Medals with a message

When Sir Alexander Boswell, the laird of Auchinleck in Ayrshire, gave a medal to the curlers of Kyle he caused very precise instructions for how it was to be played for to be inscribed on it.

The following description of the medal appeared in the Ayrshire Express of 1 January 1870:
"On one side, on a shield, in the centre, is the figure of a sturdy Caledonian, partially robed, with a stout club in his right hand, surmounted with a knight’s helmet and crown, over which is written in old English letters, 'Old King Coil,' and, above all, is the motto, 'Non Timet Hostiles Jam Lapis Istemenas.' Underneath the figure, in a garter, are the words, 'Kyle for a Man,' surrounded with a wreath of thistles and oak leaves, &c."

On the other side are the following instructions:
"This medal may be challenged for by any curlers of Kyle, and shall be played for by single matches, each playing six stones, and allowed a person to direct the game. Twenty one the game, and the distance forty yards from brough to brough. The winner not to be obliged to play more than one match with the same person, nor five matches, in whole, in one year. The man who challenges must stake a crown, the holder of the medal nothing. A contest for the medal not to be construed into a parish play, and all the matches to be played on the 'Whirr Loch' in the parish of Auchinleck."

Several explanations are necessary. The medal must have been presented before 1822 because on 26 March of that year Sir Alexander Boswell was shot dead at Auchtertool in a duel by James Stuart of Dunearn. (He was tried and acquitted in the High Court of Justiciary on a charge of murder.) Sir Alexander was a keen, keen curler; a member of the Duddingston Curling Society, and a poet who wrote some notable curling poems.

The Latin is a quotation about a stone from the Roman poet Martial. It means: 'This stone does not fear hostile threats.'

Kyle is that part of Ayrshire that lies between the Rivers Irvine and Doon. The old rhyme characterises the different parts of the county by what they were best at producing.

Kyle for a man; Carrick for a coo; Cunningham for butter and cheese And Galloway for woo’.

'Brough' is an old Scots word for 'circle', and a crown was a coin worth five shillings, a large sum at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

The play for the medal was to be single-handed, each curler throwing six stones, with someone in the broughs to hold the brush. Six stones is a very great number when one considers that at that period in and around Auchinleck the rink in ordinary curling matches consisted of nine men each throwing a single stone.

I have in my collection from the same bit of Ayrshire another medal that contains instructions.

It is of silver and engraved round the rim are the words: OLD CUMNOCK CURLERS SOCIETY MEDAL 1831.

On one side appear the words:

Whoever plays for me Must of this Parish be Fortyfive Yards from tee to tee.

And on the other:

At 2 days notice play for me or delivered up I must be to the Rink that challenges for me


These two are the only medals I have so far come across that contain the rules of play. I would be delighted to hear of any others.

David B Smith

In the house

In one of the earliest poems about curling, by the Lanarkshire poet, James Graeme, and first published in 1773, we find:

The goals are marked out; the centre each
Of a large random circle; distance scores
Are drawn between, the dread of weakly arms.

In Thoughts on the Seasons, (1789), David Davidson the Kirkcudbrightshire poet wrote, when describing the play at a bonspiel between Glenbuck and Bentudor:

Then Fotheringhaw, a sidelin shot,
Close to the circle played.

And in the next year Alexander Wilson wrote:

To the ice of Loch Tankard, our buirdly braw callans
First bare the big whin-stane, and marked out the tee;
Syne drew down the dread hog-score, the hack and the circle,
Around which our Fathers oft sported wi’ glee.

The first badge or medal of the Duddingston Curling Society, which was struck in 1802 “to distinguish the members from any other gentleman” shows a circle inscribed in the ice of the loch.

The Rev. John Ramsay in his An Account of the Game of Curling, by a Member of the Duddingston Curling Society, 1811, page 4 states: "The place for the rink being chosen, a mark is made at each end, called a tee, toesee, or witter. It is a small hole made in the ice, round which two circles of different diameters are drawn, that the relative distances of the stones from the tee may be calculated at sight, as actual measurement is not permitted till the playing at each end be finished. These circles, in the technical language of the game, are called broughs."

