Good morning!

This Fem Friday we turn our attention to the beautiful county of Fife, slightly north of Edinburgh or slightly south of Dundee depending on your perspective.

This is inspired by my having been to see modern classical composer Anna Meredith, who I thought until I reread this interview was from Fife (i.e., North Queensferry) but who is, in fact, from very very slightly south of same:

Yeah, it's a slightly strange place to grow up, South Queensferry – in that your postcode's Edinburgh, I went to school in Edinburgh, most of my mates lived in central Edinburgh, and I went to orchestras and music groups every night there after school – but I spent most of my teenage years wishing we actually lived in the city. I feel like I spent half my life back then on incredibly infrequent buses. There was this amazing bus that used to go back and forth late from the city centre, it was called the Night Reveller – isn't that a great name for a bus? You had this kind of Sophie's choice between either a bus at quarter past midnight and then there was nothing till quarter to three. So you'd just be sat there, on Waverley Bridge, in your tiny little sparkly dress, waiting and waiting for the Night Reveller. Or the Night Hawk, that was another one. They were always like the seventh circle of hell, those buses, with everyone being sick, winding through all the little rural villages out of the city.

http://thequietus.com/articles/20027-anna-meredith-interview

I’ve featured Mary Somerville here before, but mainly her thoughts and impressions of her hometown, Burntisland*. This episode, I want to really focus in on one thing – that she was such a brilliant scientist the word scientist was coined just for her:

William Whewell, in his 1834 review of Mary Somerville's On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences, coined the word "scientist" to describe Somerville in part because “man of science” seemed inappropriate for a woman, but more significantly because Somerville’s work was interdisciplinary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Somerville

Another great bit of Fife history relating to women – Mary Queen of Scots was kept in captivity there, in the castle on Loch Leven. You can see her escape illustrated on this vintage cigarette card:

And read about it here:

Mary attempted to escape from the castle in March 1568, disguised as a laundress, but was, unfortunately, recognised by the boatmen taking her across the loch and so was returned to her prison. Her next attempt, on 2nd May 1568, was successful. This time, she was helped by sixteen-year-old Willie Douglas, a page in the castle. He sabotaged all the boats at the jetty except one and signalled to Mary, who had swapped clothes with her lady, Mary Seton, when the coast was clear and everyone was busy with May Day festivities.

https://www.tudorsociety.com/17-june-1567-mary-queen-scots-imprisoned-lochleven-castle/

Have a great weekend!

Alex.

*in Fife