The Herald - The Herald Magazine
ROAMING HOLIDAY
Ideas for days out that will take you off the beaten track
DARVEL TELEPHONE MUSEUM, AYRSHIRE
ON the morning of our interview, Max Flemmich welcomed a large party of local primary schoolchildren to his premises. “There were 55 of them in all,” he says. “We split them up into groups of 15. It was a little bit too much, given the size of the place, but we managed. We always do.”
Flemmich gets lots of these visits to his private museum in Darvel. The Telephone
Museum, situated in a restored 18th-century weaver’s cottage, has hundreds of phones from across the decades. It is a stupendous sight: phones of every description cover every inch of the tables and walls. There are switchboards, too, and pieces of ancillary phone equipment, and posters and explanatory notices everywhere. This is, in short, the history of the telephone.
Flemmich is now in his mid-70s. Born in a police station in the outskirts of Bolton, in Greater Manchester (his grandfather was a police sergeant), he worked for GPO Telephones and BT for 44 years. He and his wife came to Ayrshire in 1973 and Flemmich has been a community councillor for 36 years. He has an MBE to his name, awarded in honour of 25 years’ service to the community.
For this feature we asked him to select six of his favourite phones.
FIRST WORLD WAR PHONE
“This has a walnut cabinet, with a well-used canvas carrying handle. It was a very basic, self-contained phone, with a little magneto generator and a battery box for the transmitter. It would be carried across the Western Front battlefield, followed by a soldier carrying a coil of two-wire cable, to connect the phone to where they had set off from.
“You would have one of these phones on one end of a pair of wires, and the other end going to the other person, and it would act as a direct line. As long as you could connect it back to somewhere, they would probably have a small switchboard in there, and they could cross-connect you.
“But phone communications were very hit-and-miss in the trenches. This phone is dated 1917 on the back; I’m not sure where it would have been used on the Western Front. The French and the Germans would probably have had equivalent telephones.”
SECOND WORLD WAR FULLER PHONE
“Fuller phones were the invention, in 1916, of Captain AC Fuller. This particular one, much updated, was used by the British Army during the Second World War connected with a signal wire through to another phone. Each phone would tune into each other. Once they got the connection between them, to send Morse code, the signal would be scrambled, so anyone cutting the wire in the middle in the hope of listening in to the conversation would not be able to hear anything of interest.
“By connecting one on top of the other, you could connect the telephone in circuit and use the phone as well as the Morse code facility. This phone was probably used in Burma and anywhere else in the Second World War.”
EARLY 1930S BAKELITE TELEPHONE
“Bakelite as used in telephones was an advance on the traditional wood and metal. It was a powder which when pressed into a mould and heated at a high temperature could produce a hard substance.
“This particular black phone is an early model of a design by the Siemens company. Our own Post Office looked at it and modified it slightly by rounding its edges a bit more. And the GEC company later did its own enhancements.”
CANDLESTICK PHONE
“This is a phone familiar from so many Donald Duck cartoons. Candlestick phones were a feature from the late 1800s until the 1940s or thereabouts. My one dates from the 1920s or 1930s. It’s a beautiful object. It’s made from wood and metal.
“The very early ones had no dial. They stood on a plinth; you would hold the candlestick right up to your mouth and press the earpiece to your ear. You would contact the operator by turning a handle on a box under the table. Another box would have a bell, as there was no bell on the candlestick. You would also need a little three-volt battery in a box next to them. After 1912, candlesticks were fitted with dials. Phones have never really stopped moving on since then.”
FIREMEN’S CALL-OUT SYSTEM
The one on show at Max’s museum is a wallmounted wooden box with no phone. Typically it might have been found in the manual exchange in a village like Darvel.
“If a fire broke out, the operator would pull a chain attached to a lever protruding from the bottom; within two minutes, it would trigger fire bells in every local fireman’s house, in every pub and factory, alerting the men who were on fire duty and getting them sprinting to their fire engine.”
EARLY MOBILE PHONE
“Some people might find this hard to believe but there were car phones as early as 1959. They had limited capacity, and initially provided coverage in the area of South Lancashire, which was essentially from North Wales to the Lake District. It was a success.
