Mortal Memories

Robert Watret

1963

It had been too long since I last made a trip from Edinburgh to Dumfries. Now on the road and approaching the Leadburn junction from Howgate, I imagined I was conscious of a lessening of the gravitational pull that at various times in their lives demanded the return of Doonhamers.

In no time now I reached Broughton, birth place of John Buchan, author of the 39 Steps and former Governor General of Canada. I mused that it was strange that someone from such a small settlement should aspire to both literary success and being in charge of the biggest country in the world.

Five more miles and I reached the Crook Inn, which hostelry, from my calculation, in having travelled the route so often in my life, was exactly half way between Edinburgh and Dumfries. I knew instinctively that I would reach Moffat in exactly 17 miles.

The 17 is something more of a reminder of those heady days when, as a 17 year old I first drove this route. Then, before the world Government spin machine had colluded to invent the phrase carbon footprint, I used to drive fast. Then one could get 4 gallons of Esso Golden and change from 1.00.

The road sign Dumfries & Galloway was soon on my left, and I would soon be at the Alpine like series of z-bends which circumnavigated the rim of the Devils Beef Tub.

Now the Tub Hairpin and I was soon beginning my descent into the market town of Moffat.

The gradual, although twisting descent next brought me to Ruxtons Brig. From this bridge a doctor from the South of England had thrown parcelled pieces of his wifes dismembered body. He probably thought that would be the end of the matter. However his perfect crime had collapsed. The burn under the bridge next flowed through a farmyard in Moffat and his parcels, wrapped in the local newspaper from his hometown soon lead to his detection and conviction.

Now only 18 miles to Dumfries, the gravitational, or whatever it was, pull had lessened, but I felt myself quicken somewhat in anticipation.

This stretch was over in no time and I arrived at Locharbriggs. The road sign said Dumfries but this was superfluous, I was home.

Locharbriggs was home to both my father and the Sandstone Quarry which had provided the materials for both local housing and the chief civic buildings in Dumfries and, indeed, some in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Heathhall was the home of the Arroll- Johnstone car factory in the 1920s when Henry Ford was mass-producing cars and Buick had just emigrated from Fife to the U.S.A, to found what is now General Motors.

I now reached the town proper and proceeded towards the main objective on my periodic visits to Dumfries. This was to visit the cemetery at Calside which sits at a high point in the town and where my parents are buried.

The route to the cemetery took me past my old school - Saint Josephs College which was mainly for boarding pupils I, with a few of my schoolmates, was a day boy who had been successful in passing the control examination at 11 years old.

While John F Kennedy was being murdered I was studying for my forthcoming examinations which would determine whether I could go to University. The boarding pupils at school followed a strict regime of preparatory study in the evening and I found it beneficial to join them in this. On leaving the school at 8.45pm on 22/11/1963 I met a boarding pupil who gave me the news of the atrocity in America. The school crest and motto Nisi Dominus Frustra was affixed to the front of the main building. I trust that the perpetrators of the crime eventually realized this. Some 44 years later and with a young coloured contender for the Presidency I can only hope this is proved true.

I then arrived at the cemetery with my flowers. As always I felt myself both somewhat annoyed that the flower vase in the headstone contained only the withered stalks remaining from my last visit to a certain proprietorial pride that I am visiting my mother and father. Having cleaned the headstone and made the vase pretty with flowers and said a prayer I left and continued my brief journey. I passed my school again on the way back into the town and soon arrived at the road junction which houses two landmarks. The first is Saint Michaels Kirk in which graveyard is buried Robert Burns. I understand that when he died from consumption he was buried in an ordinary plot. When his poems made him famous he was removed to a grander part of the cemetery and placed beneath a large Mausoleum which contains his statue. I am quite sure that had he been alive today he would have penned another poem poking fun at this.

Opposite Saint Michaels Kirk is the Ship Inn. This is now at a rather high point in the town but at the time it was built quite large ships could sail up the River Nith into the town.

I had now to think about returning northwards. I also wished to visit my brother. The road to his house took me over the Lochar Moss. This was a large are of undulating ground to the east and rear of Heathhall Aerodrome. After leaving my brothers house I travelled on through the small town of Lochmaben with its imposing statue of Robert the Bruce. Three miles further and I reached the outskirts of Lockerbie the scene of the tragic air disaster. Rather than driving through the town I turned off at its outskirts and joined the old A74 road to Abington, from there my route took me to Biggar and onwards to Edinburgh.

Arriving back in Edinburgh one hour later I resolved that I would not wait so long before my next visit Doon Hame.