Courtesy Angus McGowan

While out West for harvest excursion, 1931, Angus travelled to Long Beach, California.

Murchisons

Two Murchison men, captain and the mate, were from Point Prim. They’d be double first cousins of my grandfather Murchison. And they were sailing, I believe it was, from Europe, and they were hired to pilot the vessel. They went into a port in New York some place.

And there was a man by the name of MacLean with them, and he was from Point Prim. He had a dream they were going to be shipwrecked. So he got up and walked the deck the rest of the night, wondering what he’d tell them, whether he’d tell them or not. So he thought he’d better.... And they said, “Well, we’ll have to go anyway,” they said. He [MacLean] didn’t go, came home by boat passage. He was home a little while and their father, John Murchison, got word that the two sons was shipwrecked off Newfoundland and drowned, yeah. Captain Alexander Murchison and Angus Murchison.

Simon Donald Murchison was my uncle. He was pretty fond of telling stories, you know, and everybody would be looking for him to tell the stories. Stretch the truth, correct. And it was true the stretched truth

18 BELFAST PEOPLE