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The First World Women's Curling Championship
 Recognise the curlers on the photo above? This is a photograph of a Swiss women's curling squad, from a promotional postcard, duly autographed by all involved. They were Swiss champions, and about to...
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More from 1979. To see ourselves ... as others see us
I wrote recently about the Royal Bank Ladies World Curling Championship in 1979 (the first world women's championship, see here) and noted that the programme contained two pages with a montage of...
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There wasn't always a house
Curling these days is very colourful, and the painted circles at each end of the sheet contribute to making the game look attractive to those who are seeing it for the first time. The circles, the...
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One problem of growing old
Back in the eighteenth century, when it was not possible to travel far, curlers would only have had the opportunity to play against those from the neighbouring parish. These were the days before...
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The brass band played on the curling pond
Wednesday, February 21, 1855, dawned cold and fair. The ice on Corsebar Pond was good. The curlers of Paisley were soon engaged in a bonspiel, those from the north side of the town playing those from...
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The Wanlockhead School Curling Club
In 1908, the Wanlockhead village school received a letter from the Reverend John Kerr. The Royal Caledonian Curling Club chaplain wanted to know about the school curling club. John Edmond, the...
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Canadians in Scotland 1909
In 2009, Robin Copland wrote 'Curling in the Footsteps of History', looking back one hundred years to when Canadian curlers visited Scotland for the first time. Robin's booklet was reproduced on the...
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Chuck Hay
 Chuck Hay, legend, died last week, aged 87. That's him in happy times on the hack at the Brora rink. You will find the World Curling Federation's obituary here, and the Royal Club's here.Some years...
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The Scottish Ice Rink at Crossmyloof
The Scottish Ice Rink at Crossmyloof, Glasgow, opened for business on Tuesday, October 1, 1907. This image, from the Royal Caledonian Curling Club Annual for 1907-08, is the only photo of the outside...
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The Women on Rothie Pond
I've written already about some of the pioneering women who took to the curling ice at the end of the nineteenth, and beginning of the twentieth, centuries, see here and here. When an old postcard came...
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In search of the red stones
Not all old curling stones are made from Ailsa Craig granite. When David Smith wrote 'Some facts about old stones' back in 2008, see here, he listed many of the different types of stone that had been...
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A look back at the European Championships 1997
The European Championships twenty years ago were held in Fussen, Germany, December 6-13, 1997. That's the winners, above. The women's champions were (L-R) Elisabet Gustafson (skip), Katarina Nyberg,...
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The Third Grand Match
Driving today into Lochwinnoch from the south, you pass between two large expanses of water, the Barr Loch, and Castle Semple Loch, both now part of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds...
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Christmas Day in China, 1913
I was searching in the British Newspaper Archive last week for articles about curling on Christmas Day in times past, and my search took me to this page of the Daily Record of January 14, 1914. There...
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Thank You For The Music: Curling Songs 1792 - 2018
Curlers have always liked to sing. Not necessarily on the ice of course, but at post-match festivities, and club dinners. Or on friendship tours, and at international competitions. At the 2004 Ford...
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The Battle of Carthula: Was this the first international curling match?
There is a rather odd reference to a bonspiel between Scottish and English curlers, said to have occurred in 1795 at Kirtlebridge. I wondered if this actually took place, so I set out to examine the...
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Great Britain's Olympic Curlers
With the 2018 Olympic Winter Games almost upon us, here are some photos to remind you of those who have represented Great Britain at the Games in years past. Just how all these teams fared on the ice...
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The hunt for the 1924 diploma
It is not as well known as it should be that when you win an Olympic medal you also receive a diploma which recognises the fact. Initially it was only winners of medals who received these, but nowadays...
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When Pingu went curling
Did you know that Pingu went curling in January 1991 with his friend Robby the Seal? The episode was called 'Pingu's Curling Party'. The five minute animation was one of the episodes in Series 2 of...
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Clash of the Champions 2002
The season 2001-02 was a great one for the women curlers of Scotland. Not only did Rhona Martin, Debbie Knox, Fiona MacDonald, Janice Rankin and Margaret Morton win Olympic Gold in Ogden, Utah,...
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