Cross Archives - Aberdeen Voice

Union Terrace Gardens From Underneath

Aberdeen City, Featured, History, Information 12 Responses »

Aug 212012

‘What lies beneath?’ is a question which should be asked about Union Terrace Gardens, not least by those who wish to build underground structures there. Aside from the roots of 250-year-old trees and rich soil which helps prevent city centre flooding, we have the now underground Den Burn. Jake Williams shares his thoughts.

The stairs of Rosemount Library in Aberdeen used to be lined with framed pictures, either photos or line drawings, of Aberdeen from bygone times.
The one that I remember was from sometime in the 1800s, showing Union Terrace Gardens before Union Terrace Gardens was there. It was a view looking north from the Union Street bridge, but there was no park, no theatre and no railway line.

Three decades later, the accuracy of my recollection isn’t guaranteed, but I remember looking at a row of cottages on the right where Belmont Street is now, and another row on the left where Union Terrace is now.

The houses all had long thin gardens with drying greens right down to the Den Burn, which flowed straight down the middle of the picture, and there was a hump-backed bridge and a few wee wooden bridges over the burn. Union Bridge was opened in 1805, and the railway was built about 1867, so the picture must have been drawn between these dates. The gardens were laid out about 1879 [I got the dates from Wikipedia].

The name of the Den Burn is perpetuated by the street and the health centre named after it, but the existence of the burn itself is nearly forgotten, having been underground for most of its length for the last 150 years.

It starts somewhere near Westhill, passes Woodend Hospital, and I believe it still runs through the back gardens of the big houses in Rubislaw Den. Near Queen’s Cross it is in a deep stone-lined channel, visible from some of the streets and lanes around Osborne Place.

One summer about 1980, during a dry spell when there wasn’t much water in the burn, my pal Chris and I went an adventure. We scrambled down into the wee canyon where the burn ran along the side of the Grampian TV studio at Queen’s Cross and walked downstream in our wellies.

Soon the burn went underground and we carried on with torches. It was like the films where the heroes are journeying through a city’s Victorian sewers: a tunnel of red bricks arching over our heads, with enough headroom to walk upright.

they must have built the brick tunnel right up to the side of the bridge

Here and there were ladders going up to a heavy steel manhole cover, and we could keek through the keyhole and try to work out where we were, from a limited view of the upper part of some building. We weren’t tempted to try and push up the cover, as we were probably in the middle of the road.

We must have crossed under Rosemount Viaduct and under Spa street and down round the back of the theatre, because we looked out from the keyhole of a manhole and saw trees: we were in between Union Terrace Gardens and the railway.

A little further on there was a bit where the roof of the tunnel was different. Instead of red bricks, it was old stone masonry. It was the hump-back bridge that was in the picture on the library stairs. When they covered over the burn, they must have built the brick tunnel right up to the side of the bridge, left the bridge as it was, and carried on the tunnel from the other side of the bridge.

We didn’t go much further. The water was getting deeper and moving faster and we didn’t fancy getting swept off our feet and into a cold wet grave somewhere near the harbour.

I went into the library recently to ask about the old pictures of the Denburn valley. They have a few pictures but not quite like I remember. One is looking from the north towards Union Street, and it does show a wee stone bridge over the burn, but it looks more graceful than the bridge in the tunnel, more of a sweeping curve than a hump-back.

Maybe there were two stone bridges? The library’s internet archive www.sivercityvault.org.uk has a few pictures, too.

The proposal to fill-in the gardens for another shopping centre may never come true if they can’t raise the necessary millions, or if there’s a change of political power in the council. My proposal for improving the gardens is to exhume the Den Burn from its tunnel, and let the old stone bridge see daylight again.

Reference:

http://www.silvercityvault.org.uk/index.phpa
also photos 691 , 747, 748, 891 from www.silvercityvault.org.uk

Money’s Too Tight To Mention

Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Environment, Featured, Information, Opinion No Responses »

Feb 032012

Mike Shepherd examines the potential for cost over-run on the City Garden Project and asks …

Where’s the money coming from?

Money’s Too Tight To Mention is the title of a 1980’s Valentine Brothers pop song covered by Simply Red.

