Coordinates: 56°04′19″N 3°26′21″W / 56.07192°N 3.43930°W / 56.07192; -3.43930
Dunfermline ( listen (help·info); Scots: Dunfaurlin, Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Phàrlain) is a town and former Royal Burgh in Fife, Scotland, on high ground 3 miles (4.8 km) from the northern shore of the Firth of Forth. According to a 2008 estimate, Dunfermline has a population of 46,430, making it the second-biggest settlement in Fife. The town’s name comes from the Gaelic words "dun" (meaning "fortified hill"), "fearam" (crooked) and "linn" (stream). The area around Dunfermline became home to the first settlers in the Neolithic period, but did not gain recognition, until the Bronze Age as a place of importance. The town was first recorded in the 11th century, with the marriage of Malcolm III, King of Scotland and Saint Margaret at the church in Dunfermline. As his Queen consort, Margaret established a new church dedicated to the Holy Trinity which evolved into an Abbey under their son, David I in 1128. The graveyard of this abbey would become the burial place for many of Scotland’s kings and queens.
Peter Alan Waterman OBE (born 15 January 1947) is an English record producer, occasional songwriter, radio and club DJ, television presenter, president of Coventry Bears rugby league club and a keen railway enthusiast. As a member of the Stock Aitken Waterman songwriting team he wrote and produced many hit singles. He is the owner of significant collections of both historic and commercial railway locomotives and rolling stock, a passion and expensive hobby made possible by the commercial success of the acts he signed.
Born in Stoke Heath, Coventry, Warwickshire, Waterman had left Whitley Abbey Comprehensive School (now rebuilt and called Whitley Abbey Community School) to work at a railway depot. After closure of the depot, Waterman chose to follow a career in music, being inspired by The Beatles. To supplement his income as a DJ, Waterman became a gravedigger and then an apprentice at General Electric Company, becoming a trade union official.
Building a record collection through rare US imports, his DJ work began to take him across the UK, entertaining bigger crowds with a blend of rhythm and blues and soul music tunes he had sourced. Given a residency with the Mecca Leisure Group, he developed new initiatives including matinée discos for under 18s at Coventry’s Locarno club, which gave him a valuable insight into what music interested a younger audience. Waterman noticed that the younger dancers preferred records with high beats per minutes and this influenced his later work. It was at the Locarno that Waterman first met Neville Staple, later to be a vocalist for The Specials - a band that Waterman would manage for a brief period. In early 2009, Waterman wrote the foreword to Neville's biography "Original Rude Boy", which was published by Aurum Press in May 2009.
William Cowan "Willie" Rennie (born 27 September 1967) is a Scottish politician and current Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats.
After college, Rennie spent most of his early career as a Liberal Democrat election campaigner and official before working as a public relations consultant in the private sector. He became the Member of Parliament (MP) for Dunfermline and West Fife after a by-election win in February 2006.
He later lost this seat to Labour in the May 2010 UK general election but was subsequently appointed in the same month by the newly formed UK Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition as a Special Government Adviser working successively for the Liberal Democrat Scottish Secretaries of State Danny Alexander MP and Michael Moore MP at the Scotland Office.
He later resigned from his special adviser role in June 2010 to stand for the Scottish Parliament in the May 2011 elections. Despite the overall collapse of the party in the election he managed to be elected as an additional member for the Mid Scotland and Fife region with 5.9% of the regional list vote. He was soon after elected unopposed as leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrat party, replacing Tavish Scott.
Tommy Sheridan (born 7 March 1964, Glasgow) is a Scottish socialist politician. He has had various prominent roles within the socialist movement in Scotland and is currently one of two co-convenors of the left-wing Scottish political party Solidarity.
Sheridan was active as a Militant tendency entryist in the Labour Party, before leaving Labour as a member of Scottish Militant Labour (SML). He was a prominent campaigner against the poll tax in Scotland, and was jailed for six months for attending a warrant sale after Glasgow Sheriff Court had served a court order on him banning his presence. Sheridan has twice been jailed in connection with campaigning against the presence of the nuclear fleet at Faslane Naval Base - a presence which continues.
In 2006 in the case of Sheridan v News International he won an action for defamation against the News of the World and was awarded £200,000 damages. The following year, he was charged with perjury, for having told lies to the court in the defamation case. In the following weeks, six of his relations and colleagues were also charged. In October 2010, he appeared together with his wife Gail at a trial for perjury. While the charges against his wife were withdrawn, on 23 December 2010, Sheridan was convicted of perjury, and on 26 January he was sentenced to three years imprisonment. In the light of the News of the World phone hacking affair, the Crown Office has been ordered to reassess the case. He was released from prison on 30 January 2012, one year into his sentence.
Robert I (11 July 1274 – 7 June 1329), popularly known as Robert the Bruce (Medieval Gaelic: Roibert a Briuis; modern Scottish Gaelic: Raibeart Bruis; Norman French: Robert de Brus or Robert de Bruys), was King of Scots from 25 March 1306, until his death in 1329.
His paternal ancestors were of Scoto-Norman heritage (originating in Brix, Manche, Normandy), and his maternal of Franco-Gaelic. He became one of Scotland's greatest kings, as well as one of the most famous warriors of his generation, eventually leading Scotland during the Wars of Scottish Independence against the Kingdom of England. He claimed the Scottish throne as a fourth great-grandson of David I, and fought successfully during his reign to regain Scotland's place as an independent nation. Today in Scotland, Bruce is remembered as a national hero.
His body is buried in Dunfermline Abbey, while it is believed his heart was interred in Melrose Abbey. Bruce's lieutenant and friend Sir James Douglas agreed to take the late King's embalmed heart on crusade to the Holy Land, but he only reached Moorish Granada. According to tradition, Douglas was carrying the heart in a silver casket when he died at the head of the Scottish contingent at the Battle of Teba. He was killed in the battle fighting the moors, but the king's heart was recovered and brought back to Scotland.