Oor Wullie

Hi, reader

Forty today. This is blog post number 40 and also my 40th day of living in my Ford Transit Connect. The temperature fell to 2 degrees again last night, and must surely hit zero before long.

Today I'm in the city of Dundee, to the east of Perth. This is Scotland's 4th largest city. Dundee's two professional football clubs, Dundee United FC and Dundee FC have stadiums all but adjacent to each other.

Dundee is home to DC Thomson & Son Ltd, established in 1905. It produces over 200 million magazines, newspapers and comics every year, including The Beano and The Dandy. You can see evidence of this as you walk around the city. This morning I stumbled across Bash Street ...

... home of The Bash Street Kids from The Beano comic!

And in the city centre shopping area, you can find Desperate Dan (The Dandy comic) and Minnie the Minx (The Beano comic).

Another popular statue in Dundee can be found in Albert Square. I'm not referring to this magnificent statue of Scotland's national bard, Robbie Burns:

Nope, the statue I've specifically come to Dundee to find is a few metres to the side of Burns - my childhood favourite, Oor Wullie.

If you grew up outside of Scotland, you might not have heard of Wullie. But I reckon every Scottish kid knows and loves him. Growing up in Belfast, I got an Oor Wullie annual every other year; as I recall, Oor Wullie alternated each year with The Broons annual, another comic I loved. So each Christmas my Mum got me an Oor Wullie book or a Broons book, Oor Wullie being my favourite.

I remember one story in the Broons where two of the characters bumped into Wullie and I realized for the first time that all of them lived in the same town, Wullie and the Broons. Amazing! And decades before Marvel's shared cinematic universe existed. 

This statue is brilliant, and there is so much detail to spot. The sculptor's name is on the back of Wullie's dungarees, like a sewn-on name tag: Malcolm Robertson. 

Notice how I'm sitting on a bucket here? That was one of Wullie's trademarks. He was often depicted sitting on an upturned bucket, especially in the first and final panel of each page. So the sculptor included a bucket beside the statue for people to sit on for photographs.

Let's look more closely. Why is Wullie holding a peashooter and pointing over to the side? 

The clue is in some graffiti, which Wullie has scribbled on the wall. It's a poem from Wullie to his hero Robert Burns. One statue talking to another.

Tae Rabbie Burns

You up there are a hero o' mine.

The jeenyass who wrote Auld Lang Syne.

But 'Ae Fond Kiss turned Primrose's head

And she caught me by the skail bike shed

So when I get oot o' her hug

My pea-shooter's going tae ping yer lug!

Wullie

This poem contains examples of how the comic is written in a kind of phonetic English including Scottish pronunciation and slang terms. Tae = to, yer = your, skail = school, jeenyass = genius. The poem also mentions Primrose Patterson, a recurring character from the comic strip whose affections are not reciprocated by Wullie.

Beside Wullie's poem is a sculpted Oor Wullie Comic bearing the familiar tag: Oor Wullie! Your Wullie! A'body's Wullie! I was wishing I had a sheet of blank paper and a wax crayon to make a brass rubbing of this comic strip. 

Panel 1: Watch me knock PC Murdoch's helmet off.

Panel 2: Ha! Ha! It's landed on a puddock! (Scottish slang for a toad or frog)

Panel 3: Get my helmet back or I'll confiscate your bucket.

Panel 4: Jings! Will you help me find Murdoch's helmet?

And guess what! A few metres away in a corner at the end of the wall ... there's PC Murdoch's missing helmet!

What other interesting details can we find on this statue? Well sticking out of the back pocket of Wullie's dungarees, there's his school report, ready to be delivered to his Ma and Pa.

And right beside it, Wullie's weapon of choice besides his peashooter, his catty (catapult) and a bag of ammo.

One more nice touch I noticed. Poking out of another pocket is Wullie's pet mouse from the comics, Wee Jeemy.

I really love how this statue honouring Scotland's favourite comic character has captured so much of the fun and mischief of the strips. Brilliant, and worth the trip to Dundee to relive a slice of my childhood. My son, Hugo, also enjoys Oor Wullie a lot and has three or four of the books.

What do you know? When I arrived at the library here at Abertay University, who should greet me in the lobby? It's Wullie again!

Right. I'm off to explore Dundee some more and find out if Lidl supermarket are serious about the 90 pounds fine for staying more than one hour in their 'camera controlled' car park. Fingers crossed!

Thanks for reading,

Brian