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The thread about the Gilmore Place Public School; the rise, fall and renaissance of Darroch
Preamble. The schools of the “School Board” era of public education (those built 1872-1918) hold a particular fascination for me, one most profound where they have been “deconsecrated” and are either no longer in use as schools or have disappeared entirely. This thread began as a couple of lines for my own notes about the “Lost Board Schools of Edinburgh” but soon snowballed into an alphabetical deep-dive into each.
Instalment seven of the series looking at “Lost Board Schools of Edinburgh” takes us to Gilmore Place Public School; a name likely to draw blank looks from most. That’s not unsurprising as it’s a building well hidden from passing view and a moniker that lasted but twenty years. But mention Darroch School and – despite the passage of over half a century since it last closed its doors as a standalone educational institution – you will get a flicker of recognition from a certain generation of Edinburgher. Darroch’s story is not a simple one, indeed it was never just a single school and in its time has housed more than ten different schools and any number of other council functions. But if we take the time to understand its travails it offers us a neatly encapsulated case study of the ebb and flow of secondary education in the city. It is also a happy story as it has bucked the trend of “Lost Board Schools of Edinburgh” and despite repeatedly being deemed surplus to requirements it has avoided the fate of many of its contemporaries – conversion into private flats – and is now enjoying an educational and cultural renaissance.
The former Gilmore Place Public School in its new guise as Ath-Thaigh Darroch – Darroch Annexe – after a refurbishment completed in 2022 to become the GME annexe of James Gillespie’s High School. Photo via Prime Joinery Solutions.Our subject came to be as the solution to two urgent problems facing the Edinburgh School Board at the dawn of the 20th century. Firstly in 1903 West Fountainbridge Public School had been condemned as unfit by the Scotch Education Department for the third year running and it had been found impossible to bring it up to standard. Secondly all other schools in the locality, especially Bruntsfield, were over their capacities and there were 246 children in the district on a waiting list for places. The Board decided they could kill these two birds with a single stone and set upon building a large new school for the area.
Bruntsfield Public School in 1895, the year of its opening. Note that the styling is slightly less restrained than Gilmore Place, with more use of mouldings and carved details. Photograph by Bedford Lemere. Edinburgh and Scottish Collection, Edinburgh City Libraries.It was settled on to purchase a one acre site at the end of Gillespie Street off Gilmore Place then occupied by an engineering works whose lease was approaching expiry. The owners however demanded “an extravagant price” due to complex servitudes1 upon the land. Undeterred, the Board petitioned for a compulsory purchase order in November 1903. This was the first occasion they had taken this drastic step to acquire a site but it would take over two years of legal wrangling and two rulings at the Court of Session to conclude it. The plot ended up costing £9,000, the majority of which was compensation and legal fees for neighbours, with a further £20,000 spent on the building, fittings and furnishings.
- In Scots property law, a Servitude is a right befitting adjacent properties over their neighbour, e.g. a use of a path, a prohibition on building a certain distance from a boundary etc. ↩︎
The plans for a large, three-storey, T-plan building in a “simple adaptation of the English Renaissance style” were completed by the the Board’s architect, John A. Carfrae. The designed capacity was 1,500 pupils but it was planned that the two-storey side wings could easily be raised to three if an increase was required. There were twenty-six classrooms with an average capacity of 56 pupils. The infant department occupied the ground floor with juveniles on the first, each being arranged around a large central hall of 49 by 40 feet in size. There were mezzanine-level galleries around the halls so that children moving between classrooms did not disturb those in the hall (a common problem in earlier schools). The second floor contained practical teaching spaces for cookery and laundry and a workshop for manual crafts.
Artists impression of the “New Edinburgh Board School in Gillespie Street”. The ventilation cupola in the centre of the roof was lost at some point after the 1970s. Evening News, 22nd March 1905The school opened for business on Tuesday 3rd September 1907 with the staff and roll of the closed West Fountainbridge transferring here. The formal ceremony did not take place until Saturday 30th November with the Chairman of the School Board, W. H. Mill, presiding and the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Right Hon. John Sinclair MP, as guest of honour. After various self-congratulatory speeches the assembled dignitaries retreated to the Caledonian Hotel for a celebratory and well-oiled luncheon with numerous toasts.
The roundel of the Edinburgh School Board on the facade of Gilmore Place Public School. “The female figure of education” dispensing knowledge to the young, surrounded by books and a globe. © Public Monuments and Sculpture Association, via Trove.Scot SC 1229693From the very beginning, Gilmore Place was not one but actually two different schools. During the day the Public School provided elementary education for children up to the leaving age of fourteen. But the Board was keen to maximise the return on the “large amount of educational plant” that they had built at great expense and thought it wasteful to have buildings sitting idle after pupils emptied out their gates at three o’clock. Therefore by night it became Gilmore Place Continuation School, providing evening classes for adults. Evening classes were not new, but this was the first time the Board had opted to run a large, centralised school offering a full curriculum. For the first session, 1907-08, expectations were greatly surpassed with 750 students enrolling. Such was the demand – “so great as almost to be embarrassing” in the words of the Chairman of the Board – that additional courses had to be put on over the summer. Two of the courses, millinery and cookery, were reserved for those already working in those trades and accounted for almost half the intake. These were the first explicitly vocational further education courses run by the Board in Edinburgh and the Evening News reported the confectionery course “will be of an advanced nature, and it is expected that in a year or two it will be possible for Scotsmen to do high-class work now almost exclusively done by Frenchmen“.
An additional roundel on the façade of Gilmore Place Public School, representing Industry. A bearded master teaches his young apprentice, surrounded by symbols of industry; an anvil, workbench, tools and gear wheel. © Public Monuments and Sculpture Association, via Trove.Scot SC 1229692Life as an elementary school was short and just two decades after opening it closed in 1928 in preparation for a metamorphosis into the city’s fourth Intermediate School. Such institutions were defined by the Scotch Education Department as providing “at least a three years’ course of instruction in languages, mathematics, science and such other subjects as may from time to time be deemed suitable for pupils who, on entering, have reached the stage of attainment in elementary subjects.” The purpose of this new class of school was to centralise teaching of post-elementary age pupils (from twelve to fifteen) in dedicated schools with a higher quality of staff and teaching. These were the children who had not passed the Qually – the qualification exam sat at the age of eleven which streamed their educational future – and would otherwise have remained in elementary schools in the Advanced Divisions, working towards a fairly generic leaving certificate. As well as the general curriculum the Intermediate schools would also offer dedicated Commercial or Technical courses aimed at improving the vocational skills of children fully expected to enter the blue-collar workforce as soon as they hit leaving age.
Class photo of the short-lived Gilmore Place Public School, 1919-20 session. Picture via Darroch FPAIt was not until a decade after this class of school was first defined that Edinburgh opened the James Clark and Tynecastle Intermediate Schools in 1921, by which time the School Board had been merged with that of Leith and other surrounding parishes to create the Edinburgh Education Authority. Bellevue Intermediate (now Drummond Community High School) followed in 1926 but demand far outstripped supply and another was soon needed. The school at Gilmore Place was a perfect candidate; it was large, fairly central, relatively new and at that time relatively under-subscribed. It was altered at a cost of £6,000 with the number of classrooms reduced to eighteen and the capacity reduced to 720 children. A range of new facilities were provided, including dedicated classrooms for the specialist teaching of cookery, laundry, dressmaking, science, art and manual crafts. The nucleus of the new school was made by transferring the entire Advanced Division of Bruntsfield School as well as sending children coming of age from South Morningside, Tollcross, North Merchiston and Torphicen Street schools.
Boys at work in the machine shop, 1952. Picture via Darroch FPAWhile the Evening News wanted the new school to be called Merchiston Intermediate the Authority instead renamed it the Darroch Intermediate and Technical School in honour of their late chair Professor Alexander Darroch (1862-1924). Darroch had held the Bell Chair of Education at the University for over twenty years and as chair of the Edinburgh Provincial Committee for the Training of Teachers he reorganised and modernised the training of educators. He believed his contemporaries “placed too much stress in examinations and on the acquisition of knowledge for its own sake” and was a champion of offering children instead the sort of practical skills that would prepare them for their working lives and taking their place in society.
Professor Alexander Darroch (1862-1924), 1908 by Robert Helnry Alison Ross. University of Edinburgh EU0318 via ArtUKIn 1939 under a further reorganisation of education in Scotland a new name was given; Darroch Junior Secondary. This was in preparation for the leaving age being raised to fifteen and the “sentence” of students being extended as a result from three to four years. At this time a flat at 5 Leamington Terrace was purchased by the Education Committee for practical use of the girls taking the Domestic Studies courses which became known as the School Flat. This remained the exclusive domain of the girls until 1969 when – in a bold experiment which was a sign of changing times – groups of six boys at a time were sent for a fortnight course in bed-making, housekeeping, shopping, cooking and sewing.
The “School Flat”, where girls were taught housewifery. Picture via Darroch FPABack in 1928 when the Intermediate School was formed, the Continuation School was reconstituted into the Darroch Institute for Adults to benefit from the new facilities on offer. This had 1,300 students aged from twenty to eighty-two on its roll and as well as a full curriculum of courses offered novel subjects such as lip reading for the deaf, speech therapy for stammerers and “Everyday Law and the Home” which taught the students the legal basics of topics such as marriage, parenting, pet-owning, pensions and renting. The Evening News praised the Institute as ranking “second to none among the modern schools devoted to adult education.” In 1967 there was a major reorganisation in further education in the city in preparation for the new colleges of Napier, Stevenson and Telford opening and it was rebranded as the Darroch Adult Education Centre with its courses pivoted to being largely recreational.
One course offered by the Institute was unique in the city; the Gaelic language. It was a subject that had been taught at the Supplementary School since way back in 1908 with Gilmore Place being home to the first public tuition in the language in the city. This class had its roots in 1901 when the Celtic Union had begun offering tuition on a private basis. In 1906 they had gotten permission from the Board to use a classroom at Lothian Road Public School with a tacit agreement that should they prove successful they would become part of the Evening School offering in the city.
Lothian Road Public School in 1910, immediately prior to demolition to make way for the Usher Hall. Picture by the Edinburgh Photographic Society, Edinburgh and Scottish Collection, Edinburgh City Libraries.The tutors were the Rev. G. R. Maclennan of St Oran’s Gaelic Church, Peter Thomson and J. White Maclean, secretary of the Gaelic Union in Edinburgh. In addition, specific classes in Gaelic singing and the theory of Gaelic music were given by Neil Orr, conductor of the Edinburgh Gaelic Choir. The Oban Times would write:
“It is to be hoped… that as many pupils will enrol as possible to ensure a continuation of Gaelic being recognised as worthy of a place in the curriculum of the Edinburgh evenings schools.”
Oban Times and Argyllshire Advertiser, 2nd October 1909
These classes were intended for the “interest of the Lowland Gaels in their mother tongue” and would later come under the tutilage of Calum Johnston. Johnston had come to Edinburgh aged 16 to train as a draughtsman with the firm of Bruce Peebles & Co. and for twenty-seven years would also teach his native language to the city. A lauded singer and piper he retired to his native Barra in 1956, the Stornoway Gazette writing that they were “sure that if any mortal is privileged in this Atomic Age to see the fabled isle of Roca Barraidh towards the setting sun, then Calum will be that one.” (In Gaelic mythology, Roca Barraidh is an island that will be visible to the west of the Hebrides only three times, the third and final heralding the end of the world.) In 1972, then aged eighty-two, Calum stood on the beach in his kilt in the December wind and rain to pipe ashore the body of Compton Mackenzie, author of Whisky Galore, which was being brought to the island where he lived for a decade for burial. He piped the procession up the 200 yard hill to the burial ground, stood to attention during the short ceremony before collapsing at the graveside and dying minutes afterwards.
Calum Johnston piping on the beach on Barra in 1967. Photo via Calum Maclean Project, University of EdinburghOn leaving Edinburgh, Johnston was replaced by Bh-uas Murdag Nic Choinnich (Miss Murdina Mackenzie) who became the only Gaelic teacher on the payroll of the city. The classes were in peril however and were withdrawn in 1958 following dwindling attendance; indeed they were suspended each session after Johnston retired due to a lack of students, thus ending a half-century association between the school at Gillespie Street and the Gaelic Language. (For now…)
Darroch remained open throughout World War two and a noted pupil at this time was one Thomas (Sean) Connery, who completed his time in education there between 1942-44. A reluctant pupil, his teachers branded him “very average – not at all brilliant” and he was apparently voted by his classmates as the boy “most unlikely to succeed“. Post-war it continued as a Junior Secondary with an average roll in 1945 of 550. Despite a long-term decline in Edinburgh’s urban population at this time its roll actually climbed beyond 600 due to the leaving age being raised to fifteen in 1947.
The School Captains are cheered on by their fellow pupils after their election. Edinburgh Evening News, October 3rd 1947In 1960 it became one of the pilot schools ahead of the introduction of the new Modern Studies subject to Scottish secondary education in 1962. This gave pupils the opportunity to learn about TV, advertising, the press, citizenship and politics to equip them with “some knowledge of the complexities of the ever-changing contemporary world“. On Monday 22nd June 1970, the boys of Darroch set a world record for non-stop five-a-side football at the ground of North Merchiston Boy’s Club: they had passed the previous record of 13 hours and 7 minutes and at the time the story went to print were still playing.
But, new courses and football achievements aside, all was not well at Darroch. A letter to the Evening News in 1968 outlined the situation:
This conglomeration of old buildings is a disgrace to the town; and, to all appearance, a death-trap should an outbreak of fire take place on the ground floor.
The teachers are to be admired for their tolerance and consideration in taking a post in such a place because the pupils are not and cannot be expected to be proud of such a school
J.M. Morningside. A letter to the Evening News, 4th July 1968
In 1969 the school was publicly criticised by Councillor Robert Knox, chairman of the Education Committee, who acknowledged that its facilities were outdated and inadequate and that it required replacement. Knox, a Progressive, was criticised by his Labour Party opposite number for having presided over new schools for the fee paying all-boys Royal High School and James Gillespie’s School for Girls despite “in neither case was the need as great as Darroch“. The Scotsman printed a large investigative spread on the subject under the banner headline “The trouble with Darroch“.
The Trouble with Darroch, Scotsman, 8th March 1969Adjectives spring to mind – all derogatory. Bleak, barrack-like, looming. Inside, the school is no better: the corridors are furnished like a public lavatory, all white tiles and nasty green paint; the classrooms are unappealing, dingy and dark, with windows placed high up on the walls so that no pupil can be distracted by what is going on outside… Darroch Secondary School was built in the early 19000s and still has to suffer the educational norms of that time.
“The Trouble with Darroch”. Lindsay Mackie, investigation for the Scotsman, 8th march 1969
A teacher at this time at the school was the former Green MSP Robin Harper, who recalls his spell there from 1970 to 1972 in his autobiography “Dear Mr Harper: Britain’s First Green Parliamentarian.”
On my first day at Darroch a spokesman for a group of young teachers warned me: ‘Robin, this place is sheer hell. The kids never stop fighting. Any of them who show any academic ability are creamed off to Boroughmuir. Those who remain are an aggressive mix of children rejected by the system.
One school parent was the lawyer and author of contemporary history John G. Gray (seen alongside the headline of the Scotsman article). On learning his daughter was to be sent to Darroch due to a lack of capacity at nearby Boroughmuir, he was so taken aback by the state of the place that he wrote a pamphlet denouncing the condition of the place and the socially segregated state of secondary education in the capital in general.
As Edinburgh Citizens, we have allowed ourselves to become subject to a particularly vicious type of blackmail. Either our children secure a place at a top state school like Boroughmuir or we are offered a secondary course in such appalling conditions that sensitive parents prefer to educate their children privately at fees which many of them can ill afford.
John G. Gray, Focus on Darroch
Rather than simply pull his child out of the school and join his social peers in privately educating her, Gray instead took the Corporation to task; they did not care or “to put it vulgarly but accurately, give a damn“. He contended that they were happy with this state of affairs in the city whereby 45 percent of children went to a fee-paying secondary school. He noted that the conditions at school’s like Darroch were largely ignored by the authorities and the press until middle-class parents like himself began to complain. He publicly challenged the city’s Director of Education to produce a signed statement that the facilities at such Junior Secondaries were adequate: a call that did not elicit a response.
“Focus on Darroch”, the pamphlet issued by John G. Gray outlining the problems facing the school, and secondary education in the city in generalThe list of charges against the school went on. Despite being built for 1,500 and having a declining roll of only around a third of that, it was cramped by modern standards, with numerous “temporary” wooden huts in the playground to provide additional teaching spaces. Its toilets were outside and “so revolting that children refuse to use them“, the gymnasium was tiny and had no changing or showering facilities, the playground was “minute” and it had no playing fields; children had to travel half an hour to Meggetland for games and sports. Its students tolerate a lot, but for them the straw that broke the camel’s back was the state of their school dinners. Matters came to a head in 1971 when the Head Boy, Andrew Ewing, wrote an angry letter to the editor of the Scotsman complaining about the state of affairs. As the school had no cooking facilities of its own, its meals had to be brought in by a lorry and were cold by the time they were served. It also had no dining facilities, instead students had to collect their lunch trays from a corridor floor and eat the unpalatable, cabbagey contents in classrooms. One such space was a science laboratory where the would pushed around escaped droplets of liquid mercury on the worktops with their cutlery in-between mouthfuls of cold custard.
With the increase in dining charges I hoped that the standard of dinners would improve. But the custard is cold. It is also watery, lumpy, lukewarm or inedible
Andrew Ewing, Letter to the Scotsman, May 1971
But rather than reprimand him for stepping out of line, Darroch’s headmaster – Dr William Gray – praised his student for putting into practice what he had learned in the new subject of Modern Studies. He confirmed to the Scotsman that the school had been serving dinner in this manner since 1946 but that a temporary dining hall would finally be opened later in the year to put an end to the practice. As John G. Gray put it, Darroch had “an excellent headmaster” in William Gray (no relation), one that did not believe that it was just the buildings that made a school “good” or “bad”. Writing in defence of his students, he cited a first year boy who when asked to write an essay on what he thought of his school wrote: “Darroch may be a slum, but when you are inside it is not half bad; I admit it is not fur-lined, but it is the teachers that count… Maybe it is a bit ragged, but it is the best school in Scotland“.
Headmaster Gray knew that the facilities at his school were badly lacking and that the authorities imagined his job was largely one of babysitting reluctant teenagers before they could enter “humdrum jobs” in the workforce as soon as they hit aged fifteen. But he was not content to accept this and made strenuous and praiseworthy efforts to provide better outcomes for his students. After taking up his position in 1964 he pushed for an early introduction of the new Ordinary Grade qualification into Darroch – something not all Junior Secondaries were afforded. He made sure the most successful students were allowed to stay on for a fifth year beyond the leaving age to sit the Higher Certificate – a privilege usually reserved for those streamed into the High Schools, which in Edinburgh charged fees. This gave students the chance to escape their planned futures in the rapidly disappearing “humdrum jobs” by opening up a wide range of employment and educational opportunities to them and also meant that students showing academic potential were not simply “creamed off” to other schools. His faith in his charges was well placed and by 1971 three-quarters of students of the age wanted to sit the O-Grade and there were 101 staying on beyond the age of fourteen, up 246% since Gray took charge.
Given the height of the building and its restricted site down a narrow street, it can be hard to fit Darroch into a single picture frame and not make it look oppressive! Photo by Kim Traynor via BritishListedBuildings.co.ukDespite all these efforts, after 1970 the school’s roll began to sharply decline; dropping by almost 100 in a year. The Corporation saw an opportunity to dispose of the troublesome school on the cheap and made a proposal to merge Darroch with the James Clark School in St Leonard’s, which faced a similar issue of demographic pressures, a poor reputation and ageing facilities. But rather than spend any money on new facilities, they intended to simply move the combined school into an even older building, that of “Old” James Gillespie’s School, which had first been built in 1904. This rightly provoked anger amongst parents; if old Gillespie’s had superior facilities to Darroch then why had they prioritised a new building for the fee-paying, selective Gillespie’s High School for Girls to allow them to leave it. They knew their question was rhetorical.
“Old James Gillespie’s”, was built in 1904 as Boroughmuir Higher Grade School, which left after just six years on account of the building being inadequate to secondary teaching needs.These merger plans were put on hold until the outcome of the General Election that year was known and instead on December 14th 1970, the Education Committee voted to re-organise secondary education in Edinburgh to a fully comprehensive system “to end the unhappy segregation of children at the age of 12 into two distinct ability classes” and in preparation for the school leaving age being raised to sixteen in 1972. The end came swiftly for most of the old Junior Secondaries, dubbed as “dull, dingy, semi-slum schools” by the editor of the Scotsman, and in 1972 it was not just Darroch and James Clark but also Norton Park and David Kilpatrick in Leith that were unceremoniously closed. Darroch’s pupils merged into the newly co-educational, comprehensive James Gillespie’s High School at Marchmont in its brand new campus. Both the newly vacant Darroch building and – ironically Old Gillespie’s – became overspill annexes for Boroughmuir High which had rapidly expanded beyond the capacity of its building with the comprehensive move.
“New” James Gillespie’s in 1974, which incorporates the 17th century Bruntsfield House (left of image) within its campus. Edinburgh and Scottish Collection, Edinburgh City Libraries.Concurrent with this the school’s adult education role was rapidly run down and by 1973 it was offering only ballroom dancing, dressmaking, embroidery and flower arranging. The deckchairs of secondary schooling in central Edinburgh continued to be shuffled around over the next few years as the comprehensive schools established themselves and the population continued to decline. By 1976 things had changed again and Darroch now become an annexe for James Gillespie’s, the school to which its former pupils had been moved to just 4 years previously!
Aerial photo showing three of the schools frequently referred to in this post. Darroch is in the middle left, with the gleaming roof. Boroughmuir is the large building middle right with a tower at each end. “Old” James Gillespie’s is middle top, again its roof shining brightly, the building which was built as the original Boroughmuir Higher School. “New Gillespies” was built in the top right of the image, where the old building of Bruntsfield House can be seen.Darroch remained occupied by Gillespie’s until 1989 after which a building programme at the main campus allowed it to be consolidated there and close its annexes. Once again it became a school without a purpose but this situation did not last long. In 1990 Lothain Regional Council sold the Dean Education Centre (previously the Dean Orphanage and later Dean College) and former St Bernard’s School in Stockbridge which made their Advisory Service – training for in-service teachers – homeless. They were therefore transferred to Darroch but couldn’t hope to fill such a large building and so it would become something of a dumping ground for various council departments including a base for teaching English as a second language, administrative offices for the city’s adult and vocational education programmes, storing excess classroom furniture and serving as a mail-order warehouse for souvenir merchandise for the centennial celebrations of the Forth Bridge!
Darroch School in Lothian Regional Council days when it served any number of educational functions beyond being a school. Note how the tall central block dominates the narrow approach street and the inadequate pavements and entranceway. One of the multitude of “temporary” hut units can be seen jammed hard up against the gate on the left. Photo via Darroch Secondary School Pupils Group on Facebook.The Local Government etc (Scotland) Act 1994 saw Lothian Region replaced by a new unitary authority – the City of Edinburgh Council – in 1996 and with the transfer of education functions from the old authority to its new successors, once again a big question mark was placed over Darroch’s purpose and future. Perhaps it too may have ended up being converted to expensive flats had a pressing need for its services not arisen just a few years later. In 1998 the collapse of a staircase at nearby St Thomas of Aquin’s R. C. High School at Lauriston highlighted the perilous state of repair of that school. It was quickly condemned and hurriedly decanted to Darroch until 2002 while it was demolished and completely rebuilt. Once again Darroch was the right building in the right place at the right time and once again its corridors resounded to the sound of children’s feet and its classrooms to the refrains of teaching. After another spell of vacancy, between 2013 and 2016 it was James Gillespie’s turn to decant back to Darroch while the “New Gillespie’s” school on Lauderdale Street in Marchmont was itself demolished and rebuilt.
Once again quiet and vacant, in an effort to save money the council then turned the heating off, leading to a rapid decline in the fabric of the building but typical of the short-sighted, disjointed thinking of local authorities they had also left the place partially furnished and so were paying over £40,000 per annum in Non-Domestic Rates! Fortunately positive plans were afoot for Darroch’s future as a second dedicated Gaelic Medium Education (GME) school for the city. This would follow on from the success of Bun-sgoil Taobh na Pàirce which had opened at the former Bonnington Road Public School in Leith in 2013 and which had quickly grown to capacity. Fittingly, in the early 1990s the office of the small team who brought the city’s first GME unit at Tollcross Primary to fruition had been based in Darroch. These plans would both return primary education to the school after a break of almost a century and also the teaching of the Gaelic language after a break of sixty years.
Bun-sgoil Taobh na Pàirce, Edinburgh and Leith’s first (and so far, only) dedicated GME school, housed in the former Bonnington Road Public School. Photo via Edinburgh ReporterThese plans fell through due to a combination of factors including the difficulty in recruiting and retaining sufficient Gaelic-fluent teachers to meet demand and the complete inability of the council to provide a satisfactory solution for GME secondary education – which was being delivered from Àrd-sgoil Sheumais Ghilleasbuig; James Gillespie’s. This setback however was perhaps a blessing in disguise as it allowed a quiet reset of the council’s GME secondary plans which were at the time being driven by a lack of capacity at Gillespie’s, the new showpiece school that completed in 2016 having been built too small. A ten million pound investment brought the schools facilities and accessibility into the 21st century – many of these changes directly addressed the shortcoming first highlighted back in the late 1960s, such as an accessible new entrance, bright and modern interiors and a dedicated dining hall.
Ath-Thaigh Darroch. 21st century facilities in what is fundamentally a 19th century school. This shows one of the two “central halls” of the original design and the mezzanine-level corridors that provided access through it without disturbing those learning in it. Photo via Future Schools EdinburghThe school re-opened in 2022 as Ath-Thaigh Darroch – Darroch Annexe – housing much of Gillespie’s GME teaching as well as providing dedicated study spaces for older students preparing for exams. The building also houses a number of Gaelic language cultural institutions in the city and has “has quickly become the heart of the Gaelic-speaking community in the city.”
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The thread about the Gilmore Place Public School; the rise, fall and renaissance of Darroch
Preamble. The schools of the “School Board” era of public education (those built 1872-1918) hold a particular fascination for me, one most profound where they have been “deconsecrated” and are either no longer in use as schools or have disappeared entirely. This thread began as a couple of lines for my own notes about the “Lost Board Schools of Edinburgh” but soon snowballed into an alphabetical deep-dive into each.
Instalment seven of the series looking at “Lost Board Schools of Edinburgh” takes us to Gilmore Place Public School; a name likely to draw blank looks from most. That’s not unsurprising as it’s a building well hidden from passing view and a moniker that lasted but twenty years. But mention Darroch School and – despite the passage of over half a century since it last closed its doors as a standalone educational institution – you will get a flicker of recognition from a certain generation of Edinburgher. Darroch’s story is not a simple one, indeed it was never just a single school and in its time has housed more than ten different schools and any number of other council functions. But if we take the time to understand its travails it offers us a neatly encapsulated case study of the ebb and flow of secondary education in the city. It is also a happy story as it has bucked the trend of “Lost Board Schools of Edinburgh” and despite repeatedly being deemed surplus to requirements it has avoided the fate of many of its contemporaries – conversion into private flats – and is now enjoying an educational and cultural renaissance.
The former Gilmore Place Public School in its new guise as Ath-Thaigh Darroch – Darroch Annexe – after a refurbishment completed in 2022 to become the GME annexe of James Gillespie’s High School. Photo via Prime Joinery Solutions.Our subject came to be as the solution to two urgent problems facing the Edinburgh School Board at the dawn of the 20th century. Firstly in 1903 West Fountainbridge Public School had been condemned as unfit by the Scotch Education Department for the third year running and it had been found impossible to bring it up to standard. Secondly all other schools in the locality, especially Bruntsfield, were over their capacities and there were 246 children in the district on a waiting list for places. The Board decided they could kill these two birds with a single stone and set upon building a large new school for the area.
Bruntsfield Public School in 1895, the year of its opening. Note that the styling is slightly less restrained than Gilmore Place, with more use of mouldings and carved details. Photograph by Bedford Lemere. Edinburgh and Scottish Collection, Edinburgh City Libraries.It was settled on to purchase a one acre site at the end of Gillespie Street off Gilmore Place then occupied by an engineering works whose lease was approaching expiry. The owners however demanded “an extravagant price” due to complex servitudes1 upon the land. Undeterred, the Board petitioned for a compulsory purchase order in November 1903. This was the first occasion they had taken this drastic step to acquire a site but it would take over two years of legal wrangling and two rulings at the Court of Session to conclude it. The plot ended up costing £9,000, the majority of which was compensation and legal fees for neighbours, with a further £20,000 spent on the building, fittings and furnishings.
- In Scots property law, a Servitude is a right befitting adjacent properties over their neighbour, e.g. a use of a path, a prohibition on building a certain distance from a boundary etc. ↩︎
The plans for a large, three-storey, T-plan building in a “simple adaptation of the English Renaissance style” were completed by the the Board’s architect, John A. Carfrae. The designed capacity was 1,500 pupils but it was planned that the two-storey side wings could easily be raised to three if an increase was required. There were twenty-six classrooms with an average capacity of 56 pupils. The infant department occupied the ground floor with juveniles on the first, each being arranged around a large central hall of 49 by 40 feet in size. There were mezzanine-level galleries around the halls so that children moving between classrooms did not disturb those in the hall (a common problem in earlier schools). The second floor contained practical teaching spaces for cookery and laundry and a workshop for manual crafts.
Artists impression of the “New Edinburgh Board School in Gillespie Street”. The ventilation cupola in the centre of the roof was lost at some point after the 1970s. Evening News, 22nd March 1905The school opened for business on Tuesday 3rd September 1907 with the staff and roll of the closed West Fountainbridge transferring here. The formal ceremony did not take place until Saturday 30th November with the Chairman of the School Board, W. H. Mill, presiding and the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Right Hon. John Sinclair MP, as guest of honour. After various self-congratulatory speeches the assembled dignitaries retreated to the Caledonian Hotel for a celebratory and well-oiled luncheon with numerous toasts.
The roundel of the Edinburgh School Board on the facade of Gilmore Place Public School. “The female figure of education” dispensing knowledge to the young, surrounded by books and a globe. © Public Monuments and Sculpture Association, via Trove.Scot SC 1229693From the very beginning, Gilmore Place was not one but actually two different schools. During the day the Public School provided elementary education for children up to the leaving age of fourteen. But the Board was keen to maximise the return on the “large amount of educational plant” that they had built at great expense and thought it wasteful to have buildings sitting idle after pupils emptied out their gates at three o’clock. Therefore by night it became Gilmore Place Continuation School, providing evening classes for adults. Evening classes were not new, but this was the first time the Board had opted to run a large, centralised school offering a full curriculum. For the first session, 1907-08, expectations were greatly surpassed with 750 students enrolling. Such was the demand – “so great as almost to be embarrassing” in the words of the Chairman of the Board – that additional courses had to be put on over the summer. Two of the courses, millinery and cookery, were reserved for those already working in those trades and accounted for almost half the intake. These were the first explicitly vocational further education courses run by the Board in Edinburgh and the Evening News reported the confectionery course “will be of an advanced nature, and it is expected that in a year or two it will be possible for Scotsmen to do high-class work now almost exclusively done by Frenchmen“.
An additional roundel on the façade of Gilmore Place Public School, representing Industry. A bearded master teaches his young apprentice, surrounded by symbols of industry; an anvil, workbench, tools and gear wheel. © Public Monuments and Sculpture Association, via Trove.Scot SC 1229692Life as an elementary school was short and just two decades after opening it closed in 1928 in preparation for a metamorphosis into the city’s fourth Intermediate School. Such institutions were defined by the Scotch Education Department as providing “at least a three years’ course of instruction in languages, mathematics, science and such other subjects as may from time to time be deemed suitable for pupils who, on entering, have reached the stage of attainment in elementary subjects.” The purpose of this new class of school was to centralise teaching of post-elementary age pupils (from twelve to fifteen) in dedicated schools with a higher quality of staff and teaching. These were the children who had not passed the Qually – the qualification exam sat at the age of eleven which streamed their educational future – and would otherwise have remained in elementary schools in the Advanced Divisions, working towards a fairly generic leaving certificate. As well as the general curriculum the Intermediate schools would also offer dedicated Commercial or Technical courses aimed at improving the vocational skills of children fully expected to enter the blue-collar workforce as soon as they hit leaving age.
