Besom Jamie, freakshow exhibit and Bearsden hermit
JAMES Buchanan, or Besom Jamie, as the Killermont Hermit was better known, believed in keeping something by in case of leaner times ahead.
His ramshackle abode was crammed with potatoes, meal and butcher meat, some of which he boasted had been in his possession for seven years.
A visitor, who was no doubt relieved not to be asked to stay for tea, was told by Jamie that the food was quite fresh and fit for consumption.
''He was in the habit of making as much broth as would serve him for several weeks on end,'' the visitor recalled, and when I hinted that it must be sour or stale by that time, he said: 'I jist heat it up every day, and that mak's it as guid as new.''
In a Through the Keyhole-type description of Jamie's home, the visitor said: ''Jamie's residence was almost entirely composed of earth, fixed on the face of a brae, with the roof almost level with the road, and the front wall propped up by the cuttings of trees to keep the crazy erection from tumbling down the declivity.
''A friend and I entered the hermit's ''earthwork'' by an opening at the side of the gable, stepped over a ''dub'' of water inside the door, and found Jamie sitting on the top of a barrel, busily engaged in making a pair of new boots, or shoes out of old ones.
''He was clad in a red nightcap, two or three waistcoats, two shirts, and a pair of trousers; but the texture of these articles I could not make out, they were so elaborately patched and so thickly coated with grease.
''The cottage consisted of a single apartment, low in the roof, begrimed with smoke; and there was no window or hole in the wall, the fireplace and a considerable portion of the interior was dark even at mid-day.''
The visitor also noted that the interior was crammed with kitchen utensils, barrels, bags, old boots, bundles of rags, greasy soup plates and other equally dirty dishes, the uses for which he shuddered to guess.
Not surprisingly, Besom Jamie's grimy hovel was plagued by rats and he would sleep with a stout cudgel to beat any that crawled onto his bed.
The determined rodents were not easily put off and more than once Jamie awoke to find them gnawing at his woollen shirt.
Before setting up home in Killermont, Jamie had lived a colourful, if pathetic life.
Born in the Saltmarket in Glasgow around the beginning of the 19th century, he spent his first 11 years in a poorhouse at Stockwell Street after which he was bound as an apprentice to a Bridgeton weaver.
Jamie learned his trade then moved to Carlisle where, under the guise of selling religious tracts, he embarked on a career in begging.
He made his living in this way for seven years before his odd proportions — five feet tall and three-and-a-half feet round the middle — attracted the attention of a showman who exhibited him around England as ''The Wonderful Fat Boy.''
His master paid Jamie just 2/- a week plus his board, but allowed him to keep any money that viewers cared to place in the hat he would pass round at showings.
Then disaster struck. James contracted a serious illness that reduced the fat boy to skin and bone. His employer sacked him and also took what money he had saved.
Jamie returned to begging, his work-shy ways earning him at least two prison sentences, including 30 agonising days spent on a treadmill in London. After that he returned to Scotland, living for several years in Kirkintilloch before setting up his squat on the Killermont estate.
Outrage
Jamie soon became a kenspeckle figure as he made his way around the streets in his strange attire, carrying a stout walking stick in one hand and a tin for financial donations in the other.
It was well known in the area that Besom Jamie kept his life savings in his hovel and it was probably inevitable that some day someone would steal his hoard.
His 23 loss was made good by sympathetic local gentlemen, but Jamie felt he wanted to take the matter further. He considered walking to Balmoral to tell Queen Victoria of the outrage he had suffered. He changed his mind, however, when someone pointed out that his soup store might go off if he could not be around to heat it up each day.
Besom Jamie died in 1870.
ALISTER BLYTH
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Sunday 12 February 2012
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