The latest meeting of EK Probus Club was opened by its president Barrie Crawford, writes Ken Lawton.
He introduced Robert Wilson who would talk about James Tytler as the original ‘Flying Scotsman.’
Mr Wilson is a past-president of the Carluke Probus Club. Now retired, he was he had been a manager in the Glasgow Passport Office and had received the MBE for services to the passport services.
James Tytler was born in Angus in 1745 at the dawn of the Scottish Enlightenment at a time when there was unrest in the country.
He had gone to Edinburgh University but did not finish his medical degree as he had volunteered to go as ‘doctor’ on a whaling ship. When he came home from that, he set up as an apothecary but was a useless businessperson and the venture failed. He had to flee creditors to Newcastle.
Eventually he returned and worked in magazines and then got involved in the publication of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. It was at this time he heard about the Montgolfier Brothers in France who were experimenting in balloon flight, so he decided to design and fly his own. In 1783 it flew all of 350 feet untethered (the French balloon had been tethered) and from then he was known as the Flying Scotsman.
Latterly he went to America living in Salem, north of Boston. Sadly, one evening his candle gave out, he went to a neighbour for a replacement and in that short time he was taken by the sea near his cottage and would later wash up dead on the shore.
Andy Montgomery gave the vote of thanks, saying the talk had been both interesting and informative.
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