Well, after our mammoth upgrade, we finally seem to be getting back on track!

Last week saw A Pilgrimage take place. The lastest film festival offering from Tilda Swinton saw the ScreenMachine mobile cinema travel from Kinlochleven to Nairn, showing a variety of films en route. With most showing sold out on thebooth, here’s hoping it’s going to be a regular occurence!

And talking of sold out, the Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival sold out for the first time this year. The festival took place over the weekend, in a (mainly) sunny Belladrum Estate near Beauly. Early reports seem to suggest this was one of the best Bella’s yet, so remember and get your tickets early for next year – as it very well could be a sell out again!

Broken Records on the Garden (Main) Stage at Belladrum 2009

HI-Arts Read Bed Stage @ Belladrum 2009

‘We’re over the moon landing another of Scotland’s biggest bands to headline one of its smallest festivals. Its further proof that our size and location are our two biggest selling points to these bands, rather than seeming them as hindrances. On the back of Belladrum selling out and leaving lots of fans wanting more we expect Loopallu to sell out even faster than normal.’

You know those moments when your kids do something and all you can do is stay stuck to your seat and think, “oh god no…please don’t do that” well my son is the master at that.

Yesterday we spent our morning at the church in Carmunnock at christening of my wife’s friends child. We sat through the first hymn and the ceremony before I took the kids across the road to the ‘creche’ so that the rest of the service could go by without to many interruptions. The kids loved it but as we had left in such a hurry we had left everyone’s jackets and toys sitting on the pew which meant Vonnie was going to have some trouble lifting it all out whilst holding onto Greer as well. With this in mind I brought Nairn and Erica back over to the church a little early so that we would be on hand to carry everything but when we got there we found Vonnie feeding Greer whilst talking to the photographer outside.

We got talking about camera equipment and how amazing the Canon 5D mkII was with it’s ability to shoot video as well as stills. It was just about now that Nairn had a twinkle in his eye and decided that no he wasn’t going to listen when I told him he couldn’t run around the back of the church into the graveyard. With the service still going on I was reluctant to shout after him but he turned with a cheeky smile and promptly started climbing up the gravestones and onto the crypts. He’s three years old and apart from goodies killing baddies in some of his older brothers games that’s about all he knows about death. He didn’t understand why I was getting angry at his attempts to scale the largest gravestone in the cemetery.

The look of horror on Vonnie’s face when I told her what he was doing was only beaten by the sheer joy in Nairn’s smile and the laughter on the photographers face.

I sometimes wonder if everyone else can see the same kids I see when I look at my family.

This past weekend we were at a wedding in London where, apart from the bride and groom, we had never met a single person.Our kids went into the crèche during the ceremony and at the dinner and reception afterwards we basically let them run riot around the place. When you’ve got one or two you can keep on top of them but once you hit that magical number of three they learn that in order to get to do what they want they just scatter in random directions. By the time you as the adult and authority figure work out which ne to go after they are all long gone.

Anyway I barely seen our kids for most of the night what with them spending a lot of time at the craft table or on the dance floor. But when they were not doing that they were doing what all young kids do and that’s just run wild. Findlay managed to fashion together a DIY fishing rod and was managing to get the end in the Thames from the decking of the boathouse we were in. At one point he came round the tables looking for something to use as bait.

Nairn just turned into a thief. As the boathouse wasn’t really designed to have a couple of hundred people stamping their feet during the speeches everyone was given a squeaky rubber duck instead and so after our dinner was finished he went around every table lifting the ducks people had left behind. We had over 20 of them at one point.

I think it was Erica that managed to let them get away with it. She was running interference by being as cute as she could be on the dancefloor or talking to anyone and everyone. As soon as Nairn had all the ducks back at our table though her true colours came to the fore and pretty soon they were having a heated discussion over who could have the largest mound of rubber ducks.

It wasn’t until the end of the night however as everyone started to leave that we started getting comments on our kids. I couldn’t believe it. Apparently our children are a credit to us and were simply wonderful. Erica had a few huge goth blokes wrapped around her finger and Nairn was getting on well with the ladies. Someone even commented on how they had never seen a bunch of kids get on so well together and not end up falling out with anyone by the end of the night. Everyone else’s kids were fantastic so maybe mine actually lived up to the hype?

Our middle two haven’t been well. It started with a dodgy tummy on Thursday night and gradually went downhill from there. Bear in mind through all this that we had already delayed our departure for our camping trip until today to give us some extra time to get ready. As I mentioned previously the kids had a duvet day and basically didn’t move. Erica had her nap in the afternoon and then fell asleep in her dinner whilst still at the dinner table. Nairn wasn’t far behind her. They both had a temperature but as our thermometer ran out of batteries months ago and I’ve never got around to replacing them we had to make do with giving them a dose of Calpol and putting them to bed. We never thought any more about it.

Then I remembered that our eldest had possibly been exposed to Swine Flu over the last week so I possibly stupidly checked the BBC’s Swine Flu FAQ and after running through the symptoms we were struggling to find any that the kids didn’t have to one degree or another. So Vonnie rang up NHS24 to check to see if we were correct. This was not kicking the arse off 11pm. The operator/nurse ticked off the same boxes we had and then informed us that a doctor would be round within the next couple of hours to check them out. This is where we started to panic a little. The usual procedure is to go along to the out of hours clinic at the local hospital and be checked out but with it possibly being swine flu the obviously couldn’t let us do that. It just took as a little off guard.

Army.mil @ Flickr

After another phone call from NHS24 asking for more details and then letting us know that it could be 4am before a doctor turned up we decided to bring the kids downstairs and take it in shifts staying up waiting for our medical help. Just before 1am my wife took a call that was the doctor basically saying he was 5 minutes away but not to be worried that when he turned up at our door with face mask, gloves and gown on. Erica took it in her stride but Nairn had been asleep through all of this and so was scared witless when he woke up to find this strange man with a mask leaning over him trying to prod him.

So anyway to cut a long story short they don’t have swine flu but they do have a virus so we’re taking a few extra days to make sure they are fine before heading off on our camping trip at some point at the beginning of next week. I managed about three hours sleep last night thanks to Greer waking up at 5am so today has been fun…

We don’t hide it and anyone with kids will testify to it but kids are evil. Okay maybe not evil. They are like tiny teenagers with thier personalities amplified into stereotypes. Put a handful of them into a room and your guaranteed that World War 3 will break out within 5 minutes and at least one of them will be crying by then.

Today I recieved a phonecall at work from Vonnie because Nairn wanted me to do something for them. They had lifted every single duvet in the house into the livingroom and put them on the floor in front of the TV. The demand was for popcorn as they decided they were having a duvet day and wanted to watch some films. Even Greer was playing along with this and being good for a change.

Duvet Day

With today being the start of the Glasgow Fair holidays I finished work at lunchtime and headed home via the supermarket to pick up the aforementioned popcorn. I got home and everyone was doing great. I think Vonnie must have secretly feeding them sweeties when I wasn’t looking. They were that good in fact I fell asleep on the couch with my laptop on my knee and Greer in my arms.

They then surpassed themselves by bringing two boxes of LEGO down from their rooms and playing nicely with it all. I’ve never seen them like this! Not one of them fought over the special bits and they helped each other build whatever it was they actually built. I can never usually tell what they make unless it’s a car or a plane.

