The Boy in the Train

The Boy in the Train is a poem written in Scots, by Mary Campbell (Edgar) Smith (1869–1960),[1] first published in 1913. It is featured in many anthologies of Scottish verse,[2] texts related to railway history,[3][4][5] and is routinely quoted when discussing linoleum,[6][7][8] and the history of the Scottish town Kirkcaldy.[9][10][11] It is a popular poem in Scottish culture,[12][13][14] often being a children's party piece,[15][16] and "recited by generations of primary school children".[17] The crime-writer Val McDermid, who was born in Kirkcaldy, has said "As school kids we all had to learn The Boy in the Train".[12][18][19]

Mary Campbell Smith portrait, sat at her desk
Mary Campbell Smith, author of "The Boy in the Train"
Image of the text of the Boy in the Train featured on a magazine page in 1913.
The earliest surviving publication of the Boy in the Train, in the Merchiston Castle School's Merchistonian journal, 1913, p. 255.

Origin

Mary Campbell Smith was born in Tongland, Kirkcudbrightshire, and was the daughter of the Reverend Andrew Edgar, minister of Mauchline, Ayrshire.[20] In 1895 she married George Smith (1868–1957), the headmaster of Merchiston Castle School in Edinburgh.[21] They would take their Easter holidays in Elie, Fife, travelling there by train.[21] Written in Scots,[22] the poem quotes an inquisitive young boy who was in their carriage, asking questions on the way to his grandmother's house in Kirkcaldy, Fife. The poem captures the growing pre-war industrialisation of Kirkcaldy, including the distinct smell of the linoleum factories,[23][24][25] for which the town was famous.[26][27][28]

Publication and text

Publication history

The Boy in the Train was first published in August 1913 in a single-issue school magazine, called the Total Eclipse, produced by the school-boys of Merchiston Castle School.[29] No copies of this are known to have survived.[30] The poem was reproduced in the official school journal, The Merchistonian, in August 1913 (although the poet was not named).[29] By 1915 The Boy in the Train was known to Sir Michael Nairn (1838–1915), industrialist and owner of seven of Kirkcaldy's linoleum factories,[31] who had the poem printed up as a calling card.[32] The poem appeared in full in the Fife Free Press in 1916, attributed to a "young man belonging to Pathhead, who is now in the United States" with the initials "C.N".[33] It became popularly known as Next Stop Kirkcaldy and from the early 1920s was widely reported as being a popular concert recital piece both in Fife,[34][35] and elsewhere in Scotland.[36]

In 1925 it was published in a book of Twentieth Century Scots Verse,[37] selected by Mr William Robb, Chief Inspector of Schools in Lanarkshire.[38] Robb was an expert in Scots dialect, interested in the "revival of the use of the Scots vernacular tongue as a literary medium",[39] lecturing[40][41][42] and publishing on Modern Scots Poetry.[43] Robb was the first to name Mary Campbell Smith as author of the poem, citing his source as the Total Eclipse 1913 magazine.[44] Twentieth Century Scots Verse also contains the only other known poem by Mary Campbell Smith, Mirren McKee.[45] After publication in this volume, The Boy in the Train's popularity increased, and has been included in many anthologies of popular Scottish verse.[46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57] It has often being recorded as having been performed and enjoyed at concerts throughout Scotland.[58][59][60][61][62][63][64] By the mid 20th Century was synonymous with Kirkcaldy in popular culture.[65][66]

Although she lived to see the growing popularity of her poem, it is believed that Mary Campbell Smith never set foot in the station that she made famous.[67]

Form

The poem[68] is written in four stanzas in phonetically transcribed Scots.[69] The four stanzas each have eight lines (octaves), in alternating Iambic tetrameter and Iambic trimeter with some playing with Anapestic stressing. The strong rhythm echoes the noise of a steam train travelling at speed along tracks. The poem uses the ABABCDCD traditional rhyme scheme. However, the last line of the first three stanzas is repeated: "next stop Kirkcaddy", giving repetition of the D rhyme in each stanza, although changing from question to growing confidence as a statement. This is resolved in the final two lines, with the poem's well-known phrase:

For I ken mysel' by the queer-like smell / That the next stop's Kirkcaddy!

