Inspector of the Ice

On the wall of Tibbermore Church near Perth is a monument to James Ritchie, who died in 1840. 

This monument is built into the west wall of the north wing of Tibbermore Church, a few miles to the west of Perth. On top of a sarcophagus are two curling stones, tramps, and a broom. John Ritchie, a local farmer, was a keen curler! His ornate headstone seems to be unique in depicting the sport of curling.

The monument also has a carving of Ritchie's prize winning bull.

Tibbermore Kirk is no longer is use, and has been in the care of the Scottish Redundant Churches Trust since 2001, see here.

See this video for views of the church and graveyard.

These are single-soled stones, with scalloped decoration above the striking band. There's a broom kowe behind. And on the right are a pair of tramps, also known as crampits, which were attached to the feet in the manner of crampons, to give secure footing, but which did much damage to the ice. David Smith discussed these in this post.

I photographed James Ritchie's memorial back in 2007, see here. Being on an outside wall, it is open to the weather. A large yew tree does give the carvings some protection, and someone is paying attention to the condition of the monument. In 2007, there was signs of damage to the rearmost of the two stones, and a crack could be seen in the scalloped decoration. This had undergone some restoration in the intervening years.

Who was James Ritchie? We know he farmed at Cairney (also spelled Cairnie on old maps), which is well to the south west of Tibbermore on the other side of the main road from Auchterarder to Perth.

The Annuals of the Grand Caledonian Curling Club (as the Royal Club was called in its early years) provide some more information. Ritchie belonged to the Cairney Curling Club which was one of twenty-eight clubs which provided returns to be printed in the first Annual, that for 1839. Here it is listed as the 'Carnie Club', with only five members' names, and no indication of who the office bearers were. The entry was more comprehensive the following year, and the spelling of the club name had changed!

This is the club's entry in the Annual of the Grand Caledonian Curling Club for 1840. Twenty-three members are named. Rather than listing the office bearers as 'President' and 'Vice President', the Cairney Club has a 'Captain', 'Skipper, and 'Lieutenant'. I rather like the fact that the club had its own chaplain and its own doctor! I wonder what was involved in the position of 'Regulator of the Rink'.

James Ritchie was the 'Inspector of the Ice'.

The practice of designating the duties of office-bearers and members in this way was considered to be 'unnecessary' by the Annual editors, and this was pointed out in a 'Notice to Local Clubs' printed in the 1840 Annual on page 22. 

As the 'Inspector of the Ice' it is likely that Ritchie's job was to monitor the ice of the local pond, and indicate when conditions were suitable for curling to take place. And that raises the question of where the members of the Cairney club did play. It is relevant to point out here that the earliest Constitution of the Grand Caledonian Curling Club, in the General Regulations section, says (3d), 'That Local Clubs to be admissible shall consist of at least eight members, have a designation, and stated sheet of ice for their operations, and be governed by office-bearers under a code of regulations'. (My emphasis) The requirement for affiliated clubs to have their own curling ice to play on remained in the Royal Club regulations until 1936, by which time most clubs were playing indoors. The Historical Curling Places website shows clubs' local ponds, as well as other venues where there is evidence that the sport was played.

The farms of Cairnie and Upper Cairnie are in Forteviot Parish. The curlers of the area, including James Ritchie, must have been well organised in the early years of the nineteenth century. According to the list of clubs in old Annuals, the Cairney Club itself was formed in 1832. Where did they play? Did they have a pond on Cairnie farmland which they called their own in 1838 when they decided to join the Grand Caledonian Club? The OS 6 inch map, Perthshire, Sheet CIX, 1st edition, surveyed in 1859 and published in 1866, shows a possible place, what seems to be a mill pond, just to the south west of Cairney Cottage. But there is no hard evidence to indicate that curling was ever played there. Present day 'curling pond hunters' have work to do!

James Richie did not live long enough to see how the Cairney Club would fare as a member of the Grand/Royal Caledonian Curling Club. It prospered, and its members are listed in the Annuals of the Royal Club until 1884-85 when the Cairney Club became the Cairney and Dupplin Curling Club. The Cairney and Dupplin CC remained a member of the Royal Club until 1934, its resignation being announced at the Annual Meeting that year.

Bob Cowan

Images © Bob Cowan, excepting that of the Cairney membership in 1840 which is from the Annual of the Grand Caledonian Curling Club of that year. 

The Mystery Woman on the Olympic Curling Rink in 1924

Ninety years ago, on January 25, 1924, the Great Britain team paraded through Chamonix on the first day of the the 'Semaine Internationale des Sports d'Hiver', the event that would retrospectively become the first Olympic Winter Games. That's the GB delegation in the photo above with athletes who would compete in ladies' and men's figure skating, pairs figure skating, ice hockey, bobsleigh, and curling. You can see the curlers, with corn brooms on their shoulders, in the rear of the group. There are eight of them - the Willie Jackson team, and four reserves.

I'd like to be able to identify the flagbearer.  The British Olympic Association's Official Report of the VIIIth Olympiad, compiled by F G L Fairlie, does not say, but from other photographs in that publication it would seem that two of the bobsleigh team are leading Team GB. I think that is Lieutenant W G Horton with the banner, and Lieutenant A D Crabbe with the flag, but confirmation is required.

Although the event was not called the ‘Olympic Winter Games’ at the time, it was organised under the patronage of the International Olympic Committee, and included many of the ceremonial aspects of the Olympic Games. In the parade on January 25, the teams were headed for the main ice arena, the Stade du Mont Blanc, where Camille Mandrillon took the Olympic Oath on behalf of the athletes, see here.