What I was amazed at though was the fact that some of the LEGO they were playing with was mine from when I was a kid. That stuff is almost 30 years old and apart from it being slightly discoloured you wouldn’t have a clue it’s had such a long life.

While weeding the other day, Therese says to me, “A weed is just a plant that’s growing in the wrong place.”

Such a casual comment, but one that I find strangely moving.

So without further ado I’d like to introduce you to the cast of this show.

First up we have:

Bob – That would be myself. A self confessed geek that never actually gets the time to be a geek anymore. When I’m not looking after the kids, cooking dinner, gardening or tidying up you’ll find me writing for various blogs all over the net on subjects ranging from myself to self-sufficiency. I also have a fancy for Dungeons and Dragons and write about that whilst occasionally getting articles published over at Wired magazines Geekdad blog.

Vonnie – That would be my wife. Where as I swan in at the end of the day and warmly embrace the kids and think everything is great in the world she gets to stay at home and look after the children whilst pretending they aren’t actually auditioning for the lead in The Exorcist. Simply put she’s far stronger than I am and god help me if she ever sees me for the charlatan that I am and leaves me. I don’t even know how many sugars go in my tea!

Findlay - He would be my step-son. I say step-son because technically that’s what he is but in reality he’s actually my son that just happens to spend the weekends at his other dads place. Currently going through his mid-life crisis

Nairn – The youngest son. The first child I’ve seen go from bump to birth and beyond. He’s a cheeky wee bugger and huge for his age. Even when he started at nursery as the youngest in his room he was head and shoulders above everyone.

Erica – Eldest daughter and until very recently the youngest child. The nursery recently commented that she was ’slightly boisterous’ for a girl. What do you expect for a girl with two older brothers? Loves her clothes and jewelry but will always be the first to throw a punch. Maybe the nursery are right… Considering the problems she had with her weight during her first year she’s doing great!

Greer – The youngest daughter. Only a few weeks old and already has us twisted round her little finger. After the scares we had with Erica I’m glad to say Greer is showing that it wasn’t Mummy’s milk that was at fault and is bang on track for her targets.

On 09 October, 2007, I wrote in my LiveJournal:

There are some of you read this who love vaginas. There are some of you who hate them. And there are those of you who are afraid of them. I happen to be fond of mine. It has multiple names — vag, vagina, pussy, cunt, etc. — and Wifey likes to make the requisite jokes about me starting up a website called titeazngrlz.com, which I’m sure already exists somewhere on the internet. Yes yes, I get it. In any case, my vagina is my friend. We get along very well, which is why I always feel very bad for it when I go in once a year for my annual exam.

The thing is, it’s really not a super painful experience (unless your nurse doesn’t use lube for the fingering part or the speculum part. Especially the latter. If your nurse doesn’t use lube before s/he sticks the speculum into you, or, and this has happened to people I know, if s/he uses a freaking cold
speculum, get a different nurse, because that is just cruel, and not in a good way), it’s just one that makes you feel really kind of gross for the rest of the day, and possibly the next day as well. I always just feel, like I said, undignified: the paper towel outfit, the stirrups, the clicking noises, my vagina being really unhappy with me, the knowledge that I need to do this once a year for basically forever… yeah, I spend the rest of the day feeling rather shabby and disheveled and just kind of grey. I don’t feel bad, and I don’t feel shitty. I just feel kind of out of it.

My poor vag. It needs a pajama and ice-cream day.

So just imagine that, but being done to a cow with an infection who needs to get tablets placed beyond her cervix and into her uterus. Picture that. Now add a barn, a holding cage/pen, Peter with a giant latex glove on, a bottle of lube, me holding the tail out of the way, fascinated, and Krusty the Cow looking at me all betrayed, like, “I cannot believe that you are a girl and you’re letting him do this to me! What happened to solidarity?” while her calf gazes at her all worried and I clench in sympathy. Got that? Yep; that was my Saturday.

I am never complaining about my annuals, ever again.

- Went into town and got my pay-as-you-go mobile phone. It took about 10 minutes to get everything set up. I called Perv, whose mother thanked me for buying Devil of the Highlands, whereupon I nearly died of embarrassment. I can’t wait to meet her and Big Al in August post-Ireland.

- Crossed Inverness Bridge over the River Ness, and didn’t expect it to move up and down quite so much. I stood on the bridge for a while and admired all of the old stone buildings.

- Having walked around a bit, I walked into a cafe and ordered a gingerbread latte, sat down, and tried not to listen in on people’s conversations around me, which is hard since every time I hear the accent (will this never get old? I don’t think it will) I strain really hard to hear more of it. Eventually I turned my iPod on and listened to The National sing “Secret Meeting” and “Mr. November” and every other perfect song on that fucking album while reading Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (which, btw, I found the version with the upside-down added on appendix, “Mistakes We Knew We Were Making” that I have been looking for for like, 5 years. Where did I find it? In a tiny little used bookshop in Logie Steading in a tiny little village called Forres. I promptly shelled out 4 GBP to buy it because Jesus, what luck!) and drinking my delicious coffee and felt… glorious.

- Found an “Oriental Food Shop” that had, of all things, sae-ooh-ggang! I haven’t had any of it since the giant bag A. bought me for my 23rd birthday, along with Wong Kar Wai’s Happy Together, but I pressed my nose up against the window and couldn’t stop smiling. Koreans: we get everywhere.

- Why is everyone I meet so fucking nice?!

- Took a look inside Inverness Library, which was tiny, and found a copy of Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. When I was falling head over heels in love with Hemingway at the tender age of 16, I never thought that one day I would be sitting in the Highlands in Scotland and witnessing the love affair between Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley bloom. I immediately looked around for my favorite quote from the book and found it on page 222 (you should know what it is), took a picture of it, and then sat nestled in my corner of the library, of the world,  for a little while, a wee while, and re-read words of devastation that linger on in my heart to this day, 10 years after I first encountered them.

Today I got back on a bicycle for the first time in fourteen years.

For those of you who don’t know why this is such a huge fucking deal, here is why:

From my LiveJournal, 10 August 2006:

I was eleven, visiting family friends in Moraga. Jenny’s parents and mine had met in one of those weird coincidences that defy explanation. Our ummas met while applying for their visa documents in Korea, two young mothers who chatted about their husbands who had left to set up new lives. They met again on the plane — I can only imagine their delighted faces, the exhausted naps, the speculative murmurings. And then they step off the plane, are swept into the strong, reaching arms of their spouses, laughingly start the introductions, only to learn that their husbands had already met each other on their own, through night work in America, through a few classes at night school. They stand and laugh incredulously at this. And all the while, two little girls, one almost three (her), one almost two (me), being passed back and forth and being cooed over.

So now we come to this time when I am eleven, visiting Jenny. We had hopped on bikes and gone biking, she the natural leader, and me following nervously, skidding to a stop fairly often, and at the top of a hill I watch my friend blaze downward, I watch her admiringly, before I, too, begin to pedal. And halfway down the hill I clench the brakes, my legs try to stop the forward momentum, and numbly the thought formulates: the brakes on this bike are broken.