Analysis

Interpretation
Fife coastal line of the North British Railway System in 1882, from a map in the National Library of Scotland.

The Boy in the Train describes the steam train journey of an un-named, young boy with his mother and father, from an unnamed western point on the coastal train line in Fife, as they travel eastwards and then north to Kirkcaldy railway station, to visit his grandmother. The poem is a range of questions asked and excited, humorous observations made by the boy, leaving no space for any reply, but showing his developing reasoning as he goes through a landscape he starts to recognise. Although first published in 1913, the date of writing is unknown. The poem details the change from rural to modernising and industrial urban landscape. The boy anthropomorphises the train, before questioning how it works, thinks about his dinner, then asks "Has Gran'ma gotten electric licht?". This refers to the gradual electrification of Kirkcaldy, which had begun in 1904, with a steady growth in private homes being connected.[70] The 1910 Electric Lighting Order Confirmation (No.2) Act Order for the South of Scotland, and the schedule laid out in 1911, included a specified area of Kirkcaldy in the second mass-electrificaiton schedule and the laying of tramlines and streetlights.[71] This is juxtaposed in the poem by noting nature in the rural landscape on the approach to Kirkcaldy, such as the birds, and the moon. The child's gaze spots other children in the pre-industrial landscape: the cow and the calf, and the "lassie pu'in' a hurly!" (a girl pulling a roughly-made hand cart).[72]

Ordnance Survey Map of Kirkcaldy Railway Station in 1914, showing the linoleum works nearby. From the National Library of Scotland.

There are several specific geographic features mentioned in the poem. At the time of publication of the poem, the trainline was operated by the North British Railway company (the station in Kirkcaldy had been operational since 1847). The tunnel described is the Kinghorn Tunnel, a 265 yard tunnel southwest of Kinghorn Station, the station prior to Kirkcaldy on the line. Although it is not clear where the boy's train journey in the poem starts, it must have been before Kinghorn. Given there is no mention of the Forth Bridge, the starting point must be another station in Fife on the North British Railway line.

The boy knows that on the approach to Kirkcaldy railway station they will "sune be comin' to Beveridge Park": a large Victorian park opened in 1892, which was bequeathed to the people of Kirkcaldy by the industrialist and Provost Michael Beveridge (1836–1890).[73][74] Beveridge was a linen manufacturer and founder of the linoleum company Barry, Ostlere and Shepherd, the "second largest floorcovering manufacturer in Scotland"[75] after the Michael Nairn and Co linoleum company.

The "gey wheen boats at the harbour mou" in the Firth of Forth must be outside Kinghorn harbour mouth: Kirkcaldy harbour is not visible from the train before Kirkcaldy station, as the line turns inland. Kinghorn's Abden Shipyard was not operational at time of publication,[76] although its harbour would have been. "And eh! dae ya see the cruisers?" in the poem may refer to traffic to the Rosyth naval base and dockyard which had been established in 1909 "in anticipation of a naval arms race with Germany".[77] There were frequently reported manoeuvres of the First Fleet in the Firth of Forth in 1912[78] and 1913.[79] The excitement of the boy shows an innocence in the face of the growing power of the Royal Navy. The seriousness of seeing the cruisers is punctured when the boy spits out his sweet and it sticks to his trousers.

Kirkcaldy Railway Station, facing North. In the Background is the Barry, Ostlere and Shepherd Caledonian Linoleum Works
Kirkcaldy Railway Station, facing North, circa 1910. In the Background is the Barry, Ostlere and Shepherd Caledonian Linoleum Works.

Eventually, the famous "queer-like smell" of Kirkcaldy's many linoleum factories lets the boy know that they will soon be arriving in Kirkcaldy. The smell of linoleum is distinctive, given the production process where linseed oil is oxidised and pressed together with resins, ground cork and pigments. There were many factories clustered around the train station (and Kirkcaldy harbour) to allow transport of the linoleum. The Balsusney Works,[80] National Linoleum Works,[81] Rosslyn and Lorne Linoleum Works,[82] and Barry, Ostlere and Shepherd Caledonia Linoleum Works[83] were all next to Kirkcaldy railway station.

