Photography and the law – and the Jobsworth

Thankfully, one of things that the Freedom of Information Act, and possibly the recent changes in policy that have seen Government data released into the public domain, is the fairly low incidence of problems between photographers and the law in Scotland, and the generalisation that this is largely an English problem, and one that can be further narrowed down to London town, and the Met Police.

However, it would also seem that the law is being made a fool of, and misused by that most wonderful group of individuals, the Jobsworths, who are such insignificant little cowardly creeps, the only way they can get any pleasure is by making others suffer by abusing their positions. We’ve all come across them, and even though they might never actually use the words “It’s more than my job’s worth…”, it’s never long before you know that regardless of whatever you may want to do, and regardless of whether they have the right to stop you, they will stand firm on their interpretation of the whatever rules they have access to, right or wrong.

This was brought home in an item covered by Law in Action, the BBC’s Radio 4 magazine programme about the law, which has been presented by Joshua Rozenberg, and who returned recently: BBC – Radio 4 Blog: Photography and the Law

In this particular programme, Rozenberg accompanied an architectural photographer around London, complete with radio crew. The photographer had written the script, predicting that private security guards would order a stop to the photography, even though it was taking place from the public footpath (and they’d be taking pictures using CCTV). A failure to comply would be followed by the police being called, and the photographer (and anyone assisting) could then expect to be searched under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, and police officers could inspect the pictures recorded on the camera.

After all that – unless those concerned were actually found to be terrorists – they would then be free to carry on taking pictures for as long as they liked.

As will be learned if you listen to the programme, the expected intervention occurred, and after everything was over, the police later assure Rozenberg that the law was not being broken.

That the predicted script was followed did not come as a surprise.

That the police used Section 44, but found that no law was being broken was also no surprise.

What did come as a surprise, and continues to do so, is the fact that the real cause of many of these incidents is not the police – who generally attract the adverse publicity and criticism – but the greasy little Jobsworths that call them.

One has to assume that they have done so on previous occasions, and with the same result, so why do they do it?

Is it an attempt to do something to look ‘big’, and show someone that they have not only private security guards under their control, but the police? Are they pathetic little people who have nothing better to do, and can only achieve satisfaction by abusing their positions of apparent authority?

Rather than more reports of the police being called to act under Section 44 (and let’s not forget Section 43 in passing), isn’t it time we saw the beginning of reports regarding prosecution or fines for those Jobsworth types that call them with no real cause or justification?

A few such cases where the individual concerned is fined, fired, or cautioned (for ‘wasting police time’ or possibly more correctly ‘interfering with police investigations’, or similar, I think) might lead to general improvement in this situation, and a reduction in stories regarding the abuse of this Act in relation to photographers.

The police are the ones that are traditionally made to look bad when these stories are repeated, but this has gone on for so long without correction, it may now be time to target the real culprits – the people that call them… with no real justification other than to prove they can (and make their day while they waste someone else’s as a result).

Coastguard footage of Spinningdale wreck on St Kilda

While I was hunting for some unrelated material regarding the Coastguard, I chanced upon some footage they had placed online regarding the removal of the Spinningdale wreck from the shoreline of St Kilda.

The incident was almost amusing, had the reality not been so sad, and brought the usual crop of ‘Doomsday Nuts’ out of the woodwork, with tales of ecological disaster and ruination of St Kilda as a result of this accident, as if the unfortunate occurrence of wrecks on the shores of St Kilda was not itself a natural (though no less undesirable) event, and something that has been happening – and no doubt will continue to happen – for decades to come.

The footage is not solely confined to coverage of the wreck, and there are some shots of the remains of the village and the bay. And for helicopter fans, the departure and arrival of the Coastguard’s helicopter for the crew.

Spinningdale wreck on St Kilda – 23 July 2009 – MCA footage

Scottish midge proves to be a wee hard man

It looks as if the Scottish midge has its roots in Glasgow, and taken after the example of the city’s legendary ‘hard’ men.

Despite some hopes that the long, hard, cold, freezing winter might have had the effect of denting the midge population by killing off some of the midge larvae, it looks as if the arrival of summer is being greeted with nothing less than the usual numbers of these little pests.

This morning’s BBC News reported from Glencoe, and from a camp site, where tourists were already displaying arms carrying the tell-tale lumps of visitations from the little bloodsuckers, and others were confirming that they were moving on to get away from their attacks. While the bites don’t generally cause pain – the midge has sharp jaws that cut the skin and it then dips into and drinks from the resulting blood – the stuff it passes on to prevent clotting leads to local swelling and irritation, and the tourists complained of the incessant itching that carries on after it leaves, which can become quite distressing if there is a large number of bites.

Probably because there is not really a significant number in use, in relation to the midge population, it would seem that the midge traps that appeared a few years ago – which use carbon dioxide to attract, then trap and kill the midge – are not having any effect on the population, even though they catch sufficient numbers for some people to trade in the buckets of dead midge these produce.

The total number is estimated to be quite large, somewhere around 1,000,000,000,000 or one million million or 10¹² depending on how you like to express your trillions.

With so many around, it would seem rather redundant to work where the little so-and-so can be found, but they do concentrate in hot (or is that ‘itch’) spots, and new web site has been created to provide just such as service:

The Scottish Midge Forecast

Last year, it was reported that the midge costs the tourism industry £286 million a year.

That’s 1,000,000,000,000 or one million million or 10¹² depending on how you like to express your trillions.

The BBC web site also followed up the story BBC News – ‘Rise in midges’ despite harsh winter

Save Otago Lane

On the basis that ‘Better Late Than Never’ applies, I’ve just come across the Save Otago Lane! campaign and story.

Sadly, like the examples of the Pollok Park fiasco and the closure of Paddy’s Market, to name but two, the Otago Lane story looks set to unfold as yet another case of Glasgow City Council riding roughshod over the wishes of the people affected, ignoring representations, and parachuting something ‘nice, shiny, and clean’ in order to wipe out the untidy and undesirable locals.

It’s a reputation I try to avoid associating with Glasgow City Council, as it is usually expressed to me by people with an axe to grind, or who have some sort of long history of problems with the council, and griping about it, and its members (and there we could start on the recent media coverage of certain former senior council members who, it seems, were not strangers to drink and drugs – it seems you don’t have to kick Glasgow Council, you have to force yourself not to) . But, as time goes on and the apparent zeal with which the council seems to ignore locals and try to force through these projects make it hard not to form a negative opinion, even if trying not to.

Otago Lane lies next to the River Kelvin, and is described as being unique in historical, economic and artistic terms, and developers are seeking to build more than 140 flats plus several commercial units there, but some 2,000 written objections have been sent to planning officials, according to the Save Otago Lane Campaign.

The proposed development is set in one of Glasgow’s only Bohemian quarters, and it is said, would have repercussions not only for the area, but for Glasgow and Scotland at large.

Campaigners have received support from a number of MSPs from different political parties, and thousands of people have signed an online petition against the plans, and further details can be found on their web site, where a number of MSPs’ statements have been presented.

Not surprisingly, the developers, Otago Street Developments Ltd, claim that their plans are in keeping with both the principles and the spirit of the local conservation area and local plan.

Glasgow City Council said the proposed development would be considered by its planning applications committee “in due course”.

Otago Lane - Courtesy of the Save Otago Lane campaign

More images can be found at: Save Otago Lane! – Images

The group can also be found on Facebook Save our Lane

And created an online petition Help save Otago Lane, Glasgow Petition

A large collection of related external links can also be found here Save Otago Lane! – External Links

I wish I’d spotted this months ago, when it first came into the public forum, but I always seem to ‘step back’ from searching around the various news feeds just at the wrong time, as it can be a time-consuming pastime, and often yields little reward. Looks as if I should may be start again, but try and find a better way to scan it more effectively. That said, it may be there is not easy way to do it. One site I used to really enjoy referring to disappeared a few years ago, and I later discovered the owner had given up for the very reason that he reckoned collecting more and more news items to review had eventually given him more work and stress than his job, and contributed to the heart attack that had knocked him offline, and I stopped doing the same shortly after that warning, when  I realised how many hours I was spending doing just the same every week

On the other hand, I still hate discovering things like the above have been going on for months, and I didn’t have the slightest clue they were there.