Class photo of the short-lived Gilmore Place Public School, 1919-20 session. Picture via Darroch FPAIt was not until a decade after this class of school was first defined that Edinburgh opened the James Clark and Tynecastle Intermediate Schools in 1921, by which time the School Board had been merged with that of Leith and other surrounding parishes to create the Edinburgh Education Authority. Bellevue Intermediate (now Drummond Community High School) followed in 1926 but demand far outstripped supply and another was soon needed. The school at Gilmore Place was a perfect candidate; it was large, fairly central, relatively new and at that time relatively under-subscribed. It was altered at a cost of £6,000 with the number of classrooms reduced to eighteen and the capacity reduced to 720 children. A range of new facilities were provided, including dedicated classrooms for the specialist teaching of cookery, laundry, dressmaking, science, art and manual crafts. The nucleus of the new school was made by transferring the entire Advanced Division of Bruntsfield School as well as sending children coming of age from South Morningside, Tollcross, North Merchiston and Torphicen Street schools.
Boys at work in the machine shop, 1952. Picture via Darroch FPAWhile the Evening News wanted the new school to be called Merchiston Intermediate the Authority instead renamed it the Darroch Intermediate and Technical School in honour of their late chair Professor Alexander Darroch (1862-1924). Darroch had held the Bell Chair of Education at the University for over twenty years and as chair of the Edinburgh Provincial Committee for the Training of Teachers he reorganised and modernised the training of educators. He believed his contemporaries “placed too much stress in examinations and on the acquisition of knowledge for its own sake” and was a champion of offering children instead the sort of practical skills that would prepare them for their working lives and taking their place in society.
Professor Alexander Darroch (1862-1924), 1908 by Robert Helnry Alison Ross. University of Edinburgh EU0318 via ArtUKIn 1939 under a further reorganisation of education in Scotland a new name was given; Darroch Junior Secondary. This was in preparation for the leaving age being raised to fifteen and the “sentence” of students being extended as a result from three to four years. At this time a flat at 5 Leamington Terrace was purchased by the Education Committee for practical use of the girls taking the Domestic Studies courses which became known as the School Flat. This remained the exclusive domain of the girls until 1969 when – in a bold experiment which was a sign of changing times – groups of six boys at a time were sent for a fortnight course in bed-making, housekeeping, shopping, cooking and sewing.
The “School Flat”, where girls were taught housewifery. Picture via Darroch FPABack in 1928 when the Intermediate School was formed, the Continuation School was reconstituted into the Darroch Institute for Adults to benefit from the new facilities on offer. This had 1,300 students aged from twenty to eighty-two on its roll and as well as a full curriculum of courses offered novel subjects such as lip reading for the deaf, speech therapy for stammerers and “Everyday Law and the Home” which taught the students the legal basics of topics such as marriage, parenting, pet-owning, pensions and renting. The Evening News praised the Institute as ranking “second to none among the modern schools devoted to adult education.” In 1967 there was a major reorganisation in further education in the city in preparation for the new colleges of Napier, Stevenson and Telford opening and it was rebranded as the Darroch Adult Education Centre with its courses pivoted to being largely recreational.
One course offered by the Institute was unique in the city; the Gaelic language. It was a subject that had been taught at the Supplementary School since way back in 1908 with Gilmore Place being home to the first public tuition in the language in the city. This class had its roots in 1901 when the Celtic Union had begun offering tuition on a private basis. In 1906 they had gotten permission from the Board to use a classroom at Lothian Road Public School with a tacit agreement that should they prove successful they would become part of the Evening School offering in the city.
Lothian Road Public School in 1910, immediately prior to demolition to make way for the Usher Hall. Picture by the Edinburgh Photographic Society, Edinburgh and Scottish Collection, Edinburgh City Libraries.The tutors were the Rev. G. R. Maclennan of St Oran’s Gaelic Church, Peter Thomson and J. White Maclean, secretary of the Gaelic Union in Edinburgh. In addition, specific classes in Gaelic singing and the theory of Gaelic music were given by Neil Orr, conductor of the Edinburgh Gaelic Choir. The Oban Times would write:
“It is to be hoped… that as many pupils will enrol as possible to ensure a continuation of Gaelic being recognised as worthy of a place in the curriculum of the Edinburgh evenings schools.”
Oban Times and Argyllshire Advertiser, 2nd October 1909
These classes were intended for the “interest of the Lowland Gaels in their mother tongue” and would later come under the tutilage of Calum Johnston. Johnston had come to Edinburgh aged 16 to train as a draughtsman with the firm of Bruce Peebles & Co. and for twenty-seven years would also teach his native language to the city. A lauded singer and piper he retired to his native Barra in 1956, the Stornoway Gazette writing that they were “sure that if any mortal is privileged in this Atomic Age to see the fabled isle of Roca Barraidh towards the setting sun, then Calum will be that one.” (In Gaelic mythology, Roca Barraidh is an island that will be visible to the west of the Hebrides only three times, the third and final heralding the end of the world.) In 1972, then aged eighty-two, Calum stood on the beach in his kilt in the December wind and rain to pipe ashore the body of Compton Mackenzie, author of Whisky Galore, which was being brought to the island where he lived for a decade for burial. He piped the procession up the 200 yard hill to the burial ground, stood to attention during the short ceremony before collapsing at the graveside and dying minutes afterwards.
Calum Johnston piping on the beach on Barra in 1967. Photo via Calum Maclean Project, University of EdinburghOn leaving Edinburgh, Johnston was replaced by Bh-uas Murdag Nic Choinnich (Miss Murdina Mackenzie) who became the only Gaelic teacher on the payroll of the city. The classes were in peril however and were withdrawn in 1958 following dwindling attendance; indeed they were suspended each session after Johnston retired due to a lack of students, thus ending a half-century association between the school at Gillespie Street and the Gaelic Language. (For now…)
Darroch remained open throughout World War two and a noted pupil at this time was one Thomas (Sean) Connery, who completed his time in education there between 1942-44. A reluctant pupil, his teachers branded him “very average – not at all brilliant” and he was apparently voted by his classmates as the boy “most unlikely to succeed“. Post-war it continued as a Junior Secondary with an average roll in 1945 of 550. Despite a long-term decline in Edinburgh’s urban population at this time its roll actually climbed beyond 600 due to the leaving age being raised to fifteen in 1947.
The School Captains are cheered on by their fellow pupils after their election. Edinburgh Evening News, October 3rd 1947In 1960 it became one of the pilot schools ahead of the introduction of the new Modern Studies subject to Scottish secondary education in 1962. This gave pupils the opportunity to learn about TV, advertising, the press, citizenship and politics to equip them with “some knowledge of the complexities of the ever-changing contemporary world“. On Monday 22nd June 1970, the boys of Darroch set a world record for non-stop five-a-side football at the ground of North Merchiston Boy’s Club: they had passed the previous record of 13 hours and 7 minutes and at the time the story went to print were still playing.
But, new courses and football achievements aside, all was not well at Darroch. A letter to the Evening News in 1968 outlined the situation:
This conglomeration of old buildings is a disgrace to the town; and, to all appearance, a death-trap should an outbreak of fire take place on the ground floor.
The teachers are to be admired for their tolerance and consideration in taking a post in such a place because the pupils are not and cannot be expected to be proud of such a school
J.M. Morningside. A letter to the Evening News, 4th July 1968
In 1969 the school was publicly criticised by Councillor Robert Knox, chairman of the Education Committee, who acknowledged that its facilities were outdated and inadequate and that it required replacement. Knox, a Progressive, was criticised by his Labour Party opposite number for having presided over new schools for the fee paying all-boys Royal High School and James Gillespie’s School for Girls despite “in neither case was the need as great as Darroch“. The Scotsman printed a large investigative spread on the subject under the banner headline “The trouble with Darroch“.
The Trouble with Darroch, Scotsman, 8th March 1969Adjectives spring to mind – all derogatory. Bleak, barrack-like, looming. Inside, the school is no better: the corridors are furnished like a public lavatory, all white tiles and nasty green paint; the classrooms are unappealing, dingy and dark, with windows placed high up on the walls so that no pupil can be distracted by what is going on outside… Darroch Secondary School was built in the early 19000s and still has to suffer the educational norms of that time.
“The Trouble with Darroch”. Lindsay Mackie, investigation for the Scotsman, 8th march 1969
A teacher at this time at the school was the former Green MSP Robin Harper, who recalls his spell there from 1970 to 1972 in his autobiography “Dear Mr Harper: Britain’s First Green Parliamentarian.”
On my first day at Darroch a spokesman for a group of young teachers warned me: ‘Robin, this place is sheer hell. The kids never stop fighting. Any of them who show any academic ability are creamed off to Boroughmuir. Those who remain are an aggressive mix of children rejected by the system.
One school parent was the lawyer and author of contemporary history John G. Gray (seen alongside the headline of the Scotsman article). On learning his daughter was to be sent to Darroch due to a lack of capacity at nearby Boroughmuir, he was so taken aback by the state of the place that he wrote a pamphlet denouncing the condition of the place and the socially segregated state of secondary education in the capital in general.
As Edinburgh Citizens, we have allowed ourselves to become subject to a particularly vicious type of blackmail. Either our children secure a place at a top state school like Boroughmuir or we are offered a secondary course in such appalling conditions that sensitive parents prefer to educate their children privately at fees which many of them can ill afford.
John G. Gray, Focus on Darroch
Rather than simply pull his child out of the school and join his social peers in privately educating her, Gray instead took the Corporation to task; they did not care or “to put it vulgarly but accurately, give a damn“. He contended that they were happy with this state of affairs in the city whereby 45 percent of children went to a fee-paying secondary school. He noted that the conditions at school’s like Darroch were largely ignored by the authorities and the press until middle-class parents like himself began to complain. He publicly challenged the city’s Director of Education to produce a signed statement that the facilities at such Junior Secondaries were adequate: a call that did not elicit a response.
“Focus on Darroch”, the pamphlet issued by John G. Gray outlining the problems facing the school, and secondary education in the city in generalThe list of charges against the school went on. Despite being built for 1,500 and having a declining roll of only around a third of that, it was cramped by modern standards, with numerous “temporary” wooden huts in the playground to provide additional teaching spaces. Its toilets were outside and “so revolting that children refuse to use them“, the gymnasium was tiny and had no changing or showering facilities, the playground was “minute” and it had no playing fields; children had to travel half an hour to Meggetland for games and sports. Its students tolerate a lot, but for them the straw that broke the camel’s back was the state of their school dinners. Matters came to a head in 1971 when the Head Boy, Andrew Ewing, wrote an angry letter to the editor of the Scotsman complaining about the state of affairs. As the school had no cooking facilities of its own, its meals had to be brought in by a lorry and were cold by the time they were served. It also had no dining facilities, instead students had to collect their lunch trays from a corridor floor and eat the unpalatable, cabbagey contents in classrooms. One such space was a science laboratory where the would pushed around escaped droplets of liquid mercury on the worktops with their cutlery in-between mouthfuls of cold custard.
With the increase in dining charges I hoped that the standard of dinners would improve. But the custard is cold. It is also watery, lumpy, lukewarm or inedible
Andrew Ewing, Letter to the Scotsman, May 1971
But rather than reprimand him for stepping out of line, Darroch’s headmaster – Dr William Gray – praised his student for putting into practice what he had learned in the new subject of Modern Studies. He confirmed to the Scotsman that the school had been serving dinner in this manner since 1946 but that a temporary dining hall would finally be opened later in the year to put an end to the practice. As John G. Gray put it, Darroch had “an excellent headmaster” in William Gray (no relation), one that did not believe that it was just the buildings that made a school “good” or “bad”. Writing in defence of his students, he cited a first year boy who when asked to write an essay on what he thought of his school wrote: “Darroch may be a slum, but when you are inside it is not half bad; I admit it is not fur-lined, but it is the teachers that count… Maybe it is a bit ragged, but it is the best school in Scotland“.
Headmaster Gray knew that the facilities at his school were badly lacking and that the authorities imagined his job was largely one of babysitting reluctant teenagers before they could enter “humdrum jobs” in the workforce as soon as they hit aged fifteen. But he was not content to accept this and made strenuous and praiseworthy efforts to provide better outcomes for his students. After taking up his position in 1964 he pushed for an early introduction of the new Ordinary Grade qualification into Darroch – something not all Junior Secondaries were afforded. He made sure the most successful students were allowed to stay on for a fifth year beyond the leaving age to sit the Higher Certificate – a privilege usually reserved for those streamed into the High Schools, which in Edinburgh charged fees. This gave students the chance to escape their planned futures in the rapidly disappearing “humdrum jobs” by opening up a wide range of employment and educational opportunities to them and also meant that students showing academic potential were not simply “creamed off” to other schools. His faith in his charges was well placed and by 1971 three-quarters of students of the age wanted to sit the O-Grade and there were 101 staying on beyond the age of fourteen, up 246% since Gray took charge.
Given the height of the building and its restricted site down a narrow street, it can be hard to fit Darroch into a single picture frame and not make it look oppressive! Photo by Kim Traynor via BritishListedBuildings.co.ukDespite all these efforts, after 1970 the school’s roll began to sharply decline; dropping by almost 100 in a year. The Corporation saw an opportunity to dispose of the troublesome school on the cheap and made a proposal to merge Darroch with the James Clark School in St Leonard’s, which faced a similar issue of demographic pressures, a poor reputation and ageing facilities. But rather than spend any money on new facilities, they intended to simply move the combined school into an even older building, that of “Old” James Gillespie’s School, which had first been built in 1904. This rightly provoked anger amongst parents; if old Gillespie’s had superior facilities to Darroch then why had they prioritised a new building for the fee-paying, selective Gillespie’s High School for Girls to allow them to leave it. They knew their question was rhetorical.
“Old James Gillespie’s”, was built in 1904 as Boroughmuir Higher Grade School, which left after just six years on account of the building being inadequate to secondary teaching needs.These merger plans were put on hold until the outcome of the General Election that year was known and instead on December 14th 1970, the Education Committee voted to re-organise secondary education in Edinburgh to a fully comprehensive system “to end the unhappy segregation of children at the age of 12 into two distinct ability classes” and in preparation for the school leaving age being raised to sixteen in 1972. The end came swiftly for most of the old Junior Secondaries, dubbed as “dull, dingy, semi-slum schools” by the editor of the Scotsman, and in 1972 it was not just Darroch and James Clark but also Norton Park and David Kilpatrick in Leith that were unceremoniously closed. Darroch’s pupils merged into the newly co-educational, comprehensive James Gillespie’s High School at Marchmont in its brand new campus. Both the newly vacant Darroch building and – ironically Old Gillespie’s – became overspill annexes for Boroughmuir High which had rapidly expanded beyond the capacity of its building with the comprehensive move.
“New” James Gillespie’s in 1974, which incorporates the 17th century Bruntsfield House (left of image) within its campus. Edinburgh and Scottish Collection, Edinburgh City Libraries.Concurrent with this the school’s adult education role was rapidly run down and by 1973 it was offering only ballroom dancing, dressmaking, embroidery and flower arranging. The deckchairs of secondary schooling in central Edinburgh continued to be shuffled around over the next few years as the comprehensive schools established themselves and the population continued to decline. By 1976 things had changed again and Darroch now become an annexe for James Gillespie’s, the school to which its former pupils had been moved to just 4 years previously!
Aerial photo showing three of the schools frequently referred to in this post. Darroch is in the middle left, with the gleaming roof. Boroughmuir is the large building middle right with a tower at each end. “Old” James Gillespie’s is middle top, again its roof shining brightly, the building which was built as the original Boroughmuir Higher School. “New Gillespies” was built in the top right of the image, where the old building of Bruntsfield House can be seen.Darroch remained occupied by Gillespie’s until 1989 after which a building programme at the main campus allowed it to be consolidated there and close its annexes. Once again it became a school without a purpose but this situation did not last long. In 1990 Lothain Regional Council sold the Dean Education Centre (previously the Dean Orphanage and later Dean College) and former St Bernard’s School in Stockbridge which made their Advisory Service – training for in-service teachers – homeless. They were therefore transferred to Darroch but couldn’t hope to fill such a large building and so it would become something of a dumping ground for various council departments including a base for teaching English as a second language, administrative offices for the city’s adult and vocational education programmes, storing excess classroom furniture and serving as a mail-order warehouse for souvenir merchandise for the centennial celebrations of the Forth Bridge!
Darroch School in Lothian Regional Council days when it served any number of educational functions beyond being a school. Note how the tall central block dominates the narrow approach street and the inadequate pavements and entranceway. One of the multitude of “temporary” hut units can be seen jammed hard up against the gate on the left. Photo via Darroch Secondary School Pupils Group on Facebook.The Local Government etc (Scotland) Act 1994 saw Lothian Region replaced by a new unitary authority – the City of Edinburgh Council – in 1996 and with the transfer of education functions from the old authority to its new successors, once again a big question mark was placed over Darroch’s purpose and future. Perhaps it too may have ended up being converted to expensive flats had a pressing need for its services not arisen just a few years later. In 1998 the collapse of a staircase at nearby St Thomas of Aquin’s R. C. High School at Lauriston highlighted the perilous state of repair of that school. It was quickly condemned and hurriedly decanted to Darroch until 2002 while it was demolished and completely rebuilt. Once again Darroch was the right building in the right place at the right time and once again its corridors resounded to the sound of children’s feet and its classrooms to the refrains of teaching. After another spell of vacancy, between 2013 and 2016 it was James Gillespie’s turn to decant back to Darroch while the “New Gillespie’s” school on Lauderdale Street in Marchmont was itself demolished and rebuilt.
Once again quiet and vacant, in an effort to save money the council then turned the heating off, leading to a rapid decline in the fabric of the building but typical of the short-sighted, disjointed thinking of local authorities they had also left the place partially furnished and so were paying over £40,000 per annum in Non-Domestic Rates! Fortunately positive plans were afoot for Darroch’s future as a second dedicated Gaelic Medium Education (GME) school for the city. This would follow on from the success of Bun-sgoil Taobh na Pàirce which had opened at the former Bonnington Road Public School in Leith in 2013 and which had quickly grown to capacity. Fittingly, in the early 1990s the office of the small team who brought the city’s first GME unit at Tollcross Primary to fruition had been based in Darroch. These plans would both return primary education to the school after a break of almost a century and also the teaching of the Gaelic language after a break of sixty years.
Bun-sgoil Taobh na Pàirce, Edinburgh and Leith’s first (and so far, only) dedicated GME school, housed in the former Bonnington Road Public School. Photo via Edinburgh ReporterThese plans fell through due to a combination of factors including the difficulty in recruiting and retaining sufficient Gaelic-fluent teachers to meet demand and the complete inability of the council to provide a satisfactory solution for GME secondary education – which was being delivered from Àrd-sgoil Sheumais Ghilleasbuig; James Gillespie’s. This setback however was perhaps a blessing in disguise as it allowed a quiet reset of the council’s GME secondary plans which were at the time being driven by a lack of capacity at Gillespie’s, the new showpiece school that completed in 2016 having been built too small. A ten million pound investment brought the schools facilities and accessibility into the 21st century – many of these changes directly addressed the shortcoming first highlighted back in the late 1960s, such as an accessible new entrance, bright and modern interiors and a dedicated dining hall.
Ath-Thaigh Darroch. 21st century facilities in what is fundamentally a 19th century school. This shows one of the two “central halls” of the original design and the mezzanine-level corridors that provided access through it without disturbing those learning in it. Photo via Future Schools EdinburghThe school re-opened in 2022 as Ath-Thaigh Darroch – Darroch Annexe – housing much of Gillespie’s GME teaching as well as providing dedicated study spaces for older students preparing for exams. The building also houses a number of Gaelic language cultural institutions in the city and has “has quickly become the heart of the Gaelic-speaking community in the city.”
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The thread about the Gilmore Place Public School; the rise, fall and renaissance of Darroch
Preamble. The schools of the “School Board” era of public education (those built 1872-1918) hold a particular fascination for me, one most profound where they have been “deconsecrated” and are either no longer in use as schools or have disappeared entirely. This thread began as a couple of lines for my own notes about the “Lost Board Schools of Edinburgh” but soon snowballed into an alphabetical deep-dive into each.
Instalment seven of the series looking at “Lost Board Schools of Edinburgh” takes us to Gilmore Place Public School; a name likely to draw blank looks from most. That’s not unsurprising as it’s a building well hidden from passing view and a moniker that lasted but twenty years. But mention Darroch School and – despite the passage of over half a century since it last closed its doors as a standalone educational institution – you will get a flicker of recognition from a certain generation of Edinburgher. Darroch’s story is not a simple one, indeed it was never just a single school and in its time has housed more than ten different schools and any number of other council functions. But if we take the time to understand its travails it offers us a neatly encapsulated case study of the ebb and flow of secondary education in the city. It is also a happy story as it has bucked the trend of “Lost Board Schools of Edinburgh” and despite repeatedly being deemed surplus to requirements it has avoided the fate of many of its contemporaries – conversion into private flats – and is now enjoying an educational and cultural renaissance.
The former Gilmore Place Public School in its new guise as Ath-Thaigh Darroch – Darroch Annexe – after a refurbishment completed in 2022 to become the GME annexe of James Gillespie’s High School. Photo via Prime Joinery Solutions.Our subject came to be as the solution to two urgent problems facing the Edinburgh School Board at the dawn of the 20th century. Firstly in 1903 West Fountainbridge Public School had been condemned as unfit by the Scotch Education Department for the third year running and it had been found impossible to bring it up to standard. Secondly all other schools in the locality, especially Bruntsfield, were over their capacities and there were 246 children in the district on a waiting list for places. The Board decided they could kill these two birds with a single stone and set upon building a large new school for the area.
Bruntsfield Public School in 1895, the year of its opening. Note that the styling is slightly less restrained than Gilmore Place, with more use of mouldings and carved details. Photograph by Bedford Lemere. Edinburgh and Scottish Collection, Edinburgh City Libraries.It was settled on to purchase a one acre site at the end of Gillespie Street off Gilmore Place then occupied by an engineering works whose lease was approaching expiry. The owners however demanded “an extravagant price” due to complex servitudes1 upon the land. Undeterred, the Board petitioned for a compulsory purchase order in November 1903. This was the first occasion they had taken this drastic step to acquire a site but it would take over two years of legal wrangling and two rulings at the Court of Session to conclude it. The plot ended up costing £9,000, the majority of which was compensation and legal fees for neighbours, with a further £20,000 spent on the building, fittings and furnishings.
- In Scots property law, a Servitude is a right befitting adjacent properties over their neighbour, e.g. a use of a path, a prohibition on building a certain distance from a boundary etc. ↩︎
The plans for a large, three-storey, T-plan building in a “simple adaptation of the English Renaissance style” were completed by the the Board’s architect, John A. Carfrae. The designed capacity was 1,500 pupils but it was planned that the two-storey side wings could easily be raised to three if an increase was required. There were twenty-six classrooms with an average capacity of 56 pupils. The infant department occupied the ground floor with juveniles on the first, each being arranged around a large central hall of 49 by 40 feet in size. There were mezzanine-level galleries around the halls so that children moving between classrooms did not disturb those in the hall (a common problem in earlier schools). The second floor contained practical teaching spaces for cookery and laundry and a workshop for manual crafts.
Artists impression of the “New Edinburgh Board School in Gillespie Street”. The ventilation cupola in the centre of the roof was lost at some point after the 1970s. Evening News, 22nd March 1905The school opened for business on Tuesday 3rd September 1907 with the staff and roll of the closed West Fountainbridge transferring here. The formal ceremony did not take place until Saturday 30th November with the Chairman of the School Board, W. H. Mill, presiding and the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Right Hon. John Sinclair MP, as guest of honour. After various self-congratulatory speeches the assembled dignitaries retreated to the Caledonian Hotel for a celebratory and well-oiled luncheon with numerous toasts.
The roundel of the Edinburgh School Board on the facade of Gilmore Place Public School. “The female figure of education” dispensing knowledge to the young, surrounded by books and a globe. © Public Monuments and Sculpture Association, via Trove.Scot SC 1229693From the very beginning, Gilmore Place was not one but actually two different schools. During the day the Public School provided elementary education for children up to the leaving age of fourteen. But the Board was keen to maximise the return on the “large amount of educational plant” that they had built at great expense and thought it wasteful to have buildings sitting idle after pupils emptied out their gates at three o’clock. Therefore by night it became Gilmore Place Continuation School, providing evening classes for adults. Evening classes were not new, but this was the first time the Board had opted to run a large, centralised school offering a full curriculum. For the first session, 1907-08, expectations were greatly surpassed with 750 students enrolling. Such was the demand – “so great as almost to be embarrassing” in the words of the Chairman of the Board – that additional courses had to be put on over the summer. Two of the courses, millinery and cookery, were reserved for those already working in those trades and accounted for almost half the intake. These were the first explicitly vocational further education courses run by the Board in Edinburgh and the Evening News reported the confectionery course “will be of an advanced nature, and it is expected that in a year or two it will be possible for Scotsmen to do high-class work now almost exclusively done by Frenchmen“.
An additional roundel on the façade of Gilmore Place Public School, representing Industry. A bearded master teaches his young apprentice, surrounded by symbols of industry; an anvil, workbench, tools and gear wheel. © Public Monuments and Sculpture Association, via Trove.Scot SC 1229692Life as an elementary school was short and just two decades after opening it closed in 1928 in preparation for a metamorphosis into the city’s fourth Intermediate School. Such institutions were defined by the Scotch Education Department as providing “at least a three years’ course of instruction in languages, mathematics, science and such other subjects as may from time to time be deemed suitable for pupils who, on entering, have reached the stage of attainment in elementary subjects.” The purpose of this new class of school was to centralise teaching of post-elementary age pupils (from twelve to fifteen) in dedicated schools with a higher quality of staff and teaching. These were the children who had not passed the Qually – the qualification exam sat at the age of eleven which streamed their educational future – and would otherwise have remained in elementary schools in the Advanced Divisions, working towards a fairly generic leaving certificate. As well as the general curriculum the Intermediate schools would also offer dedicated Commercial or Technical courses aimed at improving the vocational skills of children fully expected to enter the blue-collar workforce as soon as they hit leaving age.
Class photo of the short-lived Gilmore Place Public School, 1919-20 session. Picture via Darroch FPAIt was not until a decade after this class of school was first defined that Edinburgh opened the James Clark and Tynecastle Intermediate Schools in 1921, by which time the School Board had been merged with that of Leith and other surrounding parishes to create the Edinburgh Education Authority. Bellevue Intermediate (now Drummond Community High School) followed in 1926 but demand far outstripped supply and another was soon needed. The school at Gilmore Place was a perfect candidate; it was large, fairly central, relatively new and at that time relatively under-subscribed. It was altered at a cost of £6,000 with the number of classrooms reduced to eighteen and the capacity reduced to 720 children. A range of new facilities were provided, including dedicated classrooms for the specialist teaching of cookery, laundry, dressmaking, science, art and manual crafts. The nucleus of the new school was made by transferring the entire Advanced Division of Bruntsfield School as well as sending children coming of age from South Morningside, Tollcross, North Merchiston and Torphicen Street schools.
Boys at work in the machine shop, 1952. Picture via Darroch FPAWhile the Evening News wanted the new school to be called Merchiston Intermediate the Authority instead renamed it the Darroch Intermediate and Technical School in honour of their late chair Professor Alexander Darroch (1862-1924). Darroch had held the Bell Chair of Education at the University for over twenty years and as chair of the Edinburgh Provincial Committee for the Training of Teachers he reorganised and modernised the training of educators. He believed his contemporaries “placed too much stress in examinations and on the acquisition of knowledge for its own sake” and was a champion of offering children instead the sort of practical skills that would prepare them for their working lives and taking their place in society.
Professor Alexander Darroch (1862-1924), 1908 by Robert Helnry Alison Ross. University of Edinburgh EU0318 via ArtUKIn 1939 under a further reorganisation of education in Scotland a new name was given; Darroch Junior Secondary. This was in preparation for the leaving age being raised to fifteen and the “sentence” of students being extended as a result from three to four years. At this time a flat at 5 Leamington Terrace was purchased by the Education Committee for practical use of the girls taking the Domestic Studies courses which became known as the School Flat. This remained the exclusive domain of the girls until 1969 when – in a bold experiment which was a sign of changing times – groups of six boys at a time were sent for a fortnight course in bed-making, housekeeping, shopping, cooking and sewing.
The “School Flat”, where girls were taught housewifery. Picture via Darroch FPABack in 1928 when the Intermediate School was formed, the Continuation School was reconstituted into the Darroch Institute for Adults to benefit from the new facilities on offer. This had 1,300 students aged from twenty to eighty-two on its roll and as well as a full curriculum of courses offered novel subjects such as lip reading for the deaf, speech therapy for stammerers and “Everyday Law and the Home” which taught the students the legal basics of topics such as marriage, parenting, pet-owning, pensions and renting. The Evening News praised the Institute as ranking “second to none among the modern schools devoted to adult education.” In 1967 there was a major reorganisation in further education in the city in preparation for the new colleges of Napier, Stevenson and Telford opening and it was rebranded as the Darroch Adult Education Centre with its courses pivoted to being largely recreational.
One course offered by the Institute was unique in the city; the Gaelic language. It was a subject that had been taught at the Supplementary School since way back in 1908 with Gilmore Place being home to the first public tuition in the language in the city. This class had its roots in 1901 when the Celtic Union had begun offering tuition on a private basis. In 1906 they had gotten permission from the Board to use a classroom at Lothian Road Public School with a tacit agreement that should they prove successful they would become part of the Evening School offering in the city.
Lothian Road Public School in 1910, immediately prior to demolition to make way for the Usher Hall. Picture by the Edinburgh Photographic Society, Edinburgh and Scottish Collection, Edinburgh City Libraries.The tutors were the Rev. G. R. Maclennan of St Oran’s Gaelic Church, Peter Thomson and J. White Maclean, secretary of the Gaelic Union in Edinburgh. In addition, specific classes in Gaelic singing and the theory of Gaelic music were given by Neil Orr, conductor of the Edinburgh Gaelic Choir. The Oban Times would write:
“It is to be hoped… that as many pupils will enrol as possible to ensure a continuation of Gaelic being recognised as worthy of a place in the curriculum of the Edinburgh evenings schools.”
Oban Times and Argyllshire Advertiser, 2nd October 1909
These classes were intended for the “interest of the Lowland Gaels in their mother tongue” and would later come under the tutilage of Calum Johnston. Johnston had come to Edinburgh aged 16 to train as a draughtsman with the firm of Bruce Peebles & Co. and for twenty-seven years would also teach his native language to the city. A lauded singer and piper he retired to his native Barra in 1956, the Stornoway Gazette writing that they were “sure that if any mortal is privileged in this Atomic Age to see the fabled isle of Roca Barraidh towards the setting sun, then Calum will be that one.” (In Gaelic mythology, Roca Barraidh is an island that will be visible to the west of the Hebrides only three times, the third and final heralding the end of the world.) In 1972, then aged eighty-two, Calum stood on the beach in his kilt in the December wind and rain to pipe ashore the body of Compton Mackenzie, author of Whisky Galore, which was being brought to the island where he lived for a decade for burial. He piped the procession up the 200 yard hill to the burial ground, stood to attention during the short ceremony before collapsing at the graveside and dying minutes afterwards.
Calum Johnston piping on the beach on Barra in 1967. Photo via Calum Maclean Project, University of EdinburghOn leaving Edinburgh, Johnston was replaced by Bh-uas Murdag Nic Choinnich (Miss Murdina Mackenzie) who became the only Gaelic teacher on the payroll of the city. The classes were in peril however and were withdrawn in 1958 following dwindling attendance; indeed they were suspended each session after Johnston retired due to a lack of students, thus ending a half-century association between the school at Gillespie Street and the Gaelic Language. (For now…)
Darroch remained open throughout World War two and a noted pupil at this time was one Thomas (Sean) Connery, who completed his time in education there between 1942-44. A reluctant pupil, his teachers branded him “very average – not at all brilliant” and he was apparently voted by his classmates as the boy “most unlikely to succeed“. Post-war it continued as a Junior Secondary with an average roll in 1945 of 550. Despite a long-term decline in Edinburgh’s urban population at this time its roll actually climbed beyond 600 due to the leaving age being raised to fifteen in 1947.