The poem, cut in linoleum, is mounted above the stairs to platform 1 in Kirkcaldy railway station, sponsored by the linoleum company Forbo-Nairn.

At the time of writing circa 1913 the poem was therefore a record of recent development of a Fife landscape that had been rapidly industrialised, at a time of great change. However, given the demise of most of the linoleum industry in the mid twentieth century,[84] the subsequent demolition of the majority of Kirkcaldy's linoleum factory buildings,[85][86] and the replacement of steam trains by diesel in the 1960s, the poem now has nostalgic charm for a bygone time.

Cultural significance

The poem is often quoted in travel guides as immortalising the smell of Kirkcaldy's Linoleum factories,[87][88][89][90][91] and in description of the route into Kirkcaldy.[92][93][94]

In 1993 a touring exhibition on the history of linoleum, entitled 'The Queer-Like Smell' after the line in the poem, was put together by Kirkcaldy Museum and Art Gallery, and toured various museums in Scotland.[95][96][97]

In 1994 the poem was reproduced in laser-cut linoleum and unveiled in Kirkcaldy railway station.[98]

In 1998, the final lines of the poem were used to describe Kirkcaldy in the biography of Gordon Brown, the prime minister of the UK, who grew up in Kirkcaldy.[99]

In 2016 a competition was launched for residents of Kirkcaldy to write their own, modern version of the poem in celebration of Kirkcaldy4All festival.[100][101]

In 2018, the writer Val McDermid, who is from Kirkcaldy, quoted it in a BBC documentary on "The Town That Floored the World".[12]

The poem is read at the annual prize-giving at Kirkcaldy High School.[102]

