The Firth of Clyde is the estuary of the River Clyde, on the west coast of Scotland. The Firth has some of the deepest coastal waters of the British Isles. The Firth is sheltered from the Atlantic Ocean by the Kintyre Peninsula. The Firth lies between West Dunbartonshire in the north, Argyll and Bute in the west and Inverclyde, North Ayrshire and South Ayrshire in the east. The Kilbrannan Sound is a large arm of the Firth, separating the Kintyre Peninsula from the Isle of Arran. The Kyles of Bute separates the Isle of Bute from the Cowal Peninsula. The Sound of Bute separates the islands of Bute and Arran.
Dalgety Bay is a coastal town and parish in Fife, Scotland, on the north shore of the Firth of Forth, 9 miles from Edinburgh city centre. The civil parish is the 8th largest in Fife with a population of 10,777 (2011)
Winifred Margaret Ewing was a Scottish lawyer and politician who figured prominently in the Scottish National Party.
Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) is Thomas Hardy's fourth published novel and his first major literary success. It was published on 23 November 1874. It originally appeared anonymously as a monthly serial in Cornhill Magazine, where it gained a wide readership.
The Moray Firth is a roughly triangular inlet of the North Sea, north and east of Inverness, which is in the Highland council area of the north of Scotland.
Katherine Matilda Swinton is a British actress. She is known for playing eccentric and enigmatic characters, often working with auteur directors. Over her career she has received various accolades, including an Academy Award and a British Academy Film Award as well as nominations for three Golden Globe Awards. In 2020, The New York Times ranked her as one of the greatest actors of the 21st century.
Fiona Elizabeth Bruce is a British journalist, newsreader, and television presenter. She joined the BBC as a researcher for their current affairs program Panorama in 1989, and became the first female newsreader on BBC News at Ten, as well as presenting many other flagship programmes for the corporation, including BBC News at Six, Crimewatch, Real Story, Antiques Roadshow, and Fake or Fortune? Since 10 January 2019, she has been the presenter of the BBC One television programme Question Time.
Buckie is a burgh town on the Moray Firth coast of Scotland. Historically in Banffshire, Buckie was the largest town in the county until the administrative area was abolished in 1975. The town is the third largest in the Moray council area after Elgin and Forres and within the definitions of statistics published by the General Register Office for Scotland was ranked at number 75 in the list of population estimates for settlements in Scotland mid-year 2006. Buckie is virtually equidistant to Banff to the east and Elgin to the west, with both approximately 17 miles distant whilst Keith lies 12 mi (19 km) to the south by road.
Selkies are mythological creatures that can shapeshift between seal and human forms by removing or putting on their seal skin. They feature prominently in the oral traditions and mythology of various cultures, especially those of Celtic and Norse origin. The term “selkie” derives from the Scots word for “seal”, and is also spelled as silkies, sylkies, or selchies. Selkies are sometimes referred to as selkie folk, meaning 'seal folk'. Selkies are mainly associated with the Northern Isles of Scotland, where they are said to live as seals in the sea but shed their skin to become human on land.
Findochty is a village in Moray, Scotland, on the shores of the Moray Firth; historically it was part of Banffshire. The Gaelic name of the village was recorded by Diack using his own transcription method as fanna-guchti, which is of unclear meaning. One of the earliest references to Findochty is in 1440, when the king granted Findachtifeild to John Dufe, son of John Dufe. The lands passed from the Duffs to the Ogilvies of Findlater, and subsequently, in 1568, the Ord family acquired the manor, port, custom, and fishers' lands of Findochty, and later built the House of Findochty, known as Findochty Castle, now a ruin, which stands to the west of the village. In 1716 the Ords brought 13 men and 4 boys from Fraserburgh under contract to fish from Findochty, and for a time the harbour was busy with landings of herring and white fish. Findochty expanded as a fishing port through the 1700s and 1800s, and by 1850 was home to 140 fishing boats. But the expansion in the late 1800s of nearby Buckie provided a better harbour, and some of the fishing fleet had left Findochty by 1890. Findochty harbour is now used mostly by pleasure craft and is a good sun spot when the tide is out. A local artist, Correna Cowie, created a statue in 1959 of a seated fisherman, known as The White Mannie, who watches over the harbour.
Findlater Castle is the old seat of the Earls of Findlater and Seafield, sitting on a 50-foot (15 m)-high cliff overlooking the Moray Firth on the coast of Banff and Buchan, Aberdeenshire, Scotland.
Shaun the Sheep is a stop-motion animated silent comedy children's television series which is developed by Aardman Animations. A spin-off in the Wallace & Gromit franchise, the series focuses on the adventures of Shaun, the eponymous sheep previously starring in A Close Shave, as the leader of his flock on an English farm. The series premiered on 5 March 2007 on CBBC in the UK, also airing on BBC Two. Since 2020, the series is streamed globally on Netflix. In March 2024, it was announced that the seventh series is in development and will premiere in 2025. With 170 episodes over 6 series, Shaun the Sheep is one of the longest-running animated series in British television.
The River Findhorn is one of the longest rivers in Scotland. Located in the north east, it flows into the Moray Firth on the north coast. It has one of the largest non-firth estuaries in Scotland.
Events from the year 2006 in Scotland.
The Muckle Spate was a great flood in August 1829, which devastated much of Strathspey, in the north east of Scotland. Muckle is a Scots word for 'much' or 'great'.
The 2010 Sharm El Sheikh shark attacks were a series of attacks by sharks on swimmers off the Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. On 1 December 2010, three Russians and one Ukrainian were seriously injured within minutes of each other, and, on 5 December 2010, a German woman was killed when she was attacked while wading and snorkeling in the shallows close to the shoreline. The attacks were described as "unprecedented" by shark experts.
Events from the year 1964 in Scotland.
Chris was a Merino ram who gained international fame in September 2015 after being shorn of a record amount of wool in Canberra, Australia. Chris was named after a sheep character in the sitcom Father Ted by local Bonner resident Sue Dowling, who spotted the sheep wandering in a paddock near the Bonner district in Canberra.
Heiða Guðný Ásgeirsdóttir is an Icelandic sheep farmer and former model who serves as a deputy member of the Althing.
Graeme Milroy Glen Parker is a Scottish cattle hoof trimmer and YouTuber. His YouTube channel, The Hoof GP, was created in 2019 and primarily consists of videos of hoof trimming. It is the largest agricultural YouTube channel in the world with more than 100 million views a month and has more than six million followers across YouTube and Facebook as of 2024. He had originally set up the channel to educate fellow farm workers and to share videos of specific trims with explanations, before reaching a much wider audience.
