The Diary - upcoming news and events from 27th January onwards.
Bannockburn House repairs
Welcome to Stirling Archaeology’s ‘The Diary’ , a weekly summary of all the interesting history and archaeological things happening round Stirling, including some of my adventures which finishes with a very bad joke and a poem so make sure you read to the end!
If you have an event or a group you’d like to promote please get in contact.
Murray’s Meanders!
I’m afraid I picked up another cold….I do wonder if I should stop doing anything in January! Saturday saw Burns night and while I didn’t go out I did have haggis (and chips) and recite a few lines!
Anyway a very quiet weekend a few walks round to look at the damage from the storms and there was a rather dramatic fall of series of boulders on the lower back walk.
At the same time I picked up 57 dog poo bags round Kings Park….horrible!
However, on a more positive note thanks to everyone who contributed to helping Bannockburn House and you all raised £1000 which patched all of the holes and fingers crossed it survived the storms.
The Smith
The Throckmorton Letters: A Diplomat’s Despair
Talk at the Smith, 29 January 2025, 2pm
It’s July 1567. The English ambassador Nicholas Throckmorton arrives in Scotland. Here, he witnesses the deposition of Mary, Queen of Scots, the coronation of her infant son James VI, and the rise to power of her half-brother, the Regent Moray. Throckmorton's letters from Edinburgh show a world controlled by fragile alliances, political intrigue and betrayal, telling the story of a kingdom on the brink of civil war.
Katharina Pruente is a PhD researcher in Scottish history at the University of Stirling. Her focus on historical communities, the impact of friendship on diplomacy and politics, and the role of ambassadors in early modern Europe will make this a fascinating talk. If you enjoyed Wolf Hall, you will love this!
Stirling University Art Collection……
One of our greatest gems is the Uni’s art collection and its various exhibitions. The best way to find out what’s going on is to join their email list
The Smith again
KINLOCHARD LOCAL HISTORY GROUP 24/25 PROGRAMME
Wednesday 05 February 2025
Louise Nixon: Every Contact Leave a Trace
Wednesday 05 March 2025
Don Martin: Last Train to Aberfoyle
Wednesday 02 April 2025
Professor Richard Oram: The Early Burgh of Stirling
Annual Membership £15 or £4 per presentation
Contact Joyce Kelly (Secretary) Tel 01877 387292 James Kennedy (Chair) Tel 01877 387201
For Subscriptions Katy Lamb K.lamb142@btinternet.com – Bank Transfers preferred
Loch Ard Local History Group 80-05-91 00370858
Got a question? Get in touch!
Joke and Poem!
I’m sure you may have had enough Burns this weekend (can you ever have such a thing?) However, as I popped into Made in Stirling over the weekend and picked up the former Makar Laura Fyfe’s new book, Endless Blue which I highly recommend and here is
Her slow-beating heart
written and performed in celebration of Stirling’s 900 year anniversary by Stirling Makar Laura Fyfe
26th April, 2024
She watches us from her ancient perspectives
pooled in a valley between river and hills
If we blanket her in paper and scuff a pencil
she might reveal the moments of relief that mark history
the unwritten time that leaves our books bare
as her seabed curves.
Rain whispers in her ear of times
when more than water rolled down her cobbled shoulders;
when we glazed her cleavage in sewer reek and butcher blood.
How we repaid the protection of her wolves who howled their warning.
We used her stone to shield our children from those who’d roughly woo them
but with walls came containment and we forgot her.
Castles are grand in peacetime, but they’re built for war.
When the waters rose we scrambled like fleas to her crown.
Royals and regiments came and left.
We made a battleground of her gardens, grew
shadow puppets and stone-lipped monuments.
In her lap, we made a crossroads, built a bridge for goods and Gods.
Winds carve her bones with their own songs of change
glaciers and sharpened metal pass over her and recede.
For the hardships she’s bided
she’s all the more beautiful.
She saves her gifts for those who stay.
We might swim in her and be swallowed by cold,
walk by her rivers and sink beneath her skin.
Where she swells to the sky, we might lie
with bees in the spring of moss and heather
The coiling Forth, mingling tide and hill water:
quicksilver clean, silt-thick fertile and ozone salt.
Slivers of sun strike and cloud shadow on the Carse.
Her deep eyes reflect the sky’s seasons,
the waxing and waning of the moon
the falling of old nights,
the dawning of new days.
Memories of fire.
She has no angels to sing of her,
only her daughters, her sons:
born of strife, hardened by history,
softened by the pulsing of air on her fields
awed by her slow-beating heart.
Do do you get if you cross a great detective with bubble bath…Sherlock Foams!
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Thank you Murray. Goodness me what a lot of damage there. I too have Laura’s book and bought one in the hairdressers when she popped in to leave a few there. Of all the places! 😄 Hope you are feeling better now.