Join us on Sunday morning, March 20 for a historic group reading — on a train crossing the Tay Bridge, perhaps the first time this has ever been accomplished — of William Topaz McGonagall’s most famous bad poem, The Tay Bridge Disaster,
Here are the poem’s stirring opening lines:
“Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time….”
This is an outgrowth of our Ig Nobel show at the University of Dundee that will occur the previous evening.
DETAILS: Anyone who would like to take part should purchase a ticket for the train*, and gather on the platform at the Dundee train station at 10:45 am.
Scheduled train departure time from Dundee is 11:02.
* If you want only to take the shortest possible train ride, get a return ticket for the next station, Leuchars. The train itself will continue on to London!
DOCUMENTING HISTORY: If you have a video-camera (be it in your telephone, or whatever, please bring it along, and help document this historic reading.
We ask of everyone taking part that you be respectful both of other passengers and of the poet, to the extent those are compatible aims.
UPDATE [March 21, 2011]: One participant‘s video of the reading on the train on the bridge:
CONTEXT: Video of actor Billy Connolly reciting the The Tay Bridge Disaster poem atop a hill in Dundee during a snowstorm: