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NEWSLETTER No 28 JULY 1999

THANKS TO A MODEST MAN

Ian Philip has retired after three years as our chairman. Ian's not a flash performer, in fact he's just the opposite, very modest and unassuming. But what a lot the Society has accomplished under his leadership! In his annual report this issue he mentions recent happenings like getting our Website and opening an office and repairing the Maggie Wall monument. But we'd like to underline his astute judgment, his leadership in the long fight to retain the Dupplin Cross for Strathearn, his enthusiastic help with many archaeological fieldwalks in Dunning and elsewhere in Tayside, his determination and his generosity in the early despairing days when it seemed our Website would never get started, his hard physical work not just in arranging what will soon be four barn dances at his farm but also his labour in dozens of ways such as fitting out the office and regularly toting around projection screens and exhibit boards. With his fastidious eye for detail and sense of Dunning history he has been an excellent spotter of errors and great proof reader, We are grateful he is willing to continue on the committee to help our bright new chair, Elizabeth Fletcher and her committee. This is a good time too to thank all the committee members and two retiring stalwarts, Felicity Martin and David Williams, who've served the Society well in many ways. Our sincere thanks to you all!

LETTERS FROM ABROAD

I was so delighted to have your letter with your plans for the 60th(!) Anniversary Evacuees Reunion. As a teacher who came with the evacuees, I think it's so wonderful that the Dunning Historical Society has kept in memory those far-off days of much trauma but great happiness too.

This present Reunion must have entailed a great deal of research and planning. I would so much love to be there in person, but you will realise this is impossible for me physically, but I shall certainly be actively present in my thoughts. I am well and reasonably fit, I am very glad to say, but I am 90 years of age and must curtail my wayward thoughts and wishes.

--Orma Burke, Queensland, Australia

I thoroughly enjoyed the January 1999 issue. The sketch by Ken Laing brought back so many happy memories of the bridge down at the Kirk Wynd where we used to live. And I enjoyed Charlie Laing's reminiscences.

Our son Sandy said when he saw Henry Hoey's sketches of the fountain "You never told me Canada owned a little bit of Dunning!" He is a real flag waver for his native land.

---Helen Laidlaw, Barrie, Ontario

My grandfather William McCowan was born in Scone and most of my ancestors from the McCowan side were from all the small towns in and around Perth. I know that my Methven and Kettles kin were from the Dunning area.

I was delighted to read "Crossroads and Characters". It's quite probable that the William Kettles whose photo is on the back cover of the book in the group is one of my ancestors. It's nice to get spurred on again to work on my family history.

I'm enclosing some family group sheets for your history group to keep in their archives. Thanks and best wishes!

---Mrs. Daryl (McCowan) Dumanski, Winnipeg, Manitoba

Here's a correction of my e-mail address which appeared in the January newsletter. The correct address is jobemacs@xtra.co.nz Many thanks!

---John S. McGill, North Shore City, New Zealand

Line drawing the Granco bridge

Scene from the Granco Bridge. - Sketch by Kenny Laing

AN INFANT EVACUEE'S MEMORIES

On September 3/99, the Society is sponsoring a 60th anniversary reunion of the World War II evacuees who were sent to Dunning. Here are the recollections of Helen Flannagan (now Mrs. Helen Mann of Rothesay, Isle of Bute) who came to Dunning with her mother and brother Jack after the bombs starting falling on Clydebank. The family lived with Mrs. Hutton in a now torn-down cottage located in the garden of Granco House, the Lower Granco. This interview was recorded by Lorne Wallace February 1998 in Granco House.

My name is Helen Flannagan. I was born the 23rd of July, 1936. I was born in Marmion Street, Maryhill, Glasgow. I started school here in Dunning. I can't remember really much of Glasgow. My first memories are of remembering things here. I remember bits here on and off, happier bits. We went back to Glasgow when the war was still on.

My first memory was of coming down the hill on the Lower Granco with my mother. I had a new pantaloon set on, pantaloons, a coat and a blue bonnet. They were swinging me between them, the soldier and my mother.

