The Unknown Bairn, 1971.
On a dull May day in 1971, a Fife postman and his son came across what they thought was a doll washed up on the beach at Tayport. It was the body of a boy aged around three, still wearing what looked like a pyjama top. Nothing suggested he had died of anything other than natural causes. Despite ongoing appeals and huge news coverage, nobody ever came forward to claim or identify the child. Numerous theories have been put forward, including that his family were unable to meet the costs of a funeral, or had been aboard a ship visiting the Tay. The people of Tayport raised money and he was buried in the village, where community representatives pay their respects once a year. His headstone reads: ‘Erected by the people of Scotland in memory of the Unknown Bairn’.
