I love family history and newspaper archives as well, I couldn't have written my books without Ancestry and the BNA.. or they would certainly have been more boring! Also, wasn't Wallace the name of the lion in Albert and the Lion? It always seemed an unlikely name for a beast, but it had history, it seems!
That is a fascinating story. I can imagine the wonder in rural Aberdeenshire at the sights, sounds and smells of the circus.
In my home village of Rothes we also have a Black African connection in the person of "Byway", who was adopted in Africa as a child by Major Grant of Glen Grant distillery and brought back to be a footman/butler. As a child I remember him clearly. He always wore a suit and tie, with a V-neck pullover. My father remembered him as a talented footballer for the local football team, and for his choice of beverage if offered a drink in a local pub- "I'll have a gin please". This despite his distillery upbringing and in a village where whisky was THE drink. He is buried in the village cemetery, where people still tend his grave. https://www.northern-scot.co.uk/news/the-rhodesian-rothesian-the-unique-story-of-biawa-makalaga-296917/
How interesting. I’m planning another post about my gran’s memory of seeing Sanger’s circus in Huntly in around 1890. Her father accommodated the camels in his stables!
I love family history and newspaper archives as well, I couldn't have written my books without Ancestry and the BNA.. or they would certainly have been more boring! Also, wasn't Wallace the name of the lion in Albert and the Lion? It always seemed an unlikely name for a beast, but it had history, it seems!
Brilliant! You’re right about Wallace. I didn’t remember that.
That is a fascinating story. I can imagine the wonder in rural Aberdeenshire at the sights, sounds and smells of the circus.
In my home village of Rothes we also have a Black African connection in the person of "Byway", who was adopted in Africa as a child by Major Grant of Glen Grant distillery and brought back to be a footman/butler. As a child I remember him clearly. He always wore a suit and tie, with a V-neck pullover. My father remembered him as a talented footballer for the local football team, and for his choice of beverage if offered a drink in a local pub- "I'll have a gin please". This despite his distillery upbringing and in a village where whisky was THE drink. He is buried in the village cemetery, where people still tend his grave. https://www.northern-scot.co.uk/news/the-rhodesian-rothesian-the-unique-story-of-biawa-makalaga-296917/
How interesting. I’m planning another post about my gran’s memory of seeing Sanger’s circus in Huntly in around 1890. Her father accommodated the camels in his stables!