Reality could awaken old wave power technology

Either my opponents are getting tired, or have just decided I am some sort of nut (took them long enough), but I seem to be collecting less flak as time goes on and I continue to peddle my pet theory that wind power was little more than a handy cash cow in the early day of renewables. Unlike wave or tidal power systems, all the prospective wind power developer had to do was hijack some nice land where the numbers could be stacked to show potential, and a fairly standard box of wind turbine parts could be despatched and assembled to merit payment of a handy subsidy, more commonly referred to as Renewable Obligation Certificate (ROC), or RO in Scotland.

This is generally misinterpreted as my suggesting that there was something untoward, or even fraudulent, in this process, but all I really intend to do by pointing out the blindingly obvious is that the easy route was taken, and the more difficult, but effective, road to wave or tidal power was bypassed. The subsidy was always available to any form of renewable power generation, the thing was that the only worthwhile system were usually wind based. The reason is obvious. By comparison, sea based renewable power means coping with a corrosive environment, and a liquid power source that carries much more energy than is gaseous partner, meaning that the hardware has to be much stronger to cope.

Back at the start of the wave and tidal power search, there was little research (and the bulk of the interest was in the speedy return from easily manufactured wind systems), and less incentive as a result. Now, the message that the land would have to be buried under wind turbines is beginning to get through, and wave/tidal schemes are beginning to look more attractive, especially since coal is still seen as dirty for various reasons, CCS (carbon capture and storage) is still to get going seriously, and the old radiophobia problem is still being loudly championed by those opposed to nuclear power.

The potential good news is that as time has passed, material science has progressed, we have better computer control systems, and the old ideas that were not developed in the early years of wave/tidal power may hold new promised if revisited and addressed using ‘new’ technology.

The BBC reported that ‘forgotten’ wave power technology from the 1980s was being examined and evolved to provide design inspiration for new systems currently being developed, and that there had been an assumption that because the technology hadn’t worked then, it wasn’t worthy of reconsideration. However, it seems that as is usually the case, making an assumption rather than a reasoned judgement was a bad idea, and that by revisiting the earlier ideas, but using modern material, an effective wave power generator could be built.

BBC News – Firm develops ‘forgotten’ wave power technology

It may be taking a while but, as time passes, it looks as if the ideas I’ve been posting in here about wave/tidal power over the past few years (while I also took a gentle, but firm, swipe at wind power) just might not be the ramblings of a deranged lunatic after all.

This particular project has another couple of years to run, so we’ll see how close I was, and if there’s anything useful to be had, or if any more ‘surprises’ join it.

‘Mug’ shots sold to ID Card holders for £30 each

I find the irony of ID Card fans being charged £30 for the privilege of owning a reminder of their folly to be rather sweet.

The disgraceful ID Card scheme, the National Identity Register, and the lies we were told as the scheme changed from being voluntary to compulsory by a series of stealthy changes will come to an end within 100 days, as the new Home Secretary Theresa May has announced that legislation to remove the related laws forced through by the outgoing Government will be the first to be put before Parliament by the new government.

ID Cards – 100 day death sentence | PublicTechnology.net

15,000 people foolish enough to hand over £30 at the Manchester rollout of this con will not receive a refund, however Ms May said they would at least have a “souvenir” of the scheme.

Can you believe that the utter plonker who was originally responsible for this scheme, an obscure politician named David Blunkett who was going to make us all carry one if his cards, and who managed to get thrown out of his Government job not once, but twice, after making repeated gaffes that his bosses tried to ignore and gloss over, went to the papers and tried to recreate himself in some way, by threatening to sue the Government for the £30 he paid for his ID Card.

