Gruinard Island looks peaceful enough today but in 1942 it was a different story. The small island sits quietly in Gruinard Bay halfway between Gairloch and Ullapool without causing much of a fuss, but when top MoD boffins from the Porton Down military research laboratory in Wiltshire wanted a quiet spot to test their new weapons it suddenly became hot property.

As the Second World War escalated, there was a worry that the Germans would attack Britain with germ warfare. Gruinard Island was deemed far enough away from anywhere important to be used as a testing ground for the anthrax bacterium. It is fatal in 95% of cases when ingested - not something to be messed with. So this innocent piece of land became Scotland’s top secret ‘Anthrax Island’.

As part of the experiment, 60 sheep were penned up and exposed to anthrax-infected bombs. Within three days they were dropping like flies and the scientists had the proof they needed. The plan was for anthrax to play a part in Operation Vegetarian - a deadly programme designed to cause maximum damage. Linseed cakes contaminated with anthrax would be air dropped over Germany. The cattle would ingest the spores and contaminate the meat supply, killing swathes of German citizens in the process.

Thankfully that particular scenario didn’t come to pass. The linseed cakes were incinerated at the end of the war, but it was too late for the Gruinard locals. The island was abandoned and covered in ‘Keep out’ signs. Everyone did until 1986 when an English company was brought in to decontaminate the land. It took 280 tonnes of formaldehyde to do the trick. The topsoil was removed in sealed containers and a test flock of sheep was sent over to graze on the island once again. When there were no ill effects the island was declared open again.

Today, there are no outward signs that anything happened. It’s a particularly scenic and sleepy part of the country. Round the coast, there are more visible wartime relics with the concrete gun emplacements and memorial at Aultbea. Gruinard’s only recent claim to fame has been Private Eye’s suggestion that Guardian typesetters, famous for their misprints, should retire here.

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Posted by Anne on August 25, 2010 | Filed under Anne Military Scotland
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There aren’t many rules at Nothing To See Here, but here’s one – if you’re ever near a camera obscura go and see it. Scotland is blessed with three, in Dumfries, Edinburgh and Kirriemuir. Edinburgh’s has the best views, Kirriemuir’s has a literary connection (gifted to the town by Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie) but Dumfries’s is the oldest of the three and in fact, the oldest working instrument of its type in the world.

Plans for the camera obscura started in 1834 when local businessman Robert Thomson heard that the old windmill at the top of Corbelly Hill was going to be demolished. With local support he purchased the building for £350 to create the Dumfries and Maxwellton Astronomical Society. The tower was converted into an observatory and the camera obscura was brought all the way from Kilmarnock on a horse and cart.

Initially, the tower was only open to members and selected ones at that. The writer Thomas Carlyle was one of the first to arrive. It was 1849 before members of the working class were allowed in and even then it was only on Saturdays. As donations from patrons grew, the adjoining museum began to grow as the observatory went slowly out of fashion. It stopped operating as an observatory in 1870s.

Providing the weather is amenable, its operation is fairly simple. An angled mirror on a long pole poking up at the top of the tower (like a periscope) projects images of the outside world onto large flat table below. That may not sound very exciting considering that you could look out of the window and see more or less the same thing but it feels magical, like floating invisibly around the world with an all-seeing eye. It’s fun to play God, picking up passing cars with a piece of paper or making an invisible bump in the road for buses to shuffle over.

With technological advancements, camera obscuras have no practical purpose, but that doesn’t diminish their appeal. It’s a chance to catch a little glimpse of the present through the eyes of the past. Dumfries is lucky to have this illuminating little gem.

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Posted by Anne on June 06, 2010 | Filed under Anne Museums Scotland
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The Toothbrush Fence in Te Pahu, New Zealand is exactly what the name suggests, a fence adorned with toothbrushes (and a few dish brushes). While the Toothbrush Fence was name checked in TV’s “Flight of the Conchords” as boasting over 50 toothbrushes, they now number in the hundreds. In all their variety they hang from the fence, their plastic still vividly coloured although their bristles are largely worn down from long service. Children’s toothbrushes stand out as makers have gone all out to make oral hygiene attractive to the young with Narnia, Lord of the Rings films and Looney Tunes all represented.

The Toothbrush Fence is located on a farm on a quiet rural road and if you weren’t looking for it, it seems unlikely you would stumble across it. We saw no other people while visiting but the bull in the nearest field stared at us, and a goat tethered to a fence across the street also ambled into the road to greet us.

