle Abbey where a huge bonfire had been built.

People in the parade carried huge burning torches and many dragged drums of burning pitch. Fireworks and loud drums were thumped and banged. I had wondered why many children were wearing huge ear protectors , but as the night wore on, I wished I had them as well.

There were thousands and thousands of people pressing along the street. I took videos and loaded them onto instagram, but will follow this with photos. I hope it does justice to the incredible atmosphere we were involved with.

The people in the parade were dressed in their society uniform.  Some were pirates, others zombies, knights, chimney sweeps and other generally scary beings. Everyone walked with such purpose - to burn the witches, the protestants and to punish Guy.

The 'proper' street vendors were there - toasted marshmallows, roasted chestnuts and dodgy burgers.  We also weakened and went and got arm fulls of hot chips.. so good.

We pushed our way toward the Abbey and got glimpses of the bonfire going up.  We had a local with us, who guided us to a back alley where a timber yard was. We got to lay one a huge stack of timber and look up into the sky as the fireworks were let off. It felt like it was just us and the fireworks. It probably was the best display I've every seen.

In all, the people of Battle put on a brilliant parade and if the gods of winter were listening, they will send a mild one; which to be honest is a bit of a shame, as we came last year for the snow ( which didn't come) and we are desperate to see some this year....