Crossroads and Characters

72. THE MYSTERY PHOTO.

Who were the woman and child in this intriguing photo? They couldn't be identified by the person who inherited it.

One clue was the photographer, whose name appeared on the photo: Hugh Black of Newton of Pitcairns. Some archival digging established he had lived and worked there from 1895 until his death in 1901. So the picture was almost certainly taken in that period.

Local shepherds said that the teated bottle the boy was holding showed the lamb had lost its mother and was being raised as a pet. And the sheep was not the usual hill black-face race, so it might have been a sheep raised near or in the village. But none of the local old-timers could give any lead to the identity of the woman and child.

Finally, in neighbouring Blackford, an eighty-eight year old native of Dunning who saw the photograph remarked that her mother had had a copy of the same picture. It was her uncle's wife's mother. More archival checking indicated that the sturdy woman shown here lived in Newton of Pitcairns and was by trade a handloom wool weaver. Her name: Margaret Scobie. Since strength of character is in her face, her picture seems an appropriate way to conclude a book overweighted with stories of men.

Who was the boy with her - she is not listed as married but the child may have been hers - is still a mystery to be pursued.

And still to be told are the stories of many more village characters heard of during our enquiries, people like Home Rule, the minister's sister who fell in the Burn, Helty Donald the limping poacher and Haliper Crown and the eelskins. These and many more rich nuggets of village life, in Dunning and elsewhere, remain to be unearthed.