Spanish blood and the Battle of the Orange

Today we had people up from our London HQ for an all-day session on diversity.

Now usually these kinds of events, with their excruciating ice-breakers, bullet-pointed agendas and soaring banality, make me want to staple my face to the desk.

But this one was actually pretty interesting. With characteristic insight, Mr C illustrated that we all have a relationship with diversity. Two of our visitors are African and one is Sri Lankan by descent yet between us, we Jocks have emigrated to Canada, fled from the potato famine, been forced off our land in the Highland Clearances and encountered our own very particular kinds of Scottish discrimination.

For the away day I looked into my family history and the history of Wick itself. I found two really comical yarns I thought I'd share.

1. My surname is More and for many many generations we've been known locally in Wick as the 'Mad Mores'. I've never been too clear on the reason for this nickname (except the obvious, that everyone thinks we're mental) but a well-known story is that we're descended from a Spanish Armada galleon, shipwrecked off the coast of Wick. The shipwrecked Spanish didn't know any English words except More, and this is what they shouted to be rescued. They were half mad with thirst and the locals didn't know what to make of them, so from then on we were known as the Mad Mores. There is also a version of this tale that claims the boat was full of Moors, and that I am therefore black. Hmmmmm.

2. There's a relatively famous battle that was fought in Wick a number of years ago, in which people actually died. It's called the Battle of Orange. I asked my stepdad to tell me about it and the conversation went like this:

Me: "What was the Battle of the Orange?"
Stepdad: "It was a fight over an orange, pet."

Oh. Does what it says on the tin then.