A sign under the farm’s two letterboxes instructs “DIY (wire in bucket)”. The fence goer can hold their toothbrush in a clamp and drill a hole in the brush before helping themselves to a pre-cut piece of wire to attach their brush. If you need amusement while your friends drill their toothbrushes, the post boxes have games attached to the fence to play, in the form of a Rubik’s Cube and a peg based game of uncertain rules. The fence also displays a painting of Betty in her 1950s blue sedan visiting the Toothbrush Fence. The identity of Betty is unknown but her image also adorns one of the village’s other attractions – the Helen Clark Celebrity Bus Shelter.

Former NZ Prime Minister Helen Clark is a native of Te Pahu. The Celebrity Bus Shelter is wooden, green and houses paintings including one of the then PM in the bus shelter and the depiction of Betty’s visit. The Helen Clark “self portrait” may be a reference to “Paintergate” where as PM she signed a painting which was, alas, not her own work.

Te Pahu also boasts an information centre in a shed, which a sign informs you is closed 24 hours a day. Peering through the window it has a "You are here!" map, a Te Pahu School t-shirt, a handful of leaflets and a Hamilton Underground Map. Hamilton (the nearest metropolitan centre) has yet to build a subway system, although it does boast a tribute in statue form of its own celebrity, Richard O’Brien as Riff Raff from the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

The creator of all the Te Pahu attractions is the self proclaimed Laird of Hamilton, Graeme Cairns. His inspiration for the Toothbrush Fence apparently came from the now sadly bare Cardrona Bra Fence. Cairns is best known for his attempts to evade the census by various methods including claiming to be possessed, completing the form in Latin and nailing it to a tree, ascending to international air space in a hot air balloon and being cryogenically frozen and declared legally dead by a “Dr Qualified”.

While his Te Pahu website claims “Te Pahu is a great place to live, and the less people who know that the better” the closed Information Centre is intended to frustrate any potential visitors, it’s well worth making the effort to stop in Te Pahu if you are ever nearby.

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Posted by Kate P on March 04, 2010 | Filed under Follies Kate P New Zealand
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Quiet spaces near Edinburgh’s Royal Mile are few and far between, but if you look hard enough they are there. On the Canongate, just passed the Kirk, the entrance to Dunbar’s Close looks like any other Edinburgh wynd. Its well-kept secret is a beautiful 17th century secret garden. Walking through its gates is like stepping into another world from the hustle and bustle of the Royal Mile.

Neatly laid out like a traditional Burghal garden over three quarters of an acre, it packs a lot into a small space. Trees and manicured bushes create a shady area at the entrance, opening out into a suntrap full of lovely flowers and unusual plants. Two small squares with classical stone benches provide quiet places to sit beside a shady wall that could fool you into thinking it was in Tuscany. It’s worth stopping a while to enjoy the wonderful symmetry of the design and the spectacular views of Calton Hill beyond.

The garden was created by Sir Patrick Geddes (1854-1932) who lived on the Royal Mile at the time. He was an eminent Scots biologist who stressed the connection between health and the environment. Geddes had the vision for a network of gardens around the city of which Dunbar’s Close is one. By the 1970s the garden had fallen into disrepair. It was saved by a bequest from The Mushroom Trust which gifted the land to the City of Edinburgh Parks Department. In 1978 it was rebuilt by landscape architect Seamus Filor and has remained a delightful public space ever since.

Few places in Edinburgh are really secret, and even this quiet spot fills up at regular intervals with small groups of people on walking tours. However, the groups leave as quickly as they arrive, and after that peace reigns again. It’s fun to watch the tourists mingle with Auld Reekie aficionados who obviously know that this is the place to go for a quiet moment.

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Posted by Anne on February 14, 2010 | Filed under Anne Nature Scotland
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Over the years Coventry has had a bit of a hard time. Bombed heavily during World War II, the Modernist post-war reconstruction which was groundbreaking in its day has few fans left. However, in Broadgate - the dead centre (as it were), a building with a facade that only its mother could love has a special treat for keen-eyed visitors.

Above the Lady Godiva News kiosk (oh yes) there are two doorways with black eagles on them, signifying Coventry rising from the ashes, and a triangular window above. On the hour, Coventry's most famous heroine Lady Godiva comes rolling out of one door on her horse, buck naked of course with only long hair to cover her modesty. As soon as she appears, famous voyeur Peeping Tom pops out of the window above to get a good eyeful. She rides from one doorway to the next as bells alert goggle-eyed onlookers. In a flash it’s all over.

Both Lady Godiva and Peeping Tom are local heroes. Lady Godiva has another statue in the centre of Broadgate and she looms large in Coventry’s history. Another Peeping Tom statue watches the shoppers in Cathedral Lane shopping centre and the bizarrely-titled Peeping Tom News, a sibling of Lady Godiva News, lurks round the back of the clock.

