On the cannonball run
QUESTION In her book Bare-A***d Banditti: The Men Of The ’45, Maggie Craig claims cannonballs were fired down the Royal Mile during the siege of Edinburgh Castle, and one lodged in a building is still visible. Which building would this be? THe building referred to is called Cannonball House and you will find it at the top of Castle Wynd, close to the Castle esplanade where they hold the edinburgh Tattoo annually.
There is what appears to be a cannonball embedded in the wall. It is also true that tourists are told the story that the ball was fired from the castle during the Jacobite Rising of 1745.
When I was a student bus driver at eastern Scottish’s new Street depot in the early Seventies, I was lucky enough to be given a short city tour to drive in the evenings and, sure enough, Cannonball House was on the route, with the above story.
However, I was also a geography undergraduate and knew a more realistic explanation. If you look at the wall carefully in the right light, you can see not just the cannonball but two very faint circular shapes at exactly the same height.
Clearly, three cannonball impacts at exactly the same height are an impossible feat of artillery and would have demolished the house if they had really happened. So what is the real explanation? In the early 1600s, edinburgh’s citizens needed a water supply. It was piped from Comiston, which lies about seven miles south of the city. In order for the water to arrive at the top beside the Castle, it needed to have a really strong head of water pressure.
For that to happen, the reservoir had to be higher than the cistern, acting as a giant header tank, which would then supply the Royal Mile which sloped down to the east.
The original three balls on the wall of Cannonball House were used as a level; sighting along the line gave the hydraulic engineers the height at Comiston above which the water source needed to be if water was to reach the header tank.
This tank was a low building on the other side of the road from Cannonball House and a network of water pipes fed the various taps down to the Grassmarket.
So on my tours I would begin by saying: ‘Some people believe that the cannonball you can see was fired from the Castle...’
Malcolm S. Whatcott, Normanton, West Yorkshire.
QUESTION What is the origin of Tiger Woods’s middle name Tont? WOOdS’S first name, eldrick, was coined by his mother, as it began with ‘e’ (for his father, earl) and ended with ‘K’ (for his mother, Kultida). Tiger’s mother was of Thai extraction and his middle name Tont is an anglicised version of the Thai nickname ‘ dton’ meaning ‘royal’ or ‘king’.
He was nicknamed Tiger in honour of Col Vuong dang phong, deputy Chief of Binh Thuan province, whom earl Woods had befriended during the Vietnam war. The Colonel had also been known as ‘Tiger’. Anthony Kern, London SW13.
QUESTION What is the evidence from history or archaeology of a catastrophic event occurring around the year AD 550? aCCORdInG to contemporary written records, supported by dendrochronology ( tree ring analysis), for 12- 18 months in ad 536-537, a thick, persistent dust cloud darkened the skies between europe and asia Minor.
Such a cloud would reflect and/or absorb solar energy, thus decreasing the temperature of the earth in its shadow. It would also block sunlight, thus inhibiting photosynthesis and cause crop failure.
The cloud stretched as far east as China, where frosts and snow were recorded in the summer months. Tree ring data across europe, Siberia and Mongolia and as far south as argentina and Chile reflect diminished tree growth that lasted more than a decade.
The dust cloud caused a succession of poor harvests, famine and drought, and there is evidence in northern China and Scandinavia of upwards of seven out of ten people being killed by famine or disease.
The period coincides with the Justinian plague, which may have been exacerbated by a weakened immunity caused by malnutrition.
Contemporary reports from the era give clear evidence of the catastrophe: the annals of ulster record: ‘a failure of bread in the year 536 ad’, and the annals of Inisfallen mention: ‘a failure of bread from the years 536–539 ad.’
The Byzantine historian procopius recorded in a 536 ad report on the wars with the Vandals: ‘during this year, a most dread portent took place. For the sun gave forth its light without brightness ... and it seemed exceedingly like the sun in eclipse, for the beams it shed were not clear.’
Michael the Syrian wrote: ‘The sun became dark and its darkness lasted for one-and-a-half years... each day it shone for about four hours and still this light was only a feeble shadow ... the fruits did not ripen and the wine tasted like sour grapes.’
Scientists are divided over the cause of the dust cloud: a violent volcanic eruption, a meteorite impact and a near miss by a large comet have all been postulated.
The most recent evidence of sulphate deposits in ice cores strongly supports the volcano hypothesis. The sulphate spike is even more intense than that which accompanied the lesser episode of climatic aberration in 1816, popularly known as the ‘year without summer’, which had been connected to the eruption of the volcano Mount Tambora in Indonesia.
J. Wheeler, Glasgow.
QUESTION What is the mystery surrounding the British Rail Deltic Diesel locomotive Nimbus? FuRTHeR to the earlier answer, nimbus was said to be the fastest of all the deltics, achieving speeds of 110mph on approved track, though no reason for this difference was found.
despite its high performance, nimbus had the shortest service life of all the deltics and was the first to be removed from service in January 1980.
The ‘mystery’ may be, in part, my fault. I contrived, from my own imagination, a scene at Selby station with nimbus heading a train, waiting at the platform at night. The deltic preservation Society were gracious enough to accept the resulting painting, and produced greetings cards featuring the picture (above) which, even now, enjoys moderate sales.
Tony Upsall, Tunbridge Wells, Kent.
QUESTION Which is the oldest haulage company in Britain? FuRTHeR to the earlier answer, though it cannot compete with The Shore porters Society of aberdeen, pickfords removals may be the second oldest removals firm.
a 1947 history of the firm states there is a strong tradition within the firm that one Thomas pickford, living in 1646 in adlington in the parish of prestbury, Cheshire, was the forerunner of pickfords.
His pack horses carried limestone from the quarries of the peak district for road building all over the northwest and the Midlands and pickford used the return journeys for carrying many different goods for sale in the towns and villages on his route back to the quarries.
according to the book, the name pickford was founded at the time of the norman Conquest when, according to legend, duke William made great use of a Sussex man named pick, whose knowledge of the fords in that part of the country enabled the invaders to penetrate inland quickly.
Ray Bailey, Urmston, Manchester.