The School Captains are cheered on by their fellow pupils after their election. Edinburgh Evening News, October 3rd 1947In 1960 it became one of the pilot schools ahead of the introduction of the new Modern Studies subject to Scottish secondary education in 1962. This gave pupils the opportunity to learn about TV, advertising, the press, citizenship and politics to equip them with “some knowledge of the complexities of the ever-changing contemporary world“. On Monday 22nd June 1970, the boys of Darroch set a world record for non-stop five-a-side football at the ground of North Merchiston Boy’s Club: they had passed the previous record of 13 hours and 7 minutes and at the time the story went to print were still playing.
But, new courses and football achievements aside, all was not well at Darroch. A letter to the Evening News in 1968 outlined the situation:
This conglomeration of old buildings is a disgrace to the town; and, to all appearance, a death-trap should an outbreak of fire take place on the ground floor.
The teachers are to be admired for their tolerance and consideration in taking a post in such a place because the pupils are not and cannot be expected to be proud of such a school
J.M. Morningside. A letter to the Evening News, 4th July 1968
In 1969 the school was publicly criticised by Councillor Robert Knox, chairman of the Education Committee, who acknowledged that its facilities were outdated and inadequate and that it required replacement. Knox, a Progressive, was criticised by his Labour Party opposite number for having presided over new schools for the fee paying all-boys Royal High School and James Gillespie’s School for Girls despite “in neither case was the need as great as Darroch“. The Scotsman printed a large investigative spread on the subject under the banner headline “The trouble with Darroch“.
The Trouble with Darroch, Scotsman, 8th March 1969Adjectives spring to mind – all derogatory. Bleak, barrack-like, looming. Inside, the school is no better: the corridors are furnished like a public lavatory, all white tiles and nasty green paint; the classrooms are unappealing, dingy and dark, with windows placed high up on the walls so that no pupil can be distracted by what is going on outside… Darroch Secondary School was built in the early 19000s and still has to suffer the educational norms of that time.
“The Trouble with Darroch”. Lindsay Mackie, investigation for the Scotsman, 8th march 1969
A teacher at this time at the school was the former Green MSP Robin Harper, who recalls his spell there from 1970 to 1972 in his autobiography “Dear Mr Harper: Britain’s First Green Parliamentarian.”
On my first day at Darroch a spokesman for a group of young teachers warned me: ‘Robin, this place is sheer hell. The kids never stop fighting. Any of them who show any academic ability are creamed off to Boroughmuir. Those who remain are an aggressive mix of children rejected by the system.
One school parent was the lawyer and author of contemporary history John G. Gray (seen alongside the headline of the Scotsman article). On learning his daughter was to be sent to Darroch due to a lack of capacity at nearby Boroughmuir, he was so taken aback by the state of the place that he wrote a pamphlet denouncing the condition of the place and the socially segregated state of secondary education in the capital in general.
As Edinburgh Citizens, we have allowed ourselves to become subject to a particularly vicious type of blackmail. Either our children secure a place at a top state school like Boroughmuir or we are offered a secondary course in such appalling conditions that sensitive parents prefer to educate their children privately at fees which many of them can ill afford.
John G. Gray, Focus on Darroch
Rather than simply pull his child out of the school and join his social peers in privately educating her, Gray instead took the Corporation to task; they did not care or “to put it vulgarly but accurately, give a damn“. He contended that they were happy with this state of affairs in the city whereby 45 percent of children went to a fee-paying secondary school. He noted that the conditions at school’s like Darroch were largely ignored by the authorities and the press until middle-class parents like himself began to complain. He publicly challenged the city’s Director of Education to produce a signed statement that the facilities at such Junior Secondaries were adequate: a call that did not elicit a response.
“Focus on Darroch”, the pamphlet issued by John G. Gray outlining the problems facing the school, and secondary education in the city in generalThe list of charges against the school went on. Despite being built for 1,500 and having a declining roll of only around a third of that, it was cramped by modern standards, with numerous “temporary” wooden huts in the playground to provide additional teaching spaces. Its toilets were outside and “so revolting that children refuse to use them“, the gymnasium was tiny and had no changing or showering facilities, the playground was “minute” and it had no playing fields; children had to travel half an hour to Meggetland for games and sports. Its students tolerate a lot, but for them the straw that broke the camel’s back was the state of their school dinners. Matters came to a head in 1971 when the Head Boy, Andrew Ewing, wrote an angry letter to the editor of the Scotsman complaining about the state of affairs. As the school had no cooking facilities of its own, its meals had to be brought in by a lorry and were cold by the time they were served. It also had no dining facilities, instead students had to collect their lunch trays from a corridor floor and eat the unpalatable, cabbagey contents in classrooms. One such space was a science laboratory where the would pushed around escaped droplets of liquid mercury on the worktops with their cutlery in-between mouthfuls of cold custard.
With the increase in dining charges I hoped that the standard of dinners would improve. But the custard is cold. It is also watery, lumpy, lukewarm or inedible
Andrew Ewing, Letter to the Scotsman, May 1971
But rather than reprimand him for stepping out of line, Darroch’s headmaster – Dr William Gray – praised his student for putting into practice what he had learned in the new subject of Modern Studies. He confirmed to the Scotsman that the school had been serving dinner in this manner since 1946 but that a temporary dining hall would finally be opened later in the year to put an end to the practice. As John G. Gray put it, Darroch had “an excellent headmaster” in William Gray (no relation), one that did not believe that it was just the buildings that made a school “good” or “bad”. Writing in defence of his students, he cited a first year boy who when asked to write an essay on what he thought of his school wrote: “Darroch may be a slum, but when you are inside it is not half bad; I admit it is not fur-lined, but it is the teachers that count… Maybe it is a bit ragged, but it is the best school in Scotland“.
Headmaster Gray knew that the facilities at his school were badly lacking and that the authorities imagined his job was largely one of babysitting reluctant teenagers before they could enter “humdrum jobs” in the workforce as soon as they hit aged fifteen. But he was not content to accept this and made strenuous and praiseworthy efforts to provide better outcomes for his students. After taking up his position in 1964 he pushed for an early introduction of the new Ordinary Grade qualification into Darroch – something not all Junior Secondaries were afforded. He made sure the most successful students were allowed to stay on for a fifth year beyond the leaving age to sit the Higher Certificate – a privilege usually reserved for those streamed into the High Schools, which in Edinburgh charged fees. This gave students the chance to escape their planned futures in the rapidly disappearing “humdrum jobs” by opening up a wide range of employment and educational opportunities to them and also meant that students showing academic potential were not simply “creamed off” to other schools. His faith in his charges was well placed and by 1971 three-quarters of students of the age wanted to sit the O-Grade and there were 101 staying on beyond the age of fourteen, up 246% since Gray took charge.
Given the height of the building and its restricted site down a narrow street, it can be hard to fit Darroch into a single picture frame and not make it look oppressive! Photo by Kim Traynor via BritishListedBuildings.co.ukDespite all these efforts, after 1970 the school’s roll began to sharply decline; dropping by almost 100 in a year. The Corporation saw an opportunity to dispose of the troublesome school on the cheap and made a proposal to merge Darroch with the James Clark School in St Leonard’s, which faced a similar issue of demographic pressures, a poor reputation and ageing facilities. But rather than spend any money on new facilities, they intended to simply move the combined school into an even older building, that of “Old” James Gillespie’s School, which had first been built in 1904. This rightly provoked anger amongst parents; if old Gillespie’s had superior facilities to Darroch then why had they prioritised a new building for the fee-paying, selective Gillespie’s High School for Girls to allow them to leave it. They knew their question was rhetorical.
“Old James Gillespie’s”, was built in 1904 as Boroughmuir Higher Grade School, which left after just six years on account of the building being inadequate to secondary teaching needs.These merger plans were put on hold until the outcome of the General Election that year was known and instead on December 14th 1970, the Education Committee voted to re-organise secondary education in Edinburgh to a fully comprehensive system “to end the unhappy segregation of children at the age of 12 into two distinct ability classes” and in preparation for the school leaving age being raised to sixteen in 1972. The end came swiftly for most of the old Junior Secondaries, dubbed as “dull, dingy, semi-slum schools” by the editor of the Scotsman, and in 1972 it was not just Darroch and James Clark but also Norton Park and David Kilpatrick in Leith that were unceremoniously closed. Darroch’s pupils merged into the newly co-educational, comprehensive James Gillespie’s High School at Marchmont in its brand new campus. Both the newly vacant Darroch building and – ironically Old Gillespie’s – became overspill annexes for Boroughmuir High which had rapidly expanded beyond the capacity of its building with the comprehensive move.
“New” James Gillespie’s in 1974, which incorporates the 17th century Bruntsfield House (left of image) within its campus. Edinburgh and Scottish Collection, Edinburgh City Libraries.Concurrent with this the school’s adult education role was rapidly run down and by 1973 it was offering only ballroom dancing, dressmaking, embroidery and flower arranging. The deckchairs of secondary schooling in central Edinburgh continued to be shuffled around over the next few years as the comprehensive schools established themselves and the population continued to decline. By 1976 things had changed again and Darroch now become an annexe for James Gillespie’s, the school to which its former pupils had been moved to just 4 years previously!
Aerial photo showing three of the schools frequently referred to in this post. Darroch is in the middle left, with the gleaming roof. Boroughmuir is the large building middle right with a tower at each end. “Old” James Gillespie’s is middle top, again its roof shining brightly, the building which was built as the original Boroughmuir Higher School. “New Gillespies” was built in the top right of the image, where the old building of Bruntsfield House can be seen.Darroch remained occupied by Gillespie’s until 1989 after which a building programme at the main campus allowed it to be consolidated there and close its annexes. Once again it became a school without a purpose but this situation did not last long. In 1990 Lothain Regional Council sold the Dean Education Centre (previously the Dean Orphanage and later Dean College) and former St Bernard’s School in Stockbridge which made their Advisory Service – training for in-service teachers – homeless. They were therefore transferred to Darroch but couldn’t hope to fill such a large building and so it would become something of a dumping ground for various council departments including a base for teaching English as a second language, administrative offices for the city’s adult and vocational education programmes, storing excess classroom furniture and serving as a mail-order warehouse for souvenir merchandise for the centennial celebrations of the Forth Bridge!
Darroch School in Lothian Regional Council days when it served any number of educational functions beyond being a school. Note how the tall central block dominates the narrow approach street and the inadequate pavements and entranceway. One of the multitude of “temporary” hut units can be seen jammed hard up against the gate on the left. Photo via Darroch Secondary School Pupils Group on Facebook.The Local Government etc (Scotland) Act 1994 saw Lothian Region replaced by a new unitary authority – the City of Edinburgh Council – in 1996 and with the transfer of education functions from the old authority to its new successors, once again a big question mark was placed over Darroch’s purpose and future. Perhaps it too may have ended up being converted to expensive flats had a pressing need for its services not arisen just a few years later. In 1998 the collapse of a staircase at nearby St Thomas of Aquin’s R. C. High School at Lauriston highlighted the perilous state of repair of that school. It was quickly condemned and hurriedly decanted to Darroch until 2002 while it was demolished and completely rebuilt. Once again Darroch was the right building in the right place at the right time and once again its corridors resounded to the sound of children’s feet and its classrooms to the refrains of teaching. After another spell of vacancy, between 2013 and 2016 it was James Gillespie’s turn to decant back to Darroch while the “New Gillespie’s” school on Lauderdale Street in Marchmont was itself demolished and rebuilt.
Once again quiet and vacant, in an effort to save money the council then turned the heating off, leading to a rapid decline in the fabric of the building but typical of the short-sighted, disjointed thinking of local authorities they had also left the place partially furnished and so were paying over £40,000 per annum in Non-Domestic Rates! Fortunately positive plans were afoot for Darroch’s future as a second dedicated Gaelic Medium Education (GME) school for the city. This would follow on from the success of Bun-sgoil Taobh na Pàirce which had opened at the former Bonnington Road Public School in Leith in 2013 and which had quickly grown to capacity. Fittingly, in the early 1990s the office of the small team who brought the city’s first GME unit at Tollcross Primary to fruition had been based in Darroch. These plans would both return primary education to the school after a break of almost a century and also the teaching of the Gaelic language after a break of sixty years.
Bun-sgoil Taobh na Pàirce, Edinburgh and Leith’s first (and so far, only) dedicated GME school, housed in the former Bonnington Road Public School. Photo via Edinburgh ReporterThese plans fell through due to a combination of factors including the difficulty in recruiting and retaining sufficient Gaelic-fluent teachers to meet demand and the complete inability of the council to provide a satisfactory solution for GME secondary education – which was being delivered from Àrd-sgoil Sheumais Ghilleasbuig; James Gillespie’s. This setback however was perhaps a blessing in disguise as it allowed a quiet reset of the council’s GME secondary plans which were at the time being driven by a lack of capacity at Gillespie’s, the new showpiece school that completed in 2016 having been built too small. A ten million pound investment brought the schools facilities and accessibility into the 21st century – many of these changes directly addressed the shortcoming first highlighted back in the late 1960s, such as an accessible new entrance, bright and modern interiors and a dedicated dining hall.
Ath-Thaigh Darroch. 21st century facilities in what is fundamentally a 19th century school. This shows one of the two “central halls” of the original design and the mezzanine-level corridors that provided access through it without disturbing those learning in it. Photo via Future Schools EdinburghThe school re-opened in 2022 as Ath-Thaigh Darroch – Darroch Annexe – housing much of Gillespie’s GME teaching as well as providing dedicated study spaces for older students preparing for exams. The building also houses a number of Gaelic language cultural institutions in the city and has “has quickly become the heart of the Gaelic-speaking community in the city.”
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LocaleStation’s Deprecation
LocaleStation was released as part of the ongoing effort back in June 2025 to give all our libraries a chance to be translatable to your native language. This kind of effort was studied under the assumption that we’d achieve simpler and faster localization. However, our expectations fell short when we had discovered the massive first startup performance impact on Windows systems.
This performance impact was especially noticeable on Windows systems where applications like Nitrocid would suffer from longer startup times in both the main application entry point and the addon loading point. This slow down is considered to be unacceptable, especially when an “unrelated” feature would cause this slow down. This is because of the Windows Defender’s Antimalware Service Executable process taking up a majority of the CPU cycles in analyzing the localization files in the first JIT compilation of all libraries and applications that depend on LocaleStation’s generated files.
As a result, we’ve decided to shut down LocaleStation as a library, and convert all the existing JSON files, with appropriate modifications, to a standard culture-specific resources file that is managed by .NET.
With Terminaux, we’ve conducted an experimental branch based on the Terminaux 8.0.0 branch that can be found in the x/exp/v8.0.x-loc-resx-poc branch. We’ve used an internal program that converts LocaleStation-compatible JSON files that you can see like below:
{ "lang": "eng", "name": "English", "cultures": [ "en-US", "en-GB" ], "locs": [ { "loc": "TEXT_HELLO_WORLD", "text": "Hello world!" }, { "loc": "TEXT_HI", "text": "Hi!" } ]}…to the .resx format as in below:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><root> <!-- Microsoft ResX Schema Version 2.0 The primary goals of this format is to allow a simple XML format that is mostly human readable. The generation and parsing of the various data types are done through the TypeConverter classes associated with the data types. Example: ... ado.net/XML headers & schema ... <resheader name="resmimetype">text/microsoft-resx</resheader> <resheader name="version">2.0</resheader> <resheader name="reader">System.Resources.ResXResourceReader, System.Windows.Forms, ...</resheader> <resheader name="writer">System.Resources.ResXResourceWriter, System.Windows.Forms, ...</resheader> <data name="Name1"><value>this is my long string</value><comment>this is a comment</comment></data> <data name="Color1" type="System.Drawing.Color, System.Drawing">Blue</data> <data name="Bitmap1" mimetype="application/x-microsoft.net.object.binary.base64"> <value>[base64 mime encoded serialized .NET Framework object]</value> </data> <data name="Icon1" type="System.Drawing.Icon, System.Drawing" mimetype="application/x-microsoft.net.object.bytearray.base64"> <value>[base64 mime encoded string representing a byte array form of the .NET Framework object]</value> <comment>This is a comment</comment> </data> There are any number of "resheader" rows that contain simple name/value pairs. Each data row contains a name, and value. The row also contains a type or mimetype. Type corresponds to a .NET class that support text/value conversion through the TypeConverter architecture. Classes that don't support this are serialized and stored with the mimetype set. The mimetype is used for serialized objects, and tells the ResXResourceReader how to depersist the object. This is currently not extensible. 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Our recent experiments proved that the resources method was faster than the LocaleStation method when it comes to first startup times due to Windows Defender. We have removed this library from the list of supported libraries, and that all development of LocaleStation will stop.
The specification will remain maintained, and the Aptivi Development Toolkit (ADT) will provide tools that we’ve developed internally to make dealing with those files easier than before.
We are still working on the rollout of the .resx file for all libraries, and this may take multiple library releases, depending on the severity of the situation.
#C_ #csharp #dotnet #Language #libraries #Library #Localization #news #Tech #Technology #update
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Causewayside Public School: the thread about the epicentre of a very sectarian Southside scandal
Preamble. The schools of the “School Board” era of public education (1872-1918) have for some reason a particular fascination for me, one which is more profound where they are either no longer in use as schools or have disappeared entirely. This thread began as a couple of lines for my own notes about each of the “Lost Board Schools of Edinburgh” but rapidly snowballed into an intention to cover each, in alphabetical order, on its own and in rather more detail, but not so much that they can’t be posted quite frequently.
The fourth chapter of our series looking at the “Lost Board Schools of Edinburgh” investigates Causewayside School. In 1875 Edinburgh School Board purchased the house of Grange Villa at 140 Causewayside for £3,218 13s 11d with the intention of erecting a new school. This half acre plot was a parallelogram in shape on account of its northern boundary being defined by an old drainage ditch that cut diagonally relative to the main road. Prior to this, schooling in the district was conducted at a school run by the United Presbyterian Church on Duncan Street, which moved with that church to the corner of Salisbury Place in 1864.
An overlay of the 1876 Ordnance Survey town plan of Edinburgh (Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland) and modern Google Earth aerial imagery showing the location of Causewayside School. Note the parallelogram shape of the building plot. The UP Church can be seen to the top of the map, its school building to the rear being marked as a Sunday School. Move the slider to compareThe Board had already held a competition in 1874 to find architects for its first batch of new schools and divided the work between the most successful applicants. Causewayside was awarded to Robert Rowand Anderson, who would rise to become one of Victorian Scotland’s most notable architects. He was also awarded the work for schools at West Fountainbridge and Stockbridge and the three shared a number of design and style features (“the dimensions of the various rooms repeat to within a few inches… and the ventilating and playground arrangements are also precisely similar“) but with significant variation in the layouts to make use of three very different sites, all of which had significant constraints.
Front elevation by Robert Rowand Anderson of the Causewayside School, dated 1875. University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections, Coll-31/2/EC.74Anderson set Causewayside back from the main road and spread it across two storeys, each with a large central school room with two smaller classrooms on either side at the rear, giving a roughly cruciform footprint. There was a single large gable projecting forwards whereas at Stockbridge (below) there was one on each flank. His early work designing churches translated easily to the Collegiate Gothic style much in favour at the time for schools except now the “steeples” did not contain bells, but hid an Archimedes screw ventilator to promote good air circulation through the buildings.
Stockbridge Primary School by Robert Rowand Anderson, sharing many design features with Causewayside. CC-by-SA 4.0, Drnoble via WikimediaThe construction contract was worth £7,974 11s 0d and work commenced in late June 1875. Progress by January 1876 was reported as “slow” but by June was “well advanced“. Although it was to be completed for 1st December that year opening did not happen until 9th January 1877. The chairman of the School Board, Professor Calderwood, performed the honours and at this time already 500 of its 600 spaces had been subscribed to.
Rear (left) and north side (right) elevations of Causewayside School, dated 1875. The pair of blocks to the back housed stairs, toilets and offices on intermediate floors, hence the extra sets of windows. University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections, Coll-31/2/EC.74An inspection in its second year of operation reported favourably on the quality of teaching at the school:
Report of HM Inspectors on the Edinburgh Board Schools for Session 1878-79.
Causewayside School.
Mixed School. — An extremely good tone pervaded this School, and the class movements were very orderly. As regards the work of the three lower Standards, some weakness appeared in the spelling and intelligence of the third Standard, but everything else was most satisfactory. Of the upper Standards, the fourth might have done rather better in arithmetic, and the fifth in composition, while both the fifth and sixth Standards answered unequally in history and geography. On the other hand, for grammar, general intelligence, and acquaintance with their specific subjects, all three Standards deserve praise. In judging of the School, it must, of course, be remembered that the staff is strong. Needlework and music are both carefully taught.
Infants’ School. — Discipline and instruction in this Department both deserve the highest praise. It is evident that the Mistress and her Staff exercise a most beneficial influence alike in quickening the intelligence and in regulating the behaviour of their young pupils.
A subsequent inspection in February 1885 by the local Superintendent, Colonel Campbell, “complained strongly” about the drawing examination at the school; the children were using their pencils as a measuring gauge when doing freehand work and that they were placing lined pages beneath their drawing paper as a further guide. The teacher protested that this was how she had been taught to draw but the Colonel demanded that the exam be cancelled: the matter was not dropped until representations in defence from both the Headmaster and Flora Stevenson of the School Board.
Flora Stevenson, a redoubtable figure on the Edinburgh School Board and in the Suffrage movement. 1895 photograph by G. Watson, from the Edinburgh & Scottish Collection of Edinburgh City Libraries.In common with the first wave of schools that the Board built, Causewayside was really too small to cope with demand and already by October 1878 it was over capacity, with 638 pupils. By 1883 it was so oversubscribed that an extension for 200 further children was authorised, widening the front of the building to the same width as the rear to add additional classrooms. In 1894 a further extension was approved but by the following year there were 250 vacant spaces on account of the recent opening in the district of Sciennes School. By 1901 the school was once again reported to be suffering form overcrowding – this was still a time of urban population growth.
1893 Ordnance Survey town plan centred on Causewayside School, with the original footprint (orange) drawn over the extended footprint which added additional classrooms either side at the front. The wall across the playground was to separate girls from boys, the structures with dotted outlines on the left (west) side being open play sheds. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandLocated as it was between the Grange and Newington, you could be forgiven for thinking this school as being in a middle-class catchment. However, like most Board schools at this time, it drew its intake largely from the working classes and its pupils were subject to a life in the harsh social environment of Edinburgh at this time. In a court case in February 1884 Helen Dick, or Taylor, was brought before Sheriff Rutherfurd and charged with “failing to provide elementary education for her children and also with failing to secure their regular attendance at school“. She told the court that “she could not do more than she had done” for her two children – Jessie (10) and George (8) – her husband had abandoned the family 6 years prior and to support them she worked anti-social hours at a laundry. She had to leave early in the morning and was not allowed to return home to wake her children and get them ready for school, so they inevitably did not go. The Sheriff ordered that they be made to go to school at Causewayside. Another example comes from an 1896 meeting of the School Board which heard that of the 722 children at the school only 21 had baths in their homes. 71 boys and six girls reported that they went – occasionally – to the Corporation baths to wash. In 1901, it was estimated in 1901 that 15 percent of the juvenile department of the school were working after their school day to help support their families.
Causewayside children, 1927, at Grange Court. The tall building with the Gothic window in the background is the UP Church where the Causewayside School was located prior to the opening of the Board school. Photograph by John Smith, via Edinburgh City Libraries.In 1905 the headmaster, Robert Mathewson, retired owing to ill health after 20 years in service. He was briefly replaced by James Clark, promoted from St Leonard’s Public School, who soon returned to the latter institution as its head to be replaced in turn by Thomas W. Paterson of North Canongate. Paterson had begun his career in 1879 at Causewayside and remained there until retiring in 1922 after 51 years in the profession, the pupils and parents presenting him with the gift of a typewriter for the occasion.
On October 1st 1913, pupils from Causewayside joined their compatriots from Davie Street, St Leonard’s and South Bridge in a spontaneous protest march through the district, a rumour having spread through the streets that they were to begin attending school on Saturday Mornings.
Evening schooling began at Causewayside only a month after it opened, when the Edinburgh School of Cookery was allowed by the School Board to run courses here which were open to the general public. This became known as Continuation Schooling; continuation of education for those who had left school (at 14) but had not qualified for a Higher Grade school (or could not afford to go to one). Causewayside became the principal such school for young women and girls in the city, offering both basic academic subjects and practical classes focussing on employable skills – cookery, millinery, laundrywork, dressmaking and needlework. While these classes were not free, in 1915 a term cost 5 shillings, an excellent attendance record could result in the fees being reimbursed. Completion of these classes could qualify women for the Edinburgh School of Cookery and Domestic Economy, where employers provided bursaries. In 1915, 177 pupils earned the return of their fees and forty qualified for the School of Cookery. Headmaster Paterson of Causewayside wrote to the editor of the Scotsman in 1917 that continuation classes were “to the better equipment for life’s battle for those children who leave school at 14 years of age without passing the qualifying examination.”
Advert for Edinburgh School Board’s Continuation Classes, including Causewayside, Musselburgh News, 21st September 1906An almighty brouhaha erupted at Causewayside in 1925 when the Education Authority announced plans to close the school, transfer its pupils to other nearby schools, and re-open it as a Roman Catholic school. The background is complex but stemmed from the fact that R. C. schooling in Scotland was not transferred from that church to the state until 1918 at which point the newly formed Education Authorities inherited a rather poor portfolio of school premises. Few, if any, of these had been purpose-built and almost none were really fit for purpose; St. Columba’s R. C. School, which served the Southside, was teaching 291 children (with a waiting list of 27) in a totally inadequate converted town house at 81 Newington Road. Causewayside’s school roll had slumped after WW1 due to urban depopulation and with only 321 children at less than half its capacity. The authority’s bean-counters were convinced that Sciennes, Preston Street and Bristo schools could comfortably accommodate Causewayside as they too had falling rolls and that nobody would have a problem with making the most economical use of their buildings.
81 Newington Road, former St Columba’s R. C. School.How wrong they were! Edinburgh, in case you didn’t know, was a hot-bed of radical, anti-Catholic political Protestantism in the first half of the 20th century and the nascent Scottish Protestant League, led by the rabble-rouser Alexander Ratcliffe, went all in on trying to use the school proposal as a wedge issue in their efforts to repeal the provisions of the Education (Scotland) Act 1918 that saw the state obliged to provide non-secular R. C. schooling. You can read the full details of the vitriolic campaign that they orchestrated to oppose this change in the thread about the Sciennes School Strike of 1925. Suffice to say, the Education Authority was unmoved by the accusations it was handing over a “Protestant school to the Roman Catholics” and “putting Rome on the Rates” in “the city of Knox“. It maintained its position that it had a legal obligation to meet and that its only other option was to build a new school in its entirety – which would add even further to the tax burden of the local rates! And so it was that Causewayside School closed at the end of the 1923-24 term and re-opened after the summer holidays as St Columba’s R. C. School.
Pupils and teacher nun of St. Columba’s R. C. School in 1925, the year after they moved – controversially – to Causewayside. Copy of photograph in “St Columba’s Edinburgh, Centenary Year” by Mark Dilworth OSB for St Columba’s Centenary Committee, 1989The Continuation School was unaffected by all this, a matter quietly and conveniently overlooked by those claiming the school was being “given” to the Catholic Church! The Scottish Protestant League were still publicly and vocally agitating against St Columba’s, well into 1925 – until the focus of their ire was drawn to the opening of a Carmelite Convent in Merchiston in September.
As St. Columba’s the school also became a Supplementary School, i.e. for children over the elementary age of 11 and below the leave age of 14 and who were not in High School education; what we might now call a Secondary School. It took children from other R. C. primaries in the city; St Mary’s on York Lane, St Patrick’s on St John’s Hill, St Ann’s in the Cowgate, St Peter’s in Morningside and St Ignatius’ at Tollcross, adding 300 students and 9 teachers to the school. This brought the school to over 600 pupils, but the effects of depopulation soon began to take their toll and by 1938 it had dropped to 409. There were only 190 children in the elementary department and so the following year it was closed, the pupils displaced to those other R. C. schools, and the girls’ supplementary department transferred to St Thomas of Aquin’s at Lauriston. St Columba’s was to be converted and expanded into a dedicated junior secondary school for boys aged 12 to 14 and the Education Committee authorised expenditure for this scheme. This coincided with the outbreak of WW2 and so no work ever took place. Evacuation caused a further drop in the remaining school roll, part of the school was requisitioned by the Auxiliary Fire Service and the remainder suffered from a lack of coal which caused the heating to stop working, pipes and toilets to freeze and then flooding when they thawed. In February 1940 the authorities called it quits and the remaining 150 boys were sent to other schools and it was closed permanently.
This was not the end for the building though and it was given a new lease of life by converting it into an emergency cooking centre, the work undertaken by John Kelly & Son (Kitchen Engineers) Ltd of Rose Street. What became “the largest kitchen in Edinburgh“, capable of cooking 10,000 meals at a time, was intended to help feed the populace in the event of a catastrophic air raid. Fortunately it was never required for this purpose and so was transferred to the Education Committee in 1942 as a central kitchen for producing school meals. Together with the existing centre at the former West Fountainbridge School, together they could produce 9,000 two course lunches daily, sufficient for every child in the city who wanted one. Its official opening took place on Friday 11th September, when Thomas Johnston MP, Secretary of State for Scotland, made a speech imploring the nation to double its consumption of home-grown oatmeal and potatoes. He also announced that school cookery classes would now focus on these ingredients and local and national schools competitions for their use.
Thomas Johnston in 1955 when chairman of the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board, by Sir Herbert James Gunn. © artist’s estate, via National Galleries Scotland.Closure of the Causewayside centre was proposed in 1952, both as an economy measure and also reflecting the fact that most schools now had their own kitchen facilities. Newspaper adverts from 1955 record the disposal of its cooking equipment to the highest bidders.
Adverts for staff at the Causewayside Cooking Centre. Edinburgh Evening News, 25th May 1943After this it lay vacant for a decade until in 1965 the newly formed Scottish Certificate of Education Examination Board (SCEEB) acquired and demolished it as a location for its new headquarters. A modern, three storey, brutalist office block by Alan Reiach & Eric Hall was built in its place, the only notable feature of an otherwise unremarkable building being an abstract concrete panel over the entrance by Charles Anderson. This includes the crest of the Board and their motto In Trutina Ponentur Eadem which, according to the Dictionary of Foreign Quotations, translates from Latin as “These Matters are to be Weighed in the Balance“. The SCEEB moved in during 1967 but lasted less than a decade, moving in 1975 to Dalkeith on account of needing more space. They were replaced in turn by the Scottish Law Commission but their coat of arms remained, the motto perhaps equally appropriate for both institutions.
Anderson’s relief above the entrance to the SCEEB buildingNo trace of the old school now remains and as of the time of writing (February 2026) the redevelopment in turn has been empty for a number of years and a full planning application for its demolition and replacement has been submitted to the Council. A previous plan for the site in 2023 was asked to consider the re-use of the sculptured panel but I the current developer has offered it as a gift to the Scottish Qualifications Authority – SQA, the spiritual successor of the SCEEB at Dalkeith. Thank you to Peter Gillett for this update on their future. The SQA of course now needs to follow through in accepting the gift and having it removed and appropriately relocated…
The previous chapter of this series looked at Castlehill School. The next chapter examines the Davie Street Schools.
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Educating Children, Bakers and Tourists: the thread about Castlehill Public School
Preamble. The schools of the “School Board” era of public education (1872-1918) have for some reason a particular fascination for me, one which is more profound where they are either no longer in use as schools or have disappeared entirely. This thread began as a couple of lines for my own notes about each of the “Lost Board Schools of Edinburgh” but rapidly snowballed into an intention to cover each, in alphabetical order, on its own and in rather more detail, but not so much that they can’t be posted quite frequently.