Sir Alexander Boswell sang the following song to the Duddingston curlers at a dinner in McEwan’s Tavern on 11 December 1816:

"Soop the rink, lads, wide enough;
The hogscore mak’, and mak’ ilk brough;" (make every circle.)

The curlers of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries clearly played their stones into a circle round the tee.

It is therefore a bit surprising that in the Annual for 1838-9 in which the first rules of the Grand Caledonian Curling Club were published there was no explicit provision in the Rules of the Game for circles, or broughs, or a house.

Rule 16th stated: “No measuring of shots allowable previous to the termination of the end.”

When rules were first promulgated for district medals for points in the Annual for 1839-40 it was provided “3d, A circle eight feet in diameter shall be drawn round the tee…” and the circle was an important part of the scoring system, for one point, drawing, demanded that a stone be put into the circle and others demanded that a stone be struck out of it.

The 6th rule in the Annual for 1840-1 was: "...In cases in which each party has a stone equally near the tee, neither to be counted, and the winning party of the previous end is again to fill the ice. Measurements to be taken from the centre of the tee to that part of the stone which is nearest it."

In that for 1841-2 in Rule 6 we find this addition to the rule, printed in italics: “No stone to be counted which does not lie within seven feet from the tee, unless it be previously otherwise agreed upon.”

After the first thorough revision of the rules, which contained 'great improvements' according to the editor, we find in the Annual for 1854-5: “Rule 1….A circle of seven feet radius, to be described from each Tee as a centre, and no stone to count which is wholly without this circle…”

The revised Rules clarified when a stone was in or out of the circle. “10…No stone shall be considered within or without a circle unless it clear it; and every stone shall be held as resting on a line, which does not completely clear it; - in every case, this is to be determined by placing a square on the ice, at that part of the circle or line in dispute.” This was the first mention of a circle but it must have been part of the game from its beginning.

The new Rules were accompanied by a “Diagram or Plan” called “The Rink”, which set out a number of dimensions including those of smaller circles within the seven foot, of 2 and 4 feet in diameter, which were not obligatory.

The seven foot rule lasted until the AGM of 27 July 1938, when after much discussion involving the fact that in Canada they had been playing for years with a six foot circle in contravention of the Rules of the mother club, a compromise was reached. Rule 47 now read: “The Tees shall be 38 yards apart – and, with the Tees as centres, Circles having a radius of not less than 6 feet nor more than 7 feet shall be drawn. Additional inner Circles may be drawn.”

On 24 July 1963 the rule was changed to 6 feet, since all the other curling associations in the world, as well as all the Scottish ice rinks, used that measure.

The only change from that to the present is the decimalisation of the imperial measurements, which took place at the revision of 1980. The present rule is: “Section A.
3. The tees shall be 34.75m. (114 feet) apart and, with the tees as centres, circles having radii of 1.22m. (4 feet) and 1.83m. (6 feet) shall be drawn. Additional inner circles may also be drawn. ..”

Can you kiggle-caggle?

At a time when - for reasons that are obvious: there are so many more of them than us - Canadian terms are beginning to oust the old, indigenous Scots ones, perhaps we should take a little time to remind ourselves of some of the older terms, and add them again to our vocabulary.

If younger Scots can take to using 'rock' for stone - and even some middle-aged Scots television commentators are guilty of that grave fault - perhaps they can pick up expressive words like 'kiggle-caggle'.

It may be that 'to kiggle-caggle' has fallen out of use because ice has got better, for I see that it is defined in my notes under the date 1991 as 'to throw the curling stone with a rocking motion on the ice, designed to reduce friction when ice is wet, or even under water.' (I suspect that the definition is my own.)

In this example from a poem, Scotland’s Ain Game o’ Curlin’, sung at the Annual Dinner of the Kinross Curling Club in January 1889, and printed in the Annual for 1892, pp. 421-2, the poet, having celebrated the actual game, then deals with the apres-curl drinking, and uses the term to describe the unsteady gait of some curlers on their way home. My wife, who is a bit posher than me, has suggested I should explain some of the other Scots words. I have put a translation of each line in italics below the line!