The bike hits the curb, hard, and I go sailing head over heels. I distinctly remember looking up into the sky and seeing tree branches outlined, and then everything goes black for a few seconds, and whenI come to I am curled up on my left side and there are strange noises coming from my mouth. There is dirt in my hair and the roaring in my ears pulses and thrums in my right shoulder. Everything else feels fine, so I stagger to my feet and wander back to Jenny’s house. I don’t know where Jenny is.

My mom whisks me into the bathroom and pulls off my shirt, and huge, giant tears are seeping down my face as she so very carefully washes the dirt off. She tells me, or maybe she tells herself, that everything will be fine. Later she informed me that she was terrified, that I never cried due to pain, even when I was a very little girl, but that in the bathtub, I would not stop making breathy gasps and crying.

She takes me home and reassures me that it’s nothing more than a sprain. She starts off my slathering Tiger Balm all over my shoulder, my collarbone, and the familiar, comforting smell, so associated with visits to Korea, with my umma lying sick in bed, rocks me to sleep, flat on my back. Miraculously I don’t shift in my sleep, but the next morning I wake up and my body is screaming. My mother tries Ben Gay. It’s a sprain, she says, just a sprain. And I desperately want this to be true, because I have no health insurance. no one in my family does, we love Timothy but he is another mouth to feed, and God willing, I will cure myself and save us the money.

It is not to be, though, and so three days after the collision between sky, bike, ground and myself my mom takes me, my brother into San Francisco — here my memory is hazy. I don’t remember if Michelle was with us or not, but in any case, we are going to the hospital and I’m so angry, angry at my body for being weak. I steal little glances at my umma’s purse and can see my appa’s face when she’d told him that I needed to see a doctor. We cross the Bay Bridge and as usual I’m entranced by the sea, by the ships. We park where we usually park, right off Market, and we go to visit my uncles’ stores. My grandmother is there, and she frets over me, and I wish I could tell her not to touch me where it hurts. We leave my brother (and maybe my sister) with my grandmother and walk through the urine-stenched alley towards our car, and our car is gone.

The next few minutes are a blur; we check. We check again. And again. Eventually my umma and my uncle figure out that the car has been towed. A small part of me is partially pleased, partially scared, that my mom is able to do this without my help as a translator. Am I no good to her anymore then? We take a taxi to the hospital, and I wear a long paper gown and my umma looks on anxiously as the doctor probes at the enflamed flesh and says, her collarbone is broken. The x-rays prove his point. The whiteness of my bones glow against the background, and I say “bones” because the collarbone is clearly snapped in two. One side is much higher than the other.The doctor tells me that the collarbone will never properly fuse together, that there will always be a lump, and that if I were ever to break this bone again, it would never come together. Then he gives me a brace to wear to keep me in proper posture.

Back, back to my uncles’ stores, where we ask how far it is to the police station, where we need to go to receive permission to retrieve our car. My umma looks at me with apologetic eyes and even before she can say anything, I tell her that I would like some fresh air, that we can walk, no need for another cab. I don’t know if my uncle told us wrong, or if we heard wrong, but the police station is not four blocks away; it’s something closer to forty. My feet hurt. My collarbone hurts. And — to top it all off — we get there and my umma puts her hand to her forehead and looks at me in disbelief. Yumi-yah, I forgot my wallet at your uncle’s store. So she needs to call a taxi anyway, and I hold her place in the long, long line. I get a lot of curious looks and smiles and Honey, can I help you with anything?s, to which I smile and say, very politely, no thank you, I’m just waiting for my mom.

Eventually we do get our car back, and by this point, as we drive back towards our apartment in Richmond (and I still can’t remember — was Michelle with us? Did we leave her at work with my dad?), my umma and I can only laugh at the utterly ridiculous day that we have gone through. My brother sleeps in the carseat; his head touches his shoulder and his lips are pursed and I love him all over again. My collarbone throbs, throbs, and so does my head, but I look out the window and watch the water, listen to my umma’s voice telling me to be careful, to always be careful, to always be more careful.

And that is why.

I’m conquering my fears, one at a time.

There are a number of websites representing various interests in or around Nairn, but a number are actually quite hard to find outside of local government and tourist initiatives.

Here is a selection of them, though:

Visit Nairn – The main tourism portal for Nairn, run by a local operator without government support. A good overall guide for coverage on Nairn.

Nairn By-pass – a LibDem site promoting the need for a A96 bypass around Nairn.

Nairn Golf Club – website for the larger golf club on the west of the town.

Nairn Dunbar Golf Club – website for the smaller but still championship-level golf club in the east of the town.

Undiscovered Scotland: Nairn – good and concise coverage of the development and history of Nairn, and where it is today, from the excellent Undiscovered Scotland website.

Nairn Property Centre – the small and very local estate agents.

Nairn Highland Games – website for Nairn’s highland games.

Nairn Sailing Club – website for the Nairn Sailing Club.

Nairn International Jazz Festival – website for the Nairn jazz festival.

Nairn Museum – website for Nairn Museum.

Nairn Book and Arts Festival – website for the Nairn book and arts festival.

Nairn Road Runners – website for a local running club.

There aren’t many bloggers in Nairn, but there are a few who are keeping up coverage of the area.

The main local blogs are:

Gurn From Nairn – the Gurn is the main local blog for Nairn, and does an excellent job of providing comprehensive coverage of local issues. Updated very frequently, the Gurn often covers issues and stories before they hit the main press.

The Gurn also has a “Sunday” edition: Gurn on Sunday

My Nairn – Updated less frequently, and often covering similar topics to the Gurn, it does add more general stories and commentary regarding the general Moray Firth area.

Bill Cameron – A Nairn blogger, but doesn’t tend to cover much in terms of local events, as much as a focus on Scottish and political issues. Updated quite regularly.

Plot Tales – A local blog focused on the events (or should I say diggings) on a local allotment. Various gardening tips.

Nairn are a top manufacturer of cushioned vinyl flooring in the UK and owner of the ‘Cushionflor’ brand. ‘Cushionflor’ has become the generic name now for cushioned vinyl floorcovering thanks to them.

I’ve been having a look through some of their new ranges lately. I haven’t got my hands on all of them just yet, but it’s always interesting to see what they come up with.

Their budget range is Cushionflor Classic and is 2.4mm thick with a wear layer of 0.2mm – those specs put it firmly at the budget end of the market, but it’s not a bad product at all. I do quite like the small mosaic ‘Roland’ design shown here:

Ideal for Bathroom

They also have a tiny mosaic design in ‘Mosaico’, which have already sold a bit of shown here:

Even Smaller Tile

Aside from that it’s wood planks and some bog standard tile designs. Expect to pay around £11-£15 square metre for this product.

A more upmarket range they do is ‘Cushionflor Reflections’, which is a high gloss vinyl and there are not many of those around right now. Maybe 7 years ago or so we sold a lot of these and then they went spectactularly out of fashion, so it’s good to see a limited amount re-introduced. Reflections is again 2.4mm thick and has a slightly improved wear-layer of 0.25mm. You’re paying for design as opposed to heavy wear  with this one in my opinion, but there’s nothing wrong in that – how long do you want to have your bathroom flooring down? In my experience, people change more regularly now than ever. Expect to pay £16-£21 per metre for it.

Anyway, to the designs and here is where Nairn score some big bonus points. The ‘Roman’ small mosaic tile design shown below is stunning when seen close up. This pic does not do it justice, but Nairn will send you samples should you wish.