References
  1. "Mary Campbell Smith". Scottish Poetry Library.
  2. Arnold, Richard, ed. (1989). The Poems of Fife, including the Boy in the Train. Fife Leader.
  3. A Book of Railway Journeys. Fontana Press. 1981. p. 49.
  4. Steam Finale, Scotland. Ian Allan. 2003.
  5. "It's Poetry in Locomotion". Western Mail. 20 September 2002. p. 3.
  6. Rougvie, Janet (1 July 1998). "Queer Like Smell". Scots Magazine. No. 149. p. 13.
  7. "Oldest lino plant to be flattened". BBC News. 14 March 2008. A poem by Mary Campbell Smith called The Boy In The Train made reference to the odour.
  8. "Export Call for Kirkcaldy Product Increases". Fifeshire Advertiser. 23 August 1952. p. 1. "overseas buyers have been so greatly impressed that information has 'leaking' back to 'Linoleoplois' and the local folk are beginning to think that perhaps there is more in it that just a 'queer like smell'.
  9. "Smell's Familiar!". Dundee Courier. 28 January 1997. p. 10. News that Kirkcaldy Linoleum firm Nairn's (now Forbo-Nairn's) is celebrating its 150th anniversary brings to mind a certain poem that was much favoured for school poetry competitions
  10. Portillo, Michael (27 July 2003). "As the train rattled the Bridge, the tang of air it still reminds". Mail on Sunday. p. 52.
  11. "Jailhouse Calls from States Rock Kirkcaldy". The Scotsman. 10 April 2001. p. 5.
  12. "The Town that Floored the World". BBC Scotland. 16 May 2018.
  13. "Kirkcaldy: The town that floored the world! For I ken mysel' by the queer-like smell, That the next stop's Kirkcaddy!". Fife Today. 17 May 2018.
  14. Collins Encyclopaedia of Scotland. Collins. 2000. p. 609.
  15. 100 Favourite Scottish Poems to Read Out Loud. Luath Press. 2007. p. 159.
  16. "The Boy in the Train". Dundee Courier. 17 February 1988. p. 8.
  17. Alexander, Michael (17 May 2018). "Take the floor: New BBC documentary recalls the 'queer-like smell' from Kirkcaldy's linoleum industry". Dundee Courier.
  18. "Kirkcaldy steps up as lino makes a comeback". The Times. 12 May 2018. p. 17.
  19. "Town was never quite the same once we reached end of the lino; TV SHOW CHARTS KIRKCALDY'S BOOM YEARS. Downturn in once thriving industry left locals floored". Daily Record. 17 May 2018. p. 24.
  20. Robb, William (1925). A book of Twentieth-Century Scots Verse. London and Glasgow: Gowans and Gray Ltd. pp. xii.
  21. Thomson, John (June 1982). "The Story Behind "The Boy in the Train"". The University of Edinburgh Journal. XXX: 227.
  22. Watson, Roderick (2006). "Living with the double tongue: contemporary poetry in Scots". The Edinburgh History of Scottish Literature, Volume Three: Modern Transformations: New Identities (from 1918). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. p. 170. urban demotic... which look back to an older vernacular tradition of verses such as Mrs M. C. Smith's "The Boy in the Train
  23. "Behind Kirkcaldy's Famous Smell. How Linoleum is Made". Fifeshire Advertiser. 7 August 1954. p. 3.
  24. "End of the Lino". The Scotsman. 15 March 2008. p. 15.
  25. "Pungent Aroma the drove PM to London". The Times. 15 March 2008. p. 40.
  26. Eder, Richard (9 June 1973). "History Repeated After 250 Years". South China Morning Post. Ye'll know by the queer-like smell: the next stop must be Kirkcaldy" Mr Daniel Wesley, one of the town councillors, recited the verse that used to be sung in neighbouring towns in honour of the fumes from Kirkcaldy's linoleum factories
  27. "Rose Garden Will Be Park Attraction". Fifeshire Advertiser. 12 May 1956. p. 1. Kirkcaldy will undoubtedly always be associated with linoleum – and the smell of that famous product. It has been the subject of jokes for half-a-century, and even found some form of permanency in the lines: "You ken richt well by the queer like smell that the next stop's Kirkcaldy"
  28. "Still Floored By Fife". The Sunday Times. 5 December 1993.
  29. "The Total Eclipse". The Merchistonian: 254. August 1913.
  30. Thomson, John (June 1982). "The Story Behind "The Boy in the Train"". The University of Edinburgh Journal. 30, 3: 227.
  31. Sharkey, Martin (21 May 2018). "Kirkcaldy: Linoleum capital of the world". BBC Scotland News.