The third chapter of our series looking at the “Lost Board Schools of Edinburgh” investigates the life and times of Castlehill School. This occupied the site of the Gordon House, the 17th century residence of George Gordon, 1st Duke of Gordon who was Captain and Constable of Edinburgh Castle and is remembered for surrendering that fortification all too readily to the Protestant Lords during the Glorious Revolution of 1689. His property came later into the possession of the Bairds of Saughtonhall who gave their name to Blair’s Close that forms the western boundary of the school plot.
Gordon House in 1887, immediately before demolition to make way for Castlehill School. Photo by Alexander Adam Inglis, Edinburgh & Scottish Collection of Edinburgh City LibrariesThe school was designed by Robert Wilson, architect to the Edinburgh School Board, and was a radical departure in style from its rather austere Collegiate Gothic contemporaries by the adoption of Scots Baronial Revival; complete with turrets, crowstepped gables and mock battlements. This was seen as more befitting of its prominent location at the head of the Old Town. Another change was the use of red Cornockle sandstone from Lochmaben in Dumfriesshire to add a visual contrast with the more usual yellowy-grey from the local Hailes Quarry.
Castlehill School, north elevation on the Castlehill itself. CC-by-SA 2.0 Neil T, via FlickrA third change from its predecessors was the extension from two to three storeys; an attic level, lit by rooflights, providing rooms for teaching specialist subjects such as needlework and drawing. This was done to make the best use of a cramped site which amounted to just quarter of an acre; half that of the contemporary Milton House School in the Canongate and even less than the notoriously cramped Bristo Public School. (The only other three storey board school before this was West Fountainbridge, which had a similarly small plot)
Ordnance Survey Town Plans of Edinburgh, 1876 (right) and 1893 (left), before and after Castlehill School opened. Move the slider to compare. Note in the 1876 map that the Church of Scotland and Free Church both have schools in the district; St. Columba’s and St. John’s respectively. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandInternally, three original mantlepieces from the Gordon mansion were incorporated into staff rooms as was an old entrance door. To the rear (south), the site dropped steeply away down the slope of the Old Town’s Crag and Tail topography. An additional level was therefore required, originally this was an open colonnade, providing a covered extension to the playgrounds, but later it was enclosed to provide additional teaching areas. A tall retaining wall faced onto Johnston Terrace at the rear, with entrance staircases (separate for boys and girls) up to the playgrounds and a three storey Janitor’s house bridged the two levels.
South (rear) elevation of Castlehill School, showing the plot sloped steeply in two directions; down from the Castlehill and down Johnston Terrace. The additional lower storey to the rear with the arched windows, the retaining wall with entrance stairways and the three-level janitor’s house can be seen. The spire of the Highland Tolbooth St John’s church towers over an already tall school. CC-by-SA 4.0 Stephencdickson via FlickrThe school opened on Monday December 3rd 1888. Although there was no formal ceremony to mark the occasion, over 800 pupils were marched out of their old schools (those inherited by the School Board at Brown Square, Borthwick and Old Assembly Close and Victoria Terrace) up the hill to their new home. A formal opening would take place exactly 5 months later on May 3rd 1889.
Former Brown Square school in 1913. This was one of the Heriot Trust day schools that were merged into the School Board after 1872, immediately identifiable by all the Jacobean decorations modelled off of Heriot’s Hospital itself. Edinburgh Photographic Society collection, via National Galleries Scotland.Interestingly, the legend carved prominently into both the front and read façades reads “CASTLE HILL SCHOOL”, even though it was nearly always officially referred to as one word, just Castlehill, a change that was also reflected in the Ordnance Survey maps around the time.
“CASTLE HILL SCHOOL” on the north façade from the Flickr of Bob White, CC-by-NC-ND 2.0From the beginning the school was also used for evening education. But – maintaining the theme of being different – at Castlehill this was not for adults. Instead it catered only for children under 14, pupils given special dispensation by the School Board to attend evening school on account of them needing to work during the school day to help support their families. In 1898 there were 212 boys and girls so registered. In 1890, the school’s first headmaster, John Davidson, resigned on account of poor health. In May 1898 headmaster William C. S. Hunter died and was replaced by James C. Anderson of Leith Walk School. His salary of £340 being equivalent to around £38,400 in 2025 and his “reign” was formally inaugurated with a presentation by Colin G. Macrae, chairman of the School Board, and concert at the school on Wednesday 1st June that year.
The school and its pupils suffered as a result of the harsh social conditions in Edinburgh’s Old Town in the late 19th and early 20th century. Headmaster Anderson was one of a number of his peers in the district who in spoke publicly in 1904 on “how drunkenness [of parents] affects the children“. 150 of his pupils were on the “food roll” due to the inability of their parents to feed then, with a further 30 receiving relief from the district fund. This was almost a quarter of the school and other children of leaving age (14) were being taught with 7 year-olds on account of how much schooling they had missed. Anderson put this down to drunkenness which he said was getting worse, as was thriftlessness. In 1908, under the terms of the Education (Scotland) Act of that year, the School Board instituted a meal scheme for necessitous children, each receiving a bowl of soup and bread during their school day. This was a great success and was expanded in 1911 by converting West Fountainbridge School into a dedicated central cooking centre. One hundred children from Castlehill were among the first recipients to benefit, but as their school lacked a dining hall they went to the Independent Labour Party Hall on Melbourne Place to eat. The tickets for these dinners issued daily at school to encourage children deserving of the meals to actually attend their lessons. They could also be purchased for 6d a week; with a little bit of liberal rounding they became known as “penny dinners“.
Soup and bread is served for lunch at North Canongate School, c. 1914. The man with the moustache and white apron is the headmaster. Note the lack of shoes on a number of the boys’ feet.Feeding was not the only effort made to improve the lot of the children of Castlehill. In 1908 permission was gained by the School Board to adopt a piece of ground on Johnston Terrace next to the Church of Scotland Normal School (a teacher training college) for use as a playground, that at the school being completely insufficient in size and aspect. In 1909, under the auspices of Patrick Geddes’ Edinburgh Social Union, a patch of wasteland on Johnston Terrace was converted by pupils at the school into a model demonstration garden of their very own. Geddes established numerous such gardens, believing them as living classrooms for teaching both biology and self-improvement. Vegetable plots 150 feet long and 7 feet wide grew potatoes, peas, beans, cauliflowers, cabbages, turnips, leeks, onions, carrots, lettuces and other salad vegetables which were used in cookery classes in the school. This space was used for teaching natural history lessons and the principles of crop rotation. It also allowed the school to apply for a valuable additional grant for teaching gardening from the Education Department.
The Castlehill School garden off Johnston Terrace, c. 1914The next year, 1910, headmaster H. F. Sim brought the first case of its kind in Edinburgh to the City Police Court under the Children Act 1908, when two shopkeepers were charged with and pleaded guilty to selling “smoking mixture” to to children under the age of 16. Sim had caught boys in the school trying to smoke a pipe filled with the ersatz tobacco and confiscated from them their paper bag marked “The Boys’ Smoking Mixture and Pipe: price One Halfpenny“. On questioning, he had found from them where they had acquired it and reported the matter to the city’s Medical Officer of Health. The magistrate admonished the defendants and said “a warning should be given to tobacconists that the sale of such a mixture was an illegal practice, and that in other cases of the kind the offenders would certainly be punished.“
A production of scenes from Julius Caesar for the benefit of the School Board by the boys of Castlehill School, March 1912. The Evening News recorded that Mark Anthony was played by William Caldwell and that he “made a very excellent attempt at the speech at Caesar’s funeral”.In October 1912, to remedy a lack of accommodation in the school, the adjacent ancient tenement known as Cannonball House – the last block of old Castlehill – being acquired by the Board for £1,925. It had recently been bought by the Cockburn Association with a view to preservation and the Board spent £3,500 thoroughly renovating and converting into additional teaching spaces. Its four principal classrooms could accommodate 180 children and there were special rooms for practical subjects such as cookery. In the basement were “spray baths“; showers for the children, most of whom lacked even basic domestic sanitation in their homes. The building was substantially altered, with one wing and the old Blair’s Close removed to improve ventilation and daylight. A number of original 17th century features were uncovered during restoration and were retained and installed in the fabric in new locations, making the end result something of a chimaera. The east gable is the biggest give-away way that not all is what it seems with this apparently old tenement; look for the tall classroom windows and the Edinburgh School Board emblem high up on the pediment.
Cannonball House, before and after. In 1900, an image by James C. H. Balmain (left) and in 1957 by H. D. Wyllie. Photos in the Edinburgh and Scottish Collection, Edinburgh City Libraries. Move the slider to compare.In WW1 the school was requisitioned by to act as a depot and billeting for soldiers of the 5th Royal Scots based out of Edinburgh Castle. The Church of Scotland Young Men’s Guild was given the use of a room the following year to run a canteen and recreation room for them, with a gramophone, games, books, newspapers and writing materials. A teacher at the school, James Bathgate, was injured on war service in July 1915 when serving as a private with the College Company, 4th Royal Scots, in France. In April 1917, Headmaster Sim lost his son, Charles Henry Stuart, who died in hospital having been fatally injured serving with the Royal Field Artillery.
After the war, in April 1922, Headmistress Miss C. E. Anderson retired and was presented with a gold wristlet watch from the parents and her colleagues and a diamond brooch from the pupils. She had been teaching the children of the area since the school opened – a record period of 41 years!
In 1936 a new technological front in teaching was opened up at Castlehill when a room was specifically converted for the use of the Edinburgh branch of the newly instituted Scottish Educational Film Association for the production of educational films. It had been recognised that technology had a part to play in education – in 1931 a group from Canonmills School had been given a trial lesson on the theme of sound recording and reproduction at their local cinema – but further progress was wanting on account of a lack of suitable films for the classroom. The Education Committee thus resolved to make them for themselves: as well as providing the studio for the Association, they also covered the (then) substantial overhead of film costs and in return had a controlling say in the content of films. The first production was a four-part geography film entitled “The Port of London“. The Association would remain at Castlehill until 1957, when they moved to Boswell’s Court.
Members of the Scottish Educational Film Association and school teachers working on a production in the new studio at Castlehill. Edinburgh Evening News, December 19th 1936On the morning of September 1st 1939, children showed to schools all over the city with their coat, a bag or case and a cardboard label – they were being evacuated. Some 200 gathered at Castlehill before heading to Waverley station and destinations unknown. The school remained open for those children that stayed behind and there were still 273 on the roll in September 1940. The logbook records the peculiarities of an education during wartime; there were separate air raid shelters for infants, girls and boys; all children had to carry their gas masks with them; there were weekly gas mask drills and weekly marching drills to and from the shelters.
Excerpt from the logbook at Castlehill School for February 1940 with notes on the gas mask and air raid shelter drills.Additional wartime uses were found for the partially vacant school. A central depot for clothing for evacuees was established in October 1939; donations were received and sorted before being distributed to those in need who had been evacuated and found themselves wanting during their “enforced holiday to the country“. This was organised by Miss Cairns, Superintendent of Domestic Subjects for the Corporation, and she had 50 sewing mistresses from across the city under her direction. The supply of children’s coats proved insufficient and so these “clever-fingered” women picked apart the excess of larger items, cut them down to the required sizes and put them back together again. They were joined by women of the Edinburgh Personal Service League who performed a similar operation for men’s clothing, to be sent via the Red Cross to injured servicemen and prisoners of war. Wartime cookery classes were run in the school by the Corporation’s night school teachers. These were aimed at women to try and instruct them in how to eke out their rations, substitute various items that were off ration to recreate old favourites and how to do so more healthily and with less waste of fuel. Mrs Gray of the Women’s Voluntary Service (WVS) established a group of like-minded women to make soft toys and dolls and clothing for babies and toddlers who were being cared for in public nurseries, their mothers being on war work. Most of these things were no longer being manufactured during wartime. Such was the success of this endeavour that it later relocated to a dedicated workshop at Bristo School as the Nursery Equipment Centre.
A wartime cookery lesson at Castlehill. Edinburgh Evening News, May 14th 1940Postwar, a shock announcement in May 1951 broke news that the school was to be closed at the end of that term. It had been built for 800 but as a result of the long term urban depopulation of the city it was down to 293 by this point; there was plenty excess capacity to rehouse them at Milton House, Tollcross and South Bridge schools for the same reason.
A Castlehill class, 1947A secondary reason behind the closure was that the authorities wanted to establish a Central School Of Bakery and Catering where apprentice workers from the city’s important baking industry (as well as more general cookery and catering) could undertake industry-specific further education. Parents protested the decision but the Corporation was unmoved and voted by 14 to 5 for closure. Its only concession was to promise crossing guards to help children navigate the busy roads that they now needed to transit on their way to their new schools.
One mother vents her frustration towards Councillors Thomson and Hedderwick of the Education Committee at a meeting to oppose the closure of Castlehill School, May 25th 1951.The bakery school opened on Monday 19th January 1954, Councillor H. A. Brechin performed the honours and stated “these new premises, together with the modern equipment, give Edinburgh one of the most up-to-date baking and catering schools in the United Kingdom“.
Mr John Russell shows apprentices a loaf fresh from the oven (left) and John Notman (right) is supervised in the correct way to serve diners at Castlehill School in these photos from the Evening News, October 2rd 1957It did not last long however and as a result of changes to further education and the city’s industries, it was closed by 1970. While it once again sought a purpose, during the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh that year it served as a temporary museum of regimental history at Edinburgh Castle. In 1971 the main building was converted to offices for the City Engineer’s department and would later be occupied by the Drainage Department of Lothian Regional Council. Between 1972 and 1974 it was also the home for the Theatre Workshop, an arts and drama centre for children, while it was found permanent premises.
1965, the sad sight of the abandoned School Garden. Photo by Ronald Alexander © Edinburgh City LibrariesIn August 1986, Lothian Region accepted an offer for £250,000 from William Muir distillers who proposed to convert the former school it into a whisky museum and heritage centre. £2 million was spent on this project which opened its doors on 3rd May 1988, the building’s centennial year. It was an instant success and is now into its 5th decade of offering a very different sort of education than that the building’s planners had in mind.
Cannonball House was retained by the Education Department when the main building became the bakery school and was used for community education, passing to Lothian Regional Council on the formation of that organisation. In 1984 a Children’s History Centre was opened and the building was later properly converted by the Region for £200,000 for use as a schools education centre modelled on Patrick Grddes’ ideas; the Castehill Urban Studies Centre. It was the first such centre in Britain and I recall school trips there in the early 1990s, the name of the guide was Mrs Quick – I’m not sure why that name stuck with me, but it did!. Between 1999 until the opening of the new Scottish Parliament at Holyrood in 2004, Cannonball House was used as a schools education centre for the temporary parliament housed in the General Assembly Hall of the Church of Scotland on the Lawnmarket. In 2013, 100 years after it opened as part of the school, it found a new life as a high-end restaurant by the Scottish-Italian Contini family, who themselves had started out in Scotland a century before.
Contini Cannonball Restaurant and Bar, via Contini.comWant to read more about Edinburgh’s Lost Board Schools? The previous chapter was about Canonmills School.
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#Lochend #Logan #Restalrig #StMargaret -
(for my russian readers, перевод через гугл сразу под постом)
so today im explaining you the first idea, the older one. this #apriory #conlang is based on matrices (spoiler, the seconed idea is based on trees). first, you have 4 places in your mouth (back, like "k"; middle, like "l"; front, or teeth, like "s" and "n"; and lips, like "p"). next, you have 4 ways of interacting with them (nasal, like "n"; tap, like "t"; approximation, like "s" (or "j" i meah "y", й, in the back's case), friction, like "th")
so, the matrix of consonants is:
g k j h
l r c x
n t s z
m p v f
which sounds:
ng k y gh
l r ch sh
n t (t)s th
m p w f
ts - th is my weakest place but i cant come up with anything better :(
then we have standard five vowels (a e i o u), which results in 80 syllables total
ideally, each place, way of interaction and vowel all contribute to the final meaning of a syllable. four categories for the place, four categories for the way, five - for the vowel, and they sum into meaning. like if the back would mean "human", tap - "action" and o - "group" (theoretically), then "ko" would be something like "contact" (idk). then, with the similar syllable, like "to", when teeth-place mean "feeling", that would be smth like "rough". (i dont actually know how it would be better to assign categories, probably need more research in philosophy, psychology and linguistics. for the places, i propose: back-human - middle-nature - teeth-feelinss - lips-abstract)
so now we have a syllable! do we communicate with syllables? no! we communicate with three categories: meanings; role in the text; our attitude or filling words, like "like", "idk", "ну", "типа"
for meanings, we combine three forward (consonant-vowel, or CV) syllables, like koselu. first, "ko" is the most important, it gives you an idea of about what are we talking. second narrows it to a smaller group of things. and the third identifies the very thing we're talking about. and no, we do not construct them as we speak, thats not #ithkuil - the creators create words once, write them into the dictionary, and learner only has to see it there, learn what it means, and it's structure should help in memorising very much. similar (in meaning) things sound similar. different things sound different. there is (should be) logic in how the word is built. ordering words alphabetically (the alphabet order is [g k j h l r c x n t s z m p v f a e i o u]) also categorizes them in meaning, spheres, so searching the word by meaning is almost as easy as searching it by sound!
there are 80 syllables, and 80**3=512000 possible meanings, which should be enough to create words for any possible topic in humanity, and there will be free ones for future
now, lets talk about grammar. for it, we use backward (VC - vowel consonant, like "on") syllables. we can have as many as we want, and we can even build sentences in different paradigms. for example, Theme and Information (T-cat I-black = the cat is black), Subject Verb Object (S-cat V-eating O-fish - the cat eats a fish), Object and Descriptor (O-cat D-black - the cat is black), combine them (subject-object-theme cat descriptor-info black object-object-theme fish descriptor-theme wet object-verb-info eating descriptor-info fast = the cat is black and quickly eats that one fish which is wet, you know)
there are 80 grammar syllables, and they are also 4-4-5 cross, but place interaction and vowel mean different things, not [human - nature - feeling - abstract], but grammar related stuff. should study different (all possible, in fact) languages to figure out how to distribute these grammar syllables
and, the concept from #lojban (but used in all sorts of languages in fact, in all sorts of waysp, attitudinals - VCV structure, 400 possibilities. ideally they combine meanings of a grammar and content syllables, but here we have only one consonant, and im not really sure should it be unique, or have a meaning like in content word, then we have two vowels - first means same as in grammar words, second means same as in content words. one attitudinal may replace a whole sentence, like "i agree with that" we replace with "ok"
there should be a list of predefined attitudinals to use, like with content words, but the list is much shorter and constant (5*16*5 = 400 entries)
aalsoo.. a very cool way to write the language may be created. like content words - pictures, combined from three parts (first syllable in the middle, the object of picture. second - some details, and third - some tint to it, or outline but part of picture), grammar - arrors and/or/combined borders (outlines) between and/or/combined around these picture, and attitudinal - an outline around the whole sentence (or empty space if alone)
so thats it - my first little conlang idea, tell my where im wrong, or what you like about it or if you want to see that conlang actually created or if you even can help that happen
#conlanging #esperanto #tokipona #language #languages #linguistics -
(for my russian readers, перевод через гугл сразу под постом)
so today im explaining you the first idea, the older one. this #apriory #conlang is based on matrices (spoiler, the seconed idea is based on trees). first, you have 4 places in your mouth (back, like "k"; middle, like "l"; front, or teeth, like "s" and "n"; and lips, like "p"). next, you have 4 ways of interacting with them (nasal, like "n"; tap, like "t"; approximation, like "s" (or "j" i meah "y", й, in the back's case), friction, like "th")
so, the matrix of consonants is:
g k j h
l r c x
n t s z
m p v f
which sounds:
ng k y gh
l r ch sh
n t (t)s th
m p w f
ts - th is my weakest place but i cant come up with anything better :(
then we have standard five vowels (a e i o u), which results in 80 syllables total
ideally, each place, way of interaction and vowel all contribute to the final meaning of a syllable. four categories for the place, four categories for the way, five - for the vowel, and they sum into meaning. like if the back would mean "human", tap - "action" and o - "group" (theoretically), then "ko" would be something like "contact" (idk). then, with the similar syllable, like "to", when teeth-place mean "feeling", that would be smth like "rough". (i dont actually know how it would be better to assign categories, probably need more research in philosophy, psychology and linguistics. for the places, i propose: back-human - middle-nature - teeth-feelinss - lips-abstract)
so now we have a syllable! do we communicate with syllables? no! we communicate with three categories: meanings; role in the text; our attitude or filling words, like "like", "idk", "ну", "типа"
for meanings, we combine three forward (consonant-vowel, or CV) syllables, like koselu. first, "ko" is the most important, it gives you an idea of about what are we talking. second narrows it to a smaller group of things. and the third identifies the very thing we're talking about. and no, we do not construct them as we speak, thats not #ithkuil - the creators create words once, write them into the dictionary, and learner only has to see it there, learn what it means, and it's structure should help in memorising very much. similar (in meaning) things sound similar. different things sound different. there is (should be) logic in how the word is built. ordering words alphabetically (the alphabet order is [g k j h l r c x n t s z m p v f a e i o u]) also categorizes them in meaning, spheres, so searching the word by meaning is almost as easy as searching it by sound!
there are 80 syllables, and 80**3=512000 possible meanings, which should be enough to create words for any possible topic in humanity, and there will be free ones for future
now, lets talk about grammar. for it, we use backward (VC - vowel consonant, like "on") syllables. we can have as many as we want, and we can even build sentences in different paradigms. for example, Theme and Information (T-cat I-black = the cat is black), Subject Verb Object (S-cat V-eating O-fish - the cat eats a fish), Object and Descriptor (O-cat D-black - the cat is black), combine them (subject-object-theme cat descriptor-info black object-object-theme fish descriptor-theme wet object-verb-info eating descriptor-info fast = the cat is black and quickly eats that one fish which is wet, you know)
there are 80 grammar syllables, and they are also 4-4-5 cross, but place interaction and vowel mean different things, not [human - nature - feeling - abstract], but grammar related stuff. should study different (all possible, in fact) languages to figure out how to distribute these grammar syllables
and, the concept from #lojban (but used in all sorts of languages in fact, in all sorts of waysp, attitudinals - VCV structure, 400 possibilities. ideally they combine meanings of a grammar and content syllables, but here we have only one consonant, and im not really sure should it be unique, or have a meaning like in content word, then we have two vowels - first means same as in grammar words, second means same as in content words. one attitudinal may replace a whole sentence, like "i agree with that" we replace with "ok"
there should be a list of predefined attitudinals to use, like with content words, but the list is much shorter and constant (5*16*5 = 400 entries)
aalsoo.. a very cool way to write the language may be created. like content words - pictures, combined from three parts (first syllable in the middle, the object of picture. second - some details, and third - some tint to it, or outline but part of picture), grammar - arrors and/or/combined borders (outlines) between and/or/combined around these picture, and attitudinal - an outline around the whole sentence (or empty space if alone)
so thats it - my first little conlang idea, tell my where im wrong, or what you like about it or if you want to see that conlang actually created or if you even can help that happen
#conlanging #esperanto #tokipona #language #languages #linguistics -
(for my russian readers, перевод через гугл сразу под постом)
so today im explaining you the first idea, the older one. this #apriory #conlang is based on matrices (spoiler, the seconed idea is based on trees). first, you have 4 places in your mouth (back, like "k"; middle, like "l"; front, or teeth, like "s" and "n"; and lips, like "p"). next, you have 4 ways of interacting with them (nasal, like "n"; tap, like "t"; approximation, like "s" (or "j" i meah "y", й, in the back's case), friction, like "th")
so, the matrix of consonants is:
g k j h
l r c x
n t s z
m p v f
which sounds:
ng k y gh
l r ch sh
n t (t)s th
m p w f
ts - th is my weakest place but i cant come up with anything better :(
then we have standard five vowels (a e i o u), which results in 80 syllables total
ideally, each place, way of interaction and vowel all contribute to the final meaning of a syllable. four categories for the place, four categories for the way, five - for the vowel, and they sum into meaning. like if the back would mean "human", tap - "action" and o - "group" (theoretically), then "ko" would be something like "contact" (idk). then, with the similar syllable, like "to", when teeth-place mean "feeling", that would be smth like "rough". (i dont actually know how it would be better to assign categories, probably need more research in philosophy, psychology and linguistics. for the places, i propose: back-human - middle-nature - teeth-feelinss - lips-abstract)
so now we have a syllable! do we communicate with syllables? no! we communicate with three categories: meanings; role in the text; our attitude or filling words, like "like", "idk", "ну", "типа"
for meanings, we combine three forward (consonant-vowel, or CV) syllables, like koselu. first, "ko" is the most important, it gives you an idea of about what are we talking. second narrows it to a smaller group of things. and the third identifies the very thing we're talking about. and no, we do not construct them as we speak, thats not #ithkuil - the creators create words once, write them into the dictionary, and learner only has to see it there, learn what it means, and it's structure should help in memorising very much. similar (in meaning) things sound similar. different things sound different. there is (should be) logic in how the word is built. ordering words alphabetically (the alphabet order is [g k j h l r c x n t s z m p v f a e i o u]) also categorizes them in meaning, spheres, so searching the word by meaning is almost as easy as searching it by sound!
there are 80 syllables, and 80**3=512000 possible meanings, which should be enough to create words for any possible topic in humanity, and there will be free ones for future
now, lets talk about grammar. for it, we use backward (VC - vowel consonant, like "on") syllables. we can have as many as we want, and we can even build sentences in different paradigms. for example, Theme and Information (T-cat I-black = the cat is black), Subject Verb Object (S-cat V-eating O-fish - the cat eats a fish), Object and Descriptor (O-cat D-black - the cat is black), combine them (subject-object-theme cat descriptor-info black object-object-theme fish descriptor-theme wet object-verb-info eating descriptor-info fast = the cat is black and quickly eats that one fish which is wet, you know)
there are 80 grammar syllables, and they are also 4-4-5 cross, but place interaction and vowel mean different things, not [human - nature - feeling - abstract], but grammar related stuff. should study different (all possible, in fact) languages to figure out how to distribute these grammar syllables
and, the concept from #lojban (but used in all sorts of languages in fact, in all sorts of waysp, attitudinals - VCV structure, 400 possibilities. ideally they combine meanings of a grammar and content syllables, but here we have only one consonant, and im not really sure should it be unique, or have a meaning like in content word, then we have two vowels - first means same as in grammar words, second means same as in content words. one attitudinal may replace a whole sentence, like "i agree with that" we replace with "ok"
there should be a list of predefined attitudinals to use, like with content words, but the list is much shorter and constant (5*16*5 = 400 entries)
aalsoo.. a very cool way to write the language may be created. like content words - pictures, combined from three parts (first syllable in the middle, the object of picture. second - some details, and third - some tint to it, or outline but part of picture), grammar - arrors and/or/combined borders (outlines) between and/or/combined around these picture, and attitudinal - an outline around the whole sentence (or empty space if alone)
so thats it - my first little conlang idea, tell my where im wrong, or what you like about it or if you want to see that conlang actually created or if you even can help that happen
#conlanging #esperanto #tokipona #language #languages #linguistics -
(for my russian readers, перевод через гугл сразу под постом)
so today im explaining you the first idea, the older one. this #apriory #conlang is based on matrices (spoiler, the seconed idea is based on trees). first, you have 4 places in your mouth (back, like "k"; middle, like "l"; front, or teeth, like "s" and "n"; and lips, like "p"). next, you have 4 ways of interacting with them (nasal, like "n"; tap, like "t"; approximation, like "s" (or "j" i meah "y", й, in the back's case), friction, like "th")
so, the matrix of consonants is:
g k j h
l r c x
n t s z
m p v f
which sounds:
ng k y gh
l r ch sh
n t (t)s th
m p w f
ts - th is my weakest place but i cant come up with anything better :(
then we have standard five vowels (a e i o u), which results in 80 syllables total
ideally, each place, way of interaction and vowel all contribute to the final meaning of a syllable. four categories for the place, four categories for the way, five - for the vowel, and they sum into meaning. like if the back would mean "human", tap - "action" and o - "group" (theoretically), then "ko" would be something like "contact" (idk). then, with the similar syllable, like "to", when teeth-place mean "feeling", that would be smth like "rough". (i dont actually know how it would be better to assign categories, probably need more research in philosophy, psychology and linguistics. for the places, i propose: back-human - middle-nature - teeth-feelinss - lips-abstract)
so now we have a syllable! do we communicate with syllables? no! we communicate with three categories: meanings; role in the text; our attitude or filling words, like "like", "idk", "ну", "типа"
for meanings, we combine three forward (consonant-vowel, or CV) syllables, like koselu. first, "ko" is the most important, it gives you an idea of about what are we talking. second narrows it to a smaller group of things. and the third identifies the very thing we're talking about. and no, we do not construct them as we speak, thats not #ithkuil - the creators create words once, write them into the dictionary, and learner only has to see it there, learn what it means, and it's structure should help in memorising very much. similar (in meaning) things sound similar. different things sound different. there is (should be) logic in how the word is built. ordering words alphabetically (the alphabet order is [g k j h l r c x n t s z m p v f a e i o u]) also categorizes them in meaning, spheres, so searching the word by meaning is almost as easy as searching it by sound!
there are 80 syllables, and 80**3=512000 possible meanings, which should be enough to create words for any possible topic in humanity, and there will be free ones for future
now, lets talk about grammar. for it, we use backward (VC - vowel consonant, like "on") syllables. we can have as many as we want, and we can even build sentences in different paradigms. for example, Theme and Information (T-cat I-black = the cat is black), Subject Verb Object (S-cat V-eating O-fish - the cat eats a fish), Object and Descriptor (O-cat D-black - the cat is black), combine them (subject-object-theme cat descriptor-info black object-object-theme fish descriptor-theme wet object-verb-info eating descriptor-info fast = the cat is black and quickly eats that one fish which is wet, you know)
there are 80 grammar syllables, and they are also 4-4-5 cross, but place interaction and vowel mean different things, not [human - nature - feeling - abstract], but grammar related stuff. should study different (all possible, in fact) languages to figure out how to distribute these grammar syllables
and, the concept from #lojban (but used in all sorts of languages in fact, in all sorts of waysp, attitudinals - VCV structure, 400 possibilities. ideally they combine meanings of a grammar and content syllables, but here we have only one consonant, and im not really sure should it be unique, or have a meaning like in content word, then we have two vowels - first means same as in grammar words, second means same as in content words. one attitudinal may replace a whole sentence, like "i agree with that" we replace with "ok"
there should be a list of predefined attitudinals to use, like with content words, but the list is much shorter and constant (5*16*5 = 400 entries)
aalsoo.. a very cool way to write the language may be created. like content words - pictures, combined from three parts (first syllable in the middle, the object of picture. second - some details, and third - some tint to it, or outline but part of picture), grammar - arrors and/or/combined borders (outlines) between and/or/combined around these picture, and attitudinal - an outline around the whole sentence (or empty space if alone)
so thats it - my first little conlang idea, tell my where im wrong, or what you like about it or if you want to see that conlang actually created or if you even can help that happen
#conlanging #esperanto #tokipona #language #languages #linguistics -
(for my russian readers, перевод через гугл сразу под постом)
so today im explaining you the first idea, the older one. this #apriory #conlang is based on matrices (spoiler, the seconed idea is based on trees). first, you have 4 places in your mouth (back, like "k"; middle, like "l"; front, or teeth, like "s" and "n"; and lips, like "p"). next, you have 4 ways of interacting with them (nasal, like "n"; tap, like "t"; approximation, like "s" (or "j" i meah "y", й, in the back's case), friction, like "th")
so, the matrix of consonants is:
g k j h
l r c x
n t s z
m p v f
which sounds:
ng k y gh
l r ch sh
n t (t)s th
m p w f
ts - th is my weakest place but i cant come up with anything better :(
then we have standard five vowels (a e i o u), which results in 80 syllables total
ideally, each place, way of interaction and vowel all contribute to the final meaning of a syllable. four categories for the place, four categories for the way, five - for the vowel, and they sum into meaning. like if the back would mean "human", tap - "action" and o - "group" (theoretically), then "ko" would be something like "contact" (idk). then, with the similar syllable, like "to", when teeth-place mean "feeling", that would be smth like "rough". (i dont actually know how it would be better to assign categories, probably need more research in philosophy, psychology and linguistics. for the places, i propose: back-human - middle-nature - teeth-feelinss - lips-abstract)
so now we have a syllable! do we communicate with syllables? no! we communicate with three categories: meanings; role in the text; our attitude or filling words, like "like", "idk", "ну", "типа"
for meanings, we combine three forward (consonant-vowel, or CV) syllables, like koselu. first, "ko" is the most important, it gives you an idea of about what are we talking. second narrows it to a smaller group of things. and the third identifies the very thing we're talking about. and no, we do not construct them as we speak, thats not #ithkuil - the creators create words once, write them into the dictionary, and learner only has to see it there, learn what it means, and it's structure should help in memorising very much. similar (in meaning) things sound similar. different things sound different. there is (should be) logic in how the word is built. ordering words alphabetically (the alphabet order is [g k j h l r c x n t s z m p v f a e i o u]) also categorizes them in meaning, spheres, so searching the word by meaning is almost as easy as searching it by sound!
there are 80 syllables, and 80**3=512000 possible meanings, which should be enough to create words for any possible topic in humanity, and there will be free ones for future
now, lets talk about grammar. for it, we use backward (VC - vowel consonant, like "on") syllables. we can have as many as we want, and we can even build sentences in different paradigms. for example, Theme and Information (T-cat I-black = the cat is black), Subject Verb Object (S-cat V-eating O-fish - the cat eats a fish), Object and Descriptor (O-cat D-black - the cat is black), combine them (subject-object-theme cat descriptor-info black object-object-theme fish descriptor-theme wet object-verb-info eating descriptor-info fast = the cat is black and quickly eats that one fish which is wet, you know)
there are 80 grammar syllables, and they are also 4-4-5 cross, but place interaction and vowel mean different things, not [human - nature - feeling - abstract], but grammar related stuff. should study different (all possible, in fact) languages to figure out how to distribute these grammar syllables
and, the concept from #lojban (but used in all sorts of languages in fact, in all sorts of waysp, attitudinals - VCV structure, 400 possibilities. ideally they combine meanings of a grammar and content syllables, but here we have only one consonant, and im not really sure should it be unique, or have a meaning like in content word, then we have two vowels - first means same as in grammar words, second means same as in content words. one attitudinal may replace a whole sentence, like "i agree with that" we replace with "ok"
there should be a list of predefined attitudinals to use, like with content words, but the list is much shorter and constant (5*16*5 = 400 entries)
aalsoo.. a very cool way to write the language may be created. like content words - pictures, combined from three parts (first syllable in the middle, the object of picture. second - some details, and third - some tint to it, or outline but part of picture), grammar - arrors and/or/combined borders (outlines) between and/or/combined around these picture, and attitudinal - an outline around the whole sentence (or empty space if alone)
so thats it - my first little conlang idea, tell my where im wrong, or what you like about it or if you want to see that conlang actually created or if you even can help that happen
#conlanging #esperanto #tokipona #language #languages #linguistics -
Capitolo 409: Traslochi e Partenze
Primo giorno di luglio, ma anche l’ultimo giorno in cui vi scrivo da quella che è stata la mia dimora negli ultimi 6 anni. Come ogni estate sto per spostarmi a Monopoli, dopodiché tornerò a Roma a settembre, per cercare nuovamente casa. I traslochi in estate dovrebbero essere dichiarati illegali, ma se vi scrivo tutto questo è per giustificare la mia scarsa vena cinematografica delle ultime settimane: non è mancata la voglia, è mancato il tempo (quel poco che ho avuto l’ho invece dedicato a The Bear, come vedremo dopo). In tutto ciò ho anche pubblicato un libro, ma di questo già vi ho parlato abbastanza, quindi passiamo subito ai film!
