Kingdom of Fife - Dunfermline

Greetings once again! We've been sightseeing locally again, this time across the Firth of Forth to the Kingdom of Fife, and the former royal city of Dunfermline. This old city was at one point the capital of Scotland, and the primary residence of the Scottish kings and queens from the time of Robert the Bruce and on. When Scotland reunited with England in 1603, the royal court left for London for good.

This is one of the street views near the city centre.

Isaiah standing in the small gate beside the large gate to the former royal palace.

A view of the Dunfermline Abbey where Robert the Bruce (you know, Mel Gibson's friend) is buried.

Another view of the Abbey. William Wallace's mother is buried in the churchyard. Wallace, on the other hand, I think ended up all over Britain.

Isaiah looking up as he climbs down a tower staircase.

Kim and Sophie standing in the basement of the former royal palace.

Another view of the palace. If you doubleclick on the photo, you can look closely and find Emma and Isaiah walking on the walls.

Me and the kids standing on an old staircase that no longer leads anywhere.

Sophie in one of the few intact rooms left in the palace.

A local visitor to the graveyard. A local told us that there are 6 peacocks that wander freely around the town. They do not belong to anyone, but everyone knows about them, and the birds will literally stop traffic as they cross the streets.

Further proof... (if you don't get that, look closely...)

That's it for now. Next entry will follow shortly...

Jimy MacJohnson

Other little trips in Scotland... New Lanark

Hi! We've been making a few local trips in Scotland as well - it's really cool to have so many amazing places within an hour of our home. One of these trips was to this small planned community called New Lanark. Basically it was a village that existed at the site of Britain's largest working cotton mill from the 1780s to 1968. Founded in 1785 by a wealthy industrialist named David Dale, and later managed by his visionary son-in-law Robert Owen, New Lanark became a socialistic experiment within a very capitalistic industry.

This was a village that had some interesting and unique initiatives that had never been done before during the industrial revolution. At a time when living conditions for factory workers were often terrible compared to our modern times, New Lanark was a place that operated according to a firm philosophy. Workers, although paid only an average wage for this time, were provided with free medical care (unheard of at the time), mandatory education for all children, the world's first "nursery" school for toddlers too young for school, and clean, well-maintained housing for the working families, many of them from the poverty-stricken Highlands. He also took in hundreds of orphans from Glasgow and Edinburgh, hiring them to work, but also educating and providing healthy food and clean clothing for them. On the other hand, families living in New Lanark lived according to strictly regimented working hours (although these were considered reasonable during this era), mandatory school hours, health and cleanliness inspections, etc.

The population of New Lanark rose to about 3000 during it's peak in the 1800s. Interestingly, at one time in 1793, under David Dale, it was recorded that there was 1157 people employed in the manufacturing process - of which 795 were children! The majority of these were between the ages of 8-15, although he employed kids as young as 6! Later, Robert Owen would not allow children younger than 10 to work in the mills, also considered revolutionary in those days of widespread child labour.

It was a strange, but very interesting place to visit. Many of the ideas were difficult for us to wrap our minds around, but it brought to life the hardships of the working class during the industrial revolution.

Here is a view as we looked down into the valley in which New Lanark is located.

Robert Owen had many philosophical quotations displayed throughout the village. I wonder if he had similar ones up when he owned and ran the village.

One of the photos of the village in the 1890s.

One of the huge cotton "ginnys". It was underneath these huge noisy machines that the smallest children would scamper back and forth to collect fallen cotton for hours on end each working day.
A children's revolt. Weird to think that our kids would be prime working age for this town.

Kim loves the whole world! This is the large globe that they used in the school during the 1800s.

If you look closely, you can see that our part of Canada is called Parts Unknown. I kind of like this name.

Isaiah and Sophie wearing the replica schoolchildren's tunic. Robert Owen used a Roman design that he felt was educationally appropriate for children.

Sophie playing with a hoop from this time. Much better than computer games!

A ghostly message that appeared on a slate. Funny thing is that the printing is very similar to Sophie's...

A closer view of the neat, strong housing units of the millworker families.

Something that I thought was cool. Stalagtites forming in one of the doorways of a seldom-used outdoor passageway.

Overall, New Lanark was a really intriguing place to visit. Strange in that it employed so much child labour, and seemed like the owner almost "owned" thousands of people, while simultaneously introducing ideas meant to give them a better lifestyle than they might otherwise have had. I found that it was interesting that Robert Owen had a way of thinking that we'd view as Socialistic, yet he acted upon and wrote out many ideas 50 years before Karl Marx even began to write his! See ya!

Jimy MacJohnson