Dolly the sheep, Madness, and
The curlers of Penicuik
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Dolly the sheep has the lead role in the first of these four stories; all of which are true accounts of lives lived in Edinburghshire from the time of the enlightenment through to the present day. They are about families making a living from the land, the tragedies of the pronounced ‘insane’, the rural sport of outdoor curling, and importantly, the story of Dolly, the first mammalian clone.
‘Edinburghshire’ is a patch of land south of Scotland’s capital city toward the Border Country. It is rich in rural heritage, not least because it was close enough to Edinburgh to be attractive to the new generation of rich merchants and industrialists, and to the nation’s most talented innovators.
Blythbank Farm – and how Dolly the sheep put an end to animal breeding research there. The world’s first clone turned upside-down the science that made her. The University of Edinburgh had had research farms around Penicuik since the early 1900s. Blythbank at West Linton was purchased soon after WW2 to lead the revolution in Animal Breeding that was to make the United Kingdom the World leader in animal Science.
The Fall of the Laird’s House at Halmyre. The richest estate in Edinburghshire is wasted away in a life of misfortune. In the farming history of Scottish Estates it is not unusual for the Lands to lose their Big House – it falls down or is converted into a care home. But in the case of Halmyre, it was the house that lost its lands. How that came to be is a sorry and salutary tale.
The Curlers of Penicuik. Scotland’s old game survived only 100 years between two European wars. In those years there was fear of a Scottish Revolution – a deep divide between Landowners and Industrialists, Tory and Whig. In the small town of Penicuik, two families were at odds whilst playing the same sport; that of curling on the natural ice of the local lochs. Since its foundation in 1815 the Club had attracted a stream of characters of determination, charm and eccentricity. Their story ends with the Great European war of 1914 after which curling becomes an indoor sport.
The Mysterious Marion M Pow. A family of ‘insane’ persons, including the last lunatic asylum resident. The Pows were an Edinburgh family come to the shire to live as gentry. Marion was the daughter of a successful local farmer. The idyll turns to ruin when first James and then little Matilda are pronounced insane. Marion herself lives a life of ever-increasing eccentricity.
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