EYEMOUTH DISASTER: The winter and spring haddock fishing and the summer herring had been unsuccessful; impoverishment and hunger lay ahead. On Friday 14 October 1881, the first clear day for a week, the fishermen knew a storm was coming, but they reckoned they could be out and back in time with a catch for an under-supplied market. When the hurricane came, 129 men and boys from Eyemouth perished, one in three of the adult male population.
Peter Aitchison's outstanding Black Friday tells the full story.
PS WAVERLEY: The last sea-going paddle steamer, possibly the most photographed ship in the world, entered the Clyde on 2 October 1947. Built for the London & North Eastern Railway,
it was 240ft long and only 30ft wide, and entered service between Craigendoran and Arrochar. Waverley was withdrawn by Caledonian MacBrayne in 1973 and acquired for £1 by the Paddle Steamer Preservation Society. She was restored to her original 1947 condition in 2003.
JAMES "PARAFFIN" YOUNG: 17 October 1850 was the date of Young's patent for distilling "parafinne oil" from coal. He set up the world's first oil refinery at Bathgate and when coal was exhausted, turned to oil-shale deposits. At its peak the industry employed 13,000 in West Lothian, the last shale mine closing in 1962. Young's legacy was a landscape dotted with red shale bings.
BALLOON MAN: Vincenzo Lunardi made the first of his Scottish flights by hydrogen-filled Grand Air Balloon on 5 October 1785, floating 46 miles across the Forth from Heriot's School in Edinburgh to Ceres in Fife. From his own Account of Five Aerial Voyages (free download from Google Books) he was "received with the most affecting demonstrations of joy… the lower ranks of people look upon me as a kind of Superior BEING".
BURRELL COLLECTION Thirty-nine years after shipping magnate Sir William Burrell gifted his 8,000-piece art collection to the City of Glasgow, the Pollok Park gallery was opened by the Queen on 21 October 1983.
The full article contains 337 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