  32. "The Late Sir Michael B. Nairn. Unveiling of Portrait". Fife Free Press. 3 June 1916. p. 5. The last time Sir Michael called on him at his own home he presented to him a little sheet which he seemed to have printed from one of the local papers. It contained a poem describing the journey of a boy from Edinburgh across the Forth Bridge, and the little rascal was tormenting his parents with all kinds of questions and observations, until nearing the end of his journey, when he observed – "I ken mysel', by the queer kind of' smell, That the next stop's Kirkcaldy.
  33. "Is The Next Stop Kirkcaldy". Fife Free Press and Guardian. 25 March 1916. p. 6.
  34. "Auchterderran". Fife Free Press. 11 November 1922. p. 8.
  35. "Kinghorn". Fife Free Press. 27 January 1923. p. 6.
  36. "Eccles Concert". Berwickshire News and General Advertiser. 1 May 1923. p. 4.
  37. Robb, William, ed. (1925). Twentieth Century Scots Verse. London and Glasgow: Gowans and Gray.
  38. "The other day we received an excellent little book of Twentieth Century Scots Verse". Forfar Dispatch. 22 April 1926. p. 3.
  39. "Jottings by the May". Wishaw Press. 12 October 1923. p. 4. Mr Robb is personally known to teachers as the very popular and efficient Chief Inspector of Schools for Lanarkshire, a post in which he recently succeeded Mr Lamb. Outside scholastic work, Mr Robb is well known in the West of Scotland as a man of letters of great distinction. He has written works on educational subjects, notably that charming book "The Joy of Teaching Children". In the revival of the use of Scots vernacular tongue as a literary medium, which as taken various forms – such as the Scottish national Players, the Scottish Chapbook, and the Scottish Vernacular Circle in London – Mr Robb has done prominent work, as he has published "A Book of Scots", an anthology of prose and verse, and he is at present engaged on the compilation of a book of "Recent Scots Verse" which is also the subject of his lecture in Wishaw on the 18th October.
  40. "Local News". Midlothian Advertiser. 18 January 1924. p. 2.
  41. "Meetings and Lectures". Dundee Courier. 12 February 1924. p. 9. The English Association Lecture by William Robb, Esq. H.M. Inspector of Schools. in University College. On Friday 15th February at 7.30pm. Subject "Scottish Poets of To-Day". All Interested Are Invited.
  42. "St Andrews, English Association". St Andrews Citizen. 9 January 1926. p. 4. The lecturer on Friday, 15th January, is Mr William Robb, His Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools for Lanarkshire, a man of the highest culture, and a lecturer with a most charming personality. he is a recognised authority on Scottish poetry, and his recently published anthology met with a most cordial reception.
  43. "Jottings by the May". Wishaw Press. 12 October 1923. p. 4. Outside scholastic work, Mr Robb is well known in the West of Scotland as a man of letters of great distinction. He has written works on educational subjects, notably that charming book "The Joy of Teaching Children". In the revival of the use the Scots vernacular tongue as a literary medium, which has taken various forms – such as the Scottish national Players, the Scottish Chapbook, and the Scottish Vernacular Circle in London – Mr Robb has done prominent work, as he has published "A Book of Scots", an anthology of prose and verse, and he is at present engaged on the compilation of a book of "Recent Scots Verse".
  44. Robb, William (ed.). "Dates of First Publication". A book of Twentieth-Century Scots Verse. London and Glasgow: Gowans and Gray Ltd. p. 232. P. 52. – "The Boy in the Train." The Total Eclipse (Merchiston School Magazine), April, 1913.
  45. Smith, Mary Campbell (1925). "Mirren McKee". In Robb, William (ed.). A book of Twentieth-Century Scots Verse. London and Glasgow: Gowans and Gray Ltd. pp. 228–9.
  46. Rich, Kathleen, ed. (1934). A Reciter's Repertory. London: Methuen and Co Ltd. p. 169.
  47. Henderson; Smith, eds. (1937). A Scots Reader. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd.
  48. Oliver; Smith, eds. (1949). A Scots Anthology from the Thirteenth to the Twentieth Century. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd.
  49. Young, Douglas, ed. (1952). Scottish Verse. London: Nelson. p. 140.