And when we came to Mrs. Hutton's house, I remember that. We went into Mrs. Hutton's. It was just a living room-kitchen sort of a thing. And there was a great big fireplace, a great big grate. And to me it looked an enormous bed. I suppose it was just a double bed. And we met Mrs. Hutton and she let us sleep in her room. We had oil lamps, there was no electricity. When we came in, there was a young boy on the bed. I don't know who he was, I don't even know who the woman was who was also there. The little boy was playing with a spinning top. I was put on the bed beside him and I ended up taking the spinning top off him and got into trouble for that. I'm afraid. I remember Mrs. Hutton had a grandfather clock. She used to keep her sugar and all that in it. I remember that. She used to bank all her rations in it so we couldn't get it...in case my mother stole anything off her.

Mrs. Hutton lived in the house with us. She stayed in the kitchen. We stayed through in the other room, my mother, my brother and I. I realise now it must have been very small, but I remember everything being so big, even the door. I mean I'd have to bend down now to get through that door. Even the windows looked enormous. I mean when you're a kid everything looks big. And it was small glass pane windows, just small panes.

There was one window located on the garden, I remember, because a cat came in one night when we were sleeping. Either the window was open or broken and the cat got in and we were screaming like anything. My brother helped to get it out because we thought it was a rat or something with its eyes gleaming in the dark.

We used to paddle in the burn...get fish out of there. We used to catch them with our stockings, our ankle socks. If you found a hole in the wall lining the burn you used to put your fingers in and maybe get a fish out. It didn't always work. Nine times out of ten it didn't but sometimes you put your sock over the hole and you got out a fish. When it rained, the water from the burn used to come up to our door, and the ducks came up the street. My mother got in a row for that too, for feeding them.

There used to be an old man collecting sticks. He had a hook and used to get stuff out of the burn, you know like bits of trees and things for the winter.

Yes, the burn used to come to the door. That was a saying my mother had. How much do you love me? Deep as the Dunning Burn. (laughs) Not so very deep most of the time is it now?

The ducks, she fed them until everyone complained. They came up the street and she fed them bits of bread and things.

There were hens in the garden next door. Every now and then the soldiers would get us hens from there. They used to climb over the washhouse roof and steal hens out of the garden behind and then bring them to us and we could have a chicken for dinner. I remember they brought one in one night and it wasn't dead. It was flying all over the place. They hadn't wrung its neck right or something.

My mother didn't like it much because of the guns (artillery pieces) kept along the street. She thought we were still going to get the war here. Guns along the street and a garage for the army trucks just down the alley and she thought we're not too far away from the war. They're still going to get us here sort of thing....from the frying pan into the fire. But then we realised it wasn't dangerous. It was real quiet here.

I remember starting school, the very first day I started it. Have you been up in that little school? Well, tell me if I'm right. When you went in the door it was like sort of a hall, going in the door, and that was the classrooms there, wasn't it? And there was a glass partition if I remember it. Cause I was sitting there and my mother was standing at the door and the teacher gave me a tin...I can remember that as well, it was a Capstan cigarette tin...and it had rings in it. And she gave me a board with nails on it and she told me to count these rings on to the nails, and tell her how many rings were there or whatever. And I kept looking up to see if my mother was there. Then when I looked up my mother had disappeared so I started screaming. So she said to me don't cry, because your brother's here as well. If I remember right there was a sliding panel thing that separated the two classrooms and when she opened that I could see my brother sitting there in the classroom and I was all right then because I knew he was there. And that's about all I really remember about going to school in Dunning.

Remember other evacuees? Well, I just thought we were the only ones here. I thought everyone else at the school just sort of belonged here. I knew we were from Glasgow but I thought we were the only ones. Long afterwards I heard the term "Glasgow keelies". Maybe I heard it at the time but I didn't take any notice of it.

We used to get tyres off the soldiers, you know, like old tyres off the lorries and things. The boys used to cover them with all different colour of chalks and roll down the hills inside them Falling into the water and getting into trouble for that as well.

We used to play in the fields across the burn but I think that mostly I was just allowed up to the end of the street and no further.

