David Webster & the Dinnie Stones
by Al Myers
I was able to catch up with David Webster again (I've met him many times at prior Highland Games) at the 2013 Arnold Classic in Columbus, Ohio. Pictured left to right: Al Myers, David Webster, & Chad Ullom
If it wasn’t for David Webster, the stone lifting World might never have heard of the Dinnie Stones. David Webster is the man who made the presence of the Dinnie Stones well known. Without this, all the recent notoriety the Dinnie Stones have received would have never happened. These famous lifting stones might be laying obscure at the bottom of the river bed in the River Dee instead. Today I would like to share some previous published information about David Webster’s and his tie to the Dinnie Stone’s legacy.
From the book “The Super Athletes” by David Willoughby:
Here is an example of how strong Dinnie was is a simple feat of lifting and carrying. This information was kindly furnished to me by David Webster of Glasgow, a famous strand-pulling expert and an authority on Donald Dinnie. Outside the hotel in Potarch, Scotland, are two large and heavy boulders which used to be used in tethering horses (while their masters went into the hotel to refresh themselves). One of the boulders weighs 340 pounds and the other 445. In the top of each weight is fastened a ring made of 1/2-inch round iron and just large enough to grip with one hand. The story is that Dinnie’s father was able to lift the 445 pound stone onto a wall 3 1/2 feet high and that Dinnie himself carried both stones (one in front of him and the other behind) a distance of five or six yards.
Another great resource on Donald Dinnie and the Dinnie Stones is David Webster’s and Gordon Dinnie’s book, “Donald Dinnie – The First Sporting Superstar”. This book is a MUST for anyone who has interest in the Dinnie Stones or stone lifting in general (YES – that’s a plug for the book!). This is a short piece from the book, which is written in such manner as to reflect Donald Dinnie’s own account.
In the Deeside district there are many stories told of his extraordinary feats. Just let me tell you one.
On the granite stone bridge that crosses the River Dee at Potarch there were, and still are, two large stones weighing about 8 cwt the pair, placed in a recess. In the early 1830’s massive iron rings were placed in them, to which ropes were fixed so that scaffolds could be attached for pointing the bridge. Now, one of those stones was somewhat heavier than the other. Very few strong men of that day could lift the heavy one with both hands, but my father could raise one in each hand with apparent ease, and could throw the heavier stone of the two on to the top of a parapet wall of the bridge.
On one occasion, I have been told, he took one stone in each hand and carried them both to the end of the bridge and back – a distance of 100 yards. This achievement has been pronounced the greatest feat of strength ever performed in Scotland.
Those stones are still on the bridge and I myself lifted one in each hand on many occasions and one market day, I carried them across the bridge and back, some four to five yards. I did not, however, attempt to go to the end of the bridge, as my father had done.
If you want more information than THAT from the book, you should buy it! I consider both of these literary accounts as the basis of the history and legend of the Dinnie Stones, which David Webster is a big part of. You can read lots of speculations and opinions from those posting on the internet on how Donald Dinnie intended the Dinnie Stones to be lifted, whether Donald Dinnie actually carried both stones at the same time unassisted across the bridge, and so on. All of that is just talk and is meaningless, as I have not been aware of any ACTUAL PROOF of the feats of Donald Dinnie in regard to the Dinnie Stones. That only actual support to the Dinnie Stone stories are the written accounts passed down in history, like the two above.
I chose to believe the above words of David Webster because I WANT to believe in the legend of Donald Dinnie and the Dinnie Stones . Let the Dinnie Stone legacy continue to live!
