The First Dickson
This newsletter is not a castle. But it is my gate.
I found Thomas Dickson while holidaying at the Outer Banks with my wife’s extended family.
Ten siblings + spouses. Nearly forty kids.
Chaos in the best sense.
That week I was spotting synergies, connecting dots, casting a bit of vision. Ways this unusually healthy, high-trust family culture might one day be developed into something even more fruitful, even financially so, if they wanted. Not pushing. Catalysing.
Which made what happened next feel uncomfortably ironic.
Because somewhere in the middle of that week, I casually searched Dickson and found the first one.
Thomas Dickson.
And he felt less like family trivia and more like a slap from God.
Until then, I knew almost nothing about my paternal family line. More than twenty years had passed since the net had suggested we came out of middle England up into Scotland maybe 700 years ago - probably due to religious persecution. Then over to Northern Ireland before my grandfather finally emigrated to New Zealand in the 1920s. That was about it.
Turns out the first ever Dickson was a Scot. And not some vague guy either.
A rather dangerous man.
As best I can tell, Thomas was the first actual Dickson — the surname itself apparently formed from being Richard “Dick” de Keith’s son.[1]
What really got me, though, was this:
Thomas Dickson was 57 when he was the key player retaking a castle from the English.
My exact age when I found him.
And he was dead by 60, killed fighting at a church door.[2]
That got this man’s attention.
Especially when this man had spent thirteen years feeling called to testify publicly to the faithful acts of God in his life, yet still managed not to write in public.
I’ve had plenty of adventure in my life. Fulfilled childhood dreams in foreign lands etc.
While adventure has been one of the results of my past obedience, it doesn’t automatically prove it.
And helping other people discover a greater vision while quietly dodging your own calling is not humility.
It’s hypocrisy with better manners.
Thomas Dickson exposed me to myself.
A decent morning’s work
In 1295 the English held Sanquhar Castle and were making life miserable for the surrounding country. Sir William Douglas wanted it back. Thomas Dickson helped him do it.[2]
The plan was simple and mad.
Dickson borrowed the clothing, horse, and wood cart of a local man who regularly supplied the castle with firewood. As dawn was breaking he rolled up to the gate, emerging out of the fog looking deceptively like the delivery bloke. The porter opened up. Dickson drove the cart into the gateway, then cut the horse loose so the cart jammed fast between the gates, stopped them from shutting. He killed the porter with his knife, grabbed an axe he’d hidden under the wood, signalled to the 30-strong ambush waiting nearby, then wailed into some more lethal work. Douglas and his men surged in behind him and they took the castle before the English soldiers were out of bed.[2][3]
One way to start a day.
Later, when the English came back in force and laid siege, Dickson slipped through enemy lines to warn William Wallace, who quickly came and broke the siege as he was campaigning only ten miles away. The English ran but lost ~500 men. For this, Thomas was given lands and later made hereditary Castellan of Douglas Castle.[2][3]
So no, the first Dickson was no timid background character in someone else’s story.
He was the sort of bloke trusted when things got gnarly.
And then he died properly
A few years later, with the struggle against the English still raging, Thomas was again in the thick of it when James Douglas moved to retake his lands. One of the old accounts places him at St Bride’s church on Palm Sunday, when the English garrison ventured out from the castle to attend service. A per-arranged cry of “Douglas! Douglas!” went up and Dickson launched himself at the enemy from his hiding place inside the church.[2][3]
Tradition says he was slashed across the belly but kept fighting, one hand holding in his guts while the other still swung his sword, until enough life oozed out from between his fingers that he finally dropped dead.[2][4]
Maybe the story was embellished a tad over the centuries.
Even so, the point stands.
Thomas Dickson died aged 60 fighting an occupying enemy.
I was 57 when I found that out. Still avoiding the assignment God had been nudging me about for years.
Not a comfortable comparison.
My gate
I’m not being asked to retake Sanquhar Castle.
I've been instructed to write.
To testify publicly to the faithfulness of God in my life despite foolish choices, fear of failure, and the many times I’ve disguised fear as accommodation.
A much smaller assignment than risking one’s health deceiving a gatekeeper at first light of dawn.
But it’s still a gate.
And for a man who has always preferred staying useful in the background rather than being visible out front, it still requires guts.
That is why this newsletter exists.
Not because I’m some heroic figure.
Quite the opposite. I have tales proving why God is my hero.
I’m sick of the gap between the courage I admire and the caution I habitually practise.
At the OBX, while I was happily suggesting other people think bigger, God shoved a dead 13th-century Dickson in my face. Exposing me still dodging my own assignment.
If the first Dickson could storm a castle at 57 and die fighting at 60, then I can at least stop skulking around not writing.
This newsletter is not a castle.
But it is my gate.
And by God’s grace, I’m going through it.
Notes
[1] “Dickson (surname),” Wikipedia. Accessed 20 November 2024.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dickson_(surname)
[2] “Thomas Dickson,” Douglas History. Accessed 20 November 2024.
https://www.douglashistory.co.uk/famgen/getperson.php?personID=I100200&tree=tree1
[3] “Borders Family History: Dickson,” Electric Scotland. Accessed 20 November 2024.
https://www.electricscotland.com/history/borders/riding3.htm
[4] “Clan Dickson,” Dickson Dixon International. Accessed 20 November 2024.
https://www.dicksondixoninternational.com/clan-dickson
[5] “Dickson Family History,” RootsWeb Freepages. Accessed 20 November 2024.
https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~gator1/genealogy/dicksonhistory.html
[6] “Thomas Dickson of Symington, 1st Lord of Symington,” FamilySearch. Accessed 20 November 2024.
https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/G7KR-FM4/thomas-dickson-of-symington-1st-lord-of-symington-1247-1306