Where were you in '82?
Where were you in '82?
John Morgan
I remember when I was around 11 or 12 and we heard people were looking for “dinosaurs” in the Manse Burn. My friends and I crossed the Burn every day to go to Baljaffray Primary School and thought anyone looking for dinosaurs must be crazy. It was only as time went on we all got more curious about what was really taking place and would go visit to see them digging.
When they actually made the discovery of the shark fossil it made us quite proud there were so many fossils in Bonnaughton. We were amazed by the amount of people that came to look and I remember seeing Bonnaughton on the news which was unheard of. Amazing find.
Chris Crawford
I was reading your web site and came across this:
"The Bearsden Shark was discovered by Stan Wood, a fossil hunter who became famous in the world of palaeontology. There are different stories about the finding close to where he lived. Locally it is said that young boys brought to him a piece of rock which he recognised as being fossil bearing."
I know for a fact that this is true and that the boys were myself and Gregor Mackie - we both lived at the time on Ettrick Drive in Baljaffray. We didn't take the rocks to him but instead he suddenly appeared by the burn one day and discovered us fossil hunting as we had been doing for about a year.
I remember the exact incident and moment:
We would spend every day guddling for the decent sized brown and rainbow trout that lived in the Manse burn and after some time discovered fossil-bearing rocks in the burn: mostly shrimp and crustacean fossils. We were standing in water at the part of the burn right behind Cruachan Road collecting these fossil-bearing rocks when Stan Wood came along the burn-side path with a black and white sheepdog. He said "What do you have there, boys?" And we told him “Fossils, here, look".
A short time later Stan came back down to the burn and started his dig a bit further downstream near Ettrick Drive on a steep mud/slate bank where he eventually found the shark.
I just wanted to confirm to you that the story that young boys showed Stan fossil-bearing rocks is in fact totally true.