The soldiers were all around. They were barracked in a building up the street. They used to come in quite a lot and have a cup of tea with my mother. I remember the soldiers used to go to the village hall for the dancing and we always sat on the stage and they used to give us drinks, orange and all that. While all the adults were having a dance, we used to sit there. We used to get a glass of Coke or whatever was going, and then afterwards we came home with our mothers.

Did I ever get into trouble? Oh, I suppose I did but I shoved that to the back of my mind. I can't ever really remember getting into trouble. I mean my parents used to give me belts on the ear and things like that like everybody else but (laughs) I can't remember what the hell for. At the time I must have. If you get a belt on the ear you must have deserved it somewhere along the line. I can't ever remember getting into trouble here. Except staying off school, which I think everyobdy did. If you stayed off school they used to come look for you and find you and drag you back to school. The School Board, was it you call it, used to drag you back to school.

I used to go anywhere, mostly the other side of the Burn. There must have been places to hide over there because that's where we always went. I didn't like school. It was like a prison term to me. Glad to be done with it in the end. No, I didn't like school. I can't remember the names of the teachers. As I say, I was only young.

Just wee bits of memories come jogging into my mind, you know. I loved it here, I really did. I'd come back, I would, if I could drag (my husband) along. I like it. I don't know, just something about it. (Wipes her eye) I'm getting a bit filled up now.

---Helen (Flannagan) Mann, February 1998

CHAIRMAN'S REPORT for 1998-99 , presented to the DPHS agm 13/5/99

Events.

Your society has enjoyed an active year with a variety of events. We started with the coach trip to Glenesk Retreat and Edzell Castle. then Charlie Laing followed with a walk around the village pointing out the various places mentioned in his booklet "Dunning: The Way It Was". After the barn dance which again was a great success, Kirsty Doig and Clare Richards gave readings in St. Serf's Church from the scrapbook of a former minister.

In October Ted Powell, librarian at Innerpeffray talked about the history of the library and we followed this up with our recent visit last month to the chapel and then the library to see the collection. Ted is a real enthusiast and a performer. For anyone who hasn't been it's well worth a visit. The coffee morning with displays on the theme of 'Technology Through the Ages' created a lot of interest. This was followed by a presentation from Bruce Walker, a Dundee architect, charting the development of building in Scotland. Those who heard him may remember his prediction that once the Great Hall at Stirling Castle was unveiled to the public it would cause a stir, and reading the press reports this has proved to be so.

Ken Laing gave us an architect's view of St. Serf's Church and on members' Night, Betty and Andrew Taylor recalled the railway at Dunning, Wilf Meadows the history of Balquhandy and Elizabeth Templeman told and showed slides of her time in Malaysia. Finally we had the video night when Lorne Wallace showed "Memories of the Kirkstile" and the previous day's wedding of the couple from Las Vegas.

Other activities

We must be pleased that the future of the Dupplin Cross has been resolved and I look forward to Historic Scotland installing it in St. Serf's Church in two and a half years' time.

The Society was instrumental in having the cross replaced on the Maggie Wall monument after it was vandalised. Recently, the Community Council, Dave Doig and David Neil have renewed the fence round the monument and they are looking to tidy up the base to stabilise the site as there is a great temptation for visitors to climb on it.

Society office

This year we finally gained access to the room in the old infant schoolhouse. After we made it secure, a telephone link was installed, computer equipment was purchased and a DPHS website was established. Information is being added and stored as time permits. Simon Warren and Ted Dorsett have been the prime operators in taking this project forward. There has been a lot of time spent on this by them for which we must thank them. If anyone is interested in assisting, Simon is prepared to run training classes.

In conclusion

Thanks to all committee members past and present for their support and assistance during my 3 years as Chairperson and I wish well to Elizabeth for her time as chairperson and am sure she will receive the same enthusiastic support in the future.

I will finish with a word of thanks to all members of the Society for your attendance and participation at the various meetings and acitivites. Without that, the DPHS would not exist.

