Stories

By popular demand we will publish some of Tommy's stories both about the museum and the town.

The Irawaddy Flotilla

The Museum has just recently acquired a very large archive of shipping vessels history. We hope to take from this information, some stories that may interest and amuse you. Take for example this one about elephants;

The year is 1884, A timber company engaged a flotilla of steamers to help remove the timber from one side of the river Prome which is at this point is 1 mile wide.
They intended to use Elephants to help remove the timber from the forest thinking all elephants could swim, but found this was not true, so at the price of 100 rupees per elephant they were taken over by ferry boat.

Once this was accomplished, the elephants immediately they landed on the other side they headed back to the water, and started to fill their trunks with water and splash one another.

As the steamer started on its return journey it blew its siren to announce her arrival this was a deep tone and the elephants hearing this they gave their mating calls and proceeded to follow the ferry back across the river. We have no record of how much the freight charges were resolved.

The same company fitted a new chime siren to one of its other ferries, this had a disturbing effect on the elephants working in the sawmill at Dunedin near Rangoon as every time the siren was heard the elephants knocked off for the day.
The siren was sold to the mill owners. It was much appreciated and was used by mill time keeper. For many years, Several elephants had to transported up river in Flats By Captain Taylor. He left one of the Flats where they required Elephants. Then proceeded up the river by the ferry, at his first stop he was informed that one of the larger elephants had fallen through the wooden deck into the hold 9 ft down.

The captain immediately telegraphed back His instructions were to get ever able bodied persons to meet him on the pier and they all had to bring spades and buckets and anything that would hold earth, but they had not to touch the elephant, till he got back.
On his return he organized a procession of villagers to fill all the buckets baskets etc, with sand and dirt. This they did and all this was tipped into the hold where the elephant was trapped, as time passed by the elephant had tramped enough dirt down to allow it to rise to height that would allow it to walk out of the hold where it had been trapped for several hours, alls well that ends well.

Captain Bie's Animal Story

This is Captain Bie's monkey and dog.  His animals were always interesting, especially to Rockcliffe visitors. His animals were a horse, a donkey, a dog, and this monkey.  The dog and monkey were great companions and the monkey generally travelled on the back of the dog. The faithfulness of these two to their kind hearted master may be illustrated by the following incident. Captain Bie had been away for a cargo and the dog must have seen the vessel enter the river, for it ran from Rockcliffe to Kippford with the monkey on its back and swam across the river to where the vessel was moored. Expecting to be welcomed by it's master unfortunately the vessel was a stranger and the animals had their journey in vain.
An artist painted the monkey but he monkey licked the paint off the canvas and thus brought about its death. This brought great sadness for the dog that mourned its friend for a long time afterwards.

Captain Bie and other Colvend families had several representatives in the seafaring line. Hailing from the Boreland Farm, Captain Charles Bie owned the fine schooner “William Thompson” and sailed her for many years. His son, Captain John Bie succeeded him as skipper on this vessel and afterwards owned and commanded different vessels including the “Annie Heron, Annie B Smith and the “Bee”. The “Annie Heron “ was later sold into Wales

The Demise of an Airship that Crashed Off Castle Point, Rockcliffe.

A few years ago a very interesting letter was handed in to Dalbeattie Museum by Mrs Leyland, who is a resident of Dalbeattie. She had a hand written letter sent by a young girl to her Daddy, and in this letter she tells her Daddy about an Airship that has crashed off Castle Point near Rockcliffe.
In the letter was attached a small piece of silk taken from the actual Airship.
Tommy Henderson chairman of Dalbeattie Museum did a bit of research into this story and it was discovered that during the Great War a British Airship from Stranraer  Aerodrome caught on some trees near Auchencairn and crashed into the water near Almorness point. Help was quickly at hand from Kippford,but the boats sent were powerless to tow her because of the stronge wind. The great Airship drifted into the Bay at Castle Point, where it was possible to remove all the important material and parts from the Airship. This was done by the men from the Aerodrome at Stranraer. The local people were left to dispose of the other bits that were left, much to their delight.

A few weeks later the pilot of the Airship returned to Colvend in an up to-date aeroplane. It was his intentions to pay the fishermen and all those that had helped in salvaging his Aircraft, but unfortunately in landing in afield at Rockcliffe he missed judged his distance and his plane was completely wrecked through running into a wall.

The Letter is now in the archives of Dalbeattie Museum. 

The Yellow camera

A little boy was telling Mrs Phemie Henderson “You don't have a yellow camera!” Mrs Henderson was giving him a guided tour of the camera section “No, we don't” she said “but I wish we did have a yellow camera!, “so do I” said the little boy

Just then downstairs a local woman came in with a bag of odds and ends for the charity shop, the Museum was holding a few days later and when Mrs Henderson was putting the bag through the back she noticed on the top of the items was a Yellow Camera just like the one the little boy had described to her. She went rushing up stairs to find the little boy and his dad and they could not believe that it was the one he had wished for, so he got to put it in pride of place in the cabinet next to all the other camera's. It really made his visit!.

More stories coming very soon ...