STRATHAVEN

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 63, Issue 4464, 15 August 1941, Page 7

STRATHAVEN

WHERE HESS DESCENDED. AN AUSTRALIAN MEMORY. (By M.D.8.) Rudolf Hess jumped into the peaceful countryside of Strathaven in Scotland, and suddenly all the world knew just where Strathaven is. To-day it will be buzzing with visitors, but in normal times it is a quiet farming community and an ideal spot for a country holiday. Situated in Lanarkshire, and a few miles from Glasgow, the whole district is steeped in Scottish history. It was into Strathaven (pronounced Straven, with a proper rolling of the “r”) that Graham of Claverhouse rode with his dragoons in search of Scottish Covenanters on June 1, 1679. He found them at Drumclog, listening to the preacher Thomas Douglas, who, on the alarm being given, said. “You have got the theory; now for the practice.” So these fighters for religious freedom, many armed only with pitchforks, lustily singing a Scottish Psalm, joined battle with their enemies. After the battle of Drumclog Claverhouse rode back through Strathaven, this time at a brisker pace. “At Strathaven, the inhabitants would fain have stopped the progress of the Royalists; but most of the men of the place able to bear arms were away, and the flying soldiers went galloping at great speed up the village.” So runs the Chronicle of those days. About 250 years afterwards, two Glasgow university students hailing from this side of the world, holidaying in Strathaven, scraped the moss from tombstones in an old cemetery there, and read that there lay Men of the Covenant, shot by Graham of Claverhouse, or killed by “Bloody Bell.” Tinto, a hill on whose top there is usually a mist, stands up in the midst of heather-covered moors, and the mournful cry of the whaup makes one’s blood run cold as tales are told of “the Killing Times.” But a visit to Lanark is more cheerful, especially if there is a fair in progress. It is a short drive from Strathaven, and on the way the farmers are greeted by the names of their farms rather than by their own surnames. “Guid day, Yard Bent.” “Guid day tae ye, Neuk Foot.” But if is a damp, drizzly day, a slight inclination of the head and the one word “saft” would be the correct salutation. The farmers’ wives and daughters are always interested in the butter-making-competition at a fair, and a lovely sight it is to watch those rosycheeked lassies turning the handles of their churns for dear life, and then, suddenly holding the lid aloft, announcing that their butter had “come.” WILLIAM AND EDGAR. Lanark is Wallace’s home town. Perhaps it is necessary to say “William” Wallace, in case anyone should ejaculate “Good old Edgar!” as once happened when a tourist was shown Wallace’s monument from Stirling Castle. In the market place of Lanark, far back in the thirteenth century, William Wallace dirked an English soldier, was proclaimed an outlaw, and took refuge in a cave just out of the town. He soon organised a large army, which fought many battles for Scotland’s independence. Another town near Strathaven is Lesmahagow, famed throughout the countryside for the toothsome morsel “The Lesmahagow bawbee bake/” which has to be tasted to be believed. A little further afield is the larger town of Hamilton, whose show place used to be the magnificent Hamilton Palace, now no longer in existence. Visitors to Strathaven are always taken to see several fine waterfalls in the district. But Australian tourists are apt to wonder why water in the mass should be an attraction when so much of it falls daily from the sky. On the “Sabbath,” the farm folk walk long distances to church, and the young people are given a penny for the collection plate and a peppermint to suck during the sermon! In the oldest church there was a custom astonishing to the visitors from overseas. Before the psalm or paraphrase was sung, a man, whose seat was below the pulpit, struck a tuning fork, and then sang the first line before the congregation joined in. A STRAVEN KITCHEN. There is no doubt that the farm kitchen in which Hess sat would be the same as the farm kitchens of many years ago. The stone flags of the floor scrolled in wonderful patterns with a white, chalky stone, the huge fireplace, with hooks for the griddle that baked crisp oatcakes and puffy three-cornered scones, the high-backed chairs at the fireside, and the small window overlooking the green fields where “the kye come hame.” The even-. ings of Scottish song and story, the quaint speech, “Aye, Merrin, ye’re just like an auld peukit hen,” spoken quite affectionately to an old spinster friend, and, above all, the warm friendliness and interest that filled to overflowing a holiday spent by an Australian in Strathaven.