---Ian Philip

FINDING OUR WEBSITE

In our last newsletter, member Trevor Fulton of New Zealand told of problems in finding our DPHS website on the Internet.

Simon Warren has volunteered this simple guide.

You may be one of our many members unfamiliar with computers and who has never used the internet. Now that many libraries offer internet facilities you may be tempted to look at our Historical Society website. It's really very easy to do.

Firstly, the address of our site is www.dunning.mcmail.com

At the library, you'll likely be sitting at a computer already connected to the internet. Somewhere at the top of the screen will be a box labelled "Address", "Location" or "URL" which displays the address of the site currently on the screen, for example http://www.abcde.com/home/index.html.

Move the mouse pointer into that box and click the mouse button. Delete what's there. Type in our address and then press the Return key. You will go directly to our website. It's important to copy the address exactly, including the dots, all small letters and no spaces.

Then just follow the directions clearly marked on the website. I hope you enjoy your visit!

WORKING AT THE GREENHOUSES

Prompted by the ink sketch of the Garvock Greenhouses which Henry Hoey came up with for our centrepiece this issue, we asked member Margaret Dewar of Dunning for her memories of working there, and she kindly obliged with this article.

Line drawing - tomato house girls

Margaret Dewar and Betty Taylor. - Photo courtesy the Perthshire Advertiser

I believe the greenhouses at Garvock were in existence as far back as 1930-31 but I don't know much about those early years. I've been asked to say a bit about the work we did there when Dave Law was foreman for Miss Young who later became Mrs. Harding. Nearly forty years have passed since I was first employed to help with the daffodil picking but I still have happy memories of the time I spent there.

Quite a large squad of women cycled along from the village, among them Mabel Stockley, Betty Taylor, Agnes Morris and the late Jane Sneddon. Although we were doing the same work every day we were never bored, due mainly to Jane who seemed to have an endless fund of funny stories with which she kept us entertained. Also, being the local post-woman, she knew most of what went on in the village and took a delight in keeping us up to date with the latest gossip.

The bulbs were planted in wooden fish-boxes in the autumn and forced on under glass to be ready for picking in January/February. There was also work for us later in the year picking the outside daffodils which grew in a field beside the drive. Several different varieties of daffodil were grown inside and also a white narcissus which had a lovely spicy smell. The flowers were picked and carried along to the packing shed where we made them up into bunches of six and boxed them for the market. The wholesalers who collected the flowers for distribution to all the big city markets often brought us out a load of cardboard boxes which had held bananas. These were used for carrying the flowers in from the greenhouses and for packing lettuce which had also been grown under glass. One of these boxes caused a bit of a commotion one day when the lid was removed and an enormous spider scuttled out. We took off in all directions, while Dave Law chased it, armed with a big shovel. he reckoned it had come into the country with the bananas. It certainly wasn't native to Scotland!

Another event which had everiybody excited was a visit from a Scottish Television News team. However, although they spent over an hour filming us working amongst the daffodils, by the time it was edited I think our appearance on the news lasted about 3 minutes at most.

When the daffodil season was over the bulb boxes were dumped outside as the greenhouses had to be cleaned and the soil dug over and sterilised with steam pipes in preparation for the tomato crop. Strings were then attached to the roof wires ready to support the tomato plants as they grew. Some of us stayed on to help with the tomatoes under the expert tuition of Dave Law, Henry Hoey and the rest of the regular staff. This was probably the most satisfying work we did at the greenhouses, as we were involved from the time we pricked out the tiny plants into clay pots, through all the different stages of planting, tying up, cutting out shoots, etc., until the great day when the tomatoes were ready to be picked and graded.

During the grading any tomatoes which were split or misshapen were set aside and we were allowed to take some of these home. I must have eaten many dozens of tomatoes over the years but I've never tasted any quite like those ones, newly picked and still warm from the sun.

One of the things I remember clearly was the havoc caused by the fierce gales in January, 1969. The tomato plants were already in clay pots in the propagating house and our first task was to pick up the hundreds of pieces of glass which had showered down on them during the night, while the men set about replacing the glass in the roof. It took several weeks to repair all the damage and get things back to normal.

