This photo appeared on the DFC website on Christmas Eve. I don’t know when it was taken as it doesn’t often snow in Dumbarton, it being on the confluence of two rivers, but it looks lovely.

Cassell, 1966, 513 p.

Being the continuing adventures of Francis Crawford of Lymond, Comte de Sévigny, following on from The Game of Kings and Queen’s Play. We start here with a small incident in the ongoing border skirmishes with English forces before Lymond sets out for Malta, the seat of the Order of the Knights of St John, currently under the corrupt leadership of Grand Master Juan de Homedès. A Turkish fleet is bearing down on the island and Lymond is accompanying a mission to warn of its approach. It is there he meets the fair and pious Sir Graham Reid Malett (known as Gabriel.)

After witnessing the fall of Gozo they engineer a message giving false information to the Turks so that their fleet sets out for Tripoli instead of attacking Malta. A small group of Knights travels there to help its defence. Lymond’s former lover Oonagh O’Dwyer, whom he previously persuaded away from would-be Irish King Cormac O’Connor, has taken up with Galatian de Césel, Governor of Gozo, but when the island is lost she falls into the hands of the Turks. It turns out she is pregnant with Lymond’s son, eventually named Khaireddin, but for most of the book he is unaware of this.

The attempts to prevent the Turks capturing Tripoli eventually failing Lymond is joined by Malett in his efforts to form and train a private army partly to police the perennial feuds in the Scottish Borders but also to make money as mercenaries.

In the meantime Malett’s young and visually captivating sister, Joleta, has been sent by him to Lymond’s mother for safe keeping. Her attitude to men, who have always it seems deferred to her beauty, is summed up her reaction to Lymond’s articulation of his feelings for her, “‘But you can’t dislike me!’” In this scene Lymond seems to act at odds with the gentlemanly demeanour we might expect of a novel’s hero. But we later find his reasons are sound.

Notably (to me anyway) the pivotal moment in the book takes place in a hostelry in Dumbarton.

Twists and turns, betrayals and unfortunate choices abound and there are several loose ends (presumably to be taken up in the three later instalments of the Lymond Chronicles.)

It all jogs along eventfully enough but there is something about Dunnett’s writing here that jars with me. Too many viewpoint jumps perhaps, too little transparency.

Pedant’s corner:- helments (helmets,) unhung (unhanged,) “nursed rom” (nursed from.) “‘Unless your  fortify’”  (‘Unless you fortify’,) pomegranite (pomegranate,) “which soaked hides at might need protect” (context suggests ‘hides it might need’,) “the knights vulnerability” (the knights’ vulnerability,) disks (discs,) demonaic (demoniac,) hiccoughing (hiccupping,) cameraderie (camaraderie,) “a oecumenical” (‘an oecumenical’, and the latter is usually, now, spelled ‘ecumenical’,) Sandilands’ (Sandilands’s,) “every man, woman and child for which the company were responsible” (for which the company was responsible,) connexion (connection,) “had reached a screaming crescendo” (had crescendoed to a screaming climax,) pollarchy (first known use of this word was in the 1850s, not in mediæval Scotland.)

John Frostbrug in Dutch, this is the famous bridge too far, except it’s a replacement for the original Rhine Bridge fought over in the Second World War during Operation Market Garden. It’s somewhere in The Netherlands I’ve always wanted to visit.

I must say the River Rhine looks not very wide here – not as wide as the Clyde at Dumbarton certainly. Still an obstacle to an army though:-

Eastern guard post. Slight Deco styling.  I assume this is original:-

Western guard post. Note groove up the middle of steps, for wheeling bicycles up and down.:-

Reverse view of bridge:-

Roadway:-

Commemorative plaque with inscription to John Frost by roadway on north side of bridge:-

SPFL Tier Three 3 Play-off, Semi-Final, second leg, Forthbank Stadium, 11/5/24.

Like water torture. This was indeed a long 90+ minutes.

Albion looked a side lacking in confidence, not surprising when you slide into a relegation play-off spot.

In the first half they only threatened our goal once, after a bit of ping-pong in the box following a corner. Jay Hogarth saved the first effort but when the rebound was played across goal their attacker air-kicked a sitter.

We ought to have scored when a great move culminated with Div Wilson going for the near post but just shaving it into the side net. (Just for a moment it seemed he had scored.)

In the second half Albion came out to throw everything at it even going to three at the back. As a result our midfield was overrun at times but Jay Hogarth never really had a save to make. One shot did hit the post but that was it.