I might sue over scrapped ID card, says Blunkett – UK Politics, UK – The Independent

What a cheek! He should have been standing up and proclaiming his utter joy at having been granted the privilege of owning one of the ID Cards for a mere £30. They will be rare collectors’ items in future. I’m not sure of the ultimate number, I have seen claims of between 7,000 and 50,000 ID Cards being issued, despite Blunkett’s Labour Party being aware that every other party was going to scrap them after the General Election. The cost of the scheme was said to be £250 million over the eight years it was being pushed through regardless, against all opposition objections, with 15,000 paying £30 for each card worth £16,667 – which surely has to be a bargain. If the number was 50,000 then the cost of each card was a mere £5,000 – still a bargain at £30,  but who will ever know the truth?

Maybe David Blunkett should still be sued for the cost of the disgraced and scrapped ID Card scheme – paying off the bill might keep us safe from his demented publicity stunts.

I’m certainly not wasting my time hunting down the real numbers, so if the above – taken from various reports in the news – are wrong, don’t bother letting me know. I don’t care now that the billions – at least £5 billion, and no doubt many times more if the project had been allowed to continue – have been saved, especially given the dire financial straits the country was shown to be in after the General Election.

It was embarrassing to watch the previous Government ride roughshod over any protests against the scheme, and attempt to have this pointless scheme set in place before it lost office, as if it was intent on having it installed deeply enough to ensure that any following administration would not be able to afford to cancel and withdraw it, since every single other political party had announced its intention to do away with the scheme in their post-election manifestos.

I could have a laugh at the expense of those who supported these useless cards, but it’s perhaps better to let them speak for themselves, and how ridiculous their claims are (or were), remembering that there is no evidence to support the claimed anti-terrorism claims made for the ID Card, and that they did not replace ANY of the alternative forms of identification we already have available, which would still all continue to be needed, meaning this cards/system would still have been additional to what we already have, and more importantly, subscribe to voluntarily when we want or need the services they apply to:

BBC News – ‘Why I love my ID card’ (Seriously, this makes for truly sad reading if the writer believe all he has written.)

Civil service warning

While I’m not too interested in the words of fanatics, extremists, or those with their own agenda, I have had a look around some of the follow up stories that have appeared around the web since the news of the current ID Card scheme cancellation was confirmed, and some of it may just carry the worrying ring of truth.

There are claims that the bureaucrats and pen-pushers at Westminster are not too happy about the loss of the scheme, and that they had been rubbing their hands in joy at the prospect of having a database where everyone’s details were centralised, and of forcing people to carry a card that linked them to it. And it’s not hard to see how people who’s lives revolve around making rules and having people follow them would adore to have such a system in place.

I think it might be well worth watching the small print that related to the people of the bureaucratic Government services over the next few years, just in case they decide to use their skills to learn from the current ID Card and database fiasco, and use the next five years to form a new plan to introduce something similar once the current interest dies down, and they can come up with the reheated dregs under a new name.

BBC News – The nine lives of ID cards

Maybe they will come up with something ‘new’, like an Entitlement Card (and of course, a database containing details of the entire UK population to back it up).

Maybe you won’t be granted access to any Government related services if you don’t have one, so it won’t be compulsory, unless you want access even to your local council, or maybe even to prove you are entitled to have your bin emptied.

The story may be little more than ‘smoke and mirrors’, but where pen-pushers and Jobsworth’s are concerned, I never discount anything, no matter how unbelievable, fantastic, or unlikely it may sound, and this has a little more than just the smell of possibility to me, and thoughts of how kids behave when you take one of the favourite toys away from them. They don’t let go willingly, or forget.

ID Cards can still be had

If you’re really upset at not being tagged with a UK ID Card then you may wish to follow the link below, and keep one of their offering in you handbag or wallet. You could even fine yourself $1,000 any time you leave home without it, or forget it, and you could even lock yourself  indoors for 24 hours, just to simulate the feeling of being lifted by the police in a spot check to make sure you had your card with you.

