The Ham Nomads

30 Jul 2014. <GB-SCT> Kirriemuir, & Glamis, & Dundee, Angus —

Peter Pan
in Town Square

Today our destination was Kirriemuir, the birthplace of James M Barrie, the author of Peter Pan. Kirriemuir is also known as the 'little red town', because of the reddish-brown sandstone quarried locally and used for almost all its buildings.

We quickly found Barrie's birthplace — the whole town is well signed, and small enough to walk! Barrie's birthplace is 'The Tenements', 9 Brechin Road, Kirriemuir. It stands out, as it is the only building in the street that has been rendered in white! In the 1930s, the house was to be sold to the Americans for reconstruction there as a Barrie Museum. In disgust, Duncan Elliot Alves of Caernarvon bought the property and donated it to the National Trust of Scotland!

The Laundry

Barrie, one of ten children born in this small four-roomed house (of which the two lower rooms were used by his father, a weaver of linen, as his store and workplace). Barrie got a lot of his inspiration from his family, particularly his mother, and the world around him. The little separate laundry behind the house, which Barrie used as a little theatre as a child, is thought to be the inspiration for the "Wendy House" in Peter Pan. There were only three boys, with James being the youngest of them. The middle brother died at the age of 14 — was he perhaps the inspiration for 'the boy who never grew up'?

Barrie ultimately became a well-known and loved writer with rooms in London — we all remember Peter Pan, but what of The Admirable Crichton, Quality Street, and many other plays still performed today. He was also Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh.

Anyway, after exploring this house, we walked a couple of streets away and up Kirriemuir Hill, where there are more Barrie sites — his grave is in the cemetery there, and we must say, he has a great view.

Further up the hill is the old cricket ground, sadly no longer used as such. In 1930, Barrie had a cricket pavilion constructed there, so that his team the Allahabarries (he was under the misapprehension that 'Allahu akbar' means 'God help us', which his team of literary luminaries apparently needed as they played) had a suitable place to host thair matches. But the pavilion has another claim to fame — Barrie arranged that upstairs it would have a camera obscura, which he later donated to the town. It is one of only three fully functioning cameras obscura still in existence in Scotland!

We said the cricket ground no is no longer used as such — but there is now a magnificent children's playground built as Captain Hook's ship, which is very well used. Peter Pan still has his place in Kirriemuir!

From here, we drove southwards to Glamis (about 5 miles south) to visit the Angus Folk Museum. We didn't know its opening hours, so were taking a punt. This time we failed — it's closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. But right next door — wow! Glamis Castle. It's the home of the Earls of Strathmore and Kinghorne. The family now has the surname Bowes-Lyon, and this is where the late Queen Mother (née Bowes-Lyon) was brought up — so this castle has a resonance with the Castle of Mey in northern Scotland.

Our delightful tour guide took great pleasure in telling us the ghost stories related to this castle — how two early inhabitants were playing cards into the sabbath and were visited by a third player, who turned out to be the devil, who condemned them to continue playing cards into eternity, walled up in the room they were in, and that, on a late Saturday night, you can sometimes hear the sound of card players behind that very wall.

The castle is still in full use as a family home, so its condition is superb. The furnishings are mind-boggling. And the castle itself is one of the most impressive we have visited — the long driveway down to the castle is in itself quite an experience.

In the estate around the castle we found a couple of fields housing highland cattle, which made for a great photo opportunity.

There's also a walled garden, but they only started planting it in 2013, so it's in a very early stage of development.

After enjoying a couple of hours there, we continued on into Dundee, where we found a Maccas to let Susie catch up on her computing, and then Warren put up a couple of days on the blog.

We decided to be cheeky, and remained in the associated car park — somewhat removed from the restaurant, however — until the next morning.

Distance driven — today, 34 miles ( 55 km ); to date, 5,283 miles ( 8,503 km )