  50. MacGillivray, Alan, ed. (1970). The ring of words: an anthology of Scottish poetry for secondary schools. London: Oliver and Boyd. p. 9.
  51. Macmillan, ed. (1972). The New Scots Reader. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd for the Burns Federation. p. 22.
  52. MacMillan, ed. (1979). A Scots Kist. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd for the Burns Federation. p. 22.
  53. Arnold, Richard, ed. (1989). The Poems of Fife, including the Boy in the Train. Kirkcaldy: Fife Leader.
  54. Forsyth, Anne, ed. (1994). Canty and Couthie: Familiar and Forgotten Traditional Scots Poems. Aberdeen: Scottish Cultural Press. p. 9.
  55. Watson, Roderick, ed. (1995). The Poetry of Scotland: Gaelic, Scots and English 1380–1980. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
  56. Forsyth, Anne; Cant, Sheila, eds. (2001). Scots Poems for Children, an Anthology. Mercat Press. p. 82.
  57. Jarvie, Gordon, ed. (2007). 100 Favourite Scottish Poems to Read Out Loud. Edinburgh: Luath Press. p. 69.
  58. "Local News". Musselburgh News. 26 March 1926. p. 2. Mr Mclean delivered an address entitled "Atmosphere in Literature"... which he himself conveyed to his audience by reading suitable extract... the atmosphere of humour exemplified by Scots poems old and new, one of which "The Next Stop's Kirkcaldy" was particularly enjoyed.
  59. "Ednam Rural". Southern Reporter. 14 July 1927. p. 7.
  60. "Advantage of Having Hall". Berwickshire News and General Advertiser. 10 December 1935. p. 6.
  61. "Bathgate St John's Church. Girl's Association Concert". West Lothian Courier. 4 March 1938. p. 3.
  62. "Torrance, Torrance Church Dramatic Club". Milngavie and Bearsden Herald. 6 November 1948. p. 4. A most fitting item was a recitation ably rendered by Mrs Croll, the Club's producer, "The Next Stop Kirkcaldy".
  63. "Annual Choir Concert". Bo’ness Journal, and Linlithgow Advertiser. 27 April 1951. p. 4.
  64. "Mid Calder, O. E. S Scottish Night". West Lothian Courier. 27 January 1961. p. 7.
  65. Bulloch, J. (22 February 1937). "The Genius Loci. Something I Want to Say". Daily Record. p. 13.
  66. Gault, David (18 March 2019). "Have Bus Pass, will Travel!". Scotland's Churches Trust.
  67. "The Boy in the Train". Kirkcaldy in 50 Objects. Retrieved 29 January 2022.
  68. Smith, Mary Campbell. "The Boy in the Train". Scottish Poetry Library.
  69. Hair, Ross (2017). Avant-Folk: Small Press Poetry Networks from 1950 to the Present. Liverpool University Press. p. 90. The merging of conventional English with phonetically spelt dialect (reminiscent of Mary Campbell Smith's in her popular poem 'The Boy in the Train')
  70. "Kirkcaldy Gas Arbitration, The Case for the Town". Fife Free Press. 4 March 1911. p. 2.
  71. Electric Lighting Orders Confirmation (No. 3) Act 1911, the Fife Electric Lighting Order 1911. UK Government. 1911. p. 103. In the parish of Kirkcaldy and Dysart – Jocks Loan leading from Strathore Road to Kirkcaldy burgh boundary at Sinclairtown so much of Hayfield Road as is situate outwith the Kirkcaldy burgh boundary so much of unnamed road leading from Ore Bridge past Ore Mills to Mackie's Mill as is situate within the parish.
  72. "Hurlie". Dictionary of the Scots Language.
  73. "Beveridge Park, Kirkcaldy, Fife". My Park Scotland.
  74. "BEVERIDGE PARK, MAIN GATE AND SOUTH EAST GATE". Historic Environment Scotland.
  75. "Barry, Ostlere & Shephard". Historic Houses Trust.
  76. "Kinghorn Shipyard". Kinghorn Historical Society.
  77. "Feature: Records from Rosyth Royal Dockyard show machinery of 250 and 100 ton cantilever cranes". National Archives of Scotland. Archived from the original on 14 April 2016.
  78. "Battleships at Burntisland". Dundee Courier. 4 September 1912. p. 7. Four large battleships, H. M. S. Lion, Indefatigable, Invincible, and Inflexible, belonging to the First Cruiser Squadron, cast anchor in Burntisland roadstead yesterday. After a few days' stay they will probably participate in the proposed cruise in the Baltic.
