Tealing
Encyclopedia
Tealing is a village in Angus
Angus
Angus is one of the 32 local government council areas of Scotland, a registration county and a lieutenancy area. The council area borders Aberdeenshire, Perth and Kinross and Dundee City...

 in eastern Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

, nestled at the foot of the Sidlaw Hills
Sidlaw Hills
The Sidlaws are a range of hills of volcanic origin in the counties of Perthshire and Angus in Scotland that extend for 30 miles from Kinnoull Hill, near Perth, northeast to Forfar. Law is a Lowland Scots word of Old English origin meaning a hill which rises sharply from the surrounding land...

. It is just 6 miles (9.7 km) north of the city of Dundee
Dundee
Dundee is the fourth-largest city in Scotland and the 39th most populous settlement in the United Kingdom. It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firth of Tay, which feeds into the North Sea...

 and 8 miles (12.9 km) south of Forfar
Forfar
Forfar is a parish, town and former royal burgh of approximately 13,500 people in Angus, located in the East Central Lowlands of Scotland. Forfar is the county town of Angus, which was officially known as Forfarshire from the 18th century until 1929, when the ancient name was reinstated, and...

. With a population of just over 500, scattered across 15 square miles (38.8 km²) of fertile farming land, it has several large working farms mixed in with lots of comfortable family homes that from part of the Dundee
Dundee
Dundee is the fourth-largest city in Scotland and the 39th most populous settlement in the United Kingdom. It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firth of Tay, which feeds into the North Sea...

 and Angus
Angus
Angus is one of the 32 local government council areas of Scotland, a registration county and a lieutenancy area. The council area borders Aberdeenshire, Perth and Kinross and Dundee City...

 commuter belt. There is an old stone built, but thriving little primary school with about 50 pupils at any one time and a further 10 youngsters attending the nursery school on the same site.

Tealing's picturesque, slumbering, peaceful and idyllic setting belies its colourful past. Its history includes prehistoric settlement, ancient carvings, Pict
PICT
PICT is a graphics file format introduced on the original Apple Macintosh computer as its standard metafile format. It allows the interchange of graphics , and some limited text support, between Mac applications, and was the native graphics format of QuickDraw.The original version, PICT 1, was...

s, religious rebellion, World War intrigue, agricultural upheaval and community survival.

There is evidence of an early Pict
PICT
PICT is a graphics file format introduced on the original Apple Macintosh computer as its standard metafile format. It allows the interchange of graphics , and some limited text support, between Mac applications, and was the native graphics format of QuickDraw.The original version, PICT 1, was...

ish settlement around 100 AD near a soutterain now known as Tealing Earthhouse. The first church in Tealing was built in 710 AD by St Boniface, the papal missionary who founded around 150 churches in the north east of Scotland. In 1728, the Reverend John Glas
John Glas
John Glas was a Scottish clergyman who started the Glasite church movement.He was born at Auchtermuchty, Fife, where his father was parish minister. He was educated at Kinclaven and Perth Grammar School, graduated from the University of St Andrews in 1713, and completed his education for the...

 of Tealing Parish Church was suspended and formed a breakaway church known as the Glassites, creating one of the biggest upheavals in the Scottish church. Almost 1,300 years of local worship came to a close in 1982, when the congregation of Tealing Church combined with the Murroes
Murroes
Murroes is a village and parish in Angus, Scotland. The village lies 3 miles north of Dundee city centre. The parish church was built in 1848. Ballumbie House, and Powrie, and Wedderburn castles are within the parish. In the reign of Charles II the minister was Robert Edward, author of an account...

 church. The church still stands and the small graveyard, which is still in use, has remains going back to the 17th century.

During the Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, the Ministry of Defence
Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)
The Ministry of Defence is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces....

 built an aerodrome
Aerodrome
An aerodrome, airdrome or airfield is a term for any location from which aircraft flight operations take place, regardless of whether they involve cargo, passengers or neither...

 at Tealing and No.56 Officer Training Unit opened in March 1942, equipped with Hurricane
Hawker Hurricane
The Hawker Hurricane is a British single-seat fighter aircraft that was designed and predominantly built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd for the Royal Air Force...

, Master
Miles Master
-See also:-References:NotesBibliography* Amos, Peter and Don Lambert Brown. Miles Aircraft Since 1925, Volume 1. London: Putnam Aeronautical, 2000. ISBN 0-85177-787-0....

 and Lysander
Westland Lysander
The Westland Lysander was a British army co-operation and liaison aircraft produced by Westland Aircraft used immediately before and during the Second World War...

 aircraft. The number of pilots training at the unit varied from about 35 to 40 in 1942, reaching a peak of 150 on 1943.

It was at the aerodrome that Tealing's most famous visitor arrived. On 20 May 1942, a strange four-engined aircraft appeared in the circuit at Tealing, piloted by Endel Puusepp
Endel Puusepp
Endel Puusepp or Endel Pusep was a Soviet Estonian World War II pilot who successfully completed over 30 night-time long-range bombing missions against Nazi Germany. He was a recipient of the Hero of the Soviet Union award for flying a high-ranking Soviet delegation over the front line from...

. It was one of the first Russian TB7s
Petlyakov Pe-8
The Petlyakov Pe-8 was a Soviet heavy bomber designed before World War II, and the only four-engine bomber the USSR built during the war. Produced in limited numbers, it was used to bomb Berlin in August 1941. It was also used for so-called "morale raids" designed to raise the spirit of the Soviet...

 to visit Britain and it brought Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov was a Soviet politician and diplomat, an Old Bolshevik and a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s, when he rose to power as a protégé of Joseph Stalin, to 1957, when he was dismissed from the Presidium of the Central Committee by Nikita Khrushchev...

, Russian Foreign Minister and Deputy Chairman of the State Committee of Defence, on a military mission to meet with Sir Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

 at Chequers
Chequers
Chequers, or Chequers Court, is a country house near Ellesborough, to the south of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, England, at the foot of the Chiltern Hills...

. Tealing airfield was probably chosen to attract as little attention as possible and, for security reasons, there was a local news blackout at the time.

Molotov was given the choice of two aircraft in which to continue his journey to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. The one he did not select, as later revealed by Sir Archibald Hope
Hope Baronets
There have been four Baronetcies created for persons with the surname Hope, three in the Baronetage of Nova Scotia and one in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom. one creation is extant, one dormant and two extinct....

, Senior Controller of Fighter Command in Scotland in 1942, crashed in the Vale of York
Vale of York
The Vale of York is an area of flat land in the north-east of England. The vale is a major agricultural area and serves as the main north-south transport corridor for northern England....

, killing various members of Molotov's staff and senior RAF
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...

 personnel. Molotov arrived safely in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 for the signing of the Anglo-Soviet Treaty
Anglo-Soviet Treaty of 1942
The Twenty-Year Mutual Assistance Agreement Between the United Kingdom and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or Anglo-Soviet Treaty established military and political alliance between the USSR and the British Empire during World War II, and for 20 years after it...

on 26 May 1942.

External links

Tealing village website
Dundee and Angus information portal
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