Mount Tambora

   It has been said that travel broadens the mind. I had unexpected proof of this today during a visit to the museum in Grantown-on-Spey. 

   Grantown is one of my favourite places in Scotland. It's a very small town in the Cairngorms, with many handsome and massive old houses. Much of the town is surrounded by forests and woods, where you may catch sight of the elusive native red squirrel. 

   I learned in the museum that the town owes its existence to an eighteenth century landowner named James Grant. He was evidently a very active fellow. In addition to going on a 'Grand Tour' of Europe and having the drive to create a new town, he fathered no fewer than fourteen children. Not quite as randy as J.S. Bach, but you can't help feeling sorry for his wife. 

   The museum lies at the northern end of town, off the main drag, which is known as 'The Square'. It's run by volunteers, and there's a small entrance fee. As well as learning about the tireless James Grant, I discovered that Queen Victoria spent the night in Grantown in 1860. Further, and despite its diminutive size, the town once had two train stations, which, curiously enough, shared the same name. Now, sadly, there are none, although you can at least enjoy a walk along one of the disused lines. 

   At the moment the museum is hosting an exhibition devoted to the nineteenth century artist Edwin Landseer. It was here that I came across a piece of historical background which really caught my attention. Photography is forbidden inside the exhibition rooms, so I took notes instead: 

   In 1815, the Mount Tambora in present day Indonesia erupted. This massive volcanic explosion triggered a period of intense climate change. Ash in the atmosphere lowered global temperatures and caused severe weather events including the 'year without a summer' in 1816. Harsh winters led to failed harvests and livestock losses.

   I very much doubt that the people sitting in roads in London or dousing themselves in orange paint have ever heard of the eruption of Mount Tambora. Perhaps they ought to do some reading. To quote Charlton Heston at the beginning of the movie Armageddon, 'It happened before, it will happen again. It's just a question of when.'

 

The Drunk Tank

   A long time ago, I knew a guy who spent a night in the drunk tank in Montreal. He had incurred the wrath of a pair of Quebecois cops (not the most patient of people, at least at the time), by boozily informing them that the city was a dump and he couldn't wait to leave. They chucked him in a cell for a night and strapped him to a chair. 'I'm not Hannibal!', he told them, as they put some kind of gag over his mouth to shut him up. 

   I thought of him today during a tour of the Town Hall in Berwick-upon-Tweed. A couple of hundred years ago, the whole second floor of this handsome sandstone edifice served as a gaol, and behind one black door lies the drunk tank. It consists of a wide wooden 'bed', large enough for about four hellraisers, with a very uncomfortable looking rectangle for their heads. It has an incline, which was apparently a precaution against them choking on their vomit. Above the bed is a very large window, its size perhaps reflecting a desire to inflict an extra bit of punishment once they began to sober up. 

   This was my seventh or eighth trip to Berwick. Growing up in the south of England, I don't think I ever heard or read anything about it. Had I done so, I suppose I would have lumped it in with the rest of the north: far away, and the sort of place I might be punched in a pub for speaking with a funny accent. 

   I now think it could be the most atmospheric town in the whole of Britain. It's just three miles from the Scottish border, and much of the town is surrounded by a complete defensive wall. Steps lead up to the wall from all over Berwick, and there are ancient lanes and tunnels that pass through the stone. As with other historic settlements, even the street names (Sandgate, Marygate, Hide Hill, Love Lane) have an air of romance about them. The whole place has a faded magnificence, rather like Ronda, in the south of Spain. 

   The Town Hall, which was finished in 1761, lies down a slope at the foot of Marygate, the principal shopping street. It is not the most eye-catching thoroughfare, suffering from neglect and the familiar blight of empty premises. The Town Hall itself is very striking, though. Indeed, it is 'regarded as one of the finest examples of Georgian architecture in the north of England', according to a sign round the corner. 

   A flight of wide steps leads up to a row of four weather-worn doric columns. There is a sign admonishing would-be loiterers to 'please keep these steps clear at all times'. On the day in question, about a dozen people were, in true, entitled British fashion, ignoring this request. Surmounting all is a clock tower, from which a curfew bell tolls every night. Sadly, I've never been present to hear it; at least, not yet. 

   Half of the aforementioned prison was for debtors. They had to work inside the gaol to repay their debt, either by fashioning coffins or by making nets for salmon fishing. Those engaged in more serious episodes of malfeasance, which apparently included the drunks, occupied the other half. They had a communal area, which must have been an absolute free for all, for the gaoler was only required to visit once a day. Crimes such as robbery might result in exile to Tasmania. As someone who occasionally has to deal with drug addicts attempting to steal alcohol, it seemed like a reasonable punishment to me. 