It is also thematic of the City Garden Project (CGP), the controversial proposal to develop Union Terrace Gardens.

The nominal costs for the project are £140m, of which it has been proposed that the private sector provides £70m and Aberdeen City Council borrows £70m through a tax scheme to fund the rest.

A commonly-asked question over the last three years has been, “Who pays for any cost over-run if the project runs out of money?” It is a question that has never been properly addressed and it now looks as if the answer is: “there is no obvious source of money should the costs exceed £140m”.

At a public meeting at Cults Academy in May 2010, it was stated that the Council would pay any excess costs. A month later, Sue Bruce, the then chief executive, decreed at a council meeting that the Council would most certainly not pay for any cost over-run and put the responsibility on to the private sector. This has been the understanding ever since.

At this stage, there are no identified funds should costs ramp up.

However, the private sector has managed to raise no more than £55m of promised funding for the CGP to date. Assurances have been made to the Council that £70m will be on the table and this sum’s availability is one of the conditions for the CGP progressing to the planning stage.

At last week’s council meeting, the question of potential cost over-run was put to Colin Crosbie of the Aberdeen City Garden Trust, the organisation created to take the CGP through to the construction phase. Colin mentioned that the project costs will be less than the nominal £145m and that this gives a built-in margin. The intention is also to put rigorous project and cost management in place.

There could be a problem in finding funds above the projected £70m private sector input. It appears that local businesses are concerned about public goodwill should they be seen to contribute money for the controversial project.

At this stage, there are no identified funds should costs ramp up. One obvious solution is that Sir Ian Wood could make a guarantee to handle this, but there is no sign of this happening as yet.

Could costs over-run on the City Garden Project?

One group of professionals have expressed severe misgivings about the potential for cost over-run on the City Garden Project. Architects.

Scottish architects met at a convention in 2010, and in a straw poll, almost unanimously rejecting the Aberdeen proposal, stated that:

“The costing is absurdly light, making this proposal both technically extremely difficult and financially potentially draining.”
– See: http://www.urbanrealm.co.uk …_delegates_unanimously_reject City_Square_plans

Neil Baxter, secretary of the RIAS, the professional body for Scottish architects, has also said:

“A further significant concern is the much-publicised budget for this proposal. You will be well aware that the highest profile architectural competition in Scotland in recent years was that for the Scottish Parliament and the lengthy and difficult process which ensued from the risible budget initially set for that endeavour. Considering that, in recent years, buildings of comparable scale in Aberdeen and elsewhere in Scotland on straightforward urban sites have cost easily twice the quoted budget figure for this particularly problematic and challenging site we would be very concerned about launching a competition based upon such a questionable budget.”
– See: http://fraserdenholm.blogspot.com/2010_05_01_archive.html

I talked to one architect who had concerns about the allocated budget for the scheme. He told me that the project has “cost over-run written all over it”. There are two tricky areas:

The project involves a large amount of rock and soil extraction from the site, whilst shoring up both Union Terrace and Rosemount Viaduct.
It is not easy to build over an existing railway line.

The latter concern possibly derives from a previous situation in the south of England, where a tunnel built to support a new Tesco store above a railway line collapsed. This caused a five-year delay to the original project.
– See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrards_Cross_Tunnel

What would happen if costs massively over-run?

As mentioned, there are no obvious sources of funds identified to handle any cost over-run above £140m. Aberdeen City Council certainly can’t afford it and the private sector is cash-limited at present. Should it occur, the most likely situation is, to save costs, not everything would be built. Failing that, the project would come to a halt if there is no money left to proceed.

In this instance, there could be a half-built steel and concrete shell where Union Terrace Gardens used to be, clearly the worst case scenario. This would also have the unfortunate effect of causing the tax scheme, underpinning the council’s borrowing, to collapse. This is based on the CGP creating new businesses in the city to provide rates to pay off the £70m loan.

Without a completed project, the Council will be left to service a massive loan. This would be a disaster on a horrendous scale.

The ever-present potential for massive cost over-run on the CGP is a major concern and without a clear plan and identified funds to handle excessive costs, the project is far too risky to consider.

Aberdeen City Council could be sleep-walking to disaster if the scheme gets approved.

Who’s Cross? – What A Catastrapostrophe!

Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Information, Opinion No Responses »

Jan 192012

By Stephen Davy-Osborne

Nationwide book-retailer Waterstone’s may well be investing in the future by making the change over to e-books and readers, but the announcement that stores are soon to lose the apostrophe from their shop-fronts is what will drag the company into modern times.
– Or at least, that is the idea.

Announcing the change, which enraged the grammar police, Managing Director James Daunt said:

“Waterstones without an apostrophe is, in a digital world of URLs and email addresses, a more versatile and practical spelling.”

If the humble apostrophe is no longer good enough for a purveyor of literacy, then what place does it have in the fast food chain of McDonald’s or supermarket Sainsbury’s?

Neither of these non academic stores include the apostrophe in their website URLs, yet the apostrophe remains perched precariously between the final two letters on their shop facade, showing that these companies once belonged to a someone.

Indeed, Waterstone’s also was once a family run business, founded by a Mr Tim Waterstone a good 30-odd years ago. He no longer has anything to do with his legacy, nor is a family member at the helm in these uncertain waters. The removal of the apostrophe therefore distances the modern day company from its heritage.

Perhaps a deliberate move. Or perhaps a minimal cost PR stunt, knowing that any misuse or slight made against the apostrophe, which many would argue is integral to the English language, is likely to draw criticism and extensive media coverage. Especially from the Apostrophe Protection Society.

Professor Patrick Crotty, Head of the School of Language and Literature at the University of Aberdeen said:

“Everybody knows what Waterstone’s means, whether there is an apostrophe there or not. I don’t think that anything major is lost. I know some people get very excited about this and write to the Mail and Telegraph and so forth, but I must confess to a certain scepticism about their zeal. But when marking a student’s essay I would want the apostrophes to be in the correct place, because that is part of what we call Standard English.

“The English language has been around for a fair number of centuries, but the apostrophe rule itself has only been around for two centuries. There are some establishments, such as Kings College Cambridge which is far older than the apostrophe rule; and that has always been Kings College without an apostrophe. But these things change over time.”

Nae Langer “The Beautiful Game”

Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Creative Writing, Information, Opinion, Satire and Humour No Responses »

Aug 222011

By Bob Smith.

Scottish fitba’s noo dire,
it’s stuck in the mire
It’ll hae a richt fecht ti survive
Cos o the cost,
mair fans they are lost
As T.V shows games fit are live

Faar’s aa the flair,
excitement’s nae mair
As coaches use a rigid formation
Aa 4-5-1 noo,
or thon 4-4-2
An fans gie vent ti frustration

Faar’s aa the wingers,
faa o crosses war slingers
They’re nae langer seen in the game
Jist a lot o fly guys,
faa are gweed at a dive
Each wikk it’s jist mair o the same

There’s nae Graham Leggat,
faa hid fullbacks fair fleggit
As doon the touchline he wid glide
Wi his quick feet,
maist opponents he beat
An they landed up on their backside

Modern players micht be fit,
bit the fitba is shit
Gweed goal poachers we nivver div see
Wi twa banks o fower,
it maks ye fair glower
Fan fae shackles wull fitba be free ?

Fae pundits we hear,
an aa iss I fear
Is ae reason oor fitba’s nae fine
“We’re in the results game”,
is fit they proclaim
Entertainment is far fae their myn

In Europe we fail,
the fans they aa wail
As heids they’re hung doon in shame
Jist hae players attack,
an nae jist hing back
An bring alive “The Beautiful Game”

©Bob Smith “The Poetry Mannie”
Image credit: © Shaun Mclean | Dreamstime.com

Westboro Baptist Church To Open A Branch In Aberdeen?

Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Information, Opinion, Satire and Humour No Responses »

Aug 122011

An unconfirmed rumour that the controversial Westboro Baptist Church is about to open a church in Aberdeen came to the fore this week, when an alleged biography of the incoming WBC minister was discovered by your intrepid reporter Dave Watt.

