Tallow galore!

Since the recent winter storms large barrel shaped lumps of tallow have been washing up on the shoreline, between Collieston and St Cyrus 50 miles to the south. I had assumed that the material was deck cargo that had been washed into the sea by the recent mountainous waves but today the BBC provided an alternative explanation.

The fat is believed to have escaped from the wreck of a merchant vessel that was bombed by the Germans in WWII. The recent heavy swell seems to have disturbed the shipwreck caused the lard to escape.The tallow would have originally been stored in wooden barrels, which have long since rotted away.

Angus McHardy, a retired fisherman from St Cyrus, is reported as remembering a lot being washed up at St Cyrus in the early 1940s. At that time, when fat was scarce and rationed, people collected and boiled up the tallow to get the sand out.

Tallow is a rendered form of beef or mutton fat, often with added pig lard. It is solid at room temperature. Tallow was used in cooking, as a lubricant in marine steam engines and for making candles.

Just our luck that we have tallow galore rather than whisky galore!

Update: After an evening's Googling I can tell you a little more about the sinking of the ship, the MS Taurus. The information comes from Rod Macdonald's Shipwrecks of Scotland.


The motor ship Taurus (III) was built in 1935 by A/S Akers Mek. Verk in Oslo for the Wilhelmsen shipping line. A graceful fast vessel of 4,767 gross tons, she measured 408' in length, with a beam of 55' and a draught of 25'.

Only four years after Taurus was completed World War II broke out. After the German occupation of Norway on 9th April 1940, 44 of the Wilhelmsen Line's vessels, outwith Norwegian boundaries came under the control of the Norwegian government in London and thus under the British Ministry of War.

In May 1941 Taurus set off from Freetown loaded with a cargo of foodstuffs on a passage up the west coast of Africa, rounding Britain and passing down the east coast destined for Hull. At 0044 hours on the morning of 6th June 1941 she was making good progress in convoy. She had just passed Aberdeen and Stonehaven. She was suddenly attacked by an enemy aircraft and three bombs were dropped from low altitude. All the bombs exploded in the water close to her hull. Some plates were burst and her hull started flooding with water. She took on a list to port and started to settle by the stern. She was taken in tow for the port of Montrose some 15 miles away but two hours later she was the victim of a further air attack.

Three more bombs were dropped. As with the last attack these all missed but exploded close enough to the hull to cause further damage. She started to settle more quickly into the water and the tow was diverted to run her aground on the shore nearby. She never made the refuge of the shore and sank in 50 metres of water some 2 ½ miles offshore.