Sadly, the huge increase in the price of heating oil led to the closure of the greenhouses at Garvock several years later along with many others across the country.

--Margaret Dewar, Croft Place, Dunning

Line drawing tomato houses

THE VALUE OF INNERPEFFRAY

This spring DPHS members visited historic Innerpeffray Library, Scotland's oldest free public library, which dates from the 18th century. Its current librarian, Ted Powell, had prepared us for that visit with a talk in Dunning Village Hall last autumn. Here is an extract from Mr. Powell's talk.

BORROWING RECORDS

Innerpeffray is unique and fortunate, not only in the way it was founded and maintained, but in the way the records of borrowings have been preserved. Here is a record of great import to social historians. The record of the use of books here in the lending registers is the precious revelation of the actual works lent to be read and of the people who carried away each book. Its importance becomes apparent when we realise that this is the only known record of its kind surviving in Scotland, that of the Bristol Library is the only similar record in Britain, and that there is nothing else similar in the rest of Europe.

Here beginning in 1747 is the complete disclosure of every one of the thousands of loans made for over two and a half centuries, one of the few indices of reading known to us prior to the last century. It is a record deserving the most thoughtful reproduction and analysis as one of the all too scanty sources of recreating the life of the Scottish people. A complete analysis was made of the borrowings in the period 1747 to 1800, with a general assessment of the first half of the nineteenth century, by Paul Kaufman in 1969 and presented to the Library Association.

This analysis and assessment forms the basis of the information I present to you in this part of my talk this evening. I am presently undertaking a full computerisation of the borrowing records which will hopefully enable me in the future to make some further conclusions and follow the study through to the First World War.

BOOKS BORROWED

The overall picture some 1480 loans recorded during 1747 to 1800, distributed among 370 titles. These titles fall approximately into the following categories:

Religion171
History, Law and Politics85
General Literature37
Agriculture18
Travel11
Mathematics and Science8
Others40

The categories inevitably overlap each other but will suffice for our purpose.

So what are the most popular books during this period. Well, first was

1.Robertson, History of Emperor Charles V(3 vols)46
2.Clarke, Sermons(8)37
3.Tillotson, Sermons(14)34
4.Sherlock, Sermons(3)30
5.Buffon, Natural History(33)27
6.The Monthly Review(70)26
7.Mosheim, Ecclesiastical History(2)26
8.Abernethy, Discourses (Sermons)(4)24
9.Universal History(7)23
10.Atterbury, Sermons(4)20
10.Locke, Works(3)20

All of these are multivolume titles which I think confuses some of Kaufman's conclusion. The same applies to the following list of titles from the thirty next most popular books: Abercromby, Scots Warrios (2) 17, Anson, Voyages (1) 10, Arnot, History of Edinburgh (1) 12, Beattie, Essays...on Truth...on Poetry and Music (1) 13, Butler, Analogy of Religion Natural and Revealed (1) 14, Campbell, Present State of Europe (1) 18, Scots Magazine (46) 18, Pennant, Tour Through Scotland (2) 12, Philosophical Transactions (6) 13; etc.

Line drawing 7.8kb

Innerpeffray Library, built 1762
(sketch from Friends of Innerpeffray guidebook)

Robertson's History of Charles V was also the most borrowed single life among all eight cathedral libraries with records from the eighteenth century and at Bristol Library. Buffon, Locke and the Philosophical Transactions all parallel equal vogues in England.

Noticeable is the lack of less weighty literature; virtually no fiction, poetry or drama. Two departures are Garden of Delights of English Poetry and Wit, Mirth and Eloquence-Boccaccio's Decameron. Fiction and lighter literature were still of very uncertain status in eighteenth century Scotland! Thirty-nine titles of sets of sermons and discourses and eight editions of the bible indicate that religions was still top of the pops!

PEOPLE BORROWING

Analysis of the readership is just as interesting as the books. here we have another unique feature, the identification of the individuals, a complete cross section of a reasonably extensive community, their address and vocations. It demonstrates the Scottish urge for education, further evidenced by the reading societies at Wanlockhead, Leadhills and Westerkirk.