The Gloss is More Noticeable Up Close

I also really like the plain marble ‘Pantheon’ design (once more the image here cannot replicate how good it looks):

Great Colour, Great Design

I do hope Nairn don’t mind me linking to their images like this, but nobody else seems to review flooring impartially, so what harm can it do? You can buy ‘Cushionflor Classic’ on Yourfloors, but not ‘Reflections’ so far.

One note of irritation though Nairn, your new sample books are poor. They are plit down the middle and the way they have been done makes them look like they are falling to bits.

Friday March 20, 2009.

Graeme Macleod speaks to manager Les Fridge about Rothes vs. Nairn County and previews the Nairn County vs. Deveronvale quarter final cup tie for Nairn County FC Online.

A Glenn Main hat-trick at Rothes helped Nairn County to progress to the quarter final of the Highland League Cup. But manager Les Fridge had little time to reflect on the first round win as he prepares his team for tomorrow’s last eight clash against Deveronvale at Station Park.

County took the lead when Rothes defender Steven Sim put through his own net following some goalmouth confusion caused by a Gregg Main corner. But despite Nairn’s dominance, the home side levelled when Kevin Shortreed turned home Mike Smith’s mis-hit shot.

Just before the interval though, Nairn re-established their lead when Shaun Kerr fired home after Lewis MacKinnon’s effort was blocked.

Main then struck for the first time to put County 3-1 up before all but securing his side’s place in the next round with his second of the evening soon after. Rothes did pull one back but that man Main struck again to complete his treble and put Nairn 5-2 before Michael Dunn’s late consolation for The Speysiders rounded off the scoring.

Fridge was pleased to see his team progress and felt they were comfortably ahead throughout the evening. Speaking to Nairn County FC Online, he said: “Up until when it was 4-1, it was a very good performance from us. I thought we were cruising then but we went on to lose a couple of cheap goals which made the scoreline look a little different and made life a little bit more difficult for us. But I don’t think we were ever in any danger.”

The boss had praise for goal hero Main, who now has four goals in two games after breaking his duck for the club only last Saturday. “I’ve been saying for the last couple of weeks that he (Main) is growing in confidence and he is fully deserving of all the accolades and the goals that he is getting at the moment. He has waited for his chance and he’s been working hard. Now it is up to him.”

Fridge now leads his side into his third quarter final in five seasons having beaten Buckie Thistle on penalties and Inverurie Locos after extra time in previous years. The manager has doubts over Willie Barron – who missed Wednesday night’s win with an injury picked up last Saturday – Callum Donaldson, Wayne Mackintosh, Gregg Main, Steven Edwards and David Hind who are all struggling with knocks. Meanwhile, Chris Finnigan, Scott Graham and Gary Black will definitely miss out. “We’ll just have to wait and see what happens come tomorrow,” he said. “Wednesday night was a very physical game and it was something of a scrap. We did expect that going there but it means we do not have a lot of time to recover. It’s not like playing just on Saturdays when we have a week to recover from knocks. We got back quite late and then boys had to get up the next morning to do a day’s work. So from that point of view, it doesn’t give us a lot of time to recover but we just have to get on with it.”

It was four weeks ago when County met Vale at Station Park on league duty and were pegged back in the last couple of minutes to draw 2-2 after holding a two-goal lead. “We played really well that day but we lost a couple of bad goals again which has cost us dearly throughout this season. We are scoring lots of goals and creating lots of chances. We just have to be a bit more switched on against the so-called better teams.”

Friday March 13, 2009

Graeme Macleod speaks to manager Les Fridge about Nairn County vs. Lossiemouth for Nairn County FC Online.

Les Fridge was glad to see his Nairn County side bounce back from last week’s defeat at Cove Rangers with a defensively sound performance in the 1-0 win over Lossiemouth. The manager must now prepare his players for Saturday’s match against Rothes, which has now been switched to Station Park and will be played as a league fixture. The Highland League Cup tie will now take place at MacKessack Park on Wednesday March 18, kick off 8 pm.

On Wednesday, Fridge saw Lewis MacKinnon’s solitary strike earn County the three points as they climbed above Wick Academy in the Highland League table. Speaking to Nairn County FC Online, he said: “It certainly was not the best we have played. We will play a lot better and get beat.

“They (Lossiemouth) were well organised but we had spells in the game where we passed the ball about well. The main thing though is the three points and another clean sheet so overall we have got to be happy enough.”

The manager will have hardly any time to reflect on the win with his side back in action only three days later. It will be the first of a double-header against Rothes on Saturday as the two sides meet again the following Wednesday as County continue to embark on an intense period of fixtures. All in all, the side are guaranteed to play a total of seven games in the month of March. But the manager was optimistic that the team can cope with the gruelling schedule. “The main problem with the midweek games is getting people off work,” he explained. “With the current climate, everyone is looking to hold onto their jobs and that was evident when we went to Cove last week.

“That is my only concern because these games have got to be played and we have games Saturday, Wednesday, Saturday, Wednesday for about a month and we’ll just have to get on with it. We’re working off quite a tight squad at the moment but it will give boys a chance if there are injuries or suspensions.”

He added: “Obviously it has a big impact on our training as well. But at this stage of the season it’s not as noticeable because we have been working hard throughout the season. We were still training every Saturday we didn’t have a game so it’s just a case of keeping it ticking over just now and concentrating on the games.”

The manager will welcome Gregg Main back into the squad tomorrow but is again expected to be without a couple of players including Scott Graham, whose long-term future at the club is now in doubt. Fridge explained: “Steven Edwards’s partner has just had a baby so he is a doubt.

“Scott Graham has just taken up a new job on a fishing boat. Obviously with along with where he stays (Skye), it is something we will have to monitor over the next couple of weeks and see how available he is. His own words were that is was an opportunity he couldn’t turn down so we will keep an eye on how it goes. But we don’t know yet if Andy Coletto’s suspension will be through or not.”

Meanwhile, with Rothes’s MacKessack Park again waterlogged for their match with Clachnacuddin on Wednesday night, Saturday’s rearranged Highland League Cup tie between the Speysiders and Nairn at the ground has been postponed. Instead, the managerless side will travel to Station Park to play County in a rescheduled league fixture, with the cup match now due to take place at Rothes on Wednesday with an 8 pm kick off.

Nairn club secretary Ken Houston commented: “It is great that Rothes have been proactive about making the decision early which gives us as a club time to prepare for a home game on Saturday and also allows our fans to make their own plans for the weekend as well.”

Wednesday March 4, 2009.

Graeme Macleod talks to Nairn County manager Les Fridge about Cove Rangers vs. Nairn County for Nairn County FC Online.

Three goals in the space of 12 minutes in the second half were enough to kill off Nairn County’s hopes of taking something from their midweek trip to Cove Rangers. And manager Les Fridge admitted that the better side had won on the night.

The boss was restricted in his team selection as his squad was hit by work commitments. Nine first team players were unavailable and Fridge had to name three youth team players on the bench.

The hosts broke the deadlock on 24 minutes when Martin Johnston fired home past John Campbell, who was returning between the posts in place of the working Callum Donaldson.