It will probably be as secure as the UK ID Card, which I have seen newspaper articles which claim could be cracked in as little as 10 minutes, and new work suggests that biometrics are far from infallible.

Fluxcard Fake ID | Effective Fake ID Cards | Holograms and UV Fake IDs Features | Order Fake ID Online

The Electric Brae – Indian style

Most of us are familiar with the Electric Brae in South Ayrshire, real name Croy Brae, which can be found about three miles (5 km) northwest of Maybole, and about a mile (1.5 km) south of Dunure in South Ayrshire. The brae gets it name courtesy of an optical illusion arising from the layout of the land, which gives the impression that a vehicle can freewheel uphill, against its apparent direction of slope.

Although the road slopes gently downhill, from the land towards the sea (travelling east to west), it seems that human perception judges such things relatives to the surroundings of the observer, and visual cues such as the angles of the hillsides in the background fool the mind into seeing the road apparently slope downwards from sea to the land. In fact, the landward or eastern end of the road is some 17 feet above the coastal end, resulting in an overall gradient of 1 in 86. Stop in the lay-by provided at the side of the road, release your handbrake, and you will roll west, towards the sea, although the road looks as if it slopes inland towards the east.

It seems that someone suggested that mysterious electrical forces were overcoming gravity, and the name stuck. Often described incorrectly as a cairn (which is a mound formed from a pile of smaller stones), a stone slab has been installed at the lay-by, and carries the following inscription which describes the effect:

“The ‘Electric Brae’, known locally as Croy Brae.
This runs the quarter mile from the bend overlooking Croy railway viaduct in the west (286 feet Above Ordnance Datum) to the wooded Craigencroy Glen (303 feet above A.O.D.) to the east.
Whilst there is this slope of 1 in 86 upwards from the bend at the Glen, the configuration of the land on either side of the road provides an optical illusion making it look as if the slope is going the other way.
Therefore, a stationary car on the road with the brakes off will appear to move slowly uphill.
The term ‘Electric Brae’ dates from a time when it was incorrectly thought to be a phenomenon caused by electric or magnetic attraction within the Brae.”

The stone can just be seen to the left of the cars in the lay-by pictured below. The view should appear to show a road that slopes downhill – away from the photographer – but actually slopes downhill towards the photographer.

Croy Brae, looking uphill © Mary and Angus Hogg

Over the years, a number of metal signs preceded the stone – unfortunately, these appeared to prove too attractive to souvenir hunters, and often disappeared soon after being installed. At one stage, the local council even published leaflets describing the brae, so frequent were requests made about it.

Magnetic Hill – Ladakh

It seems that while the phenomenon may be rare, it is not unique, and a number of similar sites can be found listed in the International Directory of Magnetic Hills, Gravity Hills, Mystery Hills and Magnetic Mountains.

The first I spotted before becoming aware of this directory was found in India, in Ladakh, where the Magnetic Hill, or Gravity Hill, lies about 30 kilometres from the capital city Leh, and is located on the Leh-Kargil-Baltik national highway, some 14,000 feet above sea level, and is bordered by the Indus river which originates in Tibet and flows through Ladakh on its way to Pakistan. It is said that the magnetic power here is such that a vehicle – with the engine switched off – will soon be found to be moving up the hill at a speed of about 20 kph.

Ladakh magnetic hill - Source: Boloji.com

Ignoring the boring reality of the phenomenon, numerous myths have been built around the existence of the hill, with stories that those flying around the region can feel the pull of magnetic field, from the hill which is supposedly packed full of magnetised iron. As reported by the local people and Indo Tibetan Border Police, when aircraft come within the influence of this hill, they start to jerk, and to avoid accidents, fliers are advised to fly at specific speed and height.

The area has also become a popular sightseeing place, because of the nearby Gurdwara Pather Sahib, a Sikh holy shrine that is maintained by the Indian army. Guru Nanak Dev, the first of the ten Gurus of Sikhism meditated near this hill in the 17th century. Guru Nanak is said to have come to this place for meditation when a demon living atop the hill threw a rock to kill him. Legend has it that the rock turned into wax when it hit Guru Nanak. The demon ran downhill to check if Guru Nanak had died and kicked the rock on finding him alive. The rock carrying the imprint of Guru Nanak’s back and the demon’s foot is kept at the gurdwara.