No less than 28 vocations are identified: barber, bookseller, brewer, army captain, cooper, dyer, dyer apprentice, factor, farmer, flaxdresser, gardener, glover, mason, merchant, miller minister, quarrier, schoolmaster, servant, shoemaker, student, smith, surgeon, surgeon apprentice, tailor, watchmaker, weaver, wright and simply "esquire" or "Mr.".

Somr 300 borrowers in total, of whom just 11 were women. Ministers and students are not pre-eminent amongst the readers, the Faichney family shows a total of 56 loans, weavers identify 26 times, schoolmasters 22..

Some used the library frequently, some very little. 8 readers borrowed 20 or more works, 13 between 15-19 books, 16 readers had 10-14 books and 43 borrowed between 5 and 9. So at least 5 works were borrowed by 80 readers. Among the readers can be found "James Mitchell, student at Strageath", who borrowed various works in history and divinity. This Mitchell was the beloved tutor of Sir Walter Scott.

Some of the entries local to you are:
25/3/1752 Robert Rintowal, Mason at Dupline: Ursinius, Sum of Christian Religion
14/6/1753 Alexander Smyth, student of divinity, Dunning: Tillotson, Sermons
24/3/1755 Thomas Rankin, minister of the gospel, Aberdalgie: Nicolson, Scots Historical Library & A Collection of Voyages and Hall's Works
17/4/1755 Mr. Henry Inglis, minister of the gospel at Forteviot: Plutarch's Lives of Greeks and Romans
7/11/1766 Will Keir, Dupplin: Sermons at Boyles Lectures
25/2/1773 George Keir Senior, Duppline: T. May, Parliamentary History of England. 4 vols. and Lyttleton, History of King Henry II
9/6/1780 Colin Mason, Middle Third of Dunning: Potter, Antiquities of Greece
13/7/1780 " " ,Cudworth, Eternal and Immutable Morality

NINETEENTH CENTURY CHANGES

With the beginning of the new century an abrupt new pattern surprises the observer. Instead of the interesting form of free entry used up to 1800: "I, James Faichney, mason in Loanhead of Innerpeffray grant me to have borrowed out of the library at Innerpeffray Caves Lives of the Apostles which I promise to return safe in three months", signature. The record gives way to a businesslike ledger form of four columns, date, books, person's name, returned--the equivalent of computerisation!

The library also seems to be open more frequently, and borrowers appear to be allowed to withdraw a larger number of books at a time. In the following half century no less than 4,533 loans are made, more than three times as many as in the previous half century. This sudden expansion of reading exceeds the accepted and familiar rapid rise in middle class reading during the first half of the nineteenth century.

The increase is primarily in secular works. new works appear in the record: Reid's Enquiry into the Human Mind; Johnson's Shakespeare; Machiavelli and Spenser and Burton; the lighter English Rogue and Spanish Rogue; and even Coffeehouse Jests. Religious books are still there but overtaken by emergent literature, mathematica and science. History remains popular but less prominent than in the eighteenth century.

This treasure house of learning and expanding educational facilites was the centre of a circle of five or six miles radius in which a few hundred people, probably less than a thousand, lived a primarily agricultural life, served by the necessary craftsmen: wrights, smiths, shoemakers and tailors.

Home industries and small business are represented by flaxdresser and weaver at the Mill of Strageath. The library was open to all and to students and to schoolmasters apparently at all times.

The service to students was indeed notable. Student of divinity is identified 18 times, philosophy 11 times, humanity 5 times and simply student 20 times. The importance of the library to a student, and the most dramatic incident involving a student, is happily preserved in a letter of 1823. The student had been refused the use of the library by the librarian for some misdemeanour. He took his case to the patron, the Earl of Kinnoull, who supported the librarian and continued the ban. However, the student's grandfather petitioned the sheriff in Perth. He pleaded that the library belonged to the people and that the student's whole career depended on his use of the library during the summer months. The sheriff's decision in his favour was expressive of the Scottish temper and the incident is rich in significance in social history.