We had a few counter-attacking forays but tended to overcarry the ball when a pass was on (Kalvin Orsi and Finlay Gray I’m looking at you) or else players strayed offside so we never put the tie to bed. (Curiously, the linesmen flagged at the earliest opportunity, something which is very rare these days.) Michael Ruth was again superb up front but never got the clear chance his hold-up and general play deserved.

The final whistle was more of a relief than anything else even though Stirling never looked like scoring.

So it’s on to the Rock on Tuesday evening for the first leg of the Play-off Final against The Spartans then to Ainslie Park (of ill memory but also great memory) on Friday.

This is something I didn’t know existed till our visit to Dumbarton last May. It’s the remains of a well in Levengrove Park.

The information board explained it all. Rediscovered after a tree fell during a storm in 2018 (long after I had stopped living in Dumbarton) it was part of the first system to bring water into the town from outside. In 1714 the land on which Levengrove Park now stands would have been beyond the boundaries.

The rest of the stone which had covered the well has been placed nearby:-

These ruins are in Levengrove Park.

The church is the supposed burial place of the viscera of King Robert the Bruce.

Information Board for the ruins:-

Remains of east wall:-

Reverse View of ruins:-

I was shocked to learn of the death of writer Christopher Priest.

Yes he was 80 and it seems he had cancer (but of course I did not know that) but the news nevertheless came as a jolt.

I had followed his blog posts – see my sidebar – but he usually posted intermittently so the lack of recent posts did not seem significant.

I had probably heard of him in the 1960s via short stories but certainly by the time of his first novel (Indoctrinaire, 1970) and I bought and read his books keenly. His work makes up a substantial portion of my SF collection. Typically the reality in his narratives is slippery, with things gradually morphing from the seemingly quotidian to something more other worldly.

He will most probably be remembered for his stories set in the Dream Archipelago, a world recognisably like ours but yet twisted slightly out of true and which evolved over time.

I was lucky enough to meet him a few times at Science Fiction conventions. The last time was at the Harrogate Eastercon (six years ago now) – quite some time since we had last met – and since I am a relatively little known SF writer/reviewer – I was surprised he recognised me. He even remembered I hail from Dumbarton and introduced me to his partner Nina Allan (whom he married last year) as coming from the town. He was unfailingly courteous, friendly and encouraging.

I have of course read most of his books and have reviewed many of them on here (the link is to every mention of Priest on this blog.) His prose never fell below the highest quality. Had his work not been so closely aligned to Science Fiction and the speculative he would undoubtedly have received more praise from the usual literati suspects than he in fact did.

My consolation (if there is one) is that there are still some of his books on my tbr pile.

Christopher Mackenzie Priest: 14/7/1943 – 2/2/2024. So it goes.

One of the reasons why Dumbarton is a site for the Scottish Maritime Museum, apart from its shipbuilding history,  is the location there of a ship model experiment tank built in 1882 by Denny & Brothers to test new ship designs.

View of tank machinery:-

The day we visited there was no access beyond the doors:-

There was, though, a display of various bow types:-

The site still builds and tests wooden hull models:-

This poster shows two of the innovations Denny’s came up with, the steam turbine and stabilisers:-

William Denny & Brothers (known simply as Denny’s) was perhaps the best known Dumbarton shipyard and was a major employer in the town. When it shut down in 1963 it cast a palpable gloom over the town from which arguably it has never recovered.

The photograph below is of the shipyard in its heyday and along with the accompanying information (second below) is on display at the Scottish Maritime Museum building in Dumbarton.

Also on display there is a model of the shipyard in its location alongside Dumbarton Rock :-

The Dumbarton Football Stadium – home to the Sons of the Rock – now exists in the area where Denny’s fitting out dock lay. I’ll come later to the Denny Tank mentioned in the information below:-

The famous tea clipper Cutty Sark, now a visitor attraction in London, was built in Dumbarton, first at the yard of Scott and Linton but that firm went bankrupt before she could be completed and Denny & Brothers had to step in to finish the build.

There is a branch of the Scottish Maritime Museum in Dumbarton and we visited it last June where the above information was displayed beside a model of the ship – as well as its cat’s head mascot:

It’s a pity that the Cutty Sark itself is on display in London* as it would be a great pull for visitors to Dumbarton if it were to be returned home.

*Not that it’s the original ship since a lot of it was destroyed by fire in 2007.