The visitors competed well for the first hour or so but Cove grabbed a killer second when Kevin Tindal flicked a Barrie Stephen free kick beyond Campbell on 65 minutes.

Then Johnston notched his second of the evening on 74 minutes before Clark Bain rifled home a long range effort to complete the scoring five minutes later.

County boss Fridge spoke to Nairn County FC Online and had no complaints about the result. “I think we were beaten by the better team over the piece,” he said. “We lost a couple of very cheap goals which didn’t help matters. We competed well for an hour or so even when we were 1-0 down. But we were just overpowered in the end and on the night we were beaten by the better team. It’s as simple as that and you can’t afford to concede cheap goals against a team like.”

The manager was less than pleased at having to make such a journey on a Tuesday night which effectively robbed him of the services of a large proportion of his squad. He added: “I think going there on a Tuesday night didn’t help matters. We had eight boys out due to work commitments. That is not an excuse though, that is fact. It’s the way it was and it meant we had to name three 17-year-olds on the bench. It wasn’t ideal but it’s something we have to deal with and as I say, on the night we can have no complaints.”

The five players Fridge named on the bench had played a combined total of 18 minutes in the first team this season with four of them still to make their debuts. On the other hand, Cove were able to call on the likes of former Dundee and Republic of Ireland centre forward Jerry O’Driscoll and the one-time most expensive player in the Highland League, winger Barrie Stephen. “There was a big difference between the two benches,” the manager commented. “We had three youth team players on our bench but no disrespect to them because it was just the way it was.”

He added: “With the current economic climate, it is a lot more difficult for boys to get off work. A lot of boys are struggling to keep their jobs with the ways things are going. But we have got to get on with it and for an hour or so we were competing in the game but we were overpowered in the end and we have just got to accept that.”

Fridge sprung a surprise by including Lewis MacKinnon in his team. The centre forward has been at the club since November but was expected to return to Australia this week. In fact, the player told Nairn County FC Online in an interview after the Keith game on Saturday that he was set to jet back to Oz on Monday. But it now looks as if he could remain at Station Park for the foreseeable future. Fridge explained: “It’s one of those where if he doesn’t go this week then it looks like he’ll be staying. We’ll just have to monitor the situation but if he is going to be staying we’ll be delighted. We did a lot of work to get him here in the first place so it would be great if he stayed.”

County take a break from league action when they enter the first round of the Highland League Cup with a trip to Rothes this Saturday. The MacKessack Park outfit are currently managerless after Rab Mulheron’s resignation last weekend. And Fridge is wary of the threat the Speysiders will pose on their home turf. He said: “It is never an easy place to go as every team is capable of doing something on their own patch. We don’t know how they’re going to react to losing their manager. It could have an adverse affect but it could mean their players have a point to prove. Their new manager could be watching so we don’t really know what we are going to get come Saturday.”

Thomas Nevin (1842-1923) worked with the Military police, the Municipal police, and the Territorial police between 1852 and 1888.

One of the earliest legal documents testifying to his support as a photographer by the Colonial Government was signed by his solicitor in 1868, William Robert Giblin, Attorney-General in 1873 and later Premier. W.R. Giblin supported and sanctioned Nevin’s commission to provide the police with prisoner identification photographs from the same year, 1873, in which the government adopted amendments to the Victorian Police Act requiring photographic records of criminals. This document, signed by Giblin, was reproduced in The Mercury, 26th February 1868:

Above: The dissolution of the firm Nevin & Smith, signed by Nevin’s solicitor W.R. Giblin, stating clearly that he would ensure all liabilities would be discharged.

The last document (to date) of Thomas Nevin’s direct involvement with government legislation pertaining to police administration was signed as a resolution on the occasion of a bill to be introduced in the House of Assembly to effectively centralise the various municipal and territorial forces. The meeting he attended and its resolutions, which was chaired by His Worship the Mayor Alderman Crouch, was reported in The Mercury, 19 July 1888. Thomas Nevin’s recorded comment was:

“Mr. Thos Nevin was under the impression that the police should be under stricter supervision.”

Thomas Nevin at meeting for bill to centralise the police,
The Mercury 19 July 1888.

The newspaper account makes amusing reading. Dr Benjafield complained that because he lived just in the city boundary, the Glenorchy (i.e. Territorial) police would come only as far as the fence, even if he was being murdered. The satirist Tom Midwood, son of Nevin’s associate at the Municipal Police Office, Edwin Midwood, published a series of cartoons lampooning the police. This one drew attention to the concentration of power at the Town Hall which would result from the Police Centralisation Bill.

Tom Midwood’s satirical take ca. 1888 on the concentration of Authority – the Police, the City Council, and colonial politicians – all under the one roof at the Hobart Town Hall where Nevin worked full-time between 1876-1880. Source: State Library of Tasmania.

FIRST EXPERIENCES
Thomas Nevin’s first experiences with policing were at age 10, working alongside his father who was warden of 32 Parkhurst prison juvenile exiles on board the Fairlie on the voyage out from England in 1852 [Sources: AOT MB2/98; NA UK, ADM 101/27/2]

During his teenage apprenticeship years, Thomas Nevin visited the Hobart Gaol and Port Arthur prison with photographers Alfred Bock (1863-5) and Samuel Clifford (1869-73), making cartes-de-visite and cabinet panels of prison officials, prisoners, local identities, and visiting dignitaries, plus stereographs of buildings and scenery around the site. [Sources: Kerr, 1992; Long, 1995, images at SLTas, SLVic, TMAG, QVMAG]

In 1871 he married Elizabeth Rachel Day, a daughter of Captain James Day, guard captain of the 99th Regiment and master-mariner, who had arrived on the Candahar with 60 troops and 260 convicts under his command (1842), and had served as well on Norfolk Island (1852). Thomas Nevin’s military connections with the convict system were deepened with this liaison [Sources: Hobart Town Courier, AOT Colonial Families Names and Links].

MENTORS
Friends and fellow electors in the Glenorchy district, and neighbours of the Nevin family at Kangaroo Valley, Hobart, where John Nevin, his father, was a Trustee of the Wesleyan Chapel and schoolmaster, were politicians, police administrators and convict system contractors. These men would become mentors, referees and patrons of the young photographer:

- public servant and politician William Edward Nairn (1812-1869). Thomas Nevin photographed William Nairn ca 1868, which John Watt Beattie reprinted ca. 1895:

William Edward Nairn (1812-1869)
Photograph by Thomas Nevin ca. mid 1860s,
Reproduced by John Watt Beattie ca. 1895
State library of Tasmania
Location: Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts
ADRI: AUTAS001125646943

The Nairns were influential in Thomas Nevin’s success in gaining photographic commissions with the Convict Department and the Municipal Police at the Town Hall. William Nairn was assistant comptroller of the Convict Department in 1843, in charge of the prisoners in Tasmania and Norfolk Island. He was departmental registrar in 1855-56 and comptroller-general of convicts at a salary of £800 in 1859-68. He was also sheriff of Hobart in 1857-68. His wife Maria Nairn was a daughter of John Swan, Inspector of Police in the 1870s. When her husband died, his estate of £2200 in Tasmania and £4400 in England was left to his widow.The Nevins leased an acre of land which adjoined the Wesleyan Chapel from Maria Nairn until the late 1890s. See the Australian Dictionary of Biography for full details.

