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,…

  • 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 Unpublished manuscript below.

  • The Marble

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    This detective story is one of Barrowsgate’s rare “pure fiction” manuscripts. A farmer is murdered in the village of Denham and his neighbouring farmer is the chief suspect. A news reporter, down from London on holiday, discovers what really happened. The story contains characterisations that were common at the time but would now be considered…

  • The Receipt

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    A short, somewhat bizarre tale of an American who felt he was being ripped off by the German priest who asked him to give money for candles at mass. The American wanted some sort of receipt from God to prove that his money was going towards saving his soul and not just to fill the…

  • 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    In this unpublished story, written around 1950, Barrowsgate shares a table at a Sacramento restaurant with an elderly gentleman who proceeds to tell him about his early life in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…

  • 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: