A living link.

The wee house in Scotland. The doorbell rings. 'The Font' opens it expecting to find the gardeners. They've been asked to lop off the tree branch that's nearly touching the telephone wires. Instead there's a group of a dozen or so strangers. A woman steps forward. '' It's my mothers 90th birthday. We've brought her into to town for lunch at Forgan's. She was born here and we wondered if she could just take a wee peek through the door ".

So it is that 'The Font' can be found sitting in the drawing room talking to a tiny white haired grandmother and her offspring. It's the same room the old lady was delivered in  - although on May 30th 1928 it was the kitchen. This had been the family home for generations. Her father was a fisherman as was her grandfather and great grandfather and his father before him. Before that who knows ? Two uncles who had been brought up in the house were killed in the First War; one at Jutland the other torpedoed in a battle cruiser in the icy waters off Lewis. Her father was the youngest and only surviving son. 

After the war the grandparents, her father and mother and their seven children all lived here. The family used the wide pavement at the front of the house to dry and repair the fishing nets. '' It was grand sitting there in the summer ". She remembers her grandmother wouldn't let her grandfather smoke indoors so he would go outside into the back garden and sit on a pile of cannon balls for his evening pipe. The cannon balls ( which are long gone ) she thought had been fired by the French at the nearby castle in the 16th century wars of religion. The stone owl with the glass bead eyes was a feature in the garden even then - " I think it was uncle Wullies. He's the one who died at Jutland. I'm told he went to Edinburgh once and brought it back with him ". 



The top floor, which now houses the master bedroom and bathroom was in those days a large high loft where fish could be dried. A cousin - Jock Hutchinson - who lived a few doors down, went to America was naturalized and became the first American citizen to win the British Golf Open in 1921. She remembers him coming back to visit in the 1930's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jock_Hutchison

'The Font' looks for the house deeds that have been left -  by the previous owner - in the kitchen drawer. The documents for the sale of the house in 1948 are brought out. The old lady tries to read them but her eyesight isn't up to it. A great grandson does the honours. '' He's going to the university in Glasgow next year " she says with evident pride. At the end he hands her the document. She holds it up to her face, traces her fathers signature with her index finger and says '' He was such a beautiful man ".

The Scots are deemed to be an unemotional race .... by those that don't know them. 

This blog is for those things that are too unimportant to be recorded. This chance encounter that links long gone great events and the lives of ordinary people will make it into the family diary. A kind of Celtic farewell and welcome to the wee house rolled into one?