And when we at nicht in the Public sae couthie
And when we at night in the publichouse or hotel so friendly
Sit drinkin’ for fellowship, - no that we’re drouthie -
Sit drinking for fellowship - we’re by no means thirsty -
We weel ken that 'Heath’ry' will drive us a’ hame,
We know well that Heathery (a nickname) will drive us all home,
If his dog-cart’s at hand, and his powney’s no lame.
If his pony and trap are to hand and his pony is not lame.

It is true that he may, as he ance did afore,
It is true that he may as he once did before.
Clap us down at a place that’s no’ just our ain door;
Drop us off at a place that’s not exactly our own door;
But what does it matter? - a’ doors are the same
But what does it matter? - all doors are the same
To a curler when he’s kiggle-cagglin’ hame.
To a curler when he’s kiggle-caggling home.

In Keen Curler’s Troth, from the Annual for 1936, p. cxxvi, it is obvious that 'kiggle-caggling' was part of the ordinary curler’s armoury.

I’ll aye a curler keen abide,
And ne’er a challenge shirk.
I’ll draw the tee straucht doon the slide,
And fickle ilka quirk.

I’ll kiggle caggle to and fro,
Tak wicks, and draw the port,
Ne’er be a hog, nor eke owre slow
Tae chip the brittle shot.

I’ll soop the rink frae score tae tee,
I’ll keep ma language clean,
Dae what I’m tell’t, treat courteouslie
Ma foe, forbye ma free.

I’ll mind ma feet, and slide ma stane,
No drap it, wi’ a dunt,
A gawky gommeril is a bane,
His neebors bear the brunt…

Top photo: A clear case of the kiggle-caggles. New Farm Loch, Kilmarnock, beginning of the twentieth century, from the author's collection.

The Royal Club Button Mystery

In November 2006 the Scottish Curler printed an article by David Smith about the attempt of the RCCC in 1850 to institute a uniform for its members. This had been prompted by his finding a button which had been produced as part of that uniform.

The article read:
"At a meeting of the Representative Committee of the Royal Club held on July 25, 1849, a Mr Piper exhibited a pattern of a curling coat, with designs for buttons for the same, and as a result, the matter of a Royal Club uniform was remitted to a Committee.

The Committee set to work at once, and by August 22 decided that there should be a club uniform 'consisting of Coat, Vest, and Trowsers, made of Tweed Cloth of one pattern and quality, and strongly recommended the full suit, and at all events, that each member should provide himself with the coat.

The Meeting also resolved, that the groundwork of the cloth shall be as nearly as possible of a Granite colour, checked with blue and green bars, the blue being the royal colour, and the green emblematic of the broom.

The Meeting further resolved, that the price of the cloth shall not exceed 5s. per yard, but in the meantime directed Mr Piper to procure pattern cloths, at the lowest possible price per yard; also to give an estimate for the making and mounting, likewise an estimate of a full dress button, per set, - the button as fixed on at the General Meeting.'

John Piper, who appears as member of Edinburgh Operative Curling Club, instituted in 1849, and as member and Representative Member of Waverley, instituted in 1848, in the RCCC Annual for 1850, and whose warehouse was then at 37 South Bridge, Edinburgh, lost no time in complying with these directions for on 30 August the committee met again and '…In compliance with the directions of last Meeting of Committee, Mr Piper laid before the Meeting, four pieces of Scotch Tweeds, of the same pattern as approved of by last Meeting, and of different qualities, No. 1, 3s, 9d. per yard. No. 2, 4s. per yard. No. 3, 4s, 6d. per yard. No. 4, 4s. 6d. per yard, and the Meeting having carefully examined these pieces, selected No. 4 thereof, and resolved that it shall be the sample cloth for the Uniform of the Royal Club, and directed that it be registered in the name of the Clothier to the Royal Caledonian Curling Club, to be hereafter appointed.'

Piper’s charges for making the various garments and supplying sets of buttons were approved and he was formally appointed Clothier to the Club.