The elders at Westboro HQ (obviously taking seriously US televangelist Pat Robertson’s claim that Scotland “is a dark land overrun by homosexuals”) have apparently decided not to risk their incumbent being attacked and sodomised by the gangs of gay rapists that infest the Granite City – and have agreed to send one of the wimmenfolk instead.
www.godhatesfags.com/index.html

Biography of the new WBC Minister to Aberdeen

The Reverend Walmartina Navratilova ( pictured ) was born in Westboro County in June 1982, to Jim-Bob and Loribelle Navratilova (nee Pork). Her rather unusual Christian name was chosen in celebration of the location of her conception back at Thanksgiving in Walmart the previous year. This was the result of a romantic moment when Loribelle was in the store checking out the Grilled Racoon Special – and Jim-Bob was in having his banjo re-strung.

All went well in the Navratilova shack for several years, with the doting parents basking in the reflected glory of their eldest child being named for one of the US’s top female tennis players. However, in 1988, during one of the Sunday readings of the National Enquirer to the congregation by Pastor Jack Perspex, the unfortunate couple discovered that not only had their daughter’s role model been brought up a ‘godless red commie’ but was, in the Pastor’s own inimitable words, ‘a self confessed rug muncher and crack snacking dyke of the most insatiable kind’.

Although the couple were initially devastated by this revelation – and even Jim-Bob’s coon hound, Skeeter, was ostracised at the local Canine Obedience School – they gradually came to accept the situation. Following a long discussion with the Rev. Perspex, they decided to wait to see how things developed, and keep a close eye on the young Walmartina during puberty for any outward signs of a tendency towards lesbianism, communism, and even worse, tennis.

Fortunately for Jim-Bob and Loribelle’s peace of mind, the youthful Walmartina developed a 225 tenpin bowling average, became the county’s first Junior Imperial Wizardess in the Ku Klux Klan, and has presented the Navratilovas with a grandchild each year since her fourteenth birthday (some of them even to fathers outwith her own family).

Adulthood presented its own problems to Walmartina, when the Roadkill Canning factory at which she worked closed down. She spent several years on Welfare with her steadily increasing brood, until one day she found an advert in the local newspaper for Genuine Degrees in Theology for $50 and, amidst the rolls of baling wire and rusting station wagons, she found God in her hour of need.

Since then, Walmartina has travelled the length and breadth of the US Midwest preaching that the love of God is universal except for fags, commies and anyone with a three-figure IQ. She is looking forward to the challenge of bringing God to the backward heathens of Aberdeen, and has stated that her wayside pulpit message shall be :

“Repent Now, Scotch Limeys – or Burn In Hell!”

Peter Williamson – Aberdeen Child Slave Part 5

Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Featured, History, Information No Responses »

Jun 182011

With thanks to Mike Shepherd.

Peter Williamson was kidnapped as a child in Aberdeen harbour and taken to the American Colonies where he was sold as a slave.

On gaining his freedom, he was kidnapped by the Indians, living with them and eventually escaping from them. He then spent three years in the British Army fighting against the French and the Indians, only to be captured again, this time by the French.

As part of a prisoner exchange he was repatriated to Britain in 1757.

In Plymouth he was released from the army with a purse of six shillings. This was enough to get to him to York, by which time he was penniless.

He managed to persuade some local businessmen to publish his book, titled The Life and Curious Adventures of Peter Williamson, Who was Carried off from Aberdeen and Sold for a Slave. This sold very well and gave him enough money to return to Aberdeen in June 1758, fifteen years after being kidnapped.

He had several hundred copies of his book with him, some of which he managed to sell on the streets of Aberdeen. The book eventually came to the notice of Councillors and merchantmen in the city, and although nobody was named, they did not like what they read. The Procurator Fiscal lodged a complaint with the Provost and Magistrates, stating:

“that by this scurrilous and infamous libel … the corporation of the City of Aberdeen, and whole members whereof, were highly hurt and prejudged; and therefore that the Pursuer (Peter Williamson) ought to be exemplary punished in his person and goods; and that the said pamphlet, and whole copies thereof, ought to be seized and publicly burnt.”

A warrant was issued for his arrest. He was taken from his lodgings and brought before a Magistrate at the courthouse. Peter was asked to repudiate publicly everything he had said concerning the merchants of Aberdeen. Until he agreed, he was to be imprisoned and his books seized. After a short time in the Tolbooth (a jail in the Aberdeen Town House), he was bailed and stood for trial. On being found guilty, he was told to lodge a document with the court confessing to the falsity of the book and to pay a ten shilling fine, otherwise he would be imprisoned. This he reluctantly agreed to, leaving Aberdeen and moving to Edinburgh.

