by Vivien Martin
I LIKE unexpected connections, and I think I might have unearthed one between journalist and author John Joy Bell (1871-1934) and the award-winning tobacco known as Three Nuns.
At Christmas I was given a copy of Wee Macgreegor, by John Bell (or J J Bell, as he was known professionally). The book was originally published in 1902, and while his writings may not be familiar today, he was one of the best-known and best-loved Scottish authors in the early years of the 20th century. Bell was born in Hillhead in 1871, when the Burgh of Hillhead still lay outwith the Glasgow city boundaries. In fact, it wasn’t until 1891 that Hillhead was finally subsumed into the ever-expanding City of Glasgow.