  79. "The Warships in the Forth – Home Fleet Goes to Sea". Fife Free Press & Kirkcaldy Guardian. 2 August 1913. p. 4. From six to seven o'clock on Thursday morning the First Battle Division, First Cruiser Squadron, torpedo boats, and main division of torpedo-boat destroyers of the Home Fleet, under the command of Admiral Callaghan, left the Forth, where they have been lying since the conclusion of the first phase of the war at the close of last week. From dawn it was seen preparations were in progress for the departure as great banks of black smith issuing from the oil-burning vessels were driven before the light easterly breeze, which brought up the firth a thin hair. The powerful cruisers, seven in number, led and speedily passed through the north span of the Forth Bridge from the neighbourhood of Rosyth, where, with the super-Dreadnoughts, the main body of the fleet had been lying. These were followed by the light Dreadnoughts, led by Admiral Callaghan's flagship Neptune. Numerous torpedo boats and destroyers, with mine sweepers and vessels of other classes accompanied these, while on torpedo-road destroyer flotilla, with attendant store and depot vessels, were left behind. The fleet will take part in operations in the North Sea, thereafter returning to the Forth.
  80. "John Jeffrey". Vintage Lundin Links and Largo.
  81. "SPW027215 SCOTLAND (1929). Kirkcaldy, general view, showing National Linoleum Works, Bennochy Road and St Brycedale Church of Scotland. An oblique aerial photograph taken facing east". Britain from Above.
  82. "SPW042551 SCOTLAND (1933). Barry, Ostlere and Shepherd Ltd. Rosslyn and Lorne Linoleum Works, Kirkcaldy. An oblique aerial photograph taken facing north-east". Britain from Above.
  83. Watson, Margaret (11 October 2021). "Kirkcaldy in 50 Objects: Barry, Ostlere and Shepherd". Fife Today.
  84. "Exhibition examines decline in Kirkcaldy's linoleum industry". Fife Today. 9 March 2017.
  85. "Local News". Fife Free Press. 23 June 1951. p. 4. One of Kirkcaldy's many factory chimneys is to disappear shortly. Messrs Barry, Ostlere and Shepherd Ltd, linoleum manufacturers are to demolish the 110-foot high stalk at Rossyln Works, Junction Road. The bricks will be lowered down the inside.
  86. "Nostalgia: The folly doomed to fail that stood for 120 years". Fife Today. 4 May 2018.
  87. Foreman, Carol (2004). Made in Scotland : household names that began in Scotland. Edinburgh: Birlinn. p. 36.
  88. Hall, Alan (2002). Fife and Perthshire: Including Kinross. Newton Abbot: Pevensey Guides. p. 13. the odorous, linseed oil lingered, expressed so succinctly by Mary C. Smith in 'The Boy in the Train'.
  89. Lamont-Brown, Raymond (1988). Discovering Fife. Discovering Series. p. 59.
  90. Ross, David (2012). The pocket book of Scottish quotations. Edinburgh: Birlinn. p. 127.
  91. "A Flair for Linoleum". Dundee Courier. 6 June 1994. p. 10.
  92. "The end of the line: Remembering Fife's glory days as a holiday destination". The Scotsman. 27 June 2010. You could fall asleep coming home and know you would wake up at Kirkcaldy because of the smell of the lino factory. They all quote lines from Mary Campbell Smith's famous poem, The Boy In The Train, still on the station wall, that ends: or I ken mysel' by the queer-like smell/That the next stop's Kirkcaddy!
  93. Christie, Guy (1955). Harbours of the Forth. London: C. Johnson. pp. 134–7.
  94. "Motoring by Forth and Tay: And Along the Fife and Angus". Aberdeen Press and Journal. 18 August 1930. p. 6. The descent continues through Linkton and as Kirkcaldy approached the motorist may well exclaim, like the boy in the train: I ken mysel' by the queer-like smell That the next stop's Kirkcaddy?
  95. "Linoleum exhibition". Perthshire Advertiser. 5 February 1993. p. 3.
  96. "Linseed, hessian and cork evoked". The Herald. 5 April 1994. p. 9.
  97. "Worth Sniffing At". Aberdeen Evening Express. 13 November 1993. p. 39.
  98. "Fife nostalgia: Station poem unveiled 1994". Fife Today. 16 February 2018.
  99. Routledge, Paul (1998). Gordon Brown. Simon and Schuster. p. 22.
  100. "Pen your love letter to Kirkcaldy in poetry competition". Fife Today. 28 January 2016.
  101. "Kirkcaldy poetry winners are well versed". Fife Today. 1 March 2016.
  102. "Tragic pupils are remembered at poignant prize giving". The Courier and Advertiser (Fife Edition). 18 June 2019.
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