“The equipment went into the car boot and there was a cable while on the dashboard you would have some buttons and a handset. After two years of operating this early model, the Post Office Tower was built in London, which provided mobile car-phone service throughout the whole of London. By 1984 you had a model you could carry out of the car without dragging two suitcases’ worth of equipment with you.” To organise a visit to the museum, call Max Flemmich on 01560 320780 or email max@ mflemmich.freeserve.co.uk RUSSELL LEADBETTER
SHARMANKA, GLASGOW
IMAGINE the ghoulish Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch had designed the game Mousetrap. But with a sense of humour. That to me is a gem of Glasgow entertainment: Sharmanka, the kinetic theatre, not quite hidden away, but certainly not with a great street presence, inside the arts centre at 103 Trongate. The room is a series of large
moving pieces of carved figures and scrap metal ingeniously brought together, cleverly lit, and moving to haunting music.
They tell funny and tragic stories of life, as humans or animals turn wheels or other moving objects in a relentless cycle, much like life itself. Look closely though and there are tiny fragments of humour hidden among the movements. Again it shows that the human condition is to find a smile in even the most appalling drudgery.
Sharmanka is the Russian word for barrel-organ, and it was brought to Glasgow by Russian Eduard Bersudsky who began carving in his youth before going on to kinetic sculptures. Sharmanka Kinetic Theatre was then formed by Bersudsky, theatre director Tatyana Jakovskaya and lighting designer Sergey Jakovsky.
They became disillusioned with support for the arts in Russia, and when they were offered the chance to put on a display at Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art, they liked Glasgow so much that they stayed and set up their own theatre.
You don’t just wander in. Instead shows begin at certain times of the day. The atmospheric lighting moves you from display to display, guiding you around the room. There is so much going on in each display that your eyes dart from one moving piece to another. It might sound old-fashioned, but the cleverness in each tale is absorbing. In an age of video games and other special effects, it is somehow cheering that the human mind can create so much from cleverly bringing carvings and moving parts together. KEN SMITH
WANLOCKHEAD
IKNOW I’m somewhere different because of what happens at the bar. I’ve just had a great pub lunch – two courses and a beer. I’ve gone up to pay but I’ve forgotten my wallet. “Don’t worry about it,” says the landlady with a wave of her hand. “Just send us a cheque when you get home.” I can barely believe it, but she insists and doesn’t even take my name and address. It’s a sign that we’re a long way away from the city (and the next day I send the cheque, of course).
The place is Wanlockhead and I’ve been a little obsessed by it since the 1970s when I came to visit when my aunt and uncle lived in Dumfries. The village is about 30 miles or so north of the town, just off the M74, and you reach it by taking the long, thin B797 that makes its way across the Lowther Hills like a pencil line across a fresh sheet of paper.
Famously, Wanlockhead is the highest village in Scotland (1,531 feet above sea level), which is one of the quirky reasons it attracts visitors, but what fascinated me when I was 10 was the old lead mine. As a child, I was obsessed with climbing up and away from the earth or climbing down into it and the Lead Mining Museum was a wonderful opportunity to do the latter.
The guides take you down through one of the old workings. Your shoulders scrape the sides, the temperature drops, and light loses the battle with dark. It’s
an extraordinary little trip into blackness. And then, you come up, and there’s the Southern Upland Way, Britain’s first official coast-to-coast long-distance footpath. It starts in Portpatrick in the south-west, finishes in Cockburnspath in the Borders and about halfway between passes through Wanlockhead. Today, I’m taking the road toward Portpatrick for a few miles, past the skeletal ruins of the old mines, through the hills made of gold and lead, and then back, towards that high and humble town.