Piper made sure the curling public was aware of his appointment as clothier by putting a prominent advertisement in The Scotsman of November 14, in which he stated that he was 'now prepared to execute orders for the UNIFORM. For the convenience of those visiting Edinburgh, he will have at all times a number of Suits ready-made of various sizes. CURLERS ATTENDING HALLOW-FAIR are particularly requested to call and inspect it…'

Ten days later the advert contained this additional exhortation:
'CURLERS
Whether wanting the Uniform or not
Are particularly requested to call and inspect it.'

Piper’s enthusiasm does not appear to have been matched by the members’. There is no depiction of any curler wearing the uniform. Indeed, at the annual meeting of July 26, 1853, Mr J.O. Dalgleish observed that the uniform had only been partially in use and moved successfully that the subject be reopened. A new committee was appointed but the matter seems to have gone no further.

Despite the fact that he bought for himself the very recently painted picture of the Grand Match at Linlithgow by Charles Lees, and, properly proud that he was the owner of this magnificent and inestimably important painting, made this part of his advertisement in November 1853, John Piper’s name no longer appears as member of any club after the Annual for 1856; and there is no further mention of the uniform in the Club’s Annuals. The reason may well be what the online catalogue of the National Archives of Scotland shows, namely that on November 10, 1855, John Piper, Edinburgh, Tailor clothier, was made bankrupt; and that he was discharged from bankruptcy in April 1859. Quite a come down for the 'Master clothier, employing 42 men' shown in the Census Return of 1851 as living with his wife, four daughters and a servant at 5 St John’s Place, Edinburgh.

This may explain why, although I have been searching out, and collecting, curling material for about forty years, it was not until September 2006, that I saw for the first time one of the buttons that Piper had had designed for the Royal Club. The button was for sale in an internet auction, and my excitement at this very rare find can perhaps be imagined by other collectors.

I was successful in bidding for it. The picture (above) shows the result - a fairly large copper button, 1.125 inches in diameter, containing, within a border of Caledonian thistles, all the other insignia necessary for a Royal Caledonian Curling Club - crossed broom-kowes, framing a pair of curling stones, above which is a very un-Scottish-looking crown, and below which is a very complex and difficult to read monogram, RCCC.

On the reverse the words JOHN PIPER SOUTH BRIDGE ST. EDINBURGH encircle the registered design mark which records that the design was registered in 1849. Piper produced two sizes of button of which this is the larger. It is a pity that this one is unfinished, for the Royal Club specified that the buttons would be ‘all best treble gilt’."

David continues this story for the Curling History blog: "Curiously, just after publication, a keen member of The British Button Society, Rex Butler, contacted the Royal Club to find out about a button which he had come across when cataloguing a collection of buttons in Birmingham Museum. He had correctly deduced that the cipher at the bottom of the button was 'RCCC' with the same letters reversed and superimposed. That was a very clever deduction for the cipher did not resemble much to me when I first saw it. The Royal Club passed on his email to me. I sent him a copy of my article. In an exchange of emails we each expressed astonishment to the other that both of us had come across a single example of the button almost simultaneously.

Recently Rex Butler has been again in touch, this time directly with me. He told me that The British Button Society, of which he is the membership secretary, had been invited by a firm of button-makers in Halesowen to inspect a number of old dies for buttons which they had come across; and to give advice as to their identification and preservation.

Some of the dies were indexed in a large book and when he was looking through this an entry for the Royal Caledonian Curling Club of May 25, 1962, caught his eye. The entry gave the die number, M740, and button sizes as 36” and 27”, that is, of 36 and 27 'lines' respectively, the line being one fortieth of an inch. He found the dies and photographed them, and some of his pictures accompany this posting.

In a later email Rex explained in detail the whole process of manufacture of dies and buttons. These dies were for the making of horn or nylon buttons. One fact surprised me: 'horn' includes hoofs of cattle.

I have in my collection six of the smaller size of button from these dies. They are dark bluish or black. They are the only examples of this button that I have ever seen. Is there any Royal Club member, or descendant of one, who has any such buttons?