- Attorney-General W.R. Giblin was Nevin’s solicitor by 1868 and was photographed by Nevin ca. 1874. Giblin refereed his tender for the photographer’s contract on commission at the Hobart Gaol and with the Municipal Police;

W. R. Giblin, photo by Thomas Nevin, AOT

- Superintendent Richard Propsting of the Hobart Municipal Police who appointed Thomas Nevin as special constable in 1879 during the Chiniquy riots, an appointment over and above his duties at the Municipal Police Office, Town Hall, where he was first active as an Office-Keeper in 1873, and subsequently appointed in 1876 as Keeper;

Superintendent Richard Propsting, 1870s, AOT.

- the Crouch family: Thomas James Crouch had been Under-Sheriff until retirement in 1868, and a key figure in Wesleyan educational reforms. He was one of Alfred Bock’s clients in the 1860s while Nevin was finishing his apprenticeship in Bock’s studio, and Mayor by 1888;

Under-Sheriff T. J. Crouch,
sennotype by Alfred Bock ca 1860, TMAG Collection

- Dr John Coverdale, a medical practitioner whose appointment as Surgeon-Commandant to replace A.H. Boyd at Port Arthur was resolved in the House of Assembly, October 1873. Coverdale was contracted to the Hobart Gaol as MD with “special duties”, the term which also covered Nevin’s contract, and performed inquests in Hobart and Launceston on prisoners.

Dr John Coverdale, (in Weidenhofer 1981:43)

- and Samuel Page who held the government contracts for the Royal Mail coach deliveries between Hobart Launceston, and who contracted Nevin for photographic advertisements of his coachline. Samuel Page lived at Belle Vue, New Town, a villa with stables, paddocks and gardens. He transported prisoners under government contract from regional stations and courts to be “received” at H.M. Gaol, Hobart, accompanied by constables. With Samuel Page’s patronage, Nevin travelled between Hobart and Launceston, combining commercial photography for Page, and police photography for the Municipal and Territorial Police [Sources: Hobart Town Gazettes 1870-1880; Tasmania Reports of Crime 1871-1875; AOT images; QVMAG images; TMAG images]

Samuel Page, ca. 1874. Private Collection.

As the police photographer, whose singular talent for remembering and recording faces was a decided asset to police in a period when verbal rather than visual documentation predominated, Nevin’s other major asset was his familiarity gained from an early age with military and police methods of prisoner surveillance. Nevin had an ease in the company of gaolers and convicts. No other colonial photographer in Tasmania came with such apposite credentials for police work, certainly not Joshua Anson, apprentice to Nevin’s friend and neighbour Henry Hall Baily whose studios faced each other across Elizabeth Street, Hobart Town in the late 1860s, for Joshua Anson pleaded to be kept apart from the prisoners when he was sentenced to two years at the Hobart Gaol for stealing from Baily because he said he “felt he was above them” although the jury thought otherwise [Sources:The Mercury June and July 1877].

THE POLICE PHOTOGRAPHS
By May 1874 Thomas Nevin was working closely with the newly appointed Surgeon Commandant Dr Coverdale at Port Arthur and Thos. Reidy at the H.M. Gaol for Males during the “booking photograph” phase of the transfer of prisoners from Port Arthur to municipal gaols and depots as the Port Arthur site was readying for closure. Most of the prisoners sent there from 1871 (over one hundred), when the site was transferred from Imperial to Colonial rule, had short-term convictions, and it was Nevin’s job on their arrival back in Hobart to ensure a vignetted photograph was pasted to their criminal record and duplicates circulated to the police on their release in the event of recalcitrance.

The years 1873-76 proved to be one of the busiest periods at the Hobart Gaol and Police Office for Nevin. Attorney-General W.R. Giblin had notified the House of Assembly on July 17th, 1873 that sixty (60) short term prisoners who had been sent to Port Arthur since its transfer from Imperial to Colonial government in 1871 had already been returned to receiving depots and prisons in Hobart, and more would arrive shortly “as soon as arrangements for the proper custody and control of the Prisoners can be made on the Main Land [i.e. Tasmania, as distinct from the Tasman Peninsula]. By “proper custody and control” he was referring to additional cell accommodation, the recruitment of extra wardens and a photographer [Sources: Mitchell SLNSW Tas papers; Journals of the House of Assembly, NLA; Tasmania Reports of Crime 1867-1876, The Mercury June and July 1873].



The names of 109 prisoners on short terms sentences transferred back to Hobart
Journals of the House of Assembly Tasmanian Parliament July 17, 1873

Attorney-General Giblin tabled a total of 109 prisoners in that session (1873), under pressure from investigation by Dr Crowther and others, suggesting Giblin’s delay in the closure of Port Arthur was because the Commandant there was his brother-in-law, A.H. Boyd. The remaining 49 on the list had all arrived in Hobart by 1874, in addition to the steady stream of long-termers and paupers destined for other depots, and if the criminal class of short-term inmate had not been photographed in transit at the Hobart Gaol, they were photographed on their recapture for additional offences. Many re-offended, were jailed several times from short terms of seven days to eight years or longer, and some died in custody.

Among those on the list were the two Gregson brothers, favorites enlisted by the A.H. Boyd apologists wishing to credit Boyd as photographer of prisoners at Port Arthur, most recently Julia Clark of the Port Arthur Historic Site.

Clark (unpublished 2005, after Reeder unpublished 1995, after Long unpublished 1984, after Wishart catalogue notes QVMAG unpublished ??, – we have here a clear case of “Chinese whispers”) points to a document that has never been shown or cited in full, in which the Colonial Secretary Travers Solly supposedly requested the Commandant at Port Arthur – whom she says was A.H. Boyd despite the Australian Dictionary of Biography and Walch’s Tasmanian Almanac (1873) recording his replacement by Dr Coverdale onJanuary 1st 1874 – to “send up” photographs of the two Gregson brothers who had absconded from a gang working on the Queens’ Domain. The date Clark gives for Solly’s request is January 9th, 1874. But the Gregsons had already left Port Arthur by the time they absconded from a place in Hobart called the Queen’s Domain where they were housed under police supervision by Francis Norman who was employed by the Colonial Government on an annual salary of 200 pounds. The Gregsons were there when they absconded on January 9th 1874, not 60 kms away at Port Arthur on the Tasman Peninsula. The newspaper report of their capture in Launceston, their return on Samuel Page’s coach in leg irons, and their incarceration at the Hobart Gaol appeared in The Mercury, 19th February 1874:

The Gregsons captured in Launceston, returned to Hobart Gaol
The Mercury 19 February 1874

These three absconders were photographed by Thomas Nevin at the Hobart Gaol in the same week, 15-19 February 1874: those booking photographs taken on that date are the ones that survive today. Boyd had nothing to do with these photographs. Yet Clark writes, and with calculated dishonesty to supress the facts in an “essay”" padded with convictism and phony claims forwarded to the NLA, an assertion of her “belief” in A. H. Boyd as THE photographer of these men because:

page 12
On 9 January 1874, the Colonial Secretary B. Travers Solly wrote to Boyd to ask him for ‘half a dozen copies of the photographs of the two “Greigsons” (footnote 28)who absconded yesterday from the gang employed in the Domain. It will be a good plan to send up photographs of all prisoners transferred to Hobart Town and I would esteem it a

page 13 .
favour if you will do so at your early convenience’.(footnote 29) So by January 1874 it would seem that Boyd had already taken at least some photographs of the men in his charge. It also seems that he may have taken quite a number of photographs, since Travers is asking for more than just the 2 escapees. And in March 1874 Boyd wrote to the Colonial Secretary, advising him that he was forwarding photographs of ‘Alfred Harrington and James Kilpatrick, suspected of an intention to abscond’ (footnote 30)…

Footnote 29: Archives Office of Tasmania, D1470. Footnote 30: CSD7/1/60 file 1470, Archives Office of Tasmania.

