homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation Battle of Britain + Battle of Britain II Here's what happened (Continued)

Folks,

Dux:

And what a lovely lass she is too. The fishing might have been less than wonderful however your trip to Wales was not entirely wasted if you spent some quality time with this beautifully restored Lady.

Let us see what the 900,000 page HWH Policy, Standards, Practices and General Information Handbook, first abridged Standard Edition has to say about this grand Dame. Hmmmmm. Here it is. On page 9375, The Locomotives of England-Past and Present we see:

No 6233 Duchess of Sutherland built LMS Railway 1938

'Duchess of Sutherland', along with 'Princess Margaret Rose' & 'Duchess of Hamilton', were a trio of LMS Express passenger locos and were some of the most powerful UK steam engines ever. They regularly saw use on 100 mph+ express passenger trains.

From your delightfully clear photos we can see that she has been lovingly restored to her former grandeur. I assume but do not know for sure that she is named for the fourth Duchess of Sutherland and not for the first. The former, as we all know, was a venerated social reformer and led the fight to have all lead removed from the potting process saving thousands from lead poisoning.

I'm fine with it either way myself and I would like nothing better than to caress her lovely knobs and toot her whistle too for that matter, however if she is named for the first Duchess of Sutherland I fear the Irish in our pal C51 may feel a great un-abiding sympathy for his Scots cousins. If so, he would certainly rather walk barefoot on hot coals than seat his indignant Irish arse upon her soft cushions.

As you know, the Dukes of Sutherland are probably best known for their role in promoting the Highland Clearances, an economic policy which was applied to their vast estates in the county of Sutherland in the early 19th century. In essence, the policy was developed to clear the indigent population from the interior land and re-settle them along the coast in order to improve the agricultural return from the estates. It created much misery and is still remembered with considerable bitterness today. It also helped to accelerate the emigration of many families from the area.

It is my understanding that the first Duchess lived in London, rarely visited the Sutherland estate and neither she nor her husband spoke a jot of Gaelic. Nonetheless, nobody pursued the clearance policy with more vigor and cruel thoroughness than Elizabeth, Countess of Sutherland, and her name is still reviled in many homes there and over here with Highland connections and across the world to this day. The estate records show that evictions at the rate of 2,000 families in one day were not uncommon. That is unconscionable by today's social standards however the human animal being what it is, I suspect that there may be modern parallels if we search for them.

That particularly reviled 1st Duchess of Sutherland, on seeing the starving tenants on her husband's estate, remarked in a letter to a friend in England, "Scotch people are of happier constitution, and do not fatten like the larger breed of animals."

Hmmmmm. Good grief, she even wrote 'Scotch' not 'Scots'. After thinking on it a bit, if that loco is named for her, and mind you, I doubt that it is, I would rather walk as well.