There does not appear to be any particular event for which the buttons would have been created. I have looked in vain for any mention of buttons in the minutes of Annual General Meetings as published in Annuals around the appropriate time. The date of the order (1962) does not seem to coincide with any incoming or outgoing tour to or from Canada and the United States."

Rex Butler explains how the dies are made and used. "The method of making the dies for these one-piece moulded buttons is for the die sinker to make a female master die (above). Usually, a lead or other soft material impression is taken from this, and sent to the customer for approval. If approved, a male master die is made from the female, after hardening the latter. The male is made by shaping a metal bar to an approximate contour that will fit the female (usually, a concave female, so a convex-ended bar for the male), heating the male bar so as to soften the metal, and then forcing it into the female, using a powerful press. The result is a mirror image of the female die, as you can see from the photo below. The male is then hardened, to prolong its life. Once this is done, it is used to make the female production dies from which the buttons will be made (bottom photo)."

The '61' indicates the year the die was made -1961.

A female production die.

These photographs are courtesy of Rex Butler. Find out more about buttons here.

Curling at altitude

It’s now more than thirty years ago that a remarkable curling match took place. Near the top of the Jungfrau in the Bernese Alps and close to the Jungfraujoch station of the Jungrau Railway is a cavern, or as some advertisements put it, a cathedral, or a palace, carved out of the ice of the glacier there.

During the Grindelwald Bull competition in 1977, Jim Gardner, Calwell Loughridge, John Grant and I, all members of the Abbotsford Curling Society, took some time off from our busy schedule to inspect this large hole in the ice. We all thought it might be great fun to have a game away up there but there wasn’t time that year. The next year I was unable to go and the rink with a Smith-substitute played in the bonspiel under the flag of Ballindalloch CC, which was only right because it was well fuelled throughout by that product of the distillery situated at Ballindalloch, Glenfarclas.

That year the arrangements were successful and two rinks, that of Ballindalloch and a local rink skipped by Hans-Peter Glarner, plus some Scots umpires, took their stones up the railway with them to the cavern to play what they claimed was the highest game of curling ever played. They were 11,333 feet above sea level.

The photograph above shows Calwell and Jim ready to sweep a John Grant stone, while Hugh Lyburn, then of Wigtownshire and now of Brandon, Manitoba, looks on. All I learned about the game was that it had been great fun and that the score was a diplomatic 6 all. Whether the word peels was added to the Grindelwald/Swiss vocabulary I do not know.

I wonder, however, whether their claim is correct. 15,000 feet up Mount Kenya beside the Lewis Glacier there is a small lake called in all the books the Curling Pond. In Kenya Mountain, 1926, the author EAT Dutton describes his companion, JD Melhuish, skating on the Pond, and causing consternation among the porters who had never before seen a 'white man dancing with knives on his feet'. In The Mountain Club of Kenya Guide to Mount Kenya and Kilimanjaro it is said that Dutton taught Melhuish to curl on the Pond in 1919. The report is silent as to who carried the curling stones to that great height, and as to their number.

Found on the web. This is apparently a Jack Jackson photo, for sale as a hi-res poster image here. It is captioned 'Point Lenana, 4985M, and the Curling Pond, from Top Hut, Mount Kenya, Kenya'.

The Uniroyal World Junior Championship 1976, Aviemore, Scotland

In these days of the internet, digital cameras, interactive television and webcasting, it is easy to forget how difficult it was to record in pictures the curling events of years past. In 1976 I travelled to Aviemore to watch the second Uniroyal World Junior Championship at the rink in the Aviemore Centre.

I had my camera with me, and took a few 35mm slides. The results weren't very good. I kept a few of the slides over the intervening years and had them digitised recently. The Scottish team (above) was L-R Bob Kelly, Ken Horton, Willie Jamieson and Keith Douglas, from Glasgow Young Curlers Club. Here are three more of my pics from that wonderful week - the first time I had watched a complete international event.

Canada's Paul Gowsell encourages his sweepers.

Canada's Glen Jackson delivers, with Neil Houston and Kelly Stearne ready to sweep.

The presentation ceremony, Team Canada on top of the world!

