Category: BBC Broadcast
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How Long is Minute?
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In this tale, broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland, Barrowsgate describes how he nearly met his end, dangling from the tail arm of a windmill. Original typescript can be downloaded below:
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The Meanest Man in Canada
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This apparently unpublished story from around 1938 appears to be based on real event. It tells of Tom Stephenson, an old land owner in Alberta at the time when Jim lived there in 1910. He is forced by the Government to hand over some of his land to incoming homesteaders. One such incomer is Jim…
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Gowanleas Galluses
Continuing from last week’s column, everybody enjoyed the picnic, followed by some sporting games. In the “tug o’ war” between the married and the single men, Gowanleas’ wife tries to lend a hand by pulling him from behind by his braces. Note: Barrowsgate’s brother in law lived in a house named “Gowanlea”
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A Fishing Trip in South Australia
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This is a straightforward, apparently factual account of a family holiday around 1923/4 from Adelaide to Cape Jervis. Jim, Janet and the two boys set off from Adelaide in a motor car, towing a boat, packed with camping equipment behind them. The story describes the journey there and how they caught different types of fish,…
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The red-haired robber
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“The Red-haired Robber”, broadcast in January 1937 as “Here Awa’ There Awa’” on BBC Scotland, recounts a story Jim that is told by Sam Goldberg in his eponymous saloon bar in a town called Condor. Some years previously a red-haired man had robbed Goldberg’s safe and escaped on horseback over the border to Canada. Many…
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Moses Esq. – Promoter
Barrowsgate is convinced that Moses was a Scot, and that he raised money for his church by organising sales of work. Note: The only printed copy of this Bittie is almost illegible but the typescript that was submitted to the BBC around 1958 can be downloaded below.