40 Anni Vergine (2005): Judd Apatow è un regista che stimo molto (guardate gli ottimi Funny People, Il Re di Staten Island o la serie Love, ad esempio) ed è stato un piacere ritrovare questa commedia che avevo visto solo una volta, al cinema, nel gennaio del 2006. Steve Carell lavora in un negozio di elettrodomestici, colleziona action figures e non è mai stato con una donna. Quando i suoi colleghi, tutti maschi alpha, lo scoprono, cercano di farlo uscire con loro per sopperire. C’è qualche scena un po’ becera, ma nel complesso è un film divertente (e molto meno stupido di quanto si possa pensare). Tra tutte, ho trovato esilarante la scena in cui il protagonista fa la ceretta al petto, forse il momento più comico di tutto il film.
•••½Volvereis (2024): Il biglietto del cinema a 3,50 per i film italiani ed europei è un enorme incentivo a guardarsi qualcosa di un po’ più “invisibile”, oltre a godere di un paio d’ore di aria condizionata durante questo torrido giugno. In questo film spagnolo, una coppia di lunga data decide di separarsi di comune accordo. Per celebrare l’evento, organizzano una festa di separazione, dove invitare amici e parenti in quello che sarà per loro l’inizio di una nuova vita. L’idea è davvero originale, anche se a tratti il film è un po’ ripetitivo, Trueba è molto intelligente a giocare con questo (c’è un film nel film, diretto da lei e interpretato da lui, che parla proprio della storia del film stesso: un’esaltazione totale del metacinema!). Chi ha visto Dieci Capodanni di Sorogoyen (vedetelo, è su RaiPlay) troverà una scena in cui la protagonista va sul set del primo episodio della serie per chiacchierare con l’attore Francesco Carril (che ha un mazzo di tarocchi ispirato ai film di Bergman, lo voglio!!). Molto carino, vale decisamente la pena di una sortita al cinema, se lo trovate ancora.
•••½Tre Amiche (2024): Altro giro, altro film europeo al cinema. Stavolta ci spostiamo in Francia, dove Emmanuel Mouret dirige una commedia agrodolce su tre donne, le amiche del titolo, tutte più o meno coinvolte in situazioni sentimentali complicate, tentazioni e tutto l’armamentario tipico di questo genere di film. Niente di nuovo, per carità, anche se il regista è molto bravo ad avvicinarsi ai cliché per poi scartarli all’improvviso, evitando di scadere nel banale. Carino, ma il giorno dopo lo avevo già dimenticato. Vincent Macaigne, tanto per cambiare, è il migliore in campo.
•••Last Night (2010): Avevo già visto una volta questo film di Massy Tadjedin, alla Festa del Cinema di Roma di quindici anni fa. Keira Knightley e Sam Worthington sono sposati e si amano, ma la notte in cui lui ha una trasferta aziendale in compagnia della collega Eva Mendes e lei incontra per caso la vecchia fiamma parigina Guillaume Canet, tutto viene messo in discussione. Intriga vedere tanti bei volti alle prese con scintille d’amore e lampi di tentazione, ma non tutto funziona veramente. Resta una visione piacevole per il tempo in cui si guarda, ma diciamo che non finirà nella lista dei migliori film di questo secolo, dai.
•••Tutti Vogliono Qualcosa (2016): Dati Letterboxd alla mano (come potete vedere nell’immagine in basso), in nove anni è la settima volta che vedo questo film di Richard Linklater. Una volta l’ho visto in proiezione stampa, un’altra al cinema, poi durante una febbre estiva e così via, fino a una sera, distrutto dal trasloco, in cui avevo bisogno di qualcosa di leggero, confortevole, da mozzicare. Senza pensarci troppo, la scelta è caduta ancora su questo coming of age che racconta gli ultimi giorni di festa di una squadra di baseball universitaria prima dell’inizio delle lezioni. Linklater come al solito è perfetto nel cogliere il periodo storico dei suoi film, in questo caso il 1980, inizio di un nuovo decennio in cui il funk e il punk erano al massimo del loro splendore e dove il sesso sicuro era ancora un’espressione sconosciuta. Il regista cristallizza in questo splendido weekend il primo balzo fuori dal nido di questi baffuti yes men, ognuno in dovere di sfruttare ogni esperienza al massimo, prima che si trasformi in un rimpianto. Da segnalare un ottimo Glen Powell, forse il migliore della banda, che ai tempi non era ancora molto conosciuto.
Li chiamavano comfort movie
••••Chi Ha Incastrato Roger Rabbit? (1988): A proposito di comfort movie, quanto ho bisogno di un po’ di conforto in questi giorni di caldo, pacchi pieni di libri, vestiti, oggetti accumulati in tutta una vita… Mi perdonerete la scarsa originalità nel proporvi film già visti e rivisti, ma la boccata d’ossigeno che ti dà questo capolavoro di Robert Zemeckis, davvero pochi altri. Anni 40: in una Los Angeles dove esseri umani e cartoni animati vivono gomito a gomito, il fondatore della famigerata Cartoonia viene trovato ucciso e la colpa ricade sull’esuberante Roger Rabbit, un coniglio fanfarone che, come missione di vita, vuole regalare risate a chi ha davanti. A indagare sul misfatto c’è un investigatore privato, Bob Hoskins, poco disponibile a sopportare le idiozie dei cartoni, ma ben deciso a scoprire la verità sull’omicidio. Un noir postmoderno, pieno di citazioni, musiche stupende, scene memorabili e un Christopher Lloyd strepitoso (quanti traumi da bambino a causa della salamoia…). Capolavoro assoluto.
•••••Pierino Contro Tutti (1981): La scorsa settimana stavo lavorando a uno shooting fotografico quando mi è arrivata la notizia della scomparsa di Alvaro Vitali. Tornato a casa ho trovato su Cine34 questo film di Marino Girolami, che non vedevo da quando ero ragazzino e, che fai, non te lo rivedi? Mi rendo conto che quando ero piccolo ridevo per delle scemenze incredibili, ma ai tempi, vi dirò, avevano un suo senso. Oggi, se si toglie dal contesto in cui è nato, è pressoché inguardabile, una raccolta di gag, di barzellette grossolane e volgari (alcune ancora divertenti, per carità!). Mezza stella in più per affetto più che per il suo valore effettivo. Forse sarebbe stato meglio conservare il ricordo di bambino, ma almeno rivederlo mi ha dato l’occasione di scoprire su Letterboxd il titolo inglese del film: Desirable Teacher!
••½SERIE TV: La scorsa settimana è cominciata la quarta stagione di The Bear e, per l’occasione, ho visto tutte e tre le precedenti, visto che è una serie di cui sentivo parlare benissimo, che ha vinto tanti premi e dalla quale ero molto incuriosito. Ci sono cose che mi sono piaciute moltissimo (la caratterizzazione dei personaggi, tutti i momenti in cui ci sono in scena Carmy e Richie, l’incredibile episodio della cena di Natale, nella seconda stagione), altre cose invece mi hanno un po’ appesantito la visione (molti episodi riempitivi o filler, come si dice in gergo, pochi spiragli di luce e tante situazioni ansiogene o leggermente disturbanti, che rendono le vicende un po’ ripetitive). Nel complesso però è senza dubbio una serie che vale la pena vedere e devo dire che i primi episodi della quarta stagione promettono bene: una partenza forse migliore rispetto alle prime puntate della seconda e della terza stagione, il che lascia davvero ben sperare. Ne riparleremo.
#40AnniVergine #chiHaIncastratoRogerRabbit #Cinema #daVedere #film #lastNight #pierinoControTutti #recensione #theBear #treAmiche #tuttiVoglionoQualcosa #volvereis
-
Capitolo 409: Traslochi e Partenze
Primo giorno di luglio, ma anche l’ultimo giorno in cui vi scrivo da quella che è stata la mia dimora negli ultimi 6 anni. Come ogni estate sto per spostarmi a Monopoli, dopodiché tornerò a Roma a settembre, per cercare nuovamente casa. I traslochi in estate dovrebbero essere dichiarati illegali, ma se vi scrivo tutto questo è per giustificare la mia scarsa vena cinematografica delle ultime settimane: non è mancata la voglia, è mancato il tempo (quel poco che ho avuto l’ho invece dedicato a The Bear, come vedremo dopo). In tutto ciò ho anche pubblicato un libro, ma di questo già vi ho parlato abbastanza, quindi passiamo subito ai film!
40 Anni Vergine (2005): Judd Apatow è un regista che stimo molto (guardate gli ottimi Funny People, Il Re di Staten Island o la serie Love, ad esempio) ed è stato un piacere ritrovare questa commedia che avevo visto solo una volta, al cinema, nel gennaio del 2006. Steve Carell lavora in un negozio di elettrodomestici, colleziona action figures e non è mai stato con una donna. Quando i suoi colleghi, tutti maschi alpha, lo scoprono, cercano di farlo uscire con loro per sopperire. C’è qualche scena un po’ becera, ma nel complesso è un film divertente (e molto meno stupido di quanto si possa pensare). Tra tutte, ho trovato esilarante la scena in cui il protagonista fa la ceretta al petto, forse il momento più comico di tutto il film.
•••½Volvereis (2024): Il biglietto del cinema a 3,50 per i film italiani ed europei è un enorme incentivo a guardarsi qualcosa di un po’ più “invisibile”, oltre a godere di un paio d’ore di aria condizionata durante questo torrido giugno. In questo film spagnolo, una coppia di lunga data decide di separarsi di comune accordo. Per celebrare l’evento, organizzano una festa di separazione, dove invitare amici e parenti in quello che sarà per loro l’inizio di una nuova vita. L’idea è davvero originale, anche se a tratti il film è un po’ ripetitivo, Trueba è molto intelligente a giocare con questo (c’è un film nel film, diretto da lei e interpretato da lui, che parla proprio della storia del film stesso: un’esaltazione totale del metacinema!). Chi ha visto Dieci Capodanni di Sorogoyen (vedetelo, è su RaiPlay) troverà una scena in cui la protagonista va sul set del primo episodio della serie per chiacchierare con l’attore Francesco Carril (che ha un mazzo di tarocchi ispirato ai film di Bergman, lo voglio!!). Molto carino, vale decisamente la pena di una sortita al cinema, se lo trovate ancora.
•••½Tre Amiche (2024): Altro giro, altro film europeo al cinema. Stavolta ci spostiamo in Francia, dove Emmanuel Mouret dirige una commedia agrodolce su tre donne, le amiche del titolo, tutte più o meno coinvolte in situazioni sentimentali complicate, tentazioni e tutto l’armamentario tipico di questo genere di film. Niente di nuovo, per carità, anche se il regista è molto bravo ad avvicinarsi ai cliché per poi scartarli all’improvviso, evitando di scadere nel banale. Carino, ma il giorno dopo lo avevo già dimenticato. Vincent Macaigne, tanto per cambiare, è il migliore in campo.
•••Last Night (2010): Avevo già visto una volta questo film di Massy Tadjedin, alla Festa del Cinema di Roma di quindici anni fa. Keira Knightley e Sam Worthington sono sposati e si amano, ma la notte in cui lui ha una trasferta aziendale in compagnia della collega Eva Mendes e lei incontra per caso la vecchia fiamma parigina Guillaume Canet, tutto viene messo in discussione. Intriga vedere tanti bei volti alle prese con scintille d’amore e lampi di tentazione, ma non tutto funziona veramente. Resta una visione piacevole per il tempo in cui si guarda, ma diciamo che non finirà nella lista dei migliori film di questo secolo, dai.
•••Tutti Vogliono Qualcosa (2016): Dati Letterboxd alla mano (come potete vedere nell’immagine in basso), in nove anni è la settima volta che vedo questo film di Richard Linklater. Una volta l’ho visto in proiezione stampa, un’altra al cinema, poi durante una febbre estiva e così via, fino a una sera, distrutto dal trasloco, in cui avevo bisogno di qualcosa di leggero, confortevole, da mozzicare. Senza pensarci troppo, la scelta è caduta ancora su questo coming of age che racconta gli ultimi giorni di festa di una squadra di baseball universitaria prima dell’inizio delle lezioni. Linklater come al solito è perfetto nel cogliere il periodo storico dei suoi film, in questo caso il 1980, inizio di un nuovo decennio in cui il funk e il punk erano al massimo del loro splendore e dove il sesso sicuro era ancora un’espressione sconosciuta. Il regista cristallizza in questo splendido weekend il primo balzo fuori dal nido di questi baffuti yes men, ognuno in dovere di sfruttare ogni esperienza al massimo, prima che si trasformi in un rimpianto. Da segnalare un ottimo Glen Powell, forse il migliore della banda, che ai tempi non era ancora molto conosciuto.
Li chiamavano comfort movie
••••Chi Ha Incastrato Roger Rabbit? (1988): A proposito di comfort movie, quanto ho bisogno di un po’ di conforto in questi giorni di caldo, pacchi pieni di libri, vestiti, oggetti accumulati in tutta una vita… Mi perdonerete la scarsa originalità nel proporvi film già visti e rivisti, ma la boccata d’ossigeno che ti dà questo capolavoro di Robert Zemeckis, davvero pochi altri. Anni 40: in una Los Angeles dove esseri umani e cartoni animati vivono gomito a gomito, il fondatore della famigerata Cartoonia viene trovato ucciso e la colpa ricade sull’esuberante Roger Rabbit, un coniglio fanfarone che, come missione di vita, vuole regalare risate a chi ha davanti. A indagare sul misfatto c’è un investigatore privato, Bob Hoskins, poco disponibile a sopportare le idiozie dei cartoni, ma ben deciso a scoprire la verità sull’omicidio. Un noir postmoderno, pieno di citazioni, musiche stupende, scene memorabili e un Christopher Lloyd strepitoso (quanti traumi da bambino a causa della salamoia…). Capolavoro assoluto.
•••••Pierino Contro Tutti (1981): La scorsa settimana stavo lavorando a uno shooting fotografico quando mi è arrivata la notizia della scomparsa di Alvaro Vitali. Tornato a casa ho trovato su Cine34 questo film di Marino Girolami, che non vedevo da quando ero ragazzino e, che fai, non te lo rivedi? Mi rendo conto che quando ero piccolo ridevo per delle scemenze incredibili, ma ai tempi, vi dirò, avevano un suo senso. Oggi, se si toglie dal contesto in cui è nato, è pressoché inguardabile, una raccolta di gag, di barzellette grossolane e volgari (alcune ancora divertenti, per carità!). Mezza stella in più per affetto più che per il suo valore effettivo. Forse sarebbe stato meglio conservare il ricordo di bambino, ma almeno rivederlo mi ha dato l’occasione di scoprire su Letterboxd il titolo inglese del film: Desirable Teacher!
••½SERIE TV: La scorsa settimana è cominciata la quarta stagione di The Bear e, per l’occasione, ho visto tutte e tre le precedenti, visto che è una serie di cui sentivo parlare benissimo, che ha vinto tanti premi e dalla quale ero molto incuriosito. Ci sono cose che mi sono piaciute moltissimo (la caratterizzazione dei personaggi, tutti i momenti in cui ci sono in scena Carmy e Richie, l’incredibile episodio della cena di Natale, nella seconda stagione), altre cose invece mi hanno un po’ appesantito la visione (molti episodi riempitivi o filler, come si dice in gergo, pochi spiragli di luce e tante situazioni ansiogene o leggermente disturbanti, che rendono le vicende un po’ ripetitive). Nel complesso però è senza dubbio una serie che vale la pena vedere e devo dire che i primi episodi della quarta stagione promettono bene: una partenza forse migliore rispetto alle prime puntate della seconda e della terza stagione, il che lascia davvero ben sperare. Ne riparleremo.
#40AnniVergine #chiHaIncastratoRogerRabbit #Cinema #daVedere #film #lastNight #pierinoControTutti #recensione #theBear #treAmiche #tuttiVoglionoQualcosa #volvereis
-
Capitolo 409: Traslochi e Partenze
Primo giorno di luglio, ma anche l’ultimo giorno in cui vi scrivo da quella che è stata la mia dimora negli ultimi 6 anni. Come ogni estate sto per spostarmi a Monopoli, dopodiché tornerò a Roma a settembre, per cercare nuovamente casa. I traslochi in estate dovrebbero essere dichiarati illegali, ma se vi scrivo tutto questo è per giustificare la mia scarsa vena cinematografica delle ultime settimane: non è mancata la voglia, è mancato il tempo (quel poco che ho avuto l’ho invece dedicato a The Bear, come vedremo dopo). In tutto ciò ho anche pubblicato un libro, ma di questo già vi ho parlato abbastanza, quindi passiamo subito ai film!
40 Anni Vergine (2005): Judd Apatow è un regista che stimo molto (guardate gli ottimi Funny People, Il Re di Staten Island o la serie Love, ad esempio) ed è stato un piacere ritrovare questa commedia che avevo visto solo una volta, al cinema, nel gennaio del 2006. Steve Carell lavora in un negozio di elettrodomestici, colleziona action figures e non è mai stato con una donna. Quando i suoi colleghi, tutti maschi alpha, lo scoprono, cercano di farlo uscire con loro per sopperire. C’è qualche scena un po’ becera, ma nel complesso è un film divertente (e molto meno stupido di quanto si possa pensare). Tra tutte, ho trovato esilarante la scena in cui il protagonista fa la ceretta al petto, forse il momento più comico di tutto il film.
•••½Volvereis (2024): Il biglietto del cinema a 3,50 per i film italiani ed europei è un enorme incentivo a guardarsi qualcosa di un po’ più “invisibile”, oltre a godere di un paio d’ore di aria condizionata durante questo torrido giugno. In questo film spagnolo, una coppia di lunga data decide di separarsi di comune accordo. Per celebrare l’evento, organizzano una festa di separazione, dove invitare amici e parenti in quello che sarà per loro l’inizio di una nuova vita. L’idea è davvero originale, anche se a tratti il film è un po’ ripetitivo, Trueba è molto intelligente a giocare con questo (c’è un film nel film, diretto da lei e interpretato da lui, che parla proprio della storia del film stesso: un’esaltazione totale del metacinema!). Chi ha visto Dieci Capodanni di Sorogoyen (vedetelo, è su RaiPlay) troverà una scena in cui la protagonista va sul set del primo episodio della serie per chiacchierare con l’attore Francesco Carril (che ha un mazzo di tarocchi ispirato ai film di Bergman, lo voglio!!). Molto carino, vale decisamente la pena di una sortita al cinema, se lo trovate ancora.
•••½Tre Amiche (2024): Altro giro, altro film europeo al cinema. Stavolta ci spostiamo in Francia, dove Emmanuel Mouret dirige una commedia agrodolce su tre donne, le amiche del titolo, tutte più o meno coinvolte in situazioni sentimentali complicate, tentazioni e tutto l’armamentario tipico di questo genere di film. Niente di nuovo, per carità, anche se il regista è molto bravo ad avvicinarsi ai cliché per poi scartarli all’improvviso, evitando di scadere nel banale. Carino, ma il giorno dopo lo avevo già dimenticato. Vincent Macaigne, tanto per cambiare, è il migliore in campo.
•••Last Night (2010): Avevo già visto una volta questo film di Massy Tadjedin, alla Festa del Cinema di Roma di quindici anni fa. Keira Knightley e Sam Worthington sono sposati e si amano, ma la notte in cui lui ha una trasferta aziendale in compagnia della collega Eva Mendes e lei incontra per caso la vecchia fiamma parigina Guillaume Canet, tutto viene messo in discussione. Intriga vedere tanti bei volti alle prese con scintille d’amore e lampi di tentazione, ma non tutto funziona veramente. Resta una visione piacevole per il tempo in cui si guarda, ma diciamo che non finirà nella lista dei migliori film di questo secolo, dai.
•••Tutti Vogliono Qualcosa (2016): Dati Letterboxd alla mano (come potete vedere nell’immagine in basso), in nove anni è la settima volta che vedo questo film di Richard Linklater. Una volta l’ho visto in proiezione stampa, un’altra al cinema, poi durante una febbre estiva e così via, fino a una sera, distrutto dal trasloco, in cui avevo bisogno di qualcosa di leggero, confortevole, da mozzicare. Senza pensarci troppo, la scelta è caduta ancora su questo coming of age che racconta gli ultimi giorni di festa di una squadra di baseball universitaria prima dell’inizio delle lezioni. Linklater come al solito è perfetto nel cogliere il periodo storico dei suoi film, in questo caso il 1980, inizio di un nuovo decennio in cui il funk e il punk erano al massimo del loro splendore e dove il sesso sicuro era ancora un’espressione sconosciuta. Il regista cristallizza in questo splendido weekend il primo balzo fuori dal nido di questi baffuti yes men, ognuno in dovere di sfruttare ogni esperienza al massimo, prima che si trasformi in un rimpianto. Da segnalare un ottimo Glen Powell, forse il migliore della banda, che ai tempi non era ancora molto conosciuto.
Li chiamavano comfort movie
••••Chi Ha Incastrato Roger Rabbit? (1988): A proposito di comfort movie, quanto ho bisogno di un po’ di conforto in questi giorni di caldo, pacchi pieni di libri, vestiti, oggetti accumulati in tutta una vita… Mi perdonerete la scarsa originalità nel proporvi film già visti e rivisti, ma la boccata d’ossigeno che ti dà questo capolavoro di Robert Zemeckis, davvero pochi altri. Anni 40: in una Los Angeles dove esseri umani e cartoni animati vivono gomito a gomito, il fondatore della famigerata Cartoonia viene trovato ucciso e la colpa ricade sull’esuberante Roger Rabbit, un coniglio fanfarone che, come missione di vita, vuole regalare risate a chi ha davanti. A indagare sul misfatto c’è un investigatore privato, Bob Hoskins, poco disponibile a sopportare le idiozie dei cartoni, ma ben deciso a scoprire la verità sull’omicidio. Un noir postmoderno, pieno di citazioni, musiche stupende, scene memorabili e un Christopher Lloyd strepitoso (quanti traumi da bambino a causa della salamoia…). Capolavoro assoluto.
•••••Pierino Contro Tutti (1981): La scorsa settimana stavo lavorando a uno shooting fotografico quando mi è arrivata la notizia della scomparsa di Alvaro Vitali. Tornato a casa ho trovato su Cine34 questo film di Marino Girolami, che non vedevo da quando ero ragazzino e, che fai, non te lo rivedi? Mi rendo conto che quando ero piccolo ridevo per delle scemenze incredibili, ma ai tempi, vi dirò, avevano un suo senso. Oggi, se si toglie dal contesto in cui è nato, è pressoché inguardabile, una raccolta di gag, di barzellette grossolane e volgari (alcune ancora divertenti, per carità!). Mezza stella in più per affetto più che per il suo valore effettivo. Forse sarebbe stato meglio conservare il ricordo di bambino, ma almeno rivederlo mi ha dato l’occasione di scoprire su Letterboxd il titolo inglese del film: Desirable Teacher!
••½SERIE TV: La scorsa settimana è cominciata la quarta stagione di The Bear e, per l’occasione, ho visto tutte e tre le precedenti, visto che è una serie di cui sentivo parlare benissimo, che ha vinto tanti premi e dalla quale ero molto incuriosito. Ci sono cose che mi sono piaciute moltissimo (la caratterizzazione dei personaggi, tutti i momenti in cui ci sono in scena Carmy e Richie, l’incredibile episodio della cena di Natale, nella seconda stagione), altre cose invece mi hanno un po’ appesantito la visione (molti episodi riempitivi o filler, come si dice in gergo, pochi spiragli di luce e tante situazioni ansiogene o leggermente disturbanti, che rendono le vicende un po’ ripetitive). Nel complesso però è senza dubbio una serie che vale la pena vedere e devo dire che i primi episodi della quarta stagione promettono bene: una partenza forse migliore rispetto alle prime puntate della seconda e della terza stagione, il che lascia davvero ben sperare. Ne riparleremo.
#40AnniVergine #chiHaIncastratoRogerRabbit #Cinema #daVedere #film #lastNight #pierinoControTutti #recensione #theBear #treAmiche #tuttiVoglionoQualcosa #volvereis
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Capitolo 409: Traslochi e Partenze
Primo giorno di luglio, ma anche l’ultimo giorno in cui vi scrivo da quella che è stata la mia dimora negli ultimi 6 anni. Come ogni estate sto per spostarmi a Monopoli, dopodiché tornerò a Roma a settembre, per cercare nuovamente casa. I traslochi in estate dovrebbero essere dichiarati illegali, ma se vi scrivo tutto questo è per giustificare la mia scarsa vena cinematografica delle ultime settimane: non è mancata la voglia, è mancato il tempo (quel poco che ho avuto l’ho invece dedicato a The Bear, come vedremo dopo). In tutto ciò ho anche pubblicato un libro, ma di questo già vi ho parlato abbastanza, quindi passiamo subito ai film!
40 Anni Vergine (2005): Judd Apatow è un regista che stimo molto (guardate gli ottimi Funny People, Il Re di Staten Island o la serie Love, ad esempio) ed è stato un piacere ritrovare questa commedia che avevo visto solo una volta, al cinema, nel gennaio del 2006. Steve Carell lavora in un negozio di elettrodomestici, colleziona action figures e non è mai stato con una donna. Quando i suoi colleghi, tutti maschi alpha, lo scoprono, cercano di farlo uscire con loro per sopperire. C’è qualche scena un po’ becera, ma nel complesso è un film divertente (e molto meno stupido di quanto si possa pensare). Tra tutte, ho trovato esilarante la scena in cui il protagonista fa la ceretta al petto, forse il momento più comico di tutto il film.
•••½Volvereis (2024): Il biglietto del cinema a 3,50 per i film italiani ed europei è un enorme incentivo a guardarsi qualcosa di un po’ più “invisibile”, oltre a godere di un paio d’ore di aria condizionata durante questo torrido giugno. In questo film spagnolo, una coppia di lunga data decide di separarsi di comune accordo. Per celebrare l’evento, organizzano una festa di separazione, dove invitare amici e parenti in quello che sarà per loro l’inizio di una nuova vita. L’idea è davvero originale, anche se a tratti il film è un po’ ripetitivo, Trueba è molto intelligente a giocare con questo (c’è un film nel film, diretto da lei e interpretato da lui, che parla proprio della storia del film stesso: un’esaltazione totale del metacinema!). Chi ha visto Dieci Capodanni di Sorogoyen (vedetelo, è su RaiPlay) troverà una scena in cui la protagonista va sul set del primo episodio della serie per chiacchierare con l’attore Francesco Carril (che ha un mazzo di tarocchi ispirato ai film di Bergman, lo voglio!!). Molto carino, vale decisamente la pena di una sortita al cinema, se lo trovate ancora.
•••½Tre Amiche (2024): Altro giro, altro film europeo al cinema. Stavolta ci spostiamo in Francia, dove Emmanuel Mouret dirige una commedia agrodolce su tre donne, le amiche del titolo, tutte più o meno coinvolte in situazioni sentimentali complicate, tentazioni e tutto l’armamentario tipico di questo genere di film. Niente di nuovo, per carità, anche se il regista è molto bravo ad avvicinarsi ai cliché per poi scartarli all’improvviso, evitando di scadere nel banale. Carino, ma il giorno dopo lo avevo già dimenticato. Vincent Macaigne, tanto per cambiare, è il migliore in campo.
•••Last Night (2010): Avevo già visto una volta questo film di Massy Tadjedin, alla Festa del Cinema di Roma di quindici anni fa. Keira Knightley e Sam Worthington sono sposati e si amano, ma la notte in cui lui ha una trasferta aziendale in compagnia della collega Eva Mendes e lei incontra per caso la vecchia fiamma parigina Guillaume Canet, tutto viene messo in discussione. Intriga vedere tanti bei volti alle prese con scintille d’amore e lampi di tentazione, ma non tutto funziona veramente. Resta una visione piacevole per il tempo in cui si guarda, ma diciamo che non finirà nella lista dei migliori film di questo secolo, dai.
•••Tutti Vogliono Qualcosa (2016): Dati Letterboxd alla mano (come potete vedere nell’immagine in basso), in nove anni è la settima volta che vedo questo film di Richard Linklater. Una volta l’ho visto in proiezione stampa, un’altra al cinema, poi durante una febbre estiva e così via, fino a una sera, distrutto dal trasloco, in cui avevo bisogno di qualcosa di leggero, confortevole, da mozzicare. Senza pensarci troppo, la scelta è caduta ancora su questo coming of age che racconta gli ultimi giorni di festa di una squadra di baseball universitaria prima dell’inizio delle lezioni. Linklater come al solito è perfetto nel cogliere il periodo storico dei suoi film, in questo caso il 1980, inizio di un nuovo decennio in cui il funk e il punk erano al massimo del loro splendore e dove il sesso sicuro era ancora un’espressione sconosciuta. Il regista cristallizza in questo splendido weekend il primo balzo fuori dal nido di questi baffuti yes men, ognuno in dovere di sfruttare ogni esperienza al massimo, prima che si trasformi in un rimpianto. Da segnalare un ottimo Glen Powell, forse il migliore della banda, che ai tempi non era ancora molto conosciuto.