But the above was not the main reason for today's post. Bob Kelly recently lent me a VHS videotape that had been converted from the 16mm film which Uniroyal made at the time for promotional purposes. Bob knew of my interest in rescuing old video footage of curling. This thirty minute film record of the 1976 event is now on DVD. Perhaps one day (soon) it will be possible for all to see again on the web. Already tantalising snippets of historic curling footage can be seen on YouTube (for example here), and in the CBC archive. The future is indeed exciting for the curling historian.

What can be done today though is to extract singles frames from the DVD. The quality is not great, even allowing for the fact that the original film image has been twice converted. See what you think!

The championship flag, with just two venues on it.

Something you don't see every day - Scotland's World Champion skip (from 1967) Chuck Hay sweeping! It was the opening stone of the event.

Bob Kelly and his team lost to Canada in the semifinal. All the records are on the WCF site here.

Sweden's Jan Ullsten and his team lost the final to Canada.

Another pic of Team Canada. I think it fair to say that the 'colourful' Gowsell team caused some raised eyebrows amongst the traditionalists in Scotland!

W K Jackson

David B Smith writes:
Amongst the objects forming the Jackson Collection acquired recently by the RCCC Charitable Trust (see here) is an ephemeral document, the official identity card of Willie Jackson as a competitor in the Winter Olympic Games at Chamonix in 1924. Of course, the actual gold medals won by WK and his son Laurence were an important reason for acquiring the collection, but this small card very much adds to the feeling of what it was like to be a competitor.

Incidentally, among the objects I was given from the estate of Robin Welsh was a competitor’s badge from the same games, for Robin Welsh, senior, was also a gold medal curler in this rink; and this badge must have been his.

The photographs from Chamonix of the curlers in action are disappointing: none of them is very sharp. I have found one that shows WK holding the brush. Another shows two other members of the winning rink, Robin Welsh and TB Murray, in some sort of action on the ice, which was, of course, in the open air.

Jackson had been famous in curling Scotland before 1924. He was vice-president of the Royal Club in 1921-2. But the Olympic win undoubtedly added to his fame; and he added to his fame every year throughout the Twenties. He was again elected vice-president in 1931-32. Such was the regard in which he was held that he was elected President in 1933-4. In proposing his election Lord Sempill said that apart from farming he had been a justice of the peace and county councillor, a director of Edinburgh Ice Rink, and a member of the Royal Club Council for over twenty years.

Throughout the years Jackson won many, many trophies and great respect, but he also won the affection of everyone as the following poem by the Rev. A. Gordon Mitchell, chaplain of the RCCC, clearly shows. It first appeared in the Annual for 1933-4.

TO WILLIAM K. JACKSON,

PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL CALEDONIAN CURLING CLUB.

O Willie, Willie Jackson,
In your presiding year
Your legion of admirers
Acclaim you wi’ a cheer.
We’re prood to see ye winnin’
Where ye deserve to be.
We thocht frae the beginnin’
Ye’d reach the Curlin’ Tee.

It is a prood position,
As weel ye ken yoursel’,
Made famous by tradition
O’ them that filled it well;
Fu’ mony a belted Thanie
Was prood to win that chair,
An’ those that lo’e the stanie
Were gled to see them there.

A noble and a rare man
Ye’ve pruived yoursel’ fu’ weel,
Ye’ll mak a peerless chairman,
And, as ye play the spiel
To nane ava a second,
Sae owre us ye’ll preside,
By ane an’ a’ aye reckoned
The curlers’ joy and pride.

Three cheers for Willie Jackson,
The champion of the Rink:
There’s nane will grudge to gie them
That wields the kowe, I think.
Cheer till ye’re hairse and roopit!
And wuss that it may be
His stane may aye be soopit
To sit upon the tee.

Top: WK Jackson’s identity card, front and back.

WK Jackson skipping at Chamonix at the Winter Olympics, 1924.

The Great Britain gold medal winning rink at play. Left is Robin Welsh. Next to him is TB Murray.

A competitor’s badge, probably that of Robin Welsh. 'Concurrent' is the French for 'competitor'.