Barrowsgate

Category: Stories

  • Moley Brodie

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    This story concerns an apparently real life mole catcher named William “Moley” Brodie, who only had one leg. “For over forty years, he waged war on the moles of Dee, Don and Feuchside”. It describes the decline of professional mole-catching, once a hereditary and respected profession, now mostly done by farmers or labourers. ​ Brodie,…

  • Rolling Stone

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    This is an unusual “story” consisting of a number of anecdotes based on Barrowsgate’s experiences as a “rolling stone”. ​ He recounts various adventures, including travelling to see a heavyweight championship fight in Reno, Nevada, by signing up as a railway navvy. ​ He shares anecdotes about seeing a loaf of bread impaled on a…

  • Sacramento River Dredging

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    This is an account of Barrowsgate’s own experiences as a dredgerman on the Sacramento River in 1911. ​ He found work on a steam dredger in the Lisbon Reclamation District. The dredger was a large vessel used to deepen the navigation channel and raise the riverbank to prevent flooding. ​ Barrowsgate describes the challenging and…

  • Black Bart

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    In this unpublished story, written around 1950, Barrowsgate shares a table at a Sacramento restaurant with an elderly gentleman who proceeds to tell him about his early life in and around the goldfields of California and Nevada. Barrowsgate asks the old man if he had ever come across the infamous bandit “Black Bart”, famous for…

  • A Link with Drake

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    In “A Link with Drake”, Barrowsgate describes how (in his travels) he would often wander far off the beaten track and how, in the summer of 1911, he had come across something unusual in a clearing in woodland near Bodega in Sonoma County, California. It was a heavy brass plate at the foot of a…

  • The Broons Pairty

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    In this short playlet (date unknown), Kirsty Broon has invited four “society ladies” from Dubbytoon round for a meal to celebrate the elevation of her husband Jeck Broon to Head Scaffie (roadsweeper) of Dubbytoon. Just before they arrive, Jeck confesses that he has lost one of his collar studs and thinks it has landed in…

  • Stranger Aboard

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    This is a ghost story set on the Fraserburgh trawler “Rose of Faithlie”. Newly-wed crewman Jimmie is on board, and the captain sees strange apparitions. The voyage ends in tragedy. Unpublished manuscript below.

  • 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:

  • 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…

  • Trooper Tammy

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    Tammy was not a man, but a horse. In this tribute to Tammy, Barrowsgate notes the crucial role that horses such as Tammy played in the Great War and observes that they witnessed just as much horror as their human counterparts. At the time of writing (1937) Tammy was seeing out his days working for…