The legend goes that Lady Godiva, an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who was the wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia, threatened to ride naked in protest at her husband’s decision to raise taxes. He ordered the populace not to look and everyone obeyed apart from local tailor Peeping Tom, who was cheeky enough to catch a quick eyeful. He paid a high price for his moment of pleasure and was blinded.

It’s not entirely clear why this hasn’t become one of Britain’s top tourist attractions. After all it is free and contains nudity. Mechanical clocks were at one time an essential feature of any self-respecting shopping centre. If you can’t manage a peep at Coventry’s, Masquerade author Kit Williams designed ones in Cheltenham, Telford and Milton Keynes or you could catch the magnificent Roland Emett’s The Aqua Horological Tintinnabulator in the Victoria Centre, Nottingham.

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Posted by Anne on January 23, 2010 | Filed under Anne England Sculpture
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Tove Jansson’s Moomins, created by her in the 1940s, have been popular with children and adults worldwide (but particularly in Scandinavia and Japan) ever since. In Jansson’s native Finland, a theme park was opened with her blessing in 1993, with the understanding that it would be non-traditional, close to nature and made of stone and wood.

Located on the island of Kailo (the original choice, Ruissalo, is now home instead to the Ruisrock music festival), Moomin World (Muumimaailma) is accessible via a bridge from the harbour of the old town of Naantali.

There are no rides in Moomin World and while there is no shortage of places to buy snacks and Moomin merchandise, these don’t seem to be the park’s raison d’être. Instead visitors can visit buildings featured in the Moomin stories such as the many-storied Moominhouse, Sniff’s Summer Cottage, the Snork’s Workshop and the Witch’s Hut.

Where Moominworld does resemble traditional theme parks is in the abundance of teenagers dressed in character costumes. We saw Moominmamma, Little My, Too Ticky, the Hemulen and many more swarmed by adoring children (and one little girl whose curiosity lead her to try to unzip the Snork Maiden!).

Some of the characters also appear on stage at Theatre Emma, which gives regular performances in Swedish and Finnish. As English speakers the dialogue may have been lost on us but we enjoyed the spirited dancing of the octopus, Little My’s impudent faces and the revolving stage sets.

The park’s key demographic, families with small children wearing headscarves, loved the play together with walks through attractions like the Hattifatteners’ maze, the Whispering Woods and the Barefoot Trail, stopping in the many picnic areas and swimming in the sea at the secluded beach area. (Otherwise scarily well-behaved Scandinavian
children do splash each other!)

Moomin World is a gentle, friendly place, which reflects the imaginative landscape and idealism of the Moomin stories and can be enjoyed by children, adults, Moomin fans and Moomin neophytes.

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Posted by Kate P on January 08, 2010 | Filed under Finland Kate P Parks
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Pennan, on the Moray coast of north-east Scotland is a tiny village with a big reputation. It is hard to reach, down a steep, narrow, serpentine road, but many visitors make the effort. There’s one reason why – they all love Local Hero. In Bill Forsyth’s 1983 film, Pennan has a starring role as Ferness, which will become an oil refinery if some American businessmen (led by Burt Lancaster) have anything to do with it. Like Forsyth’s earlier masterpiece Gregory’s Girl, the film has a great cast and an understated sense of wonder that people fall in love with.

When you arrive it’s easy to see why Pennan was chosen. There is only one street which runs along the shore, lined by clothes poles, lobster baskets and the odd hammock. The houses turn their gables against the sea to shelter from the harsh north wind. The harbour is small and functional and the cliff that towers above the houses threatens to engulf the village every few years. There is no shop (unlike Ferness) and the Pennan Inn has been closed for some time, only recently reopening. It’s not exactly bustling. In fact, it is the opposite of the skyscrapers and long-distance speakerphone conversations of the Texan oil industry.

There is no shortage of little villages with picturesque harbours round these parts, but here the all important troika of harbour, phone box and inn (essential to the plot) are within spitting distance of each other. The famous red phone box, from which Peter Riegert phones home to report on the 'acquisition of Scotland' was added as a prop. When it was removed after filming there was an outcry so it was replaced in a slightly different location where it still stands today. Even the perfect driftwood on the beach has a cinematic quality although the beach scenes were shot on the sands at Morar on the west coast.

Its appeal has endured over the years and in 2005 Pennan topped a poll for the best film location in Britain. A plaque on the Pennan Inn opposite the famous phone box commemorates its fame. In 2008 The Culture Show brought Bill Forsyth back to the village to celebrate Local Hero’s 25th anniversary with a showing in the tiny community hall. The film and the village are so inextricably linked that you can almost hear Mark Knopfler’s famous theme ‘Going Home’ as you approach. As the film suggests, it's difficult to leave without taking a piece of it away with you.

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Posted by Anne on December 20, 2009 | Filed under Anne Film & TV Scotland
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