The experience is described as a Himalayan wonder, and combined with the religious connotations is promoted as a must-see feature if you happen to venture into this part of the world.

One cannot help but think that the Scottish Tourist Board and VisitScotland are clearly missing an opportunity with Croy Brae.

The lost projects of 2009

I suppose I could write this blog entry every year, but this seem to be the first time I’ve consciously had to make the decision to forget numerous ideas that I had set to one side, intending to pick them up in a few days or weeks time, after dealing with more important matters.

Some have lapsed simply because they weren’t particularly interesting, or well thought out, so had little future, and this is something to be expected. With staff, these can be farmed out together with orders and instructions for their completion, but when there’s only one of you, that’s not an option.

There is an upside, and in many cases the subject is not time dependent, and can be resurrected at some later date, and maybe even receive better treatment, as new information becomes available.

On the downside, developments may overtake things, as happened in the following example, where the CCTV explosion meant that an article which began with, at most, a few dozen subjects (the cameras), ended up with well over a hundred, and simply became impractical.

A case in point

One in particular has stuck with me, because it was a bit of a favourite I had been looking forward to completing, but the sheer amount of time needed to complete it meant it became impractical and would never be seen. However,  the reason for its demise is still worth thinking about (for a few minutes, at least).

As I walk to and fro from the two main shopping centres I use, I had come to notice that the number of CCTV cameras had steadily grown, and included both public and private installations, and these contained various qualities of camera, from the cheap and cheerful, to the fully automated pan, tilt, and zoom types. The original plan had just been to collect pics of all the cameras on the route – a total of some seven or eight miles – and post them all online in the order they were encountered, together with any relevant notes.

This started out on a fairly casual basis over a period of weeks, and became extended when I realised that it was easy to miss one camera while studying another, and I found I had to repeat the exercise a few times in order to mop up those that had been missed on earlier walks. This was the fatal flaw, and over that time I found that not only were cameras being added, others were being removed, so I was aiming at a moving target.

The real killer was when I sat down one evening and flicked through the collection in order to see how the cameras could best be picked out and displayed, and how many of them merited some sort of comment. After the revisits and updates, I found that the number of pics had passed the one hundred mark, and many of these contained more than one camera if a commercial site had been picture. Had I been merely uploading to pics to something like Flickr then there would have been little problem, but also little explanation along with the pics. When I did the math, and worked out the time to edit the pics for use, correct the exposure in cases where the cameras were mounted in places with poor lighting, assembled them into some sort of relevant order, added text, error-checked, proof-read, etc, etc, etc, this turned into a mini-marathon, and i could have written a book in the time this exercise would have taken to complete.

So, it’s never going to happen, but on the other hand, I do have a fairly complete collection of all the CCTV cameras on the main road through the east end of Glasgow, as seen in 2009.

One of the surprises encountered during the exercise was the disappearance of the rather interesting camera pictured below. This one was notable because it used two separate cameras modules within the one body. For some reason, I could never get a sharp picture of this one, which needed x15 zoom even to catch the detail shown, and even this is cropped from a much larger original. My camera would variously refuse to lock focus, lock but focus poorly (as seen here), and on one occasion insisted on steaming up every time I held it (but it was the middle of winter on that day). After getting home on numerous occasion to find the pic next to useless, I thought this one was jinxed, and I would never capture it.

These cameras came in various combinations for security use, generally having a low-light or infra-red camera combined with a normal black and white, or colour model, among the various options. Without more detail available, I’m guessing the area around the lenses looks like an infra-red illuminator, to assist with night use. I was going to try something better to get a closer look, but as it’s gone now, that won’t happen.

