Both sides now

It isn't dreich today, but I had hoped it would be. I want to use this subject as my blip today and I did say to another blipper, my inspiration for this, that I would only when blip it when dreich ruled. Actually the sun is shining beautifully now and the birds are singing loudly.

It all started a few days ago when I saw this blip, and Helena and I laughed as did many others, it would seem. But it also triggered my thoughts about all the other blippers who have been near this scene and been inspired to photograph something there. I also remembered seeing this map when Helena gave me a nerdy book for Christmas, Mapping the railways, and I was drawn to this specific one without realising its subsequent importance, as the site of the Forth bridges.

This section is taken from the Ordnance Survey of Scotland 1 inch map, Sheet 32, originally published in 1858, printed from an Electrotype taken in 1877. 'Before the Forth Bridge was opened in 1890, both sides of the the estuary were only served by relatively minor railway lines. On the south side, a branch left the Edinburgh-Glasgow main line of the North British Railway (NBR) at Ratho pier, running via Kirkliston and Dalmeny to South Queensferry pier, where a passenger ferry operated across the Forth to North Queensferry. Passengers could then continue their journey by NBR train to on the brqnch line to Inverkeithing and onwards through Fife to Kirkcaldy and beyond'.

I often look for sites of ferries as they mark the place where ancient routes crossed important waterways. We have several near here crossing the Severn Estuary, often called 'passages'. There is a famous photo of Bob Dylan, standing at the site of the soon to be obsolete ferry between England and Wales (nearly) just before the Severn road bridge was opened. Martin Scroseseused it for the cover of his recent DVD documentary about Dylan's early career called No Direction Home. I highly recommend it.

Until I knew Helena, who grew up in Argyll, went to school in Bridge of Earn, Perthshire, and then to Edinburgh University, I had no idea where most of these places were. Since Joe started his Blip journal more and more people are now seeing images of Scotland, and of the Forth Bridge environs in particular. One of my Grandparents was named Murray and hails from Scotland, but I never knew her as she died very young and we lost contact with that branch of the family, so I had little contact with a branch of my roots.

I love maps, and the history of landscapes, so this map of such a key place in the modern geography of Scotland is so interesting for me. How did two small hamlets evolve on either side of this river estuary, only to be overwhelmed by the later addition of the bridges, which would miss them completely? Reading about Appreciation's family living there brought this to life in my mind, as did the huge variety of Blips I found when searching the blip archive with the term 'Queensferry'. That is where I found that Joe, our blip founder, had blipped a hubshot view of there.

When we next go to visit Kirsty, Helena's mum, near Oban, I am going to visit both sides of this Forth water here, and I'm looking forward to it already. Last time we went to her house beside Loch Etive, I managed to photograph two otters swimming just yards away in the sea. Perhaps I can do it again this summer.

ps
I think if I was to recommend music to accompany this blip, it would be Dick Gaughan's 'Both sides of the Tweed', despite it being the wrong river.

pps
I am away next week in Bristol, without a computer, so may not be able to post or write comments. I hope to back blip though, you will be sorry to hear. I hope I might see a Blipper or two there as well.

ppps (with thanks to Sarah Horrigan, whose ps usage always amuses me)
These stones were found in other places and don't represent the stones of Scotland.