Whisky, Kilts, and the Loch Ness Monster: Traveling through Scotland with Boswell and Johnson

20. To Edinburgh

156 20 R To Edinburgh Now that my anticipated worst moments were over, I was eager to meet up again with Boswell and Johnson at the place where all this started: Edinburgh . I picked up their trail again along the east coast at St. Andrews and Dundee before driving into the Scottish capital. Actually Dundee got pretty short shrift from both men. Johnson wrote tersely, “We stopped at Dundee, where I remember nothing remarkable.” He was being kind. To Mrs. Thrale he was blunter: “We came to Dundee, a dirty despicable town.” Boswell was, by comparison, verbose and almost full of civic boosterism: “Came to Dundee about three. Good busy town, P. Murray the landlord. Fresh chaise there.” I fared better, though I was disappointed if hardly surprised to read that the building that housed Peter Murray’s inn where the travelers stopped no longer exists. I got lost and wound up making several loops of the city including a crossing of the Tay River Bridge, which at two miles in length was the world’s longest when it opened in 1878. The year after that, the wooden structure collapsed, killing seventy-five poor souls. The scale of the disaster shocked all of Scotland, indeed all who heard of it. There were civic endeavors all over the country to honor the victims, none more wretchedly carried out than the commemorative poem written for the occasion by the Scottish poet William McGonagall called “The Tay Bridge Disaster.” It has become famous among bad poems as arguably the worst because it was so seriously intended. McGonagall was a curious fellow who has become more famous for being a bad poet than most writers are for being good. Born in Edinburgh in 1830 to an Irish immigrant family, he worked in Dundee’s mills until he To Edinburgh 157 had an epiphany in 1877 and “discovered myself to be a poet.” There was no stopping him; ignorance of technique and style were no bar to his evergrowing desire to compose verse for special occasions. Tragedies proved wonderfully fertile for his muse, and the collapse of the Tay Bridge just two years after his discovery of his poetic gifts gave him the opportunity to compose his masterpiece of pedestrian ineptitude. The poem is too long and too witless to quote in its entirety, but three stanzas should give you the idea, and if anyone wishes, it’s easy to read the entire thing—and everything else he wrote—because it’s all still in print and online. With apologies, here’s the poem: Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay! Alas! I am very sorry to say That ninety lives have been taken away On the Sabbath day of 1879, Which would be remember’d for a very long time. The train sped on with all its might, And Bonnie Dundee soon hove into sight, And the passengers’ hearts felt light, Thinking they would enjoy themselves on the New Year, With their friends at home they lov’d most dear, And wish them all a happy New Year. So the train mov’d slowly along the Bridge of Tay, Until it was about midway, Then the central girders with a crash gave way, And down went the train and passengers into the Tay! McGonagall concluded his poem with a nice touch of advice for anyone concerned that this sort of thing might happen in the future: “For the stronger we our houses do build / the less chance we have of being killed.” McGonagall died in 1902, and like a bad piece of pizza he just doesn’t seem to go away. I remembered seeing Dundee some thirty years earlier and finding it a rather dirty and dull city. Nothing remarkable, to echo Johnson. My guide at the time thought little better of it, and he was a native. In fact he had advised me not to stop there: “Nothing worth seeing for anyone who’s got an education.” But when I finally located a parking spot downtown in the City Center I saw a city that seemed to have changed, and for the better. It had a sense of dynamism about it. The streets were clean, the sidewalks were filled with professional-looking men, women, and lots of students, and the 158 Whisky, Kilts, and the Loch Ness Monster stores were busy. There was a good bookstore—always an indicator of...