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| Ferryhill
Parish Church Showers of Blessings |
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 Telephone: 01224 213093 |
David Haggart has written an entertaining history of Ferryhill and its churches called Showers of Blessings. It deserves to be in every Ferryhill household and makes an ideal year-round gift for anyone linked to our parish or with an interest in the development of our community. |
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| SHOWERS OF BLESSINGS covers 127 years of
local and national history seen through the eyes of people living in an Aberdeen
parish. Ferryhill was the city's first suburb. The book traces the
relationship of its two churches - from rivalry to union. The narrative is coloured
by wonderful characters like the Revd Henry Wright who unveiled the delights of English
literature to his flock, and the Revd Merricks Arnott who caused a sensation by turning
his church into a cinema to show his own colour films. Tragedies like the
sinking of the Aberdeen Ferryboat in 1876 and the Piper Alpha disaster of 1988 are
balanced by happy events like the opening of the Duthie Park in 1883 and the Centenary of
the 1st Company of the Boys Brigade in 1987. Through it all runs the development of
Ferryhill, growing in population but retaining its character as a "village in
the city" and the transformation of Aberdeen from dependence on granite and fish to
its current status as the oil capital of Europe.
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SHOWERS OF BLESSINGS is a quote from Ezekiel 34:26 "I will cause my people and their homes around my holy hill to be a blessing. And I will send showers, showers of blessings, which will come just as they are needed". In introducing the book, David wrote, "I hope it is appropriate to what has happened in Ferryhill over the years. There is a visual joke too. The cover of the book shows the scene at the official opening of the Duthie Park in 1883. It poured with rain and the photograph shows hundreds of umbrellas - like a field of mushrooms." |
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SHOWERS
OF BLESSINGS was written by David Haggart who lived in Ferryhill for
over 35 years before his sudden death in 2002. Formerly head of the careers service at Aberdeen University, David
worked during his "retirement" as a freelance broadcaster and journalist. It is estimated that over
750,000 job-hunting graduates read his "Postbag" column in the magazine
Prospects Today since he started writing it in 1987. He also wrote the
"Churchweek" column in the Evening Express and, with his wife Gwen,
presented the
weekly Sunday Best programme on Northsound 2.
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| Extract from
In 1870 there were no churches in Ferryhill. By 1874 there were two, built within nine months of each other, forming part of a remarkable church extension programme in Aberdeen which transformed the city spiritually, socially and architecturally.
These were exciting times. Middle aged Aberdonians had seen many changes. The railway was no longer a novelty, but it had only reached Aberdeen (to be precise, Ferryhill) in 1850. The Joint Station was five years old and the Tay Bridge was still under construction.
The telephone was not to arrive for some years, but the Society of Telegraph Engineers was established in 1871, giving respectability to a technology that had brought about a revolution in communications. |
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The people of Aberdeen were no longer isolated
from the rest of the world. They knew what was going on thanks to the six newspapers
published in the city, particularly the daily Aberdeen Free Press and the Aberdeen
Journal, published every Wednesday. In their closely printed columns had come news of the
American Civil War, followed by details of the Impeachment of President Andrew Johnson -
to remain a unique event until 1999. As the Ferryhill kirks were being built, the President was the famous Civil War general, Ulysses P Grant. European news included the death of Napoleon III. From India came details of the assassination of the Viceroy, Lord Mayo. In Britain the reins of government were in the hands of Mr Gladstone, who had defeated Disraeli in 1868. His cabinet did not include a Secretary for Scotland - that office was not created until 1885. |
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Aberdeen had was represented in Parliament by a Liberal, John Farley Leith. He was an English barrister who on one occasion took the chair at the AGM of Bon Accord Swimming Club. He was be no means renowned as an orator, but on that occasion it is reported that he brought the house down by reciting the Shakespearean passage in which Cassius recalls how his swimming prowess saved the life of Julius Caesar. Local affairs were in the hands of a Town Council presided over by Lord Provost William Leslie, an architect who must have taken a close professional interest not only in the explosion of church building that was in progress, but in the planning and lay out of the new streets required to accommodate the rapid expansion of the city. A lot was going on. On Sunday afternoon walks the citizens could inspect the progress being made in the construction of the new Free Church tower in Rotunda Place (no Fonthill Road yet) or turn north to enjoy the amenities of the brand new Victoria Park, the city's first. It would be another ten years before they could take the air in the Duthie Park, but a pleasant walk to Torry was possible, thanks to the Wellington Suspension Bridge which had been built in 1830, replacing the ferry which, from ancient times, had given the area its name.
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"Showers of
Blessings" Any profits will go to Ferryhill Beyond 2000 E-mail
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