In a ceremony watched by the Dean of the Guild, the Town Clerk, the Procurator Fiscal and the Baillies, the offending pages were sliced from 350 of Williamson’s books and publicly burnt at the Mercat Cross by the town hangman. The remaining pages were never returned.

In Edinburgh, Peter contacted a lawyer and started planning for a legal challenge. He opened a coffee shop which became frequented by the Edinburgh legal fraternity and he started to teach himself Scots law. The year 1760 saw the start of an extended phase of courtroom battles against his persecutors in Aberdeen. In 1762, he was successful in getting the result of the Aberdeen trial reversed and was awarded costs and a £100 in damages.

The results of his investigations had revealed the names of the businessmen behind his kidnapping. These were Captain Robert Ragg, Walter Cochrane (the Aberdeen Town Clerk Depute), Baillie William Fordyce, Baillie William Smith, Baillie Alexander Mitchell, and Alexander Gordon, all local merchants with a share in the ship, Planter.

Further litigation ensued. Witnesses were found and they were mainly men who as boys had managed to escape kidnapping. The father of a boy who had sailed with Peter Williamson to the Americas testified. He said that while the Planter had been moored at Torry, his son had returned to him and refused to go back. He claimed that Captain Ragg and others involved had spoken again and again with him in the street, warning him that he would be sent to the Tolbooth if he didn’t send his son back to the ship. The boy went back.

The main incriminating evidence was the so-called “kidnapping book”. This was a ledger detailing all the expenses of the slave-ship venture. It mentioned Peter Williamson by name and included entries such as:

“To one pair of stockings to Peter Williamson, six pence; To five days of diet, one shilling and three pence.”

One entry read:

“To the man who brought Peter Williamson, one shilling and six pence.”

Eventually in 1768 the case was proved. Peter was awarded damages of £200 plus 100 guineas costs.

Child slavery was endemic in Aberdeen and elsewhere in the 1700s. The plantations in the American colonies were desperate for labour. The Book of Bon Accord (Robertson 1839) records that:

“The inhabitants of the neighbourhood dared not send their children into town, and even trembled lest they should be snatched away from their homes. For in all parts of the country emissaries were abroad, in the dead of night children were taken by force from the beds where they slept; and the remote valleys of the Highlands, fifty miles distant from the city, were infested by ruffians who hunted their prey as beasts of the chase.”

Skelton (2004) mentions that it was estimated that 600 boys and girls were abducted and sold for slavery between 1740 and 1760 in Aberdeen and the North-east. On the voyage alone that took Peter Williamson, there were 69 youngsters on board.

A BBC website accompanying a radio series on the history of the British Empire fills in some background from the period:

“Most accounts of British slaving date from the 16th century with the shipping of Africans to the Spanish Main. But less discussed is what happened to English and Scots eight, nine and ten year-olds in places like Aberdeen, London and Bristol. Many from those places were sold for forced labour in the colonies.

London gangs would capture youngsters, put them in the hold of a ship moored in the Thames and when the hold was full, set sail for America. Many authorities encouraged the trade. In the early 17th century authorities wanted rid of the waifs, strays, young thieves and vandals in their towns and cities. The British were starting to settle in Virginia. So that’s where the children went.

This was a time when it was common enough in Britain to have small children as cheap, or unpaid labour. In 1618 one hundred children were officially transported to Virginia. So pleased were the planters with the young labour that the then Lord Mayor, Sir William Cockayne, received an immediate order from the colony “to send another ship load.”
See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/empire/episodes/episode_36.shtml

Sources:

*Joseph Robertson: “The Book of Bon Accord”. Aberdeen 1839.
*Douglas Skelton: “Indian Peter. The extraordinary life and adventures of Peter Williamson”. Edinburgh, 2004.
*Peter Williamson “The Life and Curious Adventures of Peter Williamson, Who was Carried off from Aberdeen and Sold for a Slave”. York, 1757.

Read the full story here: The Life and Curious Adventures of Peter Williamson