Li chiamavano comfort movie
••••Chi Ha Incastrato Roger Rabbit? (1988): A proposito di comfort movie, quanto ho bisogno di un po’ di conforto in questi giorni di caldo, pacchi pieni di libri, vestiti, oggetti accumulati in tutta una vita… Mi perdonerete la scarsa originalità nel proporvi film già visti e rivisti, ma la boccata d’ossigeno che ti dà questo capolavoro di Robert Zemeckis, davvero pochi altri. Anni 40: in una Los Angeles dove esseri umani e cartoni animati vivono gomito a gomito, il fondatore della famigerata Cartoonia viene trovato ucciso e la colpa ricade sull’esuberante Roger Rabbit, un coniglio fanfarone che, come missione di vita, vuole regalare risate a chi ha davanti. A indagare sul misfatto c’è un investigatore privato, Bob Hoskins, poco disponibile a sopportare le idiozie dei cartoni, ma ben deciso a scoprire la verità sull’omicidio. Un noir postmoderno, pieno di citazioni, musiche stupende, scene memorabili e un Christopher Lloyd strepitoso (quanti traumi da bambino a causa della salamoia…). Capolavoro assoluto.
•••••Pierino Contro Tutti (1981): La scorsa settimana stavo lavorando a uno shooting fotografico quando mi è arrivata la notizia della scomparsa di Alvaro Vitali. Tornato a casa ho trovato su Cine34 questo film di Marino Girolami, che non vedevo da quando ero ragazzino e, che fai, non te lo rivedi? Mi rendo conto che quando ero piccolo ridevo per delle scemenze incredibili, ma ai tempi, vi dirò, avevano un suo senso. Oggi, se si toglie dal contesto in cui è nato, è pressoché inguardabile, una raccolta di gag, di barzellette grossolane e volgari (alcune ancora divertenti, per carità!). Mezza stella in più per affetto più che per il suo valore effettivo. Forse sarebbe stato meglio conservare il ricordo di bambino, ma almeno rivederlo mi ha dato l’occasione di scoprire su Letterboxd il titolo inglese del film: Desirable Teacher!
••½SERIE TV: La scorsa settimana è cominciata la quarta stagione di The Bear e, per l’occasione, ho visto tutte e tre le precedenti, visto che è una serie di cui sentivo parlare benissimo, che ha vinto tanti premi e dalla quale ero molto incuriosito. Ci sono cose che mi sono piaciute moltissimo (la caratterizzazione dei personaggi, tutti i momenti in cui ci sono in scena Carmy e Richie, l’incredibile episodio della cena di Natale, nella seconda stagione), altre cose invece mi hanno un po’ appesantito la visione (molti episodi riempitivi o filler, come si dice in gergo, pochi spiragli di luce e tante situazioni ansiogene o leggermente disturbanti, che rendono le vicende un po’ ripetitive). Nel complesso però è senza dubbio una serie che vale la pena vedere e devo dire che i primi episodi della quarta stagione promettono bene: una partenza forse migliore rispetto alle prime puntate della seconda e della terza stagione, il che lascia davvero ben sperare. Ne riparleremo.
#40AnniVergine #chiHaIncastratoRogerRabbit #Cinema #daVedere #film #lastNight #pierinoControTutti #recensione #theBear #treAmiche #tuttiVoglionoQualcosa #volvereis
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Weekly Update from the Open Journal of Astrophysics – 12/04/2025
Time for the weekly Saturday morning update of papers published at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. Since the last update we have published four new papers, which brings the number in Volume 8 (2025) up to 37 and the total so far published by OJAp up to 272.
In chronological order of publication, the four papers published this week, with their overlays, are as follows. You can click on the images of the overlays to make them larger should you wish to do so.
The first paper to report is “Searching for new physics using high precision absorption spectroscopy; continuum placement uncertainties and the fine structure constant in strong gravity” by Chung-Chi Lee (Big Questions Institute (BQI), Sydney, Australia), John K. Webb (Cambridge, UK), Darren Dougan (BQI), Vladimir A. Dzuba & Victor V. Flambaum (UNSW, Australia) and Dinko Milaković (Trieste, Italy).
This presents a discussion of the problem of continuum placement in high-resolution spectroscopy, which impacts significantly on fine structure constant measurements, and a method for mitigating its effects. The paper is in the folder Solar and Stellar Astrophysics and was published on Tuesday 8th April 2025. The overlay is here:
You can find the officially-accepted version of the paper on arXiv here.
The second paper to announce, also published on 8th April 2025, is “Deciphering Spatially Resolved Lyman-Alpha Profiles in Reionization Analogs: The Sunburst Arc at Cosmic Noon” by Erik Solhaug (Chicago, USA), Hsiao-Wen Chen (Chicago), Mandy C. Chen (Chicago), Fakhri Zahedy (University of North Texas), Max Gronke (MPA Garching, Germany), Magdalena J. Hamel-Bravo (Swinburne, Australia), Matthew B. Bayliss (U. Cincinatti), Michael D. Gladders (Chicago), Sebastián López (Universidad de Chile), Nicolás Tejos (Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Chile).
This paper, which presents a study of the Lyman-alpha emission properties of a gravitationally-lensed galaxy at redshift z=2.37, appears in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies. It was published
You can read the officially accepted version of this paper on arXiv here.
The third paper of the week is “On the progenitor of the type Ia supernova remnant 0509-67.5” by Noam Soker (Technion, Haifa, Israel). This one was published on Wednesday 9th April 2025 in the folder High-Energy Astrophysical Phenomena. The author discusses possible ideas for the origin of a supernova that exploded inside a planetary nebula.
Here is the overlay:
You can find the officially accepted version of this paper on arXiv here.
Last (but certainly) not least for this week, published on April 11th 2025, we have “Are Models of Strong Gravitational Lensing by Clusters Converging or Diverging?” by Derek Perera (U. Minnesota), John H Miller Jr & Liliya L. R. Williams (U. Minnesota, USA), Jori Liesenborgs (Hasselt U., Belgium), Allison Keen (U. Minnesota), Sung Kei Li (Hong Kong University), Marceau Limousin (Aix Marseille Univ., France). This papers study various models of a strong gravitational lensing system, the results suggesting that lens models are neither converging to nor diverging from a common solution for this system, regardless of method.
Here is the overlay:
The official published version can be found on the arXiv here.
That’s all the papers for this week. By way of a postscript I’ll just mention that the gremlins that have affected submissions to Crossref (which we rely on for registering the article metadata) have now been resolved and normal services have been restored.
#arXiv240910604v5 #arXiv241001849v2 #arXiv241105083v2 #arXiv250304709v2 #AstrophysicsOfGalaxies #CosmicNoon #DiamondOpenAccess #DiamondOpenAccessPublishing #fineStructureConstant #HighEnergyAstrophysicalPhenomena #HighResolutionSpectroscopy #PlanetaryNebula #reionization #SolarAndStellarAstrophysics #strongGravitationalLensing #SupernovaRemnant #TheOpenJournalOfAstrophysics
-
Weekly Update from the Open Journal of Astrophysics – 12/04/2025
Time for the weekly Saturday morning update of papers published at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. Since the last update we have published four new papers, which brings the number in Volume 8 (2025) up to 37 and the total so far published by OJAp up to 272.
In chronological order of publication, the four papers published this week, with their overlays, are as follows. You can click on the images of the overlays to make them larger should you wish to do so.
The first paper to report is “Searching for new physics using high precision absorption spectroscopy; continuum placement uncertainties and the fine structure constant in strong gravity” by Chung-Chi Lee (Big Questions Institute (BQI), Sydney, Australia), John K. Webb (Cambridge, UK), Darren Dougan (BQI), Vladimir A. Dzuba & Victor V. Flambaum (UNSW, Australia) and Dinko Milaković (Trieste, Italy).
This presents a discussion of the problem of continuum placement in high-resolution spectroscopy, which impacts significantly on fine structure constant measurements, and a method for mitigating its effects. The paper is in the folder Solar and Stellar Astrophysics and was published on Tuesday 8th April 2025. The overlay is here:
You can find the officially-accepted version of the paper on arXiv here.
The second paper to announce, also published on 8th April 2025, is “Deciphering Spatially Resolved Lyman-Alpha Profiles in Reionization Analogs: The Sunburst Arc at Cosmic Noon” by Erik Solhaug (Chicago, USA), Hsiao-Wen Chen (Chicago), Mandy C. Chen (Chicago), Fakhri Zahedy (University of North Texas), Max Gronke (MPA Garching, Germany), Magdalena J. Hamel-Bravo (Swinburne, Australia), Matthew B. Bayliss (U. Cincinatti), Michael D. Gladders (Chicago), Sebastián López (Universidad de Chile), Nicolás Tejos (Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Chile).
This paper, which presents a study of the Lyman-alpha emission properties of a gravitationally-lensed galaxy at redshift z=2.37, appears in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies. It was published
You can read the officially accepted version of this paper on arXiv here.
The third paper of the week is “On the progenitor of the type Ia supernova remnant 0509-67.5” by Noam Soker (Technion, Haifa, Israel). This one was published on Wednesday 9th April 2025 in the folder High-Energy Astrophysical Phenomena. The author discusses possible ideas for the origin of a supernova that exploded inside a planetary nebula.
Here is the overlay:
You can find the officially accepted version of this paper on arXiv here.
Last (but certainly) not least for this week, published on April 11th 2025, we have “Are Models of Strong Gravitational Lensing by Clusters Converging or Diverging?” by Derek Perera (U. Minnesota), John H Miller Jr & Liliya L. R. Williams (U. Minnesota, USA), Jori Liesenborgs (Hasselt U., Belgium), Allison Keen (U. Minnesota), Sung Kei Li (Hong Kong University), Marceau Limousin (Aix Marseille Univ., France). This papers study various models of a strong gravitational lensing system, the results suggesting that lens models are neither converging to nor diverging from a common solution for this system, regardless of method.
Here is the overlay:
The official published version can be found on the arXiv here.
That’s all the papers for this week. By way of a postscript I’ll just mention that the gremlins that have affected submissions to Crossref (which we rely on for registering the article metadata) have now been resolved and normal services have been restored.
#arXiv240910604v5 #arXiv241001849v2 #arXiv241105083v2 #arXiv250304709v2 #AstrophysicsOfGalaxies #CosmicNoon #DiamondOpenAccess #DiamondOpenAccessPublishing #fineStructureConstant #HighEnergyAstrophysicalPhenomena #HighResolutionSpectroscopy #PlanetaryNebula #reionization #SolarAndStellarAstrophysics #strongGravitationalLensing #SupernovaRemnant #TheOpenJournalOfAstrophysics
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😒 Coussin éloigné
→ https://danstonchat.com/quote/%f0%9f%98%92-coussin-eloigne.html
Hitzze: Vous estimez à combien mon niveau de « j’ose pas » je vous raconte
Hitzze: Je suis rentré dans un magasin de canapé poltronne et sofa, j’étais littéralement le seul dans le magasin.. Pour pas faire con j’ai pris un truc parce que je voulais pas sortir sans rien 😭😭😭😭
Hitzze: Je suis ce genre de personne qui prend un truc même si il a pas besoin pour pas faire con putain
GrahKun: Ahahaha des coussins dont t’as pas besoin en plus je suis sure
GrahKun: j’espère qu’ils sont beaux
Hitzze: En vrai pas tant que ça
Hitzze: Je me suis retrouvé à signer 12 feuilles pour deux foutu coussin que je reçois dans 6 semaines mdr
Hitzze: Deux coussins 60 euros j’ai envie de m’ouvrir les veines avec un opinel rouillé
GrahKun: Ah ouais, quand même
GrahKun: J’suis morte t’es vraiment un singe
Hitzze: Littéralement
GrahKun: oui mais t’as des superbes coussins pour ton canapé
Hitzze: En plumes de canard…
Hitzze: Qui passent en machine à 30•
Hitzze: Que je peux repasser
Hitzze: …
GrahKun: magnifique
GrahKun: Qui repasse ses coussins putain
Hitzze: Je sais pas grahkun
Hitzze: Ma mère vient de me dire que y avais des chances que je sois allergique aux plumes de canard.
Hitzze: Encore plus content d’avoir acheté 60 euros de coussin
Hitzze: Je suis vraiment un gros con
GrahKun: je peux pas m’empêcher de rire en pensant à toi qui va attendre tes coussins pendant 6 semaines
Alphanibal: Putain il a fait un crédit pour des coussins auxquels il est allergique et qu’il va devoir repasser
Hitzze: Carrément y avais une notice d’utilisation de 3 pages
GrahKun: t’as intéret à bien les repasser
Hitzze: Je vais attendre 6 semaines je vais les recevoir, dormir dessus et mourir de suffocation parce que je serai allergique
Alphanibal: Bah oui forcément, tu les auras pas repasser
Alphanibal: Et hop, englouti par les plis
GrahKun: Ahahahaha
Hitzze: Mdr aller tous vous faire cuir un œuf avec votre repassage
Hitzze: Juste avant je suis allé chez action et pareil je voulais pas sortir les mains vide
Hitzze: J’ai acheté 2 bougies dont une que j’aime pas trop l’odeur, je voulais pas faire con et acheter deux fois la même
Alphanibal: Non mais c’est un sketch
GrahKun: Plus il ajoute de détails et pire c’est -
😒 Coussin éloigné
→ https://danstonchat.com/quote/%f0%9f%98%92-coussin-eloigne.html
Hitzze: Vous estimez à combien mon niveau de « j’ose pas » je vous raconte
1 Error happened.
Hitzze: Je suis rentré dans un magasin de canapé poltronne et sofa, j’étais littéralement le seul dans le magasin.. Pour pas faire con j’ai pris un truc parce que je voulais pas sortir sans rien 😭😭😭😭
Hitzze: Je suis ce genre de personne qui prend un truc même si il a pas besoin pour pas faire con putain
GrahKun: Ahahaha des coussins dont t’as pas besoin en plus je suis sure
GrahKun: j’espère qu’ils sont beaux
Hitzze: En vrai pas tant que ça
Hitzze: Je me suis retrouvé à signer 12 feuilles pour deux foutu coussin que je reçois dans 6 semaines mdr
Hitzze: Deux coussins 60 euros j’ai envie de m’ouvrir les veines avec un opinel rouillé
GrahKun: Ah ouais, quand même
GrahKun: J’suis morte t’es vraiment un singe
Hitzze: Littéralement
GrahKun: oui mais t’as des superbes coussins pour ton canapé
Hitzze: En plumes de canard…
Hitzze: Qui passent en machine à 30•
Hitzze: Que je peux repasser
Hitzze: …
GrahKun: magnifique
GrahKun: Qui repasse ses coussins putain
Hitzze: Je sais pas grahkun
Hitzze: Ma mère vient de me dire que y avais des chances que je sois allergique aux plumes de canard.
Hitzze: Encore plus content d’avoir acheté 60 euros de coussin
Hitzze: Je suis vraiment un gros con
GrahKun: je peux pas m’empêcher de rire en pensant à toi qui va attendre tes coussins pendant 6 semaines
Alphanibal: Putain il a fait un crédit pour des coussins auxquels il est allergique et qu’il va devoir repasser
Hitzze: Carrément y avais une notice d’utilisation de 3 pages
GrahKun: t’as intéret à bien les repasser
Hitzze: Je vais attendre 6 semaines je vais les recevoir, dormir dessus et mourir de suffocation parce que je serai allergique
Alphanibal: Bah oui forcément, tu les auras pas repasser
Alphanibal: Et hop, englouti par les plis
GrahKun: Ahahahaha
Hitzze: Mdr aller tous vous faire cuir un œuf avec votre repassage
Hitzze: Juste avant je suis allé chez action et pareil je voulais pas sortir les mains vide
Hitzze: J’ai acheté 2 bougies dont une que j’aime pas trop l’odeur, je voulais pas faire con et acheter deux fois la même
Alphanibal: Non mais c’est un sketch
GrahKun: Plus il ajoute de détails et pire c’est -
😒 Coussin éloigné
→ https://danstonchat.com/quote/%f0%9f%98%92-coussin-eloigne.html
Hitzze: Vous estimez à combien mon niveau de « j’ose pas » je vous raconte
1 Error happened.
Hitzze: Je suis rentré dans un magasin de canapé poltronne et sofa, j’étais littéralement le seul dans le magasin.. Pour pas faire con j’ai pris un truc parce que je voulais pas sortir sans rien 😭😭😭😭
Hitzze: Je suis ce genre de personne qui prend un truc même si il a pas besoin pour pas faire con putain
GrahKun: Ahahaha des coussins dont t’as pas besoin en plus je suis sure
GrahKun: j’espère qu’ils sont beaux
Hitzze: En vrai pas tant que ça
Hitzze: Je me suis retrouvé à signer 12 feuilles pour deux foutu coussin que je reçois dans 6 semaines mdr
Hitzze: Deux coussins 60 euros j’ai envie de m’ouvrir les veines avec un opinel rouillé
GrahKun: Ah ouais, quand même
GrahKun: J’suis morte t’es vraiment un singe
Hitzze: Littéralement
GrahKun: oui mais t’as des superbes coussins pour ton canapé
Hitzze: En plumes de canard…
Hitzze: Qui passent en machine à 30•
Hitzze: Que je peux repasser
Hitzze: …
GrahKun: magnifique
GrahKun: Qui repasse ses coussins putain
Hitzze: Je sais pas grahkun
Hitzze: Ma mère vient de me dire que y avais des chances que je sois allergique aux plumes de canard.
Hitzze: Encore plus content d’avoir acheté 60 euros de coussin
Hitzze: Je suis vraiment un gros con
GrahKun: je peux pas m’empêcher de rire en pensant à toi qui va attendre tes coussins pendant 6 semaines
Alphanibal: Putain il a fait un crédit pour des coussins auxquels il est allergique et qu’il va devoir repasser
Hitzze: Carrément y avais une notice d’utilisation de 3 pages
GrahKun: t’as intéret à bien les repasser
Hitzze: Je vais attendre 6 semaines je vais les recevoir, dormir dessus et mourir de suffocation parce que je serai allergique
Alphanibal: Bah oui forcément, tu les auras pas repasser
Alphanibal: Et hop, englouti par les plis
GrahKun: Ahahahaha
Hitzze: Mdr aller tous vous faire cuir un œuf avec votre repassage
Hitzze: Juste avant je suis allé chez action et pareil je voulais pas sortir les mains vide
Hitzze: J’ai acheté 2 bougies dont une que j’aime pas trop l’odeur, je voulais pas faire con et acheter deux fois la même
Alphanibal: Non mais c’est un sketch
GrahKun: Plus il ajoute de détails et pire c’est -
😒 Coussin éloigné
→ https://danstonchat.com/quote/%f0%9f%98%92-coussin-eloigne.html
Hitzze: Vous estimez à combien mon niveau de « j’ose pas » je vous raconte
Error happened.
Hitzze: Je suis rentré dans un magasin de canapé poltronne et sofa, j’étais littéralement le seul dans le magasin.. Pour pas faire con j’ai pris un truc parce que je voulais pas sortir sans rien 😭😭😭😭
Hitzze: Je suis ce genre de personne qui prend un truc même si il a pas besoin pour pas faire con putain
GrahKun: Ahahaha des coussins dont t’as pas besoin en plus je suis sure
GrahKun: j’espère qu’ils sont beaux
Hitzze: En vrai pas tant que ça
Hitzze: Je me suis retrouvé à signer 12 feuilles pour deux foutu coussin que je reçois dans 6 semaines mdr
Hitzze: Deux coussins 60 euros j’ai envie de m’ouvrir les veines avec un opinel rouillé
GrahKun: Ah ouais, quand même
GrahKun: J’suis morte t’es vraiment un singe
Hitzze: Littéralement
GrahKun: oui mais t’as des superbes coussins pour ton canapé
Hitzze: En plumes de canard…
Hitzze: Qui passent en machine à 30•
Hitzze: Que je peux repasser
Hitzze: …
GrahKun: magnifique
GrahKun: Qui repasse ses coussins putain
Hitzze: Je sais pas grahkun
Hitzze: Ma mère vient de me dire que y avais des chances que je sois allergique aux plumes de canard.
Hitzze: Encore plus content d’avoir acheté 60 euros de coussin
Hitzze: Je suis vraiment un gros con
GrahKun: je peux pas m’empêcher de rire en pensant à toi qui va attendre tes coussins pendant 6 semaines
Alphanibal: Putain il a fait un crédit pour des coussins auxquels il est allergique et qu’il va devoir repasser
Hitzze: Carrément y avais une notice d’utilisation de 3 pages
GrahKun: t’as intéret à bien les repasser
Hitzze: Je vais attendre 6 semaines je vais les recevoir, dormir dessus et mourir de suffocation parce que je serai allergique
Alphanibal: Bah oui forcément, tu les auras pas repasser
Alphanibal: Et hop, englouti par les plis
GrahKun: Ahahahaha
Hitzze: Mdr aller tous vous faire cuir un œuf avec votre repassage
Hitzze: Juste avant je suis allé chez action et pareil je voulais pas sortir les mains vide
Hitzze: J’ai acheté 2 bougies dont une que j’aime pas trop l’odeur, je voulais pas faire con et acheter deux fois la même
Alphanibal: Non mais c’est un sketch
GrahKun: Plus il ajoute de détails et pire c’est -
😒 Coussin éloigné
→ https://danstonchat.com/quote/%f0%9f%98%92-coussin-eloigne.html
Hitzze: Vous estimez à combien mon niveau de « j’ose pas » je vous raconte
Hitzze: Je suis rentré dans un magasin de canapé poltronne et sofa, j’étais littéralement le seul dans le magasin.. Pour pas faire con j’ai pris un truc parce que je voulais pas sortir sans rien 😭😭😭😭
Hitzze: Je suis ce genre de personne qui prend un truc même si il a pas besoin pour pas faire con putain
GrahKun: Ahahaha des coussins dont t’as pas besoin en plus je suis sure
GrahKun: j’espère qu’ils sont beaux
Hitzze: En vrai pas tant que ça
Hitzze: Je me suis retrouvé à signer 12 feuilles pour deux foutu coussin que je reçois dans 6 semaines mdr
Hitzze: Deux coussins 60 euros j’ai envie de m’ouvrir les veines avec un opinel rouillé
GrahKun: Ah ouais, quand même
GrahKun: J’suis morte t’es vraiment un singe
Hitzze: Littéralement
GrahKun: oui mais t’as des superbes coussins pour ton canapé
Hitzze: En plumes de canard…
Hitzze: Qui passent en machine à 30•
Hitzze: Que je peux repasser
Hitzze: …
GrahKun: magnifique
GrahKun: Qui repasse ses coussins putain
Hitzze: Je sais pas grahkun
Hitzze: Ma mère vient de me dire que y avais des chances que je sois allergique aux plumes de canard.
Hitzze: Encore plus content d’avoir acheté 60 euros de coussin
Hitzze: Je suis vraiment un gros con
GrahKun: je peux pas m’empêcher de rire en pensant à toi qui va attendre tes coussins pendant 6 semaines
Alphanibal: Putain il a fait un crédit pour des coussins auxquels il est allergique et qu’il va devoir repasser
Hitzze: Carrément y avais une notice d’utilisation de 3 pages
GrahKun: t’as intéret à bien les repasser
Hitzze: Je vais attendre 6 semaines je vais les recevoir, dormir dessus et mourir de suffocation parce que je serai allergique
Alphanibal: Bah oui forcément, tu les auras pas repasser
Alphanibal: Et hop, englouti par les plis
GrahKun: Ahahahaha
Hitzze: Mdr aller tous vous faire cuir un œuf avec votre repassage
Hitzze: Juste avant je suis allé chez action et pareil je voulais pas sortir les mains vide
Hitzze: J’ai acheté 2 bougies dont une que j’aime pas trop l’odeur, je voulais pas faire con et acheter deux fois la même
Alphanibal: Non mais c’est un sketch
GrahKun: Plus il ajoute de détails et pire c’est -
@prex Sit down, get a snack and a drink, for this will be long.I wish someone made the federated G+
"The federated G+" was literally made before Google+ itself.diaspora*
Have you ever heard of diaspora*?
If not, let me take you back to 2010. Back then, it first came out that Facebook was spying on its users and selling their private data. In spring, four students asked for $12,000 of crowdfunding for an ambitious project: a free, open-source, non-commercial, non-corporate, decentralised alternative to Facebook named diaspora*.
The word spread like wild fire. Tech media jumped upon it. Non-tech mass media jumped upon it. These four guys were about to develop a Facebook killer! Of the requested $12,000, they got over $200,000.
They started working in May, 2010. In October, they presented a first very early alpha version of diaspora* that could only run on Macs as servers. It would take the likely suicide of the project founder, the replacement of the whole development team and several years to even release a first beta. To this day, diaspora* did not have a 1.0 stable release.
In general, diaspora* did not become the huge, super-popular Facebook killer. It always remained obscure.Google+
Then came Google. They saw that people wanted to move away from Facebook, but they thought they had nowhere to go. And Google wanted to exploit the self-same source of income as Facebook. So they launched Google+.
Google+ was a blatant, full-on, all-out rip-off of diaspora*. The circles that almost everyone "knows" were invented by Google? diaspora*'s aspects, stolen by Google. Google's entire new corporate UI design with the black navigation bar at the top? diaspora*'s design.Like, cirlces? So ahead of its times!
Again: diaspora* had Google+'s circles before Google+ had circles. diaspora* has aspects, and Google stole them and named them circles.
Google got away with it easily. Nobody knew diaspora*. Nobody knew what diaspora* looks like. And diaspora* itself had other things to take care of than a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit against a power-mongering Silicon Valley teracorporation or even a C&D against Google.The slow death of diaspora*
But seriously, diaspora* isn't worth looking at nowadays. It may have released a 0.9 beta last year, skipping 0.8 altogether. But it's withering away.
Shortly before New Year's Eve 2024, three major diaspora* pods shut down. According to one statistics website, diaspora* lost more than half its user accounts within three days. For April 1st, 2025, the shutdown of diasp.org, one of the biggest and most important pods, has been announced. JoinDiaspora, the old lighthouse pod, has been gone for quite a while now.
But diaspora*'s issues lie not only in its slow development, but also in its design decisions. It's beautiful, but it's minimalist to the point of being lack-lustre. Also, diaspora* does not support ActivityPub and never will. It only supports its own protocol. The developers have explicitly decided against supporting ActivityPub because Fediverse projects don't "implement ActivityPub", they "implement Mastodon". This, however, also means that diaspora* cannot connect to most of the Fediverse by far.Friendica
But: There's even better than diaspora* and Google+ that's free, open-source, decentralised and federated. And it was there before Google+. I'm not kidding.
Remember, it took four students, $200,000 of crowd-funding and five months (May to October, 2010) to create a first, very unfinished preview of diaspora*.
But the same year, it took one developer and protocol designer with some three decades of experience (@Mike Macgirvin 🖥️), zero crowd-funding and only four months (March to July, 2010) to create a first, very fleshed-out and useable release of something initially called Mistpark.
At this point, when the four diaspora* creators were still tinkering, Mistpark was already more powerful than both diaspora* and Mastodon are today. It already had everything a social network needs. It had diaspora*'s aspects before diaspora* had aspects and long before Google+ had circles; only it called them lists. And Mistpark's lists were diaspora*'s aspects and Google+'s circles on coke.
Since early 2012, Mistpark has been known as Friendica (official website). Since mid-January, 2025, it is the primary go-to alternative to Facebook in the Fediverse. And it has continuously been fully federated with Mastodon for as long as Mastodon has been around. Since January, 2016. Again, I'm not kidding.Friendica's descendants
But Mike didn't stop there. He went on and improved the same concept further and further by forking his own creations and advancing them technologically.
In 2011, he invented the concept of nomadic identity (something that Bluesky claims to have invented much later, but has yet to prove to be functional) to make identites more resilient against server shutdown, and he created another all-new communication protocol named Zot (today known as Nomad) for that purpose.
In 2012, he handed Friendica over to the community and forked it into something called Red, later the Red Matrix. It was the first not only decentralised, but nomadic social server application in the world. In 2015, it was redesigned, vastly expanded in features and renamed Hubzilla (official website).
To this day, Hubzilla is the one most powerful and feature-rich Fediverse server application. It is not a vague concept or in early development; instead, it has been a rock-solid multi-purpose daily driver for longer than Mastodon has been around.
Another one of its key features is what's the second-most advanced and fine-grained permissions system in the Fediverse, something that Mastodon doesn't have at all. Its privacy groups are diaspora*'s aspects or Google+'s circles on coke and 'roids because you can do things with them that are impossible even on Friendica, much less diaspora* or Google+, not to mention what Mastodon calls lists. They aren't called privacy groups for nothing.
In 2018, Mike handed the development of Hubzilla over to the community to concentrate on the further advancement of Zot. This led to:- Osada (2018, discontinued in 2019)
- Zap (2018, discontinued in 2022)
- another Osada (2019, discontinued later in 2019)
- yet another Osada (2020, discontinued in 2022)
- Redmatrix 2020 (2020, discontinued in 2022)
- Mistpark 2020 a.k.a. Misty (2020, discontinued in 2022)
- Roadhouse (2021, discontinued in 2022)
- (streams) (code repository, 2021)
- Forte (code repository, 2024)
Except for the first Osada, all of them were or still are nomadic. Except for Zap until some point in 2019, all of them supported or still support ActivityPub. And they all had or still have an advanced permissions system which, at least on (streams) and Forte, even slightly surpasses Hubzilla's. Their access lists are at least on par with Hubzilla's privacy groups.Finally
If you're looking for a decentralised Google+ drop-in replacement, that'd be diaspora*. But diaspora* is dying, and it will never federate with Mastodon.
If you're also interested in something that's even better than Google+, check Friendica, Hubzilla and (streams).
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Google+ #GooglePlus #diaspora* #Mistpark #Friendika #Friendica #RedMatrix #Hubzilla #Osada #Zap #Mistpark2020 #Misty #Redmatrix2020 #Roadhouse #Streams #(streams) #Forte #Lists #Aspects #Circles #PrivacyGroups #AccessLists -
@prex Sit down, get a snack and a drink, for this will be long.I wish someone made the federated G+
"The federated G+" was literally made before Google+ itself.diaspora*
Have you ever heard of diaspora*?
If not, let me take you back to 2010. Back then, it first came out that Facebook was spying on its users and selling their private data. In spring, four students asked for $12,000 of crowdfunding for an ambitious project: a free, open-source, non-commercial, non-corporate, decentralised alternative to Facebook named diaspora*.
The word spread like wild fire. Tech media jumped upon it. Non-tech mass media jumped upon it. These four guys were about to develop a Facebook killer! Of the requested $12,000, they got over $200,000.
They started working in May, 2010. In October, they presented a first very early alpha version of diaspora* that could only run on Macs as servers. It would take the likely suicide of the project founder, the replacement of the whole development team and several years to even release a first beta. To this day, diaspora* did not have a 1.0 stable release.
In general, diaspora* did not become the huge, super-popular Facebook killer. It always remained obscure.Google+
Then came Google. They saw that people wanted to move away from Facebook, but they thought they had nowhere to go. And Google wanted to exploit the self-same source of income as Facebook. So they launched Google+.
Google+ was a blatant, full-on, all-out rip-off of diaspora*. The circles that almost everyone "knows" were invented by Google? diaspora*'s aspects, stolen by Google. Google's entire new corporate UI design with the black navigation bar at the top? diaspora*'s design.Like, cirlces? So ahead of its times!
Again: diaspora* had Google+'s circles before Google+ had circles. diaspora* has aspects, and Google stole them and named them circles.
Google got away with it easily. Nobody knew diaspora*. Nobody knew what diaspora* looks like. And diaspora* itself had other things to take care of than a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit against a power-mongering Silicon Valley teracorporation or even a C&D against Google.The slow death of diaspora*
But seriously, diaspora* isn't worth looking at nowadays. It may have released a 0.9 beta last year, skipping 0.8 altogether. But it's withering away.
Shortly before New Year's Eve 2024, three major diaspora* pods shut down. According to one statistics website, diaspora* lost more than half its user accounts within three days. For April 1st, 2025, the shutdown of diasp.org, one of the biggest and most important pods, has been announced. JoinDiaspora, the old lighthouse pod, has been gone for quite a while now.
