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Curling at the 1924 Winter Olympics: Part 2 - The Rest of the Story
by Bob Cowan. As I write this, there are just 100 days to go before the Olympic Winter Games get underway at Sochi, Russia. The GB curling teams have already been named. This post continues the story...
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Curling at the 1924 Winter Olympics: Part 1 - The GB Curlers
by Bob CowanIn 1924, eight curlers travelled to Chamonix, France, to represent Great Britain in what was to become the first Olympic Winter Games. This photo was published in the Royal Caledonian...
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'A termination the most melancholy put to the bonspiel'
by Bob CowanI came across this cartoon recently. These days it would be seen by many to be in bad taste. It was published in Punch in 1958, and drawn by J W Taylor. Taylor was not one of the more...
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The Curling Christmas Card
by Bob Cowan At this time of year, I'm always on the lookout for Christmas cards with a curling theme. Over the years I've sent, and received, quite a few. And I've kept some although I hesitate to...
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Women Curlers in the News
by Bob CowanThe first newspapers began to appear in the early eighteenth century. The Ipswich Journal, for example, was first published in August 1720, see here. The issue of Saturday, February 23,...
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Sixty Years Ago: A New Curling Magazine
by Bob CowanJanuary 1954 saw the publication of Scotland's first curling magazine, the Scottish Curler. I feel privileged to have been the Editor of the magazine for seven seasons during which time it...
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Debunking the story that a GB curler also played for Sweden at the 1924...
by Bob CowanIn November I wrote extensively about the curling competition at Chamonix in 1924, the beginning of the sport's Olympic story, see here, here, and here. The gold medals were won by a GB...
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'Catching the spirit': Olympic curling stamps
by Bob CowanPostage stamps with a curling theme have been an interest of mine for many years. Indeed, the passion has extended to collecting other aspects of postal history including first day covers,...
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The GB Curling Team at the 1924 Olympics: The Story Continues
by Bob CowanI recently wrote extensively about the curling competition at Chamonix in 1924, the beginning of the sport's Olympic story, see here. The gold medals were won by a GB team, after a round...
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The Mystery Woman on the Olympic Curling Rink in 1924
Ninety years ago, on January 25, 1924, the Great Britain team paraded through Chamonix on the first day of the the 'Semaine Internationale des Sports d'Hiver', the event that would retrospectively...
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Inspector of the Ice
On the wall of Tibbermore Church near Perth is a monument to James Ritchie, who died in 1840. This monument is built into the west wall of the north wing of Tibbermore Church, a few miles to the west...
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Bill Charmatz and the Megeve Silver Broom
By Bob CowanBill Charmatz is a well known American illustrator, who died in 2005. There is a website dedicated to his work and maintained by his daughter, see here. Reading this you will learn that...
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Olympic gold medal to star at Curling Connections
by Bob CowanArrangements are well in hand for the Curling Connections exhibition in Dumfries Museum, set to open on April 18. The exhibition, featuring many aspects of curling's history, runs in...
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Curling Connections
The Dumfries Museum was founded in 1835 as an astronomical observatory and museum in a stone windmill built about 1790 on Corberry Hill. A Camera Obscura in the tower is still a popular attraction. The...
View ArticleTheft of Olympic Curling Medals
The Curling Connections exhibition in Dumfries Museum has been a great success. But last night the museum was broken into, and a number of items stolen. These include the two Olympic Gold Medals that...
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The 'Manly Game of Balls': A Substitute for Curling in 1846
David Smith writes:Until the arrival in Scotland of indoor ice rinks, the ice of which was made by machine and did not depend on the climate, there was a continuous search for ways to provide more...
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The Grand Match at Linlithgow 1848
by Bob CowanThis week has seen Charles Lees's painting of the Grand Match at Linlithgow Loch, beautifully restored, go on display in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh as part of the...
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Naval Surgeon John Gibson, and Curling on the Columbia River in 1847
by Bob CowanIt is often glibly stated that Scotsmen took the sport of curling wherever they went, especially in North America. It is rarely possible to document exactly when curling was first played in...
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A Sculptured Relief by Rolf Brem
by David B SmithOn a recent surf of the internet seeking items of curling interest I was quite surprised to see in a Swiss auction house's catalogue a modest sculptured relief of a modern curling...
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Scotland's Sporting Buildings
Book reviewed by David B SmithOne of the most remarkable - and least publicised - 'by-products' of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow this summer was the publication by Historic Scotland of the book,...
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