John Muir's Birthplace

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Content updated Tue, 30 Jun 1998 00:30:13 GMT

John Muir's Dunbar... [home]

To the Shore, Harbours and Castle

Woodbush School

Lamer Street and Old Harbour

Even in the 1950s, when the school was last used, the lower playground could be awash on a stormy day. But, when dry,

'...nearly all of our playground games were strenuous - shin-battering shinny, wrestling, prisoners' base, and dogs and hares...'

In days of lesser waves, playbreaks were enlivened by racing along the sand - the object being to get by before a wave drenched one's feet. The penalty for failure was heavy punishment in school and at home. Outwith school, the beaches around Dunbar's shores became an outdoor adventure playground for John and his contemporaries - and a chilly washroom. Here he is again in his own words:

'...It appears natural for children to be fond of water, although the Scotch method of making every duty dismal contrived to make necessary bathing for health terrible to us. I remember among the awful experiences of childhood being taken by the servant to the seashore, stripped at the side of a deep pool in the rocks, plunged in among crawling crawfish and slippery wriggling snake-like eels. As the time approached for this terrible bathing, I used to hide in the darkest corners of the house. But after we were a few years older we enjoyed bathing as we wandered along the shore, careful, however, not to get into a pool that had an invisible boy-devouring monster at the bottom of it. Such pools, miniature maelstroms, were called 'sookin-in-goats' an were well known to most of us. Nevertheless we never ventured into any pool on strange parts of the coast before we had thrust a stick into it. If the stick were not pulled out of our hands, we boldly entered and enjoyed plashing and ducking long ere we had learned to swim. One of our games was thrashing each other with whips about two feet long made from the tough wiry stems of a species of polygonum (tangle seaweed). We stood up close and thrashed each other on the legs until one succumbed to the intolerable pain and thus lost the game. Many a brave ship foundered or was tossed and smashed on the rocky shore. When a wreck occurred within a mile or two of the town, we often managed by running fast to reach it and pick up some of the spoils. In particular I remember visiting the battered fragments of an unfortunate brig that had been loaded with apples, and finding fine unpitiful sport in rushing into the spent waves and picking up the red-cheeked fruit from the frothy, seething foam.'

Fine sport for boys. The wreck occurred during one of the periodic storms which lash the coast. Several ships went down that night and many lives were lost.