The importance of the library to students should not obscure the persistent widespread use of its resources by every class in the region. The record of the artisans cannot be overemphasized. The Faichneys and many others trudged on foot or lurched on farm horses the miles across the fields, over dusty or frozen tracks, to bring home their treasures with, I like to think, a sense of warm and eager anticipation and exultation.

We should of course be careful not to read too much into all this wealth of evidence. The borrowers were limited by the library holdings. Multivolume titles may be distorting some of the findings. Did the borrower read the book? And other qualifications must be placed on what we see here in the records. But even with all these qualifications surely the cumulative scores show trends of searching minds, of humble folk finding spiritual and intellectual nourishment.

Here is far more that "A quaint corner in libraria" as one account described Innerpeffray. Here is a valuable witness to the actual movement of books in human hands, of eyes intent on the open page indicating the activity of eager minds. Here in this record is one of the all too few moving pageants for the recapture of social history---the only one of its kind in Scotland.

Our thanks to Ted Powell, Innerpeffray librarian, for his kind permission to print this part of his talk to our Society in October, 1998.

NEW DPHS COMMITTEE

Elected at the recent agm were Chair Elizabeth Fletcher, Vice-chair Patricia Wallace, Secretary David Halliday, Treasurer Michael Barwick, Jim Smith, Simon Warren, Dorothy Wilson, Lorne Wallace, Ted Dorsett, Brian Boag, Beryl Meadows, Peter Duncan and Ian Philip. We can all help make their voluntary work easier by sending in our renewal subs on time: memberships are due by September 1 and a form is enclosed with this newsletter. Please help out our new treasurer by sending in your sub soon!!

AH YES, VEGAS!

Last newsletter the remarkable wedding of Harry and Marjorie Dunning of Las Vegas was about to take place in Dunning Parish Church. Everything went as smoothly as Simon and Moira Warren and Marjorie had planned. Except nobody quite expected the national media to descend in such force! First a national live appearance on breakfast TV, then a flock of paparazzi chasing the wedding party on the streets of Dunning on a splendid sunny day. Never, we believe,has a local history society (our Website being the medium which got the whole thing started) had its name splashed in eight major papers, including the Times and Telegraph. It was a wonderful warm occasion in which many Dunningites took part, and we loved it as much as Marjorie and Harry obviously did.

GREAT DUNNING MILLENNIUM CALENDARS NOW ON SALE!!

A smashing LARGE Year 2000 calendar has been produced by the Society. It features an arresting mix of lovely colour views of modern Dunning shot by Kenny Laing, and photos of old Dunning collected by Peter Duncan. It comes with sturdy mailing folders for you to use when you send these as gifts. Elizabeth Fletcher was the producer of the calendar, and she has succeeded in making a great souvenir for anyone interested in Dunning. Or for anyone who just appreciates beautiful calendars.

A WONDERFUL BARGAIN AT JUST 4.95! TO OBTAIN YOUR COPIES, USE THE ENCLOSED ORDER LEAFLET, OR CALL LIZ FLETCHER at 01764 684 213 (or 061)

THE DPHS 1999 SUMMER/AUTUMN PROGRAMME

Friday, July 30, 8:30 pm This could be our last traditional Barn Dance at Ian Philip's Leadketty farm. For tickets please use Dunning shops or call Ian at 01764 684 269 or David Halliday at 01764 684 026.

Friday, September 3. Exactly 60 years ago, the first wave of hundreds of big city evacuees suddenly arrived in tiny Dunning. We're holding a day-long series of events involving evacuees and partners, pupils from Glasgow's Haghill School from which most of our evacuees originally came, Dunning pupils, you members and the public. The day begins at Haghill where a party of pupils will reenact the departure of evacuees. At 10:30 they arrive by bus at Dunning School. At 12 noon, pupils and anyone else interested will gather in St. Serf's Church to hear brief and vivid recollections from some original evacuees. The Village Hall will serve as a host centre for the evacuees from 10:30 am on, and they'll have lunch there. At 