Oor Wullie Miller
Come and visit Oor Wullie Miller at The Pinehurst Lodge Hotel
Oor Wullie (English: Our Willie) is a Scottish comic strip published in the D.C. Thomson newspaper The Sunday Post. It features a character called Wullie; Wullie is a Scots nickname for boys named William, equivalent to Willie. His trademarks are spiky hair, dungarees and an upturned bucket, which he uses as a seat: most strips since early 1937 begin and end with a single panel of Wullie sitting on his bucket. The earliest strips, with little dialogue, ended with Wullie complaining (e.g., “I nivver get ony fun roond here!”). The artistic style settled down by 1940 and has changed little since. A frequent tagline reads, “Oor Wullie! Your Wullie! A’body’s Wullie!” (Our Willie! Your Willie! Everybody’s Willie!).
Bucket Trails In celebration of Oor Wullie’s 80th anniversary in 2016, he was the subject of a public art project when 55 decorated 5 ft sculptures of him were placed around Dundee and its environs with another 13 touring round Scotland over an 8-week period. The Bucket Trail was the largest mass public art project to have taken place in Scotland. The project ran from 27 June for two months, with the sculptures being auctioned in September for £883,000, for a new pediatric surgical suite at Tayside Children’s Hospital. In 2019 Oor Wullie’s BIG Bucket Trail 2019 was launched with 200 artistic interpretations of the figure at locations in cities across Scotland, raising money for Edinburgh Children’s Hospital, Glasgow Children’s Hospital and the Archie Foundation.
People such as Nicola Sturgeon, Ewan McGregor, Andy Murray and Amy Macdonald have appeared in the strip over the years. In December 2016, Nicola Sturgeon featured Oor Wullie on a Christmas card, with the original illustration being auctioned for charity.
Have a look at our fireplace in our Whisky Lounge where we have a few of the Oor Wullie books for you to read!
William Ferguson Miller MBE (born 2 May 1955) is a Scottish former professional football player and manager, who made a club record 560 league appearances for Aberdeen. Sir Alex Ferguson described Miller as “the best penalty box defender in the world”.
Born in Glasgow, Miller was raised in the Bridgeton area of Glasgow. He had little interest in football as a young child, and when he did become drawn to the game he played initially as a goalkeeper.He was scouted by several professional clubs while playing as a forward with Glasgow Schools and Eastercraigs Boys Club
Having been on unofficial schoolboy terms in 1969, Miller signed full-time for Aberdeen in 1971 at the age of 16 and spent a season on loan with Peterhead in the Highland League, scoring 24 goals; upon his return he was converted to a central defender/sweeper in the reserves on the advice of Teddy Scott, winning the SFL Reserve Cup in 1973, established himself in that position in the first team in place of Henning Boel, and by 1975 had been made captain by manager Ally MacLeod.
Miller’s central defensive partnership with Alex McLeish was integral to Aberdeen’s success in the 1980s, as they won all the major domestic honours and the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1983. He made at least 40 appearances for Aberdeen in 14 consecutive seasons, amassing a total of 12 trophies won as well as appearing in several other finals. His total of 797 competitive appearances for the club is comfortably (by more than 100 matches) the all-time record.
He retired from playing in 1990 due to an injury picked up whilst playing for Scotland. A farewell testimonial match in his honour took place in December 1990 with Aberdeen facing a ‘World Cup XI’ (featuring Kenny Dalglish, David O’Leary, Mark Hughes and Danny McGrain among others) at Pittodrie Stadium. He had already received a testimonial in 1981 against Tottenham Hotspur.
In 2003, Willie Miller was voted the greatest Aberdeen player of all time in a poll to mark the club’s centenary. In 2015 it was no surprise when he was named in Aberdeen’s ‘greatest ever team’ by supporters of the club.
Miller was voted Scottish Football Writers’ and SPFA Players’ Player of the Year in 1984. He had been runner-up for the SFWA award in 1983.
Miller has worked for the BBC, particularly for Radio Scotland, as a football commentator and analyst. He has written two autobiographies, The Miller’s Tale and The Don, the latter being published in 2007. His third book, Willie Miller’s Aberdeen Dream Team, was published in 2011.
During the 2014 Scottish independence referendum Miller was a supporter of the Better Together campaign against Scottish independence.
