The Prestonpans Totem Pole.

Today dawned bright and breezy, it was a westerly that boded well for cycling to North Berwick. At the start of the run, people were saying that the wind appeared to be dropping, like Tar Baby, I lay low and said nothing. Throughout the morning we made good progress and there were repeated comments about the dying wind, I still said nothing; in fact we made such good progress that we had to make diversions to add distance to our journey and visit notable landmarks to use up time as our hall booking didn’t start until 12:30. We stopped at an exposed corner to check the map and I commented that it seemed to be getting a bit blustery.

By the time we had had our lunch, the sky had clouded over and it really was blustery; our route home was seriously shortened on account of the head wind but, even so, a number of us caught the train home. The rest of us tested a new cafe at Longniddrie, the fare was excellent but they just weren’t geared up for a horde of ravenous cyclists.


Prestonpans is twinned with the town of Barga in Italy but it has a somewhat looser connection with Chemainus in Canada. Chemainus is the home of the Cowichan tribe and supplied the timber for this totem pole. I first saw the completed item on a guided tour of the ‘Pans Mural Trail about three years ago, our guide being Andrew Crumbie who designed the trail (he also designed the Battle of Prestonpans Tapestry and The Great Scottish Tapestry). Andrew said that he had been standing there and overheard a local youf say, “What’s the bloody use of a thing like that.” Recognising said youf he replied, “But you helped make that, doesn’t it make you feel proud?” the youf grew an inch or so in stature, swelled a bit and said, “So I did, good innit?”

A couple of Cowichan‘s, Xwa Lack Tun and Tawx'sin Yexwullo, travelled across The Pond to help with the work; immigration jobsworths tried to stop them at Glasgow Airport as they didn’t have work permits but, eventually, sanity prevailed.

Sometime when the weather is right, I’ll blip the pole in all its splendour.