But diaspora*'s issues lie not only in its slow development, but also in its design decisions. It's beautiful, but it's minimalist to the point of being lack-lustre. Also, diaspora* does not support ActivityPub and never will. It only supports its own protocol. The developers have explicitly decided against supporting ActivityPub because Fediverse projects don't "implement ActivityPub", they "implement Mastodon". This, however, also means that diaspora* cannot connect to most of the Fediverse by far.Friendica
But: There's even better than diaspora* and Google+ that's free, open-source, decentralised and federated. And it was there before Google+. I'm not kidding.
Remember, it took four students, $200,000 of crowd-funding and five months (May to October, 2010) to create a first, very unfinished preview of diaspora*.
But the same year, it took one developer and protocol designer with some three decades of experience (@Mike Macgirvin 🖥️), zero crowd-funding and only four months (March to July, 2010) to create a first, very fleshed-out and useable release of something initially called Mistpark.
At this point, when the four diaspora* creators were still tinkering, Mistpark was already more powerful than both diaspora* and Mastodon are today. It already had everything a social network needs. It had diaspora*'s aspects before diaspora* had aspects and long before Google+ had circles; only it called them lists. And Mistpark's lists were diaspora*'s aspects and Google+'s circles on coke.
Since early 2012, Mistpark has been known as Friendica (official website). Since mid-January, 2025, it is the primary go-to alternative to Facebook in the Fediverse. And it has continuously been fully federated with Mastodon for as long as Mastodon has been around. Since January, 2016. Again, I'm not kidding.Friendica's descendants
But Mike didn't stop there. He went on and improved the same concept further and further by forking his own creations and advancing them technologically.
In 2011, he invented the concept of nomadic identity (something that Bluesky claims to have invented much later, but has yet to prove to be functional) to make identites more resilient against server shutdown, and he created another all-new communication protocol named Zot (today known as Nomad) for that purpose.
In 2012, he handed Friendica over to the community and forked it into something called Red, later the Red Matrix. It was the first not only decentralised, but nomadic social server application in the world. In 2015, it was redesigned, vastly expanded in features and renamed Hubzilla (official website).
To this day, Hubzilla is the one most powerful and feature-rich Fediverse server application. It is not a vague concept or in early development; instead, it has been a rock-solid multi-purpose daily driver for longer than Mastodon has been around.
Another one of its key features is what's the second-most advanced and fine-grained permissions system in the Fediverse, something that Mastodon doesn't have at all. Its privacy groups are diaspora*'s aspects or Google+'s circles on coke and 'roids because you can do things with them that are impossible even on Friendica, much less diaspora* or Google+, not to mention what Mastodon calls lists. They aren't called privacy groups for nothing.
In 2018, Mike handed the development of Hubzilla over to the community to concentrate on the further advancement of Zot. This led to:- Osada (2018, discontinued in 2019)
- Zap (2018, discontinued in 2022)
- another Osada (2019, discontinued later in 2019)
- yet another Osada (2020, discontinued in 2022)
- Redmatrix 2020 (2020, discontinued in 2022)
- Mistpark 2020 a.k.a. Misty (2020, discontinued in 2022)
- Roadhouse (2021, discontinued in 2022)
- (streams) (code repository, 2021)
- Forte (code repository, 2024)
Except for the first Osada, all of them were or still are nomadic. Except for Zap until some point in 2019, all of them supported or still support ActivityPub. And they all had or still have an advanced permissions system which, at least on (streams) and Forte, even slightly surpasses Hubzilla's. Their access lists are at least on par with Hubzilla's privacy groups.Finally
If you're looking for a decentralised Google+ drop-in replacement, that'd be diaspora*. But diaspora* is dying, and it will never federate with Mastodon.
If you're also interested in something that's even better than Google+, check Friendica, Hubzilla and (streams).
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Google+ #GooglePlus #diaspora* #Mistpark #Friendika #Friendica #RedMatrix #Hubzilla #Osada #Zap #Mistpark2020 #Misty #Redmatrix2020 #Roadhouse #Streams #(streams) #Forte #Lists #Aspects #Circles #PrivacyGroups #AccessLists -
Weekly Update from the Open Journal of Astrophysics – 01/02/2025
It’s Saturday morning, so once again it’s time for an update of papers published at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. There were no papers to report last week but since the last update we have published four new papers, which brings the number in Volume 8 (2025) up to 11 and the total so far published by OJAp up to 246.
In chronological order of publication, the four papers published this week, with their overlays, are as follows. You can click on the images of the overlays to make them larger should you wish to do so.
First one up is “A halo model approach for mock catalogs of time-variable strong gravitational lenses” by Katsuya T. Abe & Masamune Oguri (Chiba U, Japan), Simon Birrer & Narayan Khadka (Stony Brook, USA), Philip J. Marshall (Stanford, USA), Cameron Lemon (Stockholm U., Sweden), Anupreeta More (IUCAA, India), and the LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration. It was published on 27th January 2025 in the folder marked Cosmology and NonGalactic Astrophysics. The paper discusses how to generate mock catalogs of strongly lensed QSOs and Supernovae on galaxy-, group-, and cluster-scales based on a halo model that incorporates dark matter halos, galaxies, and subhalos.
You can find the officially accepted version of this paper on arXiv here.
This paper, also published on Monday 27th January 2025, but in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies, is “The Soltan argument at redshift 6: UV-luminous quasars contribute less than 10% to early black hole mass growth” by Knud Jahnke (MPI Heidelberg, Germany). This paper presents an argument that almost all growth of supermassive black hole mass at z>6 does not take place in UV-luminous quasars.
Here is a screen grab of the overlay, which includes the abstract:You can find the officially accepted version of the paper on the arXiv here.
The third paper to announce, published on 29th January 2025 in the folder Cosmology and NonGalactic Astrophysics, is “A Heavy Seed Black Hole Mass Function at High Redshift – Prospects for LISA” by Joe McCaffrey & John Regan (Maynooth U., Ireland), Britton Smith (Edinburgh U., UK), John Wise (Georgia Institute of Technology, USA), Brian O’Shea (Michigan State U., USA) and Michael Norman (University of California, San Diego). This is a numerical study of the growth rates of massive black holes in the early Universe and implications for their detection via gravitational wave emission.
You can see the overlay here:
The accepted version of this paper can be found on the arXiv here.
The last paper of this batch is “Forecasting the Detection of Lyman-alpha Forest Weak Lensing from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument and Other Future Surveys” by Patrick Shaw & Rupert A. C. Croft (Carnegie Mellon U., USA) and R. Benton Metcalf (U. Bologna, Italy). This paper, published on January 30th 2025, is about extending the applicationof Lyman-α forest weak gravitational lensing to lower angular source densities than has previously been done, with forecasts for future spectral surveys. It is in the folder marked Cosmology and NonGalactic Astrophysics.
The overlay is here
You can find the accepted version on arXiv here.
Incidentally, we currently have 121 papers under review, including 81 under a revise and resubmit request.
That’s all for this week. I’ll do another update next Saturday.
#arXiv240916413v2 #arXiv241020014v2 #arXiv241103184v2 #arXiv241107509v3 #AstrophysicsOfGalaxies #BlackHoleSeeds #CosmologyAndNonGalacticAstrophysics #DiamondOpenAccess #eLISA #LSST #LymanAlphaForest #OJAp #OpenAccessPublishing #OpenJournalOfAstrophysics #quasars #SoltanArgument #strongGravitationalLensing #TheOpenJournalOfAstrophysics #weakGravitationalLensing
-
Weekly Update from the Open Journal of Astrophysics – 01/02/2025
It’s Saturday morning, so once again it’s time for an update of papers published at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. There were no papers to report last week but since the last update we have published four new papers, which brings the number in Volume 8 (2025) up to 11 and the total so far published by OJAp up to 246.
In chronological order of publication, the four papers published this week, with their overlays, are as follows. You can click on the images of the overlays to make them larger should you wish to do so.
First one up is “A halo model approach for mock catalogs of time-variable strong gravitational lenses” by Katsuya T. Abe & Masamune Oguri (Chiba U, Japan), Simon Birrer & Narayan Khadka (Stony Brook, USA), Philip J. Marshall (Stanford, USA), Cameron Lemon (Stockholm U., Sweden), Anupreeta More (IUCAA, India), and the LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration. It was published on 27th January 2025 in the folder marked Cosmology and NonGalactic Astrophysics. The paper discusses how to generate mock catalogs of strongly lensed QSOs and Supernovae on galaxy-, group-, and cluster-scales based on a halo model that incorporates dark matter halos, galaxies, and subhalos.
You can find the officially accepted version of this paper on arXiv here.
This paper, also published on Monday 27th January 2025, but in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies, is “The Soltan argument at redshift 6: UV-luminous quasars contribute less than 10% to early black hole mass growth” by Knud Jahnke (MPI Heidelberg, Germany). This paper presents an argument that almost all growth of supermassive black hole mass at z>6 does not take place in UV-luminous quasars.
Here is a screen grab of the overlay, which includes the abstract:You can find the officially accepted version of the paper on the arXiv here.
The third paper to announce, published on 29th January 2025 in the folder Cosmology and NonGalactic Astrophysics, is “A Heavy Seed Black Hole Mass Function at High Redshift – Prospects for LISA” by Joe McCaffrey & John Regan (Maynooth U., Ireland), Britton Smith (Edinburgh U., UK), John Wise (Georgia Institute of Technology, USA), Brian O’Shea (Michigan State U., USA) and Michael Norman (University of California, San Diego). This is a numerical study of the growth rates of massive black holes in the early Universe and implications for their detection via gravitational wave emission.
You can see the overlay here:
The accepted version of this paper can be found on the arXiv here.
The last paper of this batch is “Forecasting the Detection of Lyman-alpha Forest Weak Lensing from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument and Other Future Surveys” by Patrick Shaw & Rupert A. C. Croft (Carnegie Mellon U., USA) and R. Benton Metcalf (U. Bologna, Italy). This paper, published on January 30th 2025, is about extending the applicationof Lyman-α forest weak gravitational lensing to lower angular source densities than has previously been done, with forecasts for future spectral surveys. It is in the folder marked Cosmology and NonGalactic Astrophysics.
The overlay is here
You can find the accepted version on arXiv here.
Incidentally, we currently have 121 papers under review, including 81 under a revise and resubmit request.
That’s all for this week. I’ll do another update next Saturday.
#arXiv240916413v2 #arXiv241020014v2 #arXiv241103184v2 #arXiv241107509v3 #AstrophysicsOfGalaxies #BlackHoleSeeds #CosmologyAndNonGalacticAstrophysics #DiamondOpenAccess #eLISA #LSST #LymanAlphaForest #OJAp #OpenAccessPublishing #OpenJournalOfAstrophysics #quasars #SoltanArgument #strongGravitationalLensing #TheOpenJournalOfAstrophysics #weakGravitationalLensing
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English version | Version française
GENÈVE, Suisse, le 8 mars 2024 — La Fondation Apprendre Genève (TGLF) partage une collection de récits intitulée « Des femmes pour la santé », partagées par 177 femmes en première ligne de la santé et de l’action humanitaire.
Télécharger la collection: La Fondation Apprendre Genève (2024). Des femmes pour la santé : Journée internationale de la femme 2024 (1.0). https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10792027
La collection réunit des voix de femmes provenant des premières lignes de la santé et de l’action humanitaire. Ensemble, elles mettent en valeur la résilience, la passion et le leadership des femmes qui font la différence face à la guerre, à la maladie et au changement climatique.
La Fondation a lancé l’appel aux femmes de son réseau international de plus de 60 000 professionnels de la santé, les invitant à partager avec les jeunes femmes et les filles leurs conseils sincères et leur vision de l’avenir.
Les membres de ce réseau, hommes et femmes, sont en première ligne face à l’adversité : ils travaillent dans des zones rurales isolées ou auprès des populations urbaines pauvres. Nombre d’entre eux répondent aux besoins des populations nomades et migrantes, des réfugiés et des personnes déplacées à l’intérieur de leur propre pays.
Imaginez que vous puissiez partager un moment avec un agent de santé communautaire au Nigéria, une infirmière en Inde ou un médecin au Brésil, et écouter leurs histoires de triomphe et de lutte. C’est ce que permet « Des femmes pour la santé ».
Les réponses sont sincères et profondément émouvantes.
Des villages reculés aux bidonvilles urbains, les femmes s’efforcent de construire un avenir meilleur pour leurs communautés.
Ce qui rend cette collection vraiment unique, c’est son authenticité et sa diversité.
« Dans un monde marqué par la guerre, la maladie et la détérioration du climat, l’alphabétisation est vitale pour que la prochaine génération de femmes et de jeunes filles puisse faire de meilleurs choix en matière de santé, de mariage et de revenus. L’alphabétisation est essentielle pour sortir les ménages de la pauvreté, quels qu’ils soient et où qu’ils soient nés.» — Hauwa Abbas, spécialiste en santé publique, Nigéria.
Par leurs paroles, ces femmes offrent des conseils inestimables à la prochaine génération de dirigeantes. Elles partagent les leçons qu’elles ont apprises, les défis auxquels elles ont été confrontées et les espoirs qu’elles nourrissent pour un monde où chaque fille peut vivre une vie saine et épanouie, quel que soit son lieu de naissance.
«Servir l’humanité en tant que travailleur sanitaire ou humanitaire est l’une des carrières les plus gratifiantes qui soient. Bien qu’elle exige beaucoup de travail, le plus important, et ce à quoi on ne pense généralement pas, c’est le travail du cœur qu’elle implique. La capacité d’empathie avec les malades et les personnes ayant des besoins humanitaires est un ingrédient clé de la réussite ». — Ngozi Kennedy MB ChB, MPH, spécialiste de la santé publique, Éthiopie
« Cette collection est une célébration de l’incroyable résilience et du leadership des travailleuses de la santé et des humanitaires du monde entier », a déclaré Reda Sadki, directeur exécutif de la Fondation. « Elle témoigne du pouvoir de la narration pour inspirer le changement et nous unir dans notre vision commune d’un avenir meilleur.»
«Insistez pour avoir un impact générationnel en tant que femme contre TOUTE attente ! N’abandonnez pas, ne cédez pas, ne cédez pas ! La persévérance a raison de la résistance ! C’est ma réussite aujourd’hui, car j’ai relevé de nombreux défis pour mettre en place une surveillance du rotavirus dans mon pays ainsi qu’un plaidoyer pour l’introduction du vaccin contre le rotavirus, qui a finalement abouti à l’introduction du vaccin au Nigéria.» — Professeur Beckie Tagbo, médecin, Institut de la santé infantile, hôpital universitaire de l’université du Nigéria, Enugu, Nigéria.
À l’approche de la Journée internationale de la femme, la Fondation a partagé des aperçus des histoires et des citations sur ses plateformes de médias sociaux. Suivez-les sur LinkedIn, Twitter/X, Facebook, Instagram et Telegram pour avoir un aperçu de l’inspiration qui vous attend.
«Les femmes inspirent les femmes » est plus qu’une simple collection d’histoires. C’est un cri de ralliement pour l’égalité des sexes, une célébration du leadership des femmes et un rappel de l’impact incroyable qu’une seule voix peut avoir. Préparez-vous à être inspirés, émus et responsabilisés par les voix des travailleuses de la santé et des humanitaires du monde entier.
Rejoignez-nous pour amplifier les voix de ces femmes extraordinaires et créer un monde où chaque fille peut s’épanouir.
« La résilience et la détermination face aux difficultés seront essentielles — il est vital de ne pas se laisser dissuader ou décourager face aux revers de l’adversité, qui sont une inévitabilité dans ces sphères. Le travail dans le domaine de la santé ou de l’humanitaire est avant tout une affaire de personnes. Il peut y avoir des jours où vous remettez votre décision en question et c’est là que la détermination vous permet de continuer.» — Genise Pascal-Ferrer Iglesias, coordinatrice des services d’imagerie, Goodwill, Dominique
«Les femmes autonomes donnent du pouvoir aux femmes. Depuis votre naissance, je vous ai accompagnée dans toutes mes activités philanthropiques. […] Je vous souhaite toutes les bénédictions, le bonheur et le succès dans la vie. Un jour, vous écrirez une lettre similaire à votre propre fille en lui disant : “Les femmes autonomes autonomisent les femmes.» — Dr Faiza Rabbani, spécialiste de la santé publique (MPH), district de Lahore, province du Pendjab, Pakistan
Téléchargez « Des femmes pour la santé » via ce lien https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10783218
A propos de la Fondation Apprendre Genève
Pour en savoir plus sur La Fondation Apprendre Genève : https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7316466
- Créée par un groupe d’innovateurs et de scientifiques de l’apprentissage ayant pour mission de découvrir de nouvelles façons de conduire le changement, l’équipe de la Fondation combine plus de 70 ans d’expérience à la fois avec un travail basé dans le pays (sur le terrain) et avec des partenaires nationaux, régionaux et internationaux.
- Notre petite équipe agile, entièrement à distance, soutient déjà plus de 60 000 professionnels de la santé qui conduisent le changement dans 137 pays.
- Nous sommes en première ligne : 21 % sont confrontés à des conflits armés ; 25 % travaillent avec des réfugiés ou des populations déplacées à l’intérieur du pays ; 62 % travaillent dans des zones rurales éloignées ; 47 % avec les pauvres des villes ; 36 % soutiennent les besoins des populations nomades/migrantes.
Le modèle innovant de la Fondation :
- aide les acteurs locaux à agir avec les communautés pour relever les défis locaux, et
- fournit les outils pour construire un réseau mondial, une plateforme et une communauté d’agents de santé qui peuvent augmenter l’impact local pour la santé internationale.
En 2019, la recherche a montré que l’approche de la Fondation peut accélérer de 7X la mise en œuvre de stratégies innovantes menées localement, et fonctionne particulièrement bien dans les contextes fragiles.
Share this:
#francophone #gender #globalHealth #HRH #InternationalWomenSDay #IWD2024 #JournéeInternationaleDesFemmes #WomenInspiringWomen
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- TANIGUCHI K, Noshi T, Omoto S, Sato A, et al.
The impact of PA/I38 substitutions and PA polymorphisms on the susceptibility of zoonotic influenza A viruses to baloxavir.
Arch Virol. 2024;169:29.
PubMed: https://www.amedeo.com/p2.php?id=38216710&s=flu&pm=2
ABSTRACT available
Share: https://m.amedeo.com/38216710 - LIU H, Wang J, Li S, Sun Y, et al.
The unfolded protein response pathway as a possible link in the pathogenesis of COVID-19 and sepsis.
Arch Virol. 2024;169:20.
PubMed: https://www.amedeo.com/p2.php?id=38191819&s=flu&pm=2
ABSTRACT available
Share: https://m.amedeo.com/38191819 - Update to living systematic review on SARS-CoV-2 positivity in offspring and timing of mother-to-child transmission.
BMJ. 2024;384:p2929.
PubMed: https://www.amedeo.com/p2.php?id=38199645&s=flu&pm=2
Share: https://m.amedeo.com/38199645 - TANNE JH.
Covid-19: Some US states and hospitals recommend masks again.
BMJ. 2024;384:q26.
PubMed: https://www.amedeo.com/p2.php?id=38182176&s=flu&pm=2
Share: https://m.amedeo.com/38182176 - NASSAR K, El-Mekawey D, Elmasry AE, Refaey MS, et al.
The significance of caloric restriction mimetics as anti-aging drugs.
Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2024;692:149354.
PubMed: https://www.amedeo.com/p2.php?id=38091837&s=flu&pm=2
ABSTRACT available
Share: https://m.amedeo.com/38091837 - JIANG H, Zou X, Zhou X, Zhang J, et al.
Crystal structure of SARS-CoV-2 main protease (M(pro)) mutants in complex with the non-covalent inhibitor CCF0058981.
Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2024;692:149352.
PubMed: https://www.amedeo.com/p2.php?id=38056159&s=flu&pm=2
ABSTRACT available
Share: https://m.amedeo.com/38056159 - KOHLBRAND AJ, Stokes RW, Sankaran B, Cohen SM, et al.
Structural Studies of Inhibitors with Clinically Relevant Influenza Endonuclease Variants.
Biochemistry. 2024 Jan 8. doi: 10.1021/acs.biochem.3c00536.
PubMed: https://www.amedeo.com/p2.php?id=38190441&s=flu&pm=2
ABSTRACT available
Share: https://m.amedeo.com/38190441 - LIEPINS T, Davie G, Miller R, Whitehead J, et al.
Rural-urban variation in COVID-19 vaccination uptake in Aotearoa New Zealand: Examining the national roll-out.
Epidemiol Infect. 2024;152:e7.
PubMed: https://www.amedeo.com/p2.php?id=38174436&s=flu&pm=2
ABSTRACT available
Share: https://m.amedeo.com/38174436 - BASTARD P, Gervais A, Taniguchi M, Saare L, et al.
Higher COVID-19 pneumonia risk associated with anti-IFN-alpha than with anti-IFN-omega auto-Abs in children.
J Exp Med. 2024;221:e20231353.
PubMed: https://www.amedeo.com/p2.php?id=38175961&s=flu&pm=2
ABSTRACT available
Share: https://m.amedeo.com/38175961 - JIANG W, Xu L, Wang Y, Hao C, et al.
Exploring immunity debt: Dynamic alterations in RSV antibody levels in children under 5 years during the COVID-19 pandemic.
J Infect. 2023 Oct 29:S0163-4453(23)00550-9. doi: 10.1016/j.jinf.2023.
PubMed: https://www.amedeo.com/p2.php?id=38009717&s=flu&pm=2
Share: https://m.amedeo.com/38009717 - PHAN J, Eslick GD, Elliott EJ.
Demystifying the global outbreak of severe acute hepatitis of unknown aetiology in children: A systematic review and meta-analysis.
J Infect. 2023 Nov 24:S0163-4453(23)00580-7. doi: 10.1016/j.jinf.2023.
PubMed: https://www.amedeo.com/p2.php?id=38007049&s=flu&pm=2
ABSTRACT available
Share: https://m.amedeo.com/38007049 - BRENDISH NJ, Davis C, Chapman ME, Borca F, et al.
Emergency Department point-of-care antiviral host response testing is accurate during periods of multiple respiratory virus co-circulation.
J Infect. 2023 Nov 15:S0163-4453(23)00556-X. doi: 10.1016/j.jinf.2023.
PubMed: https://www.amedeo.com/p2.php?id=37977337&s=flu&pm=2
ABSTRACT available
Share: https://m.amedeo.com/37977337 - LIECHTI FD, Bijlsma MW, Brouwer MC, van Sorge NM, et al.
Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on incidence and serotype distribution of pneumococcal meningitis – A prospective, nationwide cohort study from the Netherlands.
J Infect. 2023 Nov 8:S0163-4453(23)00555-8. doi: 10.1016/j.jinf.2023.
PubMed: https://www.amedeo.com/p2.php?id=37949362&s=flu&pm=2
Share: https://m.amedeo.com/37949362 - HALL VJ, Insalata F, Foulkes S, Kirwan P, et al.
Effectiveness of BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine third doses and previous infection in protecting against SARS-CoV-2 infections during the Delta and Omicron variant waves; the UK SIREN cohort study September 2021 to February 2022.
J Infect. 2023 Nov 3:S0163-4453(23)00553-4. doi: 10.1016/j.jinf.2023.
PubMed: https://www.amedeo.com/p2.php?id=37926119&s=flu&pm=2
ABSTRACT available
Share: https://m.amedeo.com/37926119 - LUNT R, Quinot C, Kirsebom F, Andrews N, et al.
The Impact of Vaccination and SARS-CoV-2 Variants on the Virological Response to SARS-CoV-2 Infections during the Alpha, Delta, and Omicron waves in England.
J Infect. 2023 Nov 3:S0163-4453(23)00547-9. doi: 10.1016/j.jinf.2023.
PubMed: https://www.amedeo.com/p2.php?id=37926118&s=flu&pm=2
ABSTRACT available
Share: https://m.amedeo.com/37926118 - BRUHN M, Obara M, Chiyyeadu A, Costa B, et al.
Memory B cells anticipate SARS-CoV-2 variants through somatic hypermutation.
J Infect. 2023 Oct 30:S0163-4453(23)00551-0. doi: 10.1016/j.jinf.2023.
PubMed: https://www.amedeo.com/p2.php?id=37913848&s=flu&pm=2
Share: https://m.amedeo.com/37913848 - HOWARD LM, Jensen TL, Goll JB, Gelber CE, et al.
Metabolomic Signatures Differentiate Immune Responses in Avian Influenza Vaccine Recipients.
J Infect Dis. 2024 Jan 5:jiad611. doi: 10.1093.
PubMed: https://www.amedeo.com/p2.php?id=38181048&s=flu&pm=2
ABSTRACT available
Share: https://m.amedeo.com/38181048 - DULIN H, Barre RS, Xu D, Neal A, et al.
Harnessing preexisting influenza virus-specific immunity increases antibody responses against SARS-CoV-2.
J Virol. 2024 Jan 11:e0157123. doi: 10.1128/jvi.01571.
PubMed: https://www.amedeo.com/p2.php?id=38206036&s=flu&pm=2
ABSTRACT available
Share: https://m.amedeo.com/38206036 - HE Y, Guo Z, Subiaur S, Benegal A, et al.
Antibody inhibition of influenza A virus assembly and release.
J Virol. 2024 Jan 5:e0139823. doi: 10.1128/jvi.01398.
PubMed: https://www.amedeo.com/p2.php?id=38179944&s=flu&pm=2
ABSTRACT available
Share: https://m.amedeo.com/38179944 - POURAKBARI R, Gholami M, Shakerimoghaddam A, Khiavi FM, et al.
Comparison of RT-LAMP and RT-qPCR assays for detecting SARS-CoV-2 in the extracted RNA and direct swab samples.
J Virol Methods. 2024;324:114871.
PubMed: https://www.amedeo.com/p2.php?id=38103738&s=flu&pm=2
ABSTRACT available
Share: https://m.amedeo.com/38103738 - HARRIS E.
Using Throat Swabs Improved Sensitivity in Detecting SARS-CoV-2.
JAMA. 2023 Dec 20. doi: 10.1001/jama.2023.25267.
PubMed: https://www.amedeo.com/p2.php?id=38117510&s=flu&pm=2
Share: https://m.amedeo.com/38117510 - HARRIS E.
Program Offering Free COVID-19 and Flu Services Expands Nationwide.
JAMA. 2023 Dec 20. doi: 10.1001/jama.2023.25268.
PubMed: https://www.amedeo.com/p2.php?id=38117506&s=flu&pm=2
Share: https://m.amedeo.com/38117506 - SURAN M.
Studies Investigate Whether Antivirals Like Paxlovid May Prevent Long COVID.
JAMA. 2023 Dec 13. doi: 10.1001/jama.2023.24103.
PubMed: https://www.amedeo.com/p2.php?id=38090997&s=flu&pm=2
Share: https://m.amedeo.com/38090997 - PACIELLO I, Maccari G, Pantano E, Andreano E, et al.
High-resolution map of the Fc functions mediated by COVID-19-neutralizing antibodies.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2024;121:e2314730121.
PubMed: https://www.amedeo.com/p2.php?id=38198525&s=flu&pm=2
ABSTRACT available
Share: https://m.amedeo.com/38198525 - DEE TS.
Higher chronic absenteeism threatens academic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2024;121:e2312249121.
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ABSTRACT available
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Expanded T lymphocytes in the cerebrospinal fluid of multiple sclerosis patients are specific for Epstein-Barr-virus-infected B cells.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2024;121:e2315857121.
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ABSTRACT available
Share: https://m.amedeo.com/38190525 - YU J, Zhao W, Chen X, Lu H, et al.
A plant virus manipulates the long-winged morph of insect vectors.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2024;121:e2315341121.
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ABSTRACT available
Share: https://m.amedeo.com/38190519 - BAUM MY, Jacob BA.
Racial differences in parent response to COVID schooling policies.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2024;121:e2307308120.
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ABSTRACT available
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Estimates of early outbreak-specific SARS-CoV-2 epidemiological parameters from genomic data.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2024;121:e2308125121.
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ABSTRACT available
Share: https://m.amedeo.com/38175864 - ZHANG H, Zhou J, Chen H, Mao J, et al.
Phase I study, and dosing regimen selection for a pivotal COVID-19 trial of GST-HG171.
Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2023 Dec 15:e0111523. doi: 10.1128/aac.01115.
PubMed: https://www.amedeo.com/p2.php?id=38099673&s=flu&pm=2
ABSTRACT available
Share: https://m.amedeo.com/38099673 - BAKER J, Ombredane H, Daly L, Knowles I, et al.
Pan-antiviral effects of a PIKfyve inhibitor on respiratory virus infection in human nasal epithelium and mice.
Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2024;68:e0105023.
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ABSTRACT available
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Molnupiravir maintains antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2 variants and exhibits a high barrier to the development of resistance.
Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2024;68:e0095323.
PubMed: https://www.amedeo.com/p2.php?id=38047645&s=flu&pm=2
ABSTRACT available
Share: https://m.amedeo.com/38047645
#covid #COVID19 #flu #health #influenza #influenzaA #research #seasonalInfluenza
- TANIGUCHI K, Noshi T, Omoto S, Sato A, et al.
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S is for Sealion: the thread about the Corporation Tramway’s 1951 animal A to Z
In 1951, with the looming threat of closure and increased competition, Edinburgh Corporation Transport published a series of posters to advertise the tram as a good way to get to Edinburgh Zoo. These took the form of an A to Z of animals that one might see. I thought I would share them here.
B is for BisonG is for GnuI is for IbexN is for NilgaiS is for SealionX is for XantharpyiaThese posters are quite unusual as the Tramway had never really troubled to advertise themselves in this manner before this; there was no real reason to. There was no real bus competition as at this time and wherever the tramways and railways overlapped, the former was nearly always much quicker, cheaper and more regular. Indeed it was overwhelming competition from trams that had meant much of Edinburgh’s suburban rail system declined in the early part of the 20th century, with many station closures prior to 1950.
I like a lot of things about these posters. I like the rather old-fashioned (by 1951 standards) design, it’s much more reminiscent of pre-war, London Transport design. It’s formal, educational and easy on the sell. This small-c conservative style fits with the image I have of Edinburgh Corporation Tramways at this time; an institution that knows it probably doesn’t have much of a future, so it’s hanging on to the past. The posters were printed locally (Edinburgh was a centre of printing and publishing) but I’m afraid I haven’t uncovered who the artist was. The initials “J.R.S.” can be seen on some.
More of these used to be available for sale on Ebay as reprints (I even bought a couple), but I cannot now find them to fill in the rest of the alphabet. You can view and zoom in on these images on the website of Edinburgh Libraries and Museums and Galleries.
Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.
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BEGATS AND BEQUEATHALS @begatsandbequeathalsasouthernusfamilydocumented.com@begatsandbequeathalsasouthernusfamilydocumented.com ·Thomas Leonard (1752-1832) and Hannah James (1752-1842): Children Robert, Thomas, John, Hezekiah, Samuel, Griffith, Colin, and Hannah
Griffith James Leonard, photo uploaded to Ancestry tree “Leonard/ Leonard/McLeod/Miller Family Tree,” maintained by dawnleonard818Or, Subtitled: “Saw Lincoln County when it was a cane brake infested with bear, wolves, deer and many other wild animals”
In three previous postings, I discussed the life of Thomas Leonard (1752-1832), son of Robert Leonard and Honor Pritchard. I began with a look at the documents that chronicle his early years in Maryland, where he was born in the part of Frederick County that became Washington County in 1776, and where Thomas married Hannah, daughter of Griffith James, about 1775. I then looked at Thomas’ years in Pendleton District, South Carolina, to which he, his siblings, and their widowed mother Honor moved from Maryland by early 1786. I ended with an examination of documents following Thomas’ life in Lincoln (later Marshall) County, Tennessee, from 1808 up to his death in 1832. (Please click the numeral 2 below to read the continuation of this posting.)