MARK SMITH
SEVEN OFFBEAT DAYS OUT
DENNY TANK MUSEUM From the long history of fishing to Pirates of the Caribbean, life at sea touches all our lives, and the Denny Tank Museum in Dumbarton tells the story of how shipbuilding played a major part in the lives of those living in the west of Scotland from the 1800s until the yard at William Denny and Sons closed in 1963. A visit here is a hands-on experience – not only an unusual day out but also ideal for educating young minds about an industry that has shrunk to a fraction of its original size. Castle Street, Dumbarton. Visit scottishmaritimemuseum.org/dumbarton or call 01389 763444 GRAMPIAN TRANSPORT MUSEUM For some racing to the fridge is a competitive sport but racing a Martek motorcycle is a serious business for any rider. Based on the Suzuki GSX 1000, the turbocharged bike boasts a bored 1,277cc engine custom-built by TV presenter and road racer Guy Martin, and this marvellous bike is now on display in the Grampian Transport Museum in Aberdeenshire, alongside his Suzuki GSXR 1000 K3 and 675 Daytona Triumph. The collection at Alford also includes Billy Connolly’s boom lowrider motortrike, the late Colin McRae’s Ford Focus from the 2001 World Rally Championships and, for Rover geeks, Grampian Police’s only SD1 Vitesse, the Ferrari Daytona-inspired model whose restoration was the subject of an episode of Channel 4 series For the Love of Cars. Montgarrie Road, Alford, Aberdeenshire. Visit gtm.org.uk or call 01975 562292
GLASGOW POLICE MUSEUM
Slap bang in the heart of the Merchant City in Glasgow, here you can explore the history of the UK’s first police force from attempts to establish a single corps in 1779 through the pioneering Glasgow Police Act of 1800 to the merging of the force with neighbouring counties to form Strathclyde Police in 1975. Staffed by former policemen and policewomen, the museum also houses a display of insignia and uniforms from every country in the world. First Floor, 30 Bell Street, Glasgow. Visit museumsgalleriesscotland.org.uk or call 0141 552 1818
OUTDOOR SWIMMING
Who doesn’t love splashing around a swimming pool? Those on the east coast can pop their swimsuit on and visit Stonehaven open-air pool, which contains saltwater heated to 29C, children’s sessions and a paddling pool for under-eights. The pool is an Olympic-standard 50m so hardcore swimmers can wait until the families have departed and get a serious workout. Over on the west coast is Gourock outdoor pool, where the saltwater is also heated to 29C. The pool recently underwent a £1.8m refurbishment so besides the views of the Clyde estuary there’s the attraction of a new gym. Stonehaven Open Air Swimming Pool, Queen Elizabeth Park, Stonehaven. Visit stonehavenopenairpool.co.uk or call 01569 762134; Gourock Pool, Albert Road, Gourock. Visit inverclydeleisure.com/enterprise/ gourockpool or call 01475 213122
SMOO CAVE, SUTHERLAND
The Smoo Cave is one of many reasons to take a trip to the northern edge of the Scottish mainland. Among the legends linked with the cave – which measures 200 feet long, 130 feet wide and 50 feet high – is that of a highwayman called McMurdo who killed his foes by throwing them in the gape or blowhole of the cave. McMurdo’s tomb can be seen at nearby Balnakeil Church. On the east side of Durness, the cave is a top spot for children and parents to escape reality and investigate Scottish history. Smoo Cave, Durness, Sutherland. Visit smoocave.org
TOMB OF THE EAGLES
Orkney farmer Ronnie Simison found the Stone Age chambered cairn in the 1950s while working the land. Now one of the islands’ top archaeological sites, the Tomb of the Eagles contains bones and artefacts dating back 5,000 years. Besides around 30 human skulls, Simison discovered the talons and bones of 14 sea eagles, hence the name. You can also visit a nearby Bronze Age site featuring a mound of burned stone and the remains of a 3,000-year-old building. Liddle, South Ronaldsay, Orkney. Visit tomboftheeagles.co.uk or call 01856 831339
ORKNEY WIRELESS MUSEUM
Orkney is a long way to go to visit one attraction so add the Orkney Wireless Museum to your itinerary. The museum was founded by wireless enthusiast Jim McDonald in 1983 and houses an exhaustive collection of civilian and defence wireless equipment. Kiln Corner, Junction Road, Kirkwall, Orkney. Visit orkneywirelessmuseum.org.uk or call 01856 873191