Scotland - Day Twenty Three

Day 23 - and it’s Dundee, but despite my best efforts I keep calling it Dunedin. You can take the girl out of New Zealand …

What a busy day, it’s like living in an Enid Blyton story, “Two go on an adventure,” but without the lashings of ginger beer. But surely there’d be fruit cake, it’s Dundee right?

I wasn’t sure we would have enough to fill the day without needing to get the “Porsche” out for a spin. I was wrong. But don’t tell the Favourite Husband, he thinks I’m always right.

In my head I had Dundee down as “quite posh with a history in textiles.” Don’t ask me where I get these ideas from, but I was right on the history in textiles, specifically jute, I’m not convinced on the “posh” part. I think the area of Broughty Ferry may be what I’m thinking of, which we hope to see tomorrow before we head off.

What I absolutely do know; is my goodness there’s a lot to see. And it’s all really good. Really interesting. I’ve learnt so much today and it’s been delivered in a fresh and engaging format at every turn.

For example, had I not gone to the V&A I would not have known that I need a winged tiara in my life. Had I not gone to Verdant Works I’d have had no idea how incredibly soft jute is before the heating process or that the factories now based in Calcutta make all the jute shopping bags for Tesco’s.

I came to realise that the jute barons were filthy rich. Something I believe is missing from my life. I believe I’d do filthy rich well. (And it turns out that they built all their fancy houses in, you guessed it, Broughty Ferry.)

From there I learned that the jute barons, who made all their wealth from the factories, made gifts and donations to the city, including the Baxter family’s donation of £420 towards what is now the McManus Art Gallery and Museum. This housed an impressive reference library, and as we now know, I’m a blossoming librarian with 2 books currently in my collection. So from Verdant Works it was off in search of the McManus Art Gallery and Museum. On entering the McManus Museum (free) my shoulders fell when the reply to my question of “where’s the library” was met with “it was moved to the city library.” Excuse me?

But. Wait. Hold on a whole hot minute. This museum is incredible. The items and information, the variety, the building, the art. Wow, the art. It’s absolutely mind blowing. Top marks McManus.

With that and Verdant Works, and the V&A, everywhere we’ve been since has seen me use my new found knowledge like a walking Encyclopaedia Brittanica.

“This rug is jute …”

“Grab that jute bag …”

“I believe that is oak …”

“Definitely Mackintosh influenced …”

But the most thrilling part of the day, was HMS Unicorn. This was first thing this morning and happened to coincide with my messaging with my daughter in NZ. I sent her a photo of the unicorn figurehead. Her reply? “Bring it home.” Do unicorns need to go through quarantine? Asking for a friend.

HMS Unicorn was fascinating, whilst also a little sad and a lot concerning. It is in quite a state of disrepair the lower down the ship you go and trust me, we went as low as you can. It felt slightly unsafe, but then let’s not forget, I’m scared of air so it’s probably just me. I am now the proud owner of an HMS Unicorn t-shirt which I will wear with delight. The Favourite Husband seemed to think I didn’t need the beanie, coloured pencil set or another water bottle but I think he’s just trying that silly “budget” idea he picked up.

HMS Unicorn has quite the varied history. It was built for the Royal Navy in 1894, which is most excellent, as I am really bad at maths so this makes it super easy to work out that it is 200 years old. It was used as a training ship for new navy reserves and is now one of the sixth oldest ships in the world. There was a lot of history around the use of her in the second world war.

We then had a great mooch around the inner city, we went to the cathedral, we saw the 15th century church tower, we saw street sculptures, we had a blast. Speaking of the street sculptures, I particularly liked the polar bear one. True story, in 1878, a polar bear was being transported by a whaling ship for an exhibition. There were two polar bears being transported by wooden crates on trolleys. Our bear, Bruin, was in the box that slid off the trolley and smashed open. After running amok through the streets and terrorising the locals, Bruin ended up being recaptured inside the local haberdashery, where he was then tempted out with some meat and recaptured. Why does nothing that exciting happen to me when I’m out doing the weekly shop?

The Favourite Husband found the emigration aspect created by the jute industry really interesting.

“Look, they even went to New Zealand” he said.

“All the best people do” I replied.

“Yes. Absolutely. Don’t tell me, I know this bit, you’ve told me often enough … I’m a ‘very lucky man’.”