Connections

During my weekend break in Scotland I noticed one or two differences from back here, the first being that they call a taxi rank a" taxi stance" which is a new one on me. The other was the huddles of smokers outside of the pubs and clubs which I guess is something we can expect to see next summer when we join Scotland in outlawing smoking in public buildings. I was surprised a few times by links back to Barrow, one being a huge marble coat of arms and carved family tree of the Jardine clan amongst the gravestones in the churchyard of Sweetheart Abbey. Branch's of the Jardine family are shown in Barrow in Furness, and quite a few epitaphs mention Barrow. Then on the way back we visited the Devils Porridge exhibition near Gretna. This tells the story of what was then the biggest factory in the world a full nine miles long this was built during the first world war to produce cordite for explosives. Two towns Gretna and Eastriggs were purpose built to house the thirty thousand mainly female munitions workers who did this highly dangerous work. But guess where most of this high explosive was sent to be made into the shells and munitions used in the 1914-1918 war, Yes you guessed it Barrow in Furness.