These are not facts: these statements are fictions. They are lies, in essence. Clark wants her reader to believe that Boyd personally took several prisoners’ photographs BECAUSE OF the Colonial Secretary’s request on January 9, 1874, yet she also wants to claim he had already personally photographed them, Gregsons as an example, BEFORE that date, and at Port Arthur. These glib contradictions and deliberate elision of facts typify the arguments to credit Boyd with a photographer attribution. Clark’s agenda is self-promotion, at any cost. There is no indication in this (unsighted) correspondence – the catalogue reference she gives for it at the Archives Office of Tasmania is also phony – that the photographer should have been, or was, or had ever been Boyd, who had no reputation as a photographer in his lifetime, and no works by him are extant now. Not even the suspect item held at the SLNSW which is claimed to be evidence of his photographic talent, is an original photograph, and it is the ONLY photograph in the last thirty years given an attribution to Boyd, and by library workers anxious to defend their cohort and mask their mistakes.

What is the item? See it in the ADDENDA below: A CLASSIC CASE OF PARASITIC ATTRIBUTION. It is a reprint by Beattie in the 1900s of an Anson’s brothers’ reprint of the 1880s of a single frame of a stereographic view, taken by Nevin or Clifford in the mid 1870s of a building at Port Arthur – not a prisoner ID mugshot of a man in prison clothing, but a simple prison building which has Boyd’s name scribbled in pencil on the mount. It was accessioned by the SLNSW in 1964: it was not acquired by David Scott Mitchell in 1907 as were Nevin’s original prisoner photographs held at the SLNSW.

Boyd’s name which undersigned the transfer of paupers only -not convicted criminals – from Port Arthur to Hobart disappears abruptly from the police records after February 1873.

The newspaper reports and police gazettes of the day tell a different story altogether about the Gregsons:

Francis and John Gregson, photographed by Thomas Nevin H.M. Gaol, Hobart, on their arrest February 20th, 1874. Their duplicates are held at the NLA, the TMAG, and the AOT.

Gregson brothers convicted , 9th October, 1871 for five and six year sentences.

Gregsons absconded January 9th, 1874

The Gregsons were arrested on February 19th, 1874, received from Launceston and photographed at the Hobart Gaol. Men who were arrested in Launceston and the regions but who would be incarcerated for longer than three months were transferred on Samuel Page’s coaches to the Hobart Gaol. They were not photographed before their arrival at Hobart.

The Gregsons were discharged 27th January, 1875, and may have been photographed again by Nevin in the preceeding week. They were not photographed at Port Arthur before January 9th, 1874. They escaped from the Domain in Hobart on that date and were photographed on arrest one month later by Nevin when they were received at the Hobart Gaol. These two brothers re-offended on a regular basis every few months right up to 1879, and may have been photographed once again by the Nevin brothers in 1878 at the Supreme Court, Hobart.

Source: Tasmania Reports of Crime Information for Police 1871-1880. J. Barnard, Gov’t Printer.:

The majority of prisoner images extant in public collections today date from that busy period between 1873 and 1876 when the transfer of inmates with short-term convictions from Port Arthur was completed and the prisoner was “enlarged“- as the police called it – with a ticket-of-leave to work. The photographs and in some cases, the glass negatives, survived because they were salvaged by the government photographer in the late 1890s, John Watt Beattie, who reproduced them in various formats for sale as tourist tokens in his convictaria museum until 1927.

Some of the photographs ended up at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, others were transferred from the Municipal Police to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, and some were collected by David Scott Mitchell before 1907 (SLNSW).

Nevin’s originals also survived as estrays from the Sheriff’s office when they were transferred eventually to the Archives Office of Tasmania in 1955.

The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery acquired fifty or more of Nevin’s convict cartes among a sizeable collection of Nevin’s stereographs and commercial cartes which he had left at the Hobart Town Hall Public Library while Keeper there (1880s). Many of the TMAG photographic items acquired from that date bear the Hobart Municipal Library stamp. These were mixed in with duplicates forwarded to the TMAG from the QVMAG in the 1980s. Some had also been in the possession of the Kiosk owners at the Port Arthur site since the days when it was called The Old Curiosity Shop (and Radcliffe Museum), established during the tourist boom of the years 1890-1920s. A few remain at the old Hobart Gaol, displayed at the Penitentiary Chapel Historic Site. Many later ID prisoner photos were burnt along with other prison and convict records during the Joseph Lyons terms of government. [Sources: AOT Pretyman Collections; QVMAG Beattie Collection; TMAG collections]

Thomas J. Nevin was the sole photographer working in Hobart prisons (and with Samuel Page’s patronage, in Oatlands and Launceston as well) in the 1870s for this type of identification documentation, that is, until he was joined by his brother Jack (William John, known sometimes as John, and always as Jack by the family) who entered employment at H.M. Gaol first as a Constable (1875) , and then under the wing of its Keeper, Ringrose Atkins (appointed 1874). Jack was armed during the last transition phases of transfer of the Port Arthur prisoners to the gaol (1875-1877), in all likehood to protect his brother, and maintained his administration position through to his untimely death in 1891, aged 39 yrs [Sources: AOT Colonial Families Links; Electoral Rolls for North Hobart 1877-1884; Graves of Tasmania, The Mercury, June 1879].

In 1875, the police gazettes documented Nevin’s assistance rendered to the Territorial Police in New Town, and in 1876 his affiliations with the Municipal Police deepened with his appointment as Keeper (an archaic term indicating a manager of an archive and its house) of the Hobart Town Hall and Public Library, which also housed cells and the Police Offices. By 1878 he was the Office-Keeper for the Corporation. And in 1879, he was sworn in and armed as special constable during the Chiniquy riots at the Town Hall, when Catholics attempted to assault the Catholic renegade Canadian priest Charles Chiniquy and his supporters [Sources: The Mercury, January 1876; 1877; 1878; Tasmania Reports of Crime 1875].

Nevin assisting police, Tasmania Reports of Crime Information for Police 1871-1875

Along with other Hobart photographers of the 1870s, Thomas Nevin derived income from several sources to support his growing family (six survived to adulthood, the first was born in 1872, the last in 1888). Charles Woolley sold furniture, Samuel Clifford had a grocer’s shop, and Henry Hall Baily developed a thriving business in tourist postcards and press lithography. By December 1880, Nevin was still active as a photographer working with Baily(noted in The Mercury 4 December 1880), still a police photographer and agent on commission, always ready to respond to a constable’s whistle, still a Wesleyan, and still a civil servant, until his sudden dismissal from the Town Hall position on December 4th 1880.

