Ilses Fotoblogg

lördag 5 november 2011

Bobby, a Skye terrrier, belonged to an Edinburgh policeman, Jock Gray, who was buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard in 1858. Loyal to the last, Bobby refused to leave his side and kept constant vigil by his master's grave. He was adopted by the locals, became an Edinburgh folk hero, and when he died 14 years later, special dispensation was given for Bobby to be buried alongside Jock.

Bobby's grave

The real Greyfriars Bobby on a picture in Bobby's Bar

Edinburgh

A Split Personality, Deacon William Brodie

When Robert Louis Stevenson wrote The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in 1886, it shocked genteel society. Little did people realise that although he set the book in London, he had based his story on the reallife case of an Edinburgh man. Deacon William Brodie was a respecable cabinetmaker and locksmith who, when he closed his shop in the evening, lived another life. After dark he frequented the less prepectable parts of the town - gambling, cockfighting and fathering five illegitimate children. He funded this lifestyle by stealing from his respectable customers, taking copies of the keys of cabinets and strongboxes sold in his shop and creeping into their houses to relieve them of their valualbles.
Deacon Brodie was caught in the act in 1788 and was hanged in front of a huge crowd.
(Berlitz Edinburgh pocket guide)