Scots and Canada

One of the recurring things that always struck me when I was actively researching and writing about the Isle of Bute was the number of times I read about people boarding ships bound for Canada. This was emphasised by the participation of numerous contributors at the time, who turned out to have chosen to move to Canada, or were descendants of family who had moved there in the mid to late 1800s.

The who know the island will also be aware that many departed from their place of birth, and were waved off by their families from the hill which gave the best view of the departing ships, and which came to be known as Canada Hill.

Because I was busy concentrating on other subjects, I didn’t really notice how often this was referred to (a bit of ‘wood and trees’ syndrome I think), however I have come to realise that the connection between Scotland and Canada was much stronger than I had previously thought – even though I know some of my own family departed for Ontario many years ago.

The thought was re-awoken this week, when I happened to chance upon a web site created by the Scottish Government, as part of its Learning and Teaching Scotland scheme.

This is their Scots and Canada web site, which opens with the following paragraph:

Scots and Canada

In the 2006 Canadian Census an incredible 4.7 million Canadians said that they were of Scottish origin. At the time, the entire population of Scotland was just under 5.2 million.

So, why are there so many people descended from Scots living in Canada today?

Why was there a mass emigration of Scots to the wild and unexplored shores of Canada in the 18th and 19th centuries, and why did the number of emigrants continue to rise until the middle of the 20th century?

The story of the Scots in Canada is a tale of adventure and heroism, of explorers, traders and settlers who carved a life in the inhospitable wilderness. It is a story of dangerous journeys and terrible loss, of triumph against the odds, and of hope as the Scots fought to hold on to their native culture and language.

The first is John Alexander Macdonald (1815-1891) Canadian statesman, born in Glasgow, Scotland, he emigrated to Canada with his family in 1820. The first Canadian Prime Minister (1867-1873), he served a second term in office (1878-1891).

Also included is:

Alexander Mackenzie (1822-1892) Canadian politician. Born in Logieraith, Perthshire, Scotland, he emigrated to Canada in 1842. First Liberal Prime Minister of Canada (1873-1878) and Leader of the Opposition (1878-1880).

And possibly the most well-known:

John Buchan, lst Baron Tweedsmuir (1875-1940), British author and statesman born in Perth, Scotland. Governor-general of Canada 1935. Novels include The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915) and Greenmantle (1916).

Stolen Auchengeich statue replaced

Auchengeich memorial statue © Robert Murray

Back in November, we noted a particularly disgusting theft: Mining disaster memorial statue stolen weeks after unveiling

Likened by one commentator to stealing from a grave, the bronze statue had cost £35,000 and been unveiled by First Minister Alex Salmond only a few weeks before it vanished. The statue remembered one of Scotland’s worst mining disasters, when 47 men died after being trapped by an underground fire at the Auchengeich Colliery in North Lanarkshire, on September 18, 1959. Only one miner survived the fire, caused by an electrical fault 1,000 feet below ground.

Now, an exact replica of the original memorial has been unveiled on the same site, and the replacement statue has been fitted with a tracker and will be monitored by CCTV.

As with the original, the new statue was also unveiled by First Minister Alex Salmond, who said:

Today is about a community overcoming adversity. The Auchengeich miner has been restored to its rightful place thanks to the determination of all of those who were not beaten by this act of theft. I share the outrage and anger of the local community, who lost so many husbands, fathers brothers and sons half a century ago, and who have suffered yet more heartache as a result of this senseless crime.

Following a massive public outcry over the theft, North Lanarkshire and East Dunbartonshire councils provided the £25,000 needed to replace the statue. The new statue contains the latest state-of-the-art technology allowing it to be continually monitored by police and council officials.

Speaking at the unveiling, Councillor Tom Curley, Provost of North Lanarkshire, thanked the First Minister and said:

When I was told about the theft my emotions were a mixture of sadness and disbelief. This is something that should not have happened. This went beyond theft. This was playing with grief, a grief I shared.

Despite extensive police enquires, no trace of the statue, or those involved in the theft, has been found, and it would seem likely that it is gone forever – probably turned into nothing more than scrap by people who have no conception of the word ‘respect’.