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Y gath o Gymru
- Location
- Wales
Jock Rogers.... The Buckfast Buccaneer
Before Buckfast became a national institution, before park benches feared for their safety and corner shops locked their fridges at 10pm, it was little more than a quiet tonic wine made in the south of England.
In the 1880s, Benedictine monks fleeing persecution in France settled at Buckfast Abbey in Devon, where they began producing the fortified wine to help fund the abbey. It was never intended to travel far.....Until 1885.
That was the year Scottish sailor Jock Rogers decided Scotland was being unfairly deprived.
Despite piracy technically being “over” by the early 1800s, Jock refused to accept this decision and assembled a crew made up of volunteers, drifters, and at least one man nobody remembered inviting.
Setting sail from Scotland, Jock and his men reached Devon under cover of fog and extremely loose maritime law.
Posing as harmless travellers with “a keen interest in religion,” the crew gained access to Buckfast Abbey, before carrying out what history now remembers as The Great Abbey Emptying of 1885.
Barrels were rolled. Crates were lifted. Bottles vanished. By morning, the abbey was quieter than ever and Jock’s ship was sitting noticeably lower in the water.
Upon returning to Scotland, Buckfast’s effects were immediate. Men sang louder. Bad decisions were made far quicker. Several arguments were started with objects that could not reply. Buckfast spread rapidly across the country, quickly becoming one of Scotland’s most popular alcoholic drinks, a title it has stubbornly refused to surrender ever since.
Jock Rogers was forever after known as “The Buckfast Buccaneer.”
Legend says Buckfast allows ordinary people to do extraordinary things, but one night, Jock took this far too literally. Deep in his pirate persona and fuelled entirely by tonic wine confidence, Jock allegedly declared himself “a true buccaneer” and decided to fully commit to the role. What happened that evening has been lost to time, conflicting witness statements, and several men who refused to discuss it ever again.
What is known…is that Jock awoke the next morning with no lower legs, and in their place, two freshly fitted wooden peg legs. Who installed them? How they were attached? And why one was slightly shorter than the other remains a mystery.
From that day on, whenever someone had clearly consumed far too much alcohol, locals would say they were “legless” in honour of Jock Rogers, the first but not the only man in Scottish history to wake up literally legless after a night on the bevvy.
Before Buckfast became a national institution, before park benches feared for their safety and corner shops locked their fridges at 10pm, it was little more than a quiet tonic wine made in the south of England.
In the 1880s, Benedictine monks fleeing persecution in France settled at Buckfast Abbey in Devon, where they began producing the fortified wine to help fund the abbey. It was never intended to travel far.....Until 1885.
That was the year Scottish sailor Jock Rogers decided Scotland was being unfairly deprived.
Despite piracy technically being “over” by the early 1800s, Jock refused to accept this decision and assembled a crew made up of volunteers, drifters, and at least one man nobody remembered inviting.
Setting sail from Scotland, Jock and his men reached Devon under cover of fog and extremely loose maritime law.
Posing as harmless travellers with “a keen interest in religion,” the crew gained access to Buckfast Abbey, before carrying out what history now remembers as The Great Abbey Emptying of 1885.
Barrels were rolled. Crates were lifted. Bottles vanished. By morning, the abbey was quieter than ever and Jock’s ship was sitting noticeably lower in the water.
Upon returning to Scotland, Buckfast’s effects were immediate. Men sang louder. Bad decisions were made far quicker. Several arguments were started with objects that could not reply. Buckfast spread rapidly across the country, quickly becoming one of Scotland’s most popular alcoholic drinks, a title it has stubbornly refused to surrender ever since.
Jock Rogers was forever after known as “The Buckfast Buccaneer.”
Legend says Buckfast allows ordinary people to do extraordinary things, but one night, Jock took this far too literally. Deep in his pirate persona and fuelled entirely by tonic wine confidence, Jock allegedly declared himself “a true buccaneer” and decided to fully commit to the role. What happened that evening has been lost to time, conflicting witness statements, and several men who refused to discuss it ever again.
What is known…is that Jock awoke the next morning with no lower legs, and in their place, two freshly fitted wooden peg legs. Who installed them? How they were attached? And why one was slightly shorter than the other remains a mystery.
From that day on, whenever someone had clearly consumed far too much alcohol, locals would say they were “legless” in honour of Jock Rogers, the first but not the only man in Scottish history to wake up literally legless after a night on the bevvy.