For being detained the night before on suspicion of acting in concert with a person pretending to be a ghost in a phosphorous-coated sheet down by the Customs House, but principally for being inebriated while on duty, he was sacked, but he was not arrested by the detaining detective Connor, who knew him well, and he had spent the evening in and out of hotels with two constables whom he had supposed were friends as well as colleagues. Although Mayor Burgess ostensibly mounted Nevin’s defense, Burgess was a Temperance man, and Nevin’s drinking was an embarrassment. At some point Thomas Nevin must have decided the Wesleyans weren’t for him, despite his father’s Trusteeship of the Wesleyan Chapel at Kangaroo Valley, and the taking of his wedding vows there in 1871. He was the only member of his immediate family to be buried at Cornelian Bay cemetery within the Church of England. The Town Hall experience of religious violence during Chiniquy’s visit, and then the death there of his son Sydney at 4 months old, and finally his dismissal, probably because of Temperance intolerance, changed his life. It was his brother Jack Nevin who continued within the prison administration as photographer until his death in 1891. [Source: AOT Colonial Families Links; Electoral Rolls for North Hobart 1877-1884; Graves of Tasmania, The Mercury, June 1879, July 1888].

During the 1880s-1900s, Nevin was still active in police matters, as his attendance at the important meeting on resolutions to the police centralisation bill attests, held in July 1888 (see The Mercury report above). He also maintained photographic practice, producing some enduring images of his family, but he turned his attentions to training horses, a love engendered in his youngest son Albert which has been passed onto Albert’s children who maintain the pacing tradition today.

A memorable line:
“Mr. Thos Nevin was under the impression that the police should be under stricter supervision.”

ADDENDA:

The A.H. BOYD “PHOTOGRAPH”: A CLASSIC CASE OF A PARASITIC ATTRIBUTION

In the 25 years since Chris Long first concocted the hypothesis that the Civil Commandant at the Port Arthur prison took all the extant photographs of Tasmanian convicts (about 300), which are conventionally dated to 1874 (letter to Nevin family 1984; TMAG 1995), just ONE photographic item has ever been cited by Chris Long or any other commentator as evidence of any other extant photograph taken by A.H. Boyd. It is held at the State Library of NSW. And it is still the only item cited as evidence of Boyd’s photographic work (for example, the entry for Boyd at DAA online 2008: http://www.daao.org.au/main/read/977 – note the fatuous comment – “not surprising given his job as a penal officer“).

This is it: this is THE “photograph” with a note in modern hand-writing on the bottom right-hand corner, a REPRINT (Beattie 1900s) of an earlier reprint (Ansons 1890s) of an enlargement of a single frame of a stereograph (Clifford and/or Nevin 1873 ca) of a building at Port Arthur.

Below this image used as the basis of the claim to be by A.H. Boyd from the album, (PXD511/ f10) is the pencilled note, ” Enlargement from a stereoscopic view by A H Boyd Esq.”

This image of a building is not a vignetted carte-de-visite photograph of a man in prison clothing, yet the curator of photographs at the State Library of NSW, Alan Davies, is proposing it is sufficient evidence to warrant a claim that A.H. Boyd was a photographer, and to extend that claim to a proposition that Boyd was also the photographer of the “bulk” of the 300 extant prisoner cartes, despite all the evidence of attribution to Thomas J. Nevin.

As recently as August 2009, Alan Davies maintained that proposition, which is founded in the cliched equation “Tasmania + convicts=Port Arthur” in an email to this weblog, extracts of which are quoted here:

… the attribution of the several hundred portraits known as the convict photographs is unresolved … please see Anson Bros Views in Tasmania Vol II. (PXD511/ f10) The view looking south from the slope opposite the Penitentiary is inscribed on the mount in a contemporary hand “Enlargement from a stereoscopic view by A H Boyd Esq.” This view also appears in Anson Bros., Settlement of Port Arthur (Penal Settlement ) Past and Present. We have two copies (PXD512 and PXD513) and the references to the Boyd image in both are PXD 512/f4 and PXD 513/f6. Comparison of this photograph with the images in the Anson/Beattie collection titled Port Arthur during occupation , leads to the conclusion that they may also be by Boyd. It would seem that like many Tasmanian photographers, Boyd s work was subsumed by the Anson/Beattie archive, leading to later problems of attribution.

FACTS

(1) The reprint was acquired in 1964 by the SLNSW. The album itself was bound in red leather by the Royal Scottish Museum, owned by Capt A.W.F. Fuller in 1946, donated by his wife and accessioned by the State Library of NSW in 1964.

(2) The reprint was not part of the David Scott Mitchell Collection of Tasmaniana acquired there ca 1907, as were T.J. Nevin’s prisoner photographs (catalogued at PXB 274)

(3) Other reprints in the same volume Vol. 2 (Anson Bros Views in Tasmania Vol II. (PXD511/ f10) were attributed to J.W. Beattie, as reprints in turn of the Anson Brothers reprints in Vol 1. so this reprint was attributed to the Ansons by the SLNSW through a process of deduction in 1964 by comparison with the same image in Vol. 1 which bears the Ansons’ name.

(4) The image is not an original photograph in vignetted carte-de-visite format of a man in prisoner clothing, as are the extant “convict portraits” by T.J. Nevin. It is simply NOT A PRISONER MUGSHOT.

(5) The image is of a prison building and empty streets, and the site looks decidedly unoccupied despite the title “Port Arthur during Occupation”.

(6) An identical photograph of the one above is held at the Archives office of Tasmania, dated to 1880, and unattributed.

(7) None of the other prints in this album, Vol. 2, has a similar note or additional inscription, and this single fact raises questions and suspicions as to why and when it was added. In addition, the note about Boyd is so indistinct, not even a magnifying glass renders it visible.

Can you see Boyd’s name? It could easily have been traced over another photographer’s name, e.g. H.H. Baily Esq. See this article: Fraudulent Pretensions.

It would seem that this pencilled note underneath the image at the
SLNSW was written sometime after 1992, when Joan Kerr et al publicly
refuted Chris Long’s hypothesis about Boyd in their entry on Nevin (page 568, The Dictionary of Australian Artists: painters, sketchers, photographers and engravers to 1870, (Melbourne: Oxford University Press). Someone then pencilled the note -

“Enlargement from a stereoscopic view by A H Boyd Esq.”

- to save Chris Long from looking like an idiot.

Parasitic attributions are spread by parasites. When Julia Clark submitted her student “essay” with her “belief” in the “wonderful Chris Long” and his Boyd hypothesis in 2007, the National Library of Australia removed Thomas J. Nevin’s name from the header of their collection of Convict Portraits, Port Arthur 1874 (http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-an11590418) which was their accessioned and correct attribution since 1982, and replaced Nevin’s sole attribution with this note:

No photographer name or studio stamp appears on these photographs. It is likely that the photographer was either A.H. Boyd or Thomas J. Nevin. An essay supporting attribution to Boyd, prepared by Julia Clark, Manager Interpretations and Collections, Port Arthur Historic Site, is on file (TRIM R07/44719); copies available on request.

It is NOT likely that Boyd ever held a camera, let alone produced 300 prisoner mugshots for the Tasmanian Police. What is true, however, is evidence of partisan and corrupt librarianship. In short, what we see here, in cricketing terms, is ball-tampering and a bent umpire.

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