In this posting, I’m going to provide a brief overview of the children of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James. My goal is to document salient facts about each of these children, e.g., dates and places of birth, marriage, and death. There’s much more information to be found about each child. The following accounts of the children of Thomas and Hannah James Leonard are not exhaustive:
1. Robert Leonard, the first child of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James, was born 14 February 1777 in Washington County, Maryland, and died 4 August 1844 at Rusk in Cherokee County, Texas. On 17 March 1807 in Abbeville County, South Carolina, Robert married Rachel Dunlap. These dates of birth, marriage, and death are provided by Robert and Rachel’s son Thomas Dunlap Leonard in his record of the family of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James written in 1883. This document, entitled “Biography of the Leonards,” has been discussed in previous postings (and here) noting that its present whereabouts are not known and that it has circulated among Leonard descendants as a typescript.
Thomas Dunlap Leonard records the following about his parents Robert Leonard and Rachel Dunlap:[1]
Robert was the oldest child, born in Maryland the 14th of Feb., 1777. Married Rachel, dau of Wm. Dunlap in Abbeville District of So Carolina on 17 Mar 1807. He moved with his father to Lincoln Co Tn and settled on Cane Creek half a mile above Petersburg. Subsequently moved to middle Alabama, settled in Perry Co where he lived from 1818 to 1824, lived there until 1840, then to Texas, settled in Cherokee Co. where he died on 4 Aug. 1844 in the 67th year of his age. He was a hatter by trade, also a farmer. His life was spent in usefulness to his neighbors, his country and his family, teaching his children the importance of industry, honesty, and truthfulness. At all times with his wife taught their children the importance of the Christian religion which all had embraced before their death, but two and they embraced since the death of their parents. Robert was truly a good man, good husband, good father, good citizen; he was my father and his wife Rachel, my mother. Language will fail me in attempting to portray her excellencies. She was brought up in the faith and membership of the Presbyterian Church and strictly adhered to their discipline in the government of her family, teaching them to observe the commandments of our Saviour.
She ruled her children in love and impressed on their minds at their earliest age those principles of love to God and love of His services, and to search his words of truth for their guide through life. She became convinced of the importance of immersion as baptism, when she was about 40 years of age, when she and her husband were buried with Christ in baptism in Flint River, Madison Co. Ala. She lived to see all of her children members of the Baptist Church, but two and they followed in her footsteps after her death. She died in Cherokee Co, Tx in the year 1862 in the 62nd year of her life and was buried by the side of her husband in the town of Rusk, Cherokee Co. Tx. after having spent a long life of usefulness, to her family, neighbors, and church. Thus ended the life of a God loving woman.
A previous posting explains why I think it’s likely that, following Thomas Leonard’s marriage to Hannah James about 1775, this couple lived at Sharpsburg in Washington County, where Hannah’s father Griffith James lived. If I’m correct in deducing this, then Thomas and Hannah’s son Robert and the three (or possibly four: see the notes below on Samuel) brothers born after him in Washington County were probably all born in Sharpsburg.
A biography of Robert’s son William R. Leonard (1822-1905) in Memorial and Biographical History of McLennan, Falls, Bell and Coryell Counties, Texas states that his father Robert Leonard was a soldier of the War of 1812 and served under Andrew Jackson at the battle of Horseshoe Bend.[2] His service papers show him serving under Colonel Robert Dyer in the Cavalry and Mounted Gunmen of Tennessee Volunteers.[3]
The biography of William R. Leonard also indicates that his father Robert Leonard moved about 1824 to Madison County, Alabama, where he lived on the Flint River nine miles east of Huntsville.[4] He then moved to Texas about 1840, according to this source, settling first in Nacogdoches County and then in Cherokee County, where he died in 1844, aged 67. A certificate for a Texas headright grant that Robert Leonard received on 4 March 1844 states that he arrived in Texas on 3 April 1840.[5] As a previous posting notes, Robert’s brother Thomas moved from Limestone County, Alabama, to Nacogdoches County, Texas, in June 1839, receiving a headright grant that fell into Cherokee County at that county’s formation in July 1845. In moving to this part of Texas in 1840, Robert Leonard was following in the footsteps of his brother Thomas.
At her “Leonard/Kellum/Hughes Family Tree” at Ancestry, Peggy Strickland states,[6]
According to old hand written Leonard Family history, Rachel [Dunlap]’s Father brought Rachel and her two sisters from Ireland, their mother having died in Ireland when Rachel was three years old. Her Father had previously been to America and fought in the Revolutionary War, in which he lost one leg.
The 1850 federal census for Cherokee County, Texas, on which the widowed Rachel is shown living at Rusk, reports her birthplace as Ireland.[7] A previous posting talks briefly about a Limestone County, Alabama, court case that ensued after Robert Leonard’s brother Thomas sold his homeplace in that county to their brother John Leonard in 1839 as Thomas prepared to move to Texas. The court case, James Birdwell, assignee, vs. John Linard, revolved around a promissory note for $500 that James Birdwell, who married Thomas Leonard’s daughter Aletha, claimed Thomas assigned to him when John paid him for his land. James alleged that the promissory note was given to Rachel, wife of Robert Leonard, for safekeeping. Robert and wife Rachel moved to Texas soon after Thomas moved his family there. John Leonard died in 1846 and James, who then died in 1849, claimed that Rachel had never delivered John’s $500 promissory note to Thomas Leonard to him.
As the first-born son of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James (and their first child), I think it’s likely Robert Leonard was given the name Robert after his paternal grandfather Robert Leonard.
2. Thomas Lewis Leonard, the second child of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James, was born in 1781 in Washington County, Maryland, and died in October 1870 in Cherokee County, Texas. About 1800 in Pendleton District, South Carolina, he married Sarah M. Lauderdale, daughter of John Lauderdale and Milbury Mauldin. Sarah’s name is consistently written in documents with the middle initial M.; I suspect her full name was Sarah Mauldin Lauderdale, and that she was named for her grandmother Sarah, wife of John Mauldin.
Thomas is my direct ancestor, and I’ve provided extensive documentation in previous postings about his life in Maryland, South Carolina and Tennessee, then about his years in Limestone County, Alabama (and here), and finally about his final years in Cherokee County, Texas.
John Leonard’s signature on a 14 October 1843 promissory note in Madison County, Alabama, Circuit Court Case File, Brooks, Linard 18433. John Leonard, the third child of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James, was born between 1781 and 1784 in Washington County, Maryland, and died 14 November 1846 in Limestone County, Alabama. In 1806 in Pendleton District, South Carolina, he married Hannah Fowler, daughter of Joshua and Elizabeth Fowler.[8]
My reason for assigning John a birthdate of 1781-4 is as follows: in his discussion of the children of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James, Thomas Dunlap Leonard indicates that John was the third child of Thomas and Hannah, born after his brother Thomas and prior to his brother Hezekiah. We know that Thomas Lewis Leonard was born in 1781, and as I’ll discuss below, the tombstone of Hezekiah Leonard shows his date of birth as 24 June 1784. So John was born between 1781 and June 1784. The 1830 and 1840 federal censuses confirm that he was born between 1780 and 1789.[9]
Thomas Dunlap Leonard states the following about John Leonard:
John Leonard married Hannah Fowler, daughter of Joshua Fowler of So Carolina about 1806, moved to Madison Co., Ala, where he lived until 1838, when he moved to Limestone Co., Al, where he lived until death, which occurred about 1847 or 1848. Hannah, his wife, died in Madison Co. about 1828 or 1829. Their children were born near Madison Cross Roads in Madison Co. John lived through life as he had been reared up by his parents, a lover of all the ennobling virtues that constitute good child, a good husband, father and citizen. I was intimately acquainted with him, the last 20 years of his life. He was governed in all his actions through life from the noble principles of Christian spirit, truth and honesty was his motto. When I look back at the character of old acquaintances, John Leonard stands side by side with the best of citizens of old Madison Co. When I look back from my old age, my heart swells within me of love and admiration for the excellence of John Leonard. Aunt Hannah was truly his peer in all of the excellencies of wife, companion, mother and citizen. The character of her daughters prove the excellencies of the early training of the mother. Their deportment gives a better comment on the life and character of their mother than I can give.
In the War of 1812, John Leonard served in the 16th Regiment of Burrus’ Mississippi Militia.[10] Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Burrus’ regiment was comprised for the most part of men living in or near Madison County, Mississippi Territory (later Alabama), which bordered on Lincoln County, Tennessee.[11] Also serving in Burrus’ militia was Robert Leonard’s first cousin Samuel Dean, son of Robert’s aunt Gwendolyn James and husband Samuel Dean, and Moses Birdwell, father of James Birdwell who married John Leonard’s niece Aletha, daughter of Thomas Lewis Leonard. Moses also had a daughter whose given name I haven’t found, who married a Lamb, and Alfred L. Lamb, a son of that couple, married John Leonard’s daughter Hannah A.E. Leonard.
John Leonard’s date of death is stated in a will book of Limestone County, Alabama, according to his descendant Jackie Leonard of Athens, Alabama.[12]Minutes of the Limestone County circuit court case James Birdwell assignee vs. George W. Fisher admr. of John Linard dec’d. state on 2 December 1846 that “the said John Linard hath departed this life intestate as we are informed” and that George W. Fisher was estate administrator.[13] Fisher was granted administration on 6 December 1846.[14]
Tombstone of Hezekiah Leonard, photo by Jimmy Trout — see Find a Grave memorial page of Hezekiah Leonard, Leonard cemetery, Marshall County, Tennessee, created by Donna B., maintained by Prairie Mary4. Hezekiah Leonard, the fourth child of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James, was born 24 June 1784 in Washington County, Maryland, and died 27 March 1817 in Lincoln County, Tennessee. These dates of birth and death are inscribed on his tombstone in the Leonard family cemetery at the old Thomas Leonard homestead just north of Petersburg, Marshall County, Tennessee.[15]
Thomas Dunlap Leonard says this about Hezekiah:
Hezekiah, a son of Thomas and Hannah Leonard died at the home of his parents in Lincoln Tenn. about the year 1816. He was grown not married.
Hezekiah left a nuncupative will in Lincoln County dated 27 March 1817.[16] The will, which was probated 5 May 1817, states that Hezekiah was in “his last sickness” and bequeaths Hezekiah’s property to his brother Griffith. It was witnessed by his brother Robert and cousin George, son of William Leonard.
5. Samuel Leonard, the fifth child of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James, was born about 1786 in either Washington County, Maryland, or Pendleton District, South Carolina. He died about 1817 in Lincoln County, Tennessee. I estimate Samuel’s birthdate as about 1786 because Thomas Dunlap Leonard places him between his brother Hezekiah, who was born 24 June 1784, and his brother Griffith, who was born 26 September 1787. Since his parents moved from Maryland to Pendleton District, South Carolina, late in 1785 or early in 1786, I think he may have been born in either Maryland or South Carolina.
After having noted that Hezekiah Leonard died at the home of his parents in Lincoln County, Tennessee, in about 1816, Thomas Dunlap Leonard states:
Samuel at, and near the same time, he was just about grown.
I think it’s likely that Samuel is buried in the Leonard family cemetery, but I haven’t seen any transcription of a tombstone for him.
6. Griffith James Leonard, the sixth child of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James, was born 26 September 1787 in Pendleton District, South Carolina, and died 1 September 1864 in Marshall County, Tennessee. On 7 April 1836 in Lincoln County, Tennessee, he married Nancy Emmett Porter, daughter of Stephen and Mary Porter.
Griffith’s dates of birth and death are recorded on his tombstone in the family cemetery on Thomas Leonard’s old homestead just north of Petersburg, Tennessee.[17] Griffith’s date of death is also stated in an affidavit given by John Cowden and the widow Nancy in Marshall County on 22 August 1868; the affidavit is found in his War of 1812 pension and bounty land application file.[18] John Cowden was the husband of Mary Hannah Leonard, daughter of Griffith and Nancy Leonard. John and his mother-in-law Nancy state that Griffith was aged 73 when he died on 1 September 1864. Their affidavit also says that he refused to vote for secession in the vote held in Tennessee on 8 June 1861 and was consistently loyal to the Union though his son Samuel was a Confederate soldier.
Thomas Dunlap Leonard offers a fulsome remembrance of his uncle Griffith James Leonard and Griffith’s wife Nancy:
Griffith J. Leonard remained with his parents until their death bestowing that care on them that was essential to their happiness is old age. Having by inheritance and cultivation obtained those hightoned traits of character that fitly qualified him for the practical duties of life as a good citizen, husband and father. His neighbors can all testify to his excellencies of character with pleasure. His children proved the excellencies of their parents. Griffith Leonard was a superior order of intellect, had no opportunities of school la early life to improve his intellect. He was a self made man and had acquired a fine degree of practical and useful knowledge. A man of high toned moral principles not capable of condescending to any low degrading act under any circumstances. He was a true patriot through life, he fell from an unerring rifle shot of an Indian warrior on the furious battlefield of Talledega, Ala. in the year 1812. It pierced his neck and passed through, from which wound he recovered and lived to marry his [wife?] and bring up an excellent family. He also accumulated a good home, a good large tract of Tennessee best land for his amiable widow and children.
He leaves them as his parents left him viz, with high toned sense of moral training to qualify them for usefulness to society, themselves and their God. He died 1a the year 1864, being In the 77th year of his age. Thus ended the long and useful life of Griffith J. Leonard, leaving his amiable wife with a large family to care for at the end of a cruel war that had devastated nearly every ordinary contort of life, and in the midst of a helpless people as herself. Yet she by inheritance and education had a good stock of industry and economies to draw from. That she has brought up her excellent family is credit to herself and to her departed husband. She has demonstrated these excellent traits of character inherited from her parents end by education that so fitly qualified her for her duties as mother to her children and her labor has been crowned with success.
1 August 1851 bounty land claim of Griffith J. Leonard, in NARA, War of 1812 Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Application Files, compiled ca. 1871 – ca. 1900, documenting the period 1812 – ca. 1900, RG 15, file of Griffith J. Lenard, WC 15252, widow Nancy E., WO 25978, available digitally at Fold3Nancy Porter was a daughter of Stephen and Sary Porter, born Jan. 10, 1818. They were the best of citizens, Iived up to those excellent rules of discipline that so eminently qualified them for usefulness in life to themselves, families, neighbors and their God. Stephen Porter’s excellent example will be remembered by his acquaintances with pleasure as long as their lives last. It affords me pleasure now to look back over half a century when Stephen Porter assembled his family and visiting neighbors around the family altar for prayer night and morning. His Godly influence was felt by his neighbors during life, and after death he was missed by all. He has gone to his reward of a good man. May his posterity emulate his worthy example.
Griffith’s War of 1812 pension and bounty land file contains further detailed information about his service and injuries during that war. On 1 August 1851, Griffith filed a bounty land claim in Marshall County that is preserved in this file. This document states that Griffith was aged 64 and living in Marshall County. It also notes he was a sergeant in Captain John Porter’s 1st Regiment of the Tennessee Militia under Col. J.K Wynn in the Creek War. He was drafted at Fayetteville, Tennessee, on 1 October 1813 and discharged at Fayetteville on 1 January 1814. The affidavit was signed by Griffith.
Another affidavit Griffith gave in Marshall County on 2 June 1855 is in the pension and bounty land file. This gives his age as 69 and states that he was a resident of Marshall County. It further indicates that he was a 1st sergeant under Colonel John Porter in the 1st regiment of Col. John K. Wynn in the War with Great Britain and the Creek Indians of 1812-1815. He had made a bounty-land application for this service on 28 September 1850. Again, this document is signed Griffith Lenard.
A 4 July 1871 affidavit of Nancy Leonard in Marshall County found in the pension and bounty land file attests to her husband’s service. Nancy notes that Griffith was severely wounded on 8 November 1813 at Talladega, Alabama. She signs the affidavit Nancy E. Lenard.
An affidavit provided by James Luna, an ensign in Griffith’s unit, on 4 September 1845 in Marshall County says that Griffith J. Leonard was a 1st sergeant in John Porter’s Company of West Tennessee Militia and served in the action against the Creeks from October 1813 to January 1814. He received a severe wound in his neck in the battle of Talladega on 9 November 1813, Luna states.
A biography of Griffith’s grandson Dr. John Norris Cowden also speaks of his grandfather Griffith J. Leonard’s War of 1812 service.[19] Noting that John Norris Cowden was the son of Dr. John Cowden and Mary Hannah Leonard and was born in Marshall County, the biography states:
James Griffith Leonard, the father of Mrs. Cowden, was an intimate friend of General Andrew Jackson, under whom he served throughout the War of 1812, participating in the battle of Tishomingo [sic].
As Thomas Dunlap Leonard’s biography of his uncle Griffith notes, Griffith was the son who remained at home with his parents Thomas and Hannah Leonard up to their deaths, and for this reason, his father willed the family homeplace and land to his son Griffith. Thomas Leonard’s will is transcribed and discussed in a previous posting noting that the will stipulates that Griffith was to care for his mother Hannah up to her death. Griffith and wife Nancy continued living in the old Leonard house up to their deaths, with Griffith leaving the homeplace to his son William Stephen (Bud) Leonard.
In an article published in the Fayetteville Observer in August 1908, John Bright speaks of a number of early settlers of Lincoln County, Tennessee, including Griffith James Leonard.[20] Bright notes that Griffith, whose wife was Nancy Porter, came to Lincoln County at an early date, settling north of Petersburg and leaving “a character of good citizenship, worthy of imitation by his posterity.”
Nancy Porter Leonard, seated, right, with granddaughter Josie Cowden Bliss behind her, photo uploaded to Ancestry tree “Leonard/ Leonard/McLeod/Miller Family Tree,” maintained by dawnleonard818 Samuel James Leonard, seated front middle, and family, photo uploaded to Ancestry tree “Leonard/ Leonard/McLeod/Miller Family Tree,” maintained by dawnleonard818Griffith James Leonard was named for his maternal grandfather Griffith James, who moved from Washington County, Maryland, to Pendleton District, South Carolina, following his children who had settled there in the 1780s. Photos of Griffith James Leonard, his wife Nancy, and their son Samuel with Samuel’s family are found at the Ancestry tree of Dawn Leonard, “Leonard/ Leonard/McLeod/Miller Family Tree.”[21] The photo of Griffith is found at the head of this posting.
7. Colin Campbell Leonard, the seventh child of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James, was born about 1791 in Pendleton District, South Carolina, and died between 16 June 1856 and 29 November 1859 in Jackson County, Arkansas. About 1817 in Lincoln County, Tennessee, Colin married Jean Williams. As Thomas Dunlap Leonard’s brief biography of his uncle Colin states, Colin’s wife Jean died and he then married a second time. Thomas D. Leonard appears not to have known the name of Colin’s second wife.
Thomas D. Leonard states the following about Colin Campbell Leonard:
Collin Campbell Leonard son of Thos, and Hannah Leonard was born in Maryland, brought up in South Carolina, married Miss Jean Williams of Tennessee about the year 1817. I have no knowledge of the Williams family. They had only two children, a daughter and a son. I am under the impression both children are dead. Aunt Jean died and Uncle Collin moved from Lincoln County to McNairy County West Tenn. He married the second time, had seven children by her. I met with two sons on the battle field of Perryville, Ky. I have no further knowledge of his family.
Uncle Collin was dissipated (drank) in early life. He was a good soldier in the Indian war of 1812 to 14. He was a true friend to friends and bitter enemy to his enemies. He possessed noble generous principles. His latter life was a steady habits. He became a member of the Methodist church and a preacher before death. His sons informed us that their father was dead. Nothing further is known of his family.
The 1850 federal census shows Colin with a woman in his household whose name is given by the census taker as Mary A.L. (or S.?) Collins, aged 28, born in Virginia.[22] The census lists Colin as a farmer aged 59 who was born in Tennessee. Also in the household are children Colin C., 12, Thomas C., 8, William R., 6, and Levi W., aged 1, all born in Tennessee.
It appears to me that Mary is Colin’s wife, and that the census taker has inadvertently assigned her the surname Collins because her husband is named Colin C. Leonard. At some point after this census enumeration was made, the family moved to Jackson County, Arkansas, where on 20 June 1855, a circuit course case of debt, Atrides Crow v. Collin C. Leonard, was filed.[23] On 16 June 1856, Colin’s property was attached by the sheriff due to a judgment in this case.[24]
On 29 November 1859, Mary Leonard married Cyrus Black in Jackson County, Arkansas.[25] The marriage record gives Mary’s age as 37, indicating an 1822 birth year. This matches the birth year of the Mary who is found in Colin Campbell’s household on the 1850 federal census and who appears to be mother of his sons Colin C., Thomas C., William R., and Levi W.
The federal census shows Cyrus and Mary Black living at Cache in Jackson County, Jacksonport post office.[26] Mary is aged 37 and born in Virginia — a match to the Mary found in Colin C. Leonard’s household in 1850. Also in the household are Thomas, William, and Levi from Colin’s household on the 1850 census, all now with the surname Black, and daughters Nancy and Alfy Black, aged 8 and 4, who are likely also children of Colin C. Leonard. Nancy was born in Tennessee and Alfy (who is likely Alpha) in Arkansas.
Colin Campbell Leonard was named for his uncle Colin Campbell, who married Mary Ann Leonard, sister of Thomas Leonard. For a discussion of documents showing Colin Campbell Leonard receiving permission to keep an ordinary at his father’s house in Lincoln County, Tennessee, and being charged in that county with assault and battery, see this previous posting.
Hannah Leonard and William Depriest Moore — see Amy Edmiston, “The Moore Homestead,” Pretty Old Places8. Hannah Leonard, the eighth child and only daughter of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James, was born 10 January 1795 in Pendleton District, South Carolina, and died 11 December 1886 at Petersburg in Marshall County, Tennessee. On 1 July 1817 in Lincoln County, Tennessee, she married William Depriest Moore, son of David Dower Moore and Jane Depriest.
These dates were inscribed on Hannah’s tombstone in the Moore family cemetery outside Petersburg.[27] The stone is now broken into pieces, though William D. Moore’s stone remains intact and legible.
The War of 1812 pension and bounty land application file of William Depriest Moore and wife Hannah contains a 23 May 1878 document stating that Hannah was aged 82, née Leonard, living near Petersburg, and had married William D. Moore on 1 July 1817 in Lincoln County, Tennessee.[28] William, who was a Virginia native, served during this war as a private in Captain David Elliott’s Company, Kentucky Militia.
Thomas Dunlap Leonard offers an extensive reminiscence of his aunt Hannah and her husband William D. Moore:
Hannah Leonard married William D. Moore of Kentucky in the year 1827. He was a house painter and cabinet workman, equal to any of his day. He was a man of superior genius of mind, his natural endowments were above the average. He cultivated it to a general usefulness in practical science. He was a good farmer, fine judge of stock, which he had a fine taste for and cultivated successfully. He was truthful, honest, and reliable in every sense of the term. He accumulated a good living, raised a family of six children, viz Angeline, Thomas D., Alpha, Alitha, William C., Margaret, and Amanda. He died in November in 1855, leaving Hannah with a competency and with her most amiable of children to take care of her in old age, which duty they here performed, to credit to themselves and satisfaction to their aged mother, who still survives and is now 89 years of age, now living with her son-in-law and daughter, Jo. J. S. and Angelina Gill.
William D. Moore farm May 2025, ibid. William D. Moore house, ibid. Original front downstairs room, William D. Moore house, ibid. Daughters of William D. Moore and Hannah Leonard — Angelina, Amanda, Aletha, Margaret, ibid.Hannah was the only daughter of Thomas and Hannah Leonard. Language fails me to portray the excellencies of this good woman neither can her neighbors or children do her justice. She has lived for seventy five years near where she now Ilves. Saw Lincoln County when it was a cane brake infested with bear, wolves, deer and many other wild animals. Right around Petersburg and cane Creek all of her age have gone across the river. She is left as a lone tree of the forest but must soon fall, and go to join her loved ones that have gone before and must follow after. She has an Inheritance awaiting her that is far better than anything she has ever realised on earth. I rejoice to know that kindred blood course my veins, that I can say she is my aunt, my father’s sister. I rejoice to know she has left such a noble posterity that acted well their parts in life. I rejoice to know that I as their biographers of William D. and Hannah Moore gives me such pleasure to speak of their merits without a stain on their character. I rejoice to know that the hand and heart of their daughter[s] have been sought by the noblest sons of Tenn., also that their sons sought and obtained their equals in the daughters of Tennessee.
A portrait-photograph of Hannah Leonard and William Depriest Moore appears in a number of published sources and has recently been published online as their old Marshall County homeplace and farm have gone on the market for sale.[29] The portrait is featured along with photos of the farm and the Moore house in Amy Edmiston’s Pretty Old Places blog.[30]
[1] Thomas Dunlap Leonard, “Biography of the Leonards” (1883 manuscript now circulated as typescript; present whereabouts are not known). The 14 February 1777 date of birth is also stated in a lineage provided by Sarah Johnson Berliner to DAR: See NSDAR Lineage Book, vol. 93 (1912) p. 83; and Mary Smith Fay, War of 1812 Veterans in Texas (New Orleans, 1979; repr. Greenville, South Carolina: Southern Historical Press, 1994), apparently citing records filed by U.S. Daughters of 1812 Descendants.
[2] Memorial and Biographical History of McLennan, Falls, Bell and Coryell Counties, Texas (Chicago: Lewis, 1893), pp. 721-3. This biography gives William’s middle name as Rinualdi. The “Anderson-Monroe Family Tree” at Ancestry maintained by weblady173 has a digital image of a page from a bible that appears to have belonged to one of William R. Leonard’s children, giving his middle name as Roden. This Ancestry tree also has a copy of an undated autobiography written by William R. Leonard near the end of his life, which appears not to have been finished and was transcribed by one of his children.
[3] NARA, Indexes to the Carded Records of Soldiers Who Served in Volunteer Organizations During the War of 1812, compiled 1899 – 1927, documenting the period 1812 – 1815 RG 94, file of Robert Lenard, available digitally at Fold3. Fay, War of 1812 Veterans in Texas, states that Robert served in Captain Edwin S. Moore’s Company of Tennessee Volunteers.
[4] Memorial and Biographical History of McLennan, Falls, Bell and Coryell Counties, Texas, pp. 721-3.
[5] Nacogdoches District Court Returns, files 54 and 58, available digitally at the website of Texas General Land Office.
[6] PeggyStrickland55, “Leonard/Kellum/Hughes Family Tree,” Ancestry.
[7] 1850 federal census, Cherokee County, Texas, town of Rusk, p. 61 (dwelling/family 412, 31 October).
[8] The marriage is indexed in Ancestry’s database entitled South Carolina Marriage Index, 1641-1965, compiled by Hunting For Bears (2005). A specific date of marriage is not given in this database; this entry appears to be citing Georgia Genealogical Magazine, no. 60-61 (spring-summer 1976). Thomas Dunlap Leonard’s “Biography of the Leonards” also states that John Leonard married Hannah Fowler “about 1806.”
[9] 1830 federal census, Madison County, Alabama, p. 72A, showing John aged 40-49 (the surname is Linard here); and 1840 federal census, Limestone County, Alabama, p. 151A, showing John aged 50-59.
[10] NARA, Indexes to the Carded Records of Soldiers Who Served in Volunteer Organizations During the War of 1812, compiled 1899 – 1927, documenting the period 1812 – 1815, RG 94, file of John Lenard, available digitally at Fold3.
[11] See “16th Regiment, Mississippi Militia, War of 1812,” at WikiTree.
[12] Jackie Leonard is citing Limestone County, Alabama, Will Bk. 7, p. 333, which states that John Leonard was “dec’d. 14 Nov. 1846.” Because this will book is under lock and key in the digital files available at the FamilySearch site, I haven’t been able to access the original and obtain further information about this document.
[13] Limestone County, Alabama, Circuit Court Minutes Bk. 1847-1857, p. 136.
[14] Limestone County, Alabama, County Court Record Bk. 1830-1849, p. 422 mistakenly writing the year as 1847 and not as 1846.
[15] See Find a Grave memorial page of Hezekiah Leonard, Leonard cemetery, Marshall County, Tennessee, created by Donna B., maintained by Prairie Mary, with a tombstone photo by Jimmy Trout.
[16] Lincoln County, Tennessee, Will Bk. 1, p. 156-7. See also Frances T. Ingmire, Lincoln County, Tennessee, Wills, Inventories, and Miscellaneous, March 1809 – April 1824 (St. Louis, 1984), p. 8; and Helen C. and Timothy R. Marsh, Wills and Inventories of Lincoln County, Tennessee (Easley, South Carolina: Southern Historical Press, 1989), p. 8.
[17] See Find a Grave memorial page of Griffith J. Leonard, Leonard cemetery, Marshall County, Tennessee, created by Louise Jenkins, with a tombstone photo by Jimmy Trout.
[18] NARA, War of 1812 Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Application Files, compiled ca. 1871 – ca. 1900, documenting the period 1812 – ca. 1900, RG 15, file of Griffith J. Lenard, WC 15252, widow Nancy E., WO 25978, available digitally at Fold3. Nancy’s widow’s brief has a cover page stating that her maiden name was Nancy E. Porter and that she received certificate 15252 and bounty land warrants 56760-40-50 and 79828-12055. This cover pages also says that Griffith J. Leonard and Nancy Porter married in Lincoln County, Tennessee, on 7 April 1836, and that Nancy died 18 April 1910 at Petersburg, Tennessee.
[19] John Trotwood Moore and Austin P. Foster, Tennessee, the Volunteer State, 1769-1923, vol. 3 (Chicago: S.S. Clarke, 1923), pp. 238-241. See also this previous posting about Dr. John Norris Cowden.
[20] Fayetteville Observer (27 August 1908).
[21] Ancestry tree “Leonard/ Leonard/McLeod/Miller Family Tree, maintained by dawnleonard818. Photo of Griffith, of wife Nancy, and of son Samuel James Leonard with his family.
[22] 1850 federal census, Rutherford County, Tennessee, Gambrill district, p. 184 (dwelling/family 483, 30 September).
[23] Jackson County, Arkansas, Circuit Court Minutes Bk. B, pp. 544-5, 561.
[24] Jackson County, Arkansas, Deed Bk. G, pp. 32-5.
[25] Jackson County, Arkansas, Marriage Bk. I.
[26] 1850 federal census, Jackson County, Arkansas, Cache, Jacksonport post office, p. 610B (dwelling/family 1069; 7 August). Cyrus Black appears to have died by 17 December 1866, when Mary E.L. Black married Ephraim L. Hughey, a South Carolinian who came to Arkansas from Fayette County, Alabama, in Jackson County. Ephraim died in Jackson County on 4 May 1874 and the 1880 federal census for Jackson County shows Mary as the widow Hughey with her son Levi W. Leonard (this is his surname now, not Black) living next to her with his wife Mary Catherine Narrimore and their children.
[27] See Helen C. Marsh, Timothy R. Marsh, and Ralph D. Whitsell, Cemetery Records of Marshall County, Tennessee (Shelbyville, Tennessee: Marsh Historical Publishing, 1981), p. 253. The 10 January 1795 birthdate for Hannah also appears in Jane Wallace Alford, Revolutionary War Patriots of Marshall County, Tennessee (Lewisburg, Tennessee: Webb, 1976); in Gail Gill Sanders, “Joseph Jonathan S. and Angelina (Moore) Gill,” in Heritage of Lincoln County, Tennessee, ed. Lincoln Co. Heritage Committee (Waynesville, NC: Walsworth, 2005), p. 321; and in Adelaide Moore Moss, “William Depriest Moore,” in ibid., p. 517. This birthdate for Hannah Leonard is also stated in DAR lineage reports submitted by Nancy Alford of the Robert Lewis chapter of Tennessee (DAR no. 537116) and of Mary Aletha Hathaway Dorsey of the Chief John Ross chapter (DAR no. 537605), both entering DAR as descendants of David Moore, father of William Depriest Moore.
[28] NARA, War of 1812 Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Application Files, compiled ca. 1871 – ca. 1900, documenting the period 1812 – ca. 1900, RG 15, file of William D. Moore, , WC pension 17127 and WO pension 31237, available digitally at Fold3.
[29] See J. Lester Wolfe, “Thomas Leonard,” in Heritage of Lincoln County, Tennessee, ed. Lincoln County Heritage Committee (Waynesville, North Carolina: County Heritage, 2005), p. 414; and Adelaide Moore Moss, “William DePriest Moore,” in ibid., p. 517, noting that Moss notes that William DePriest Moore and Hannah Leonard belonged to Union Grove Presbyterian church in Marshall County.
[30] Amy Edmiston, “The Moore Homestead,” Pretty Old Places.
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