Snowpatrol – The Dundee Years

However embarrassing (or not) it may be to admit it Snowpatrol, the Norn Irish foursome are my ultimate guilty pleasure!

Having seen them live on six occasions and owning all their albums including their obscure early titles, Now It’s All Over We Still Have To Clear Up and Song’s For Polar Bears I may be described as a somewhat of a fan…

Being from Northern Ireland and growing up listening to local radio in the noughties it was pretty much impossible not to develop a soft spot for the band and being such a small country everyone seems to have a little knowledge of them and their time in Belfast but not so well know is their Dundee origins.

Snow Patrol were originally formed as Shrug in 1994 by Dundee University students Gary Lightbody, Mark McClelland and Michael Morrison the band rented studio space and local rehearsal studios, Stage 2000 and shortly after played their first gig in the union at Christmas of that year. After a number of lineup and name changes, Shrug eventually found success in the guise that we have now know them; Snowpatrol.

Sixteen years have passed from that first performance and Snowpatrol have became a global phenomenon selling millions of albums and becoming a household name worldwide. I am not ashamed to admit that growing up their music has provided the backdrop for many memorable nights in Belfast and it comes as a surprise that they evolved in the same surroundings that I now find myself studying.

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay!

 From almost any southwardly vantage point in Dundee one cannot miss the imposing, daunting, heavy presence of the Tay Rail Bridge. With its strong powerful girders and powerfully grounded deck it would seem it was designed to last a millennia infact it would be seem unimaginable for any rail bridge to have any other kind of existence, but, alas this was not always the case with this particular bridge, for it was here on the 28^th December 1879 that occurred the one of the most tragic rail disasters in British history.

The engineer behind the design of the original Tay Bridge was a well respected and accomplished Victorian engineer by the name of Thomas Bouch.

Bouch worked for the North British Railway Company and had designed parts of Edinburgh station and had been appointed as the engineer on the Forth Rail Bridge.

On the evening of the 28^th December the evening train running between Edinburgh and Aberdeen was crossing the bridge which was under a sustained torrent of wind and rain the bridge suffered a structural failure sending the train and six carriages plunging into the icy water of the Tay Estuary killing all 75 on board.

Following the disaster an enquiry pointed at negligence of the part of Bouch leading to the disaster. It was found that Bouch had taken little account of wind load while designing the structure of the bridge. After the disaster Bouch was sacked from his job on the forth bridge and an alternative, radically altered deign was adapted. Bouch died shortly after the disaster his reputation and career irreversibly destroyed by the disaster.

The bridge was replaced straight after with an adapted designed allowing for a dual track to run the span. William Henry Barlow built the new bridge, Barlow had sat on the investigation council following the disaster.

Dundee Bard William Topaz Mc Gonnagal immortalized the disaster in his poem named for the disaster, the poem concludes;

"Oh! Ill-fated bridge of the silv'ry Tay

I now must conclude my lay

By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay

That your central girders would not have given way

At least many sensible men do say

Had they been supported on each side with buttresses

At least many sensible men confesses

For the stronger we our houses build

The less chance we have of being killed"

Caird of The Antarctic!

We have all heard (or read previously) of Scott of the Antarctic but there is the less well-known story of James Caird Jute Baron and Philanthropist who made it all possible.

James Caird was born 7 January 1837 in Dundee. The Cairds of Dundee owned two mills in Dundee making them one of the cities wealthiest families.

Ernest Shackleton approached Caird prior to his expedition with James Caird eventually pledging £24000 (millions in totals value) towards Shackleton’s expedition to the Antarctic.

In honor of his patron Ernest Shackleton named one of His ship the Endurance’s lifeboats after Caird. It was this lifeboat in which Shackleton famously made an open ocean 500-mile rescue voyage after the endurance struck Ice in the Antarctic.

James Caird is the namesake to many bequests in Dundee most notably the Caird Hall and Caird Park. Caird's donations also enabled the establishment of Dundee Cancer Hospital, which at the time was at the forefront of cancer research in the UK thanks to Cairds generosity. Other foundations included The Caird Jubilee Nurses Home

 And the Royal Dundee Institute For The Blind

James Key Caird Died on the 6 March 1916 in Belmont Castle in his beloved Dundee. Caird’s greatest namesakes came to fruition after his death with the Caird Hall being opened in 1923 and Shackleton’s naming of the Caird Coast in the Antarctic after its discovery in 1915

The Jute Barons

Dundee is known for its 3 J’s Jute Jam and Journalism. Jute is a natural fiber that is spun from the plant fibers soaked in whale oil. The resulting fiber is often called hessian and is better as Burlap. The main uses of jute are in the manufacture of Burlap sacs, pile carpet and more recently as an eco-friendly car seat covering.

Three of the most famous Jute Barons were David Lindsay, Joseph Grimond and James Caird. At its height there were around 130 mills in Dundee with the Camperdown Mill being the largest textile factory in Europe employing around 6000 people.

Dundee was the ideal location for Jute mills with a large Irish immigrant population already skilled in the production of Linen and a whaling fleet providing all the necessary oil for production. The city’s shipyards that built the RSS Discovery created a vast export market on board these new ships.

In the mid 19^th century the Jute industry was established in India by Dundee’s Jute barons looking to expand their profits. The history of jute in Dundee is a relatively short one lasting not much over a century with the last mills closing in the 1970s ironically being killed by the competition which the faced from the now independent Indian Jute markets.

The historic Jute industry in Dundee will be examined this week with the launch of the book Jute no more by local author Jim Tomlinson. Our university rector Brian Cox who in 2009 recorded a program for the BBC recording the changing fortune of Dundee’s Jute Industry had touched on the subject before.