   One of the walls of the drunk tank bears the scars of eighteenth century graffiti. The level of boredom experienced by the prisoners can be discerned from the banal inscriptions they left for posterity: their initials, names, or the year they were thrown in the slammer. One inmate had made more of an effort, however, etching an image of a man with a hangman's noose around his neck. 

   My friend in Canada also left something at the police station following his night on the tiles: a fake name. 

Tours of the Town Hall in Berwick-upon-Tweed take place at 10.30 a.m. and 2.00 p.m. from Monday to Friday. The price is £2.50. The guide has a fine sense of humour. 

Surgeons' Hall

   I felt a multitude of sensations and emotions as I walked round the fascinating History of Surgery Museum inside Edinburgh's Surgeons' Hall today.

   The first was nausea, which brought back memories of rough ferry crossings and ill-advised rides on roller coasters. I'm sure I wasn't the only man present whose stomach was performing somersaults. Indeed, how else could you feel when confronted by a wax and plaster cast of a pair of testicles deformed by a tumour? 

   At the same time, I had to admire the brilliance of Charles Bell, who made this replica of a man's abdomen. He was, I read, 'a talented artist', as well as 'a renowned surgeon and anatomy teacher'. His gifts as an artist were also evident in a painting (from 'about 1809') of a naked and grimacing soldier suffering from tetanus, his muscles rigid and his body forming an arch. It had the haunting, otherworldly quality of a painting by William Blake. 

   The same sense of sickness washed over me when I saw an image of a man called Robert Penman. The cracked oil painting from 1828 showed a man with what looked like a red balloon or a whoopee cushion in his mouth. It was a tumour, and I felt horrified at the sight of it. 

   As I read his story, however, I was greatly moved, and I felt the hairs standing up on the back of my neck. He had the tumour removed at the age of 24, with no anaesthetic, as there were none at the time. The surgeon, James Syme, 'was amazed at the courage of the young man who did not complain once.' I couldn't help but compare his bravery to the self-pity displayed by so many people in our social media-obsessed age. 

   Strangely enough, the grisly skeletons I saw, which had been injected with coloured wax to indicate the arteries, heart and blood vessels, made me somewhat nostalgic. They were shiny, having been varnished, and they brought to mind the two hundred year old mummies I had seen during my travels in northern Japan in 2014. Yet again, I could sense the travel bug rising within me. 

   It was a pleasure to see an exhibit on Arthur Conan Doyle and his teacher Joseph Bell, who was once the president of the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh. There's a video of an elderly Conan Doyle in a pin-striped suit, describing in his Scots brogue how Bell had inspired him to create Sherlock Holmes. 

   I went to Surgeons' Hall with  a slight feeling of trepidation, as I feared it might have been infected by the same historical revisionism that has blighted other museums and historical attractions in recent years. I was elated to find that it wasn't the case. 

   Unlike many museums in Edinburgh, you must pay an entrance fee of £9 to visit Surgeons' Hall. It's well worth the expense. 

Letter of the Month in Decanter Magazine

 

Darkness

   I'm standing at the end of a line of about a dozen people. They are all strangers to me. We're underground - I don't know how far below the surface - with our backs close to a brick wall. A single torch provides some illumination, then I hear a click and and we're plunged into pitch darkness. 

   We're not in danger, however. We are in fact paying customers on a tour of the Victoria Tunnel, which stretches for a couple of miles below Newcastle-upon-Tyne. 

   It was built in the ninteenth century to transport coal. Not for the first time, I'm grateful I was born much later, for it literally isn't wide enough to swing a cat in. It's also very low. My hard hat keeps scraping the arched brick ceiling, obliging me to lean forward, and playing havoc with my lower back. At one point I sense the first stirrings of panic, brought on by the sheer claustrophobia of the place. 

   In places the floor is wet and I can hear the dripping of water. The walls in these sections are covered with a weird brown scum, which we're told takes several months to remove should you touch it. 

   In the Second World War the tunnel was converted into an air raid shelter. 'Many people were afraid to use it', according to my guidebook, a statement which comes as no surprise at all. 

   Our tour guide shows us the latrines, which look like steel buckets. Apparently, those desperate enough to go had to sit back to back and use newspaper rather than toilet roll to clean themselves. For a moment I consider disclosing that I had a friend at university who did this voluntarily, but I decide against it. 

   Near the end of the two hour tour, I think I have some idea of how the hardy folk of Newcastle must have felt during an air raid. I'm cold, uncomfortable, hungry and I want to leave. A story about how the tunnel got its name flies straight over my head. 

   Eventually we are liberated. I remove my helmet and practically run to Grey Street, where I wolf down a lasagna.