As I write this I'm looking forward to watching the Opening Ceremonies of the Games in Sochi. I imagine these will be quite different than ninety years ago! Read more about the first opening ceremony here, and watch a short video of the parade here. Spot the GB curlers walking past!

I have previously written in detail about the1924 curling competition, see here, this being won by a British team, four Scots - Willie Jackson (skip), Robin Welsh (3rd), Tom Murray (2nd) and Laurence Jackson (lead). The curling rink was to the side of the of the main arena, see below.

Just what did the curling rink look like? I have included shots of the action in previous posts, but these don't give a good impression of the rink and the surroundings. I recently acquired an original photograph from the time. This is a similar photo to that in the Spaarnestad collection in the Netherlands National Archives (here) which is dated January 27, the day before the first official match.

The photograph shows two games being played on 'La piste de curling'. It is possible to identify some of the players on the ice. I'm fairly sure that on the far sheet that's the GB team in action, with Laurence Jackson and Tom Murray ready to sweep a stone that has been played by their skip. They are playing against some of the Swedish curlers.

I do not believe that this was one of the medal matches. If the date of the photo in the Netherlands National Archives is correct, I thought it must be a practice session. The first official match of the curling competition was held on the morning of Monday, January 28, 1924. Sweden beat France, 18-10. The following day, Tuesday, January 29, 1924, Great Britain played Sweden and won 38-7. On Wednesday, January 30, 1924, GB played France, winning 46-4. And that was the competition over.

I speculated before, see here, that there could have been friendly games, after the main matches. Now there is evidence that the curling rink was put to good use before the main games took place.

The evidence came in emails from Lars Ingels, who describes himself as a 'Swedish Olympic amateur historian'. He pointed me towards an article in the April 1999 SOF-bulletinen, the magazine of the Swedish Olympic Historians Association. It is a first hand account written by Ture Odlund, one of the members of the Swedish squad, recounting how they travelled to the games, and details of the medal games. Odlund played third in the team that was to lose the medal game against the Jackson side. I am indebted to Lars for bringing this article to my attention.

When the draw for the curling competition was made, a Swiss team was expected to take part, and the first games were to take place on Saturday, January 26. But the Swiss withdrew. A new draw was made and the competition proper began on the Monday, January 28. That meant that there were two free days between the opening parade and the first medal game. Ture Odlund indicates that in these days the Swedes and the Scots played three 'friendly' games, and the Swedes played a further two games against France! The teams would have got to know each other well before the medal games took place.

I recently obtained this postcard which is titled 'Match de Curling au Stade du Mont Blanc'. I wondered if the photo had been taken around the time of the Olympic curling competition. It was only when I was able to study it with a magnifying glass that I found that it was. The clue is on the snow lying on the roof of the small building in the rear of the view. The depth of the snow, and the way that it has broken off, is identical to that in the photo of 'La piste de Curling', posted above! It must have been taken around the same time, January 27.

I've commented on this photo before, see here. It's from the IOC's archive of photos from 1924 (here). It is captioned thus, 'Chamonix 1924 - During the events. The Swedish team (SWE) and the team of Great Britain (GBR)'. This caption is quite wrong! None of the GB gold medal winning foursome are in the photo. And who is the mystery woman fourth from the left? Three of the British reserves are in the group. William Brown is on the right, next to Colonel Robertson-Aikman. Third from the right is Swedish skip, Johan Petter Ahlen and next to him is John McLeod. The other three of Ahlen's team, Kronlund, Wahlberg, and Pettersson, are on the left of the photo. So, four Swedish players, three GB reserves, and a woman. Who is she?

Looking at the detail of the Chamonix postcard, it's the same group of curlers on the ice that are in the IOC photograph, and on the right of this closeup, there's the mystery woman involved in the game. She's ready to sweep with Willie Bown, and that's Colonel Robertson-Aikman in the head. She's playing here with three Brits, but was she herself British? Or could she have been Swedish?

There's just another puzzle in this photo. The scoreboard at the back seems to read France 4 Britain 39. It doesn't apply to the game being played, but could, perhaps, be a left over from the medal game on the morning of Tuesday, January 29, when GB beat France 46-4, with the last end or two still to be added. If this is indeed the case, then these games are being played after the medal matches have all been completed. And that would make sense.

Can you identify the mystery woman? Here's a closeup from the group photo.

It would not be until 1988 that women curlers stepped on to Olympic ice officially, when curling was a demonstration sport in Calgary. No GB team though. See who played then, here.

There's one other image which I've come across recently.

This is from a French publication, L'Illustration, from February 9, 1924. It is captioned 'Une partie de curling entre equipes anglaise et suedoise'. The insert words, bottom right, can be translated as, "The player has just launched his stone too slow and those in his team sweep the ice in front of the stone to extend its slide." Several players in the cartoon can be easily identified. That's certainly Sweden's skip, Johan Petter Ahlen, calling the shot in the head. But it is two of the British squad (identifiable by their plus-fours) that are doing the sweeping. I would guess that's supposed to be Tom Murray on the right, and either Robin Welsh or John McLeod on the left. I suppose that the illustrator has used artistic license in his composition intended to describe an aspect of the game, but it would be nice to think that the Swedes and the Brits did mix up their teams for a friendly game at some point in Chamonix all these years ago!

Thanks to Lars Ingels for help with this article. The top photo is from a scrapbook now in the care of Tom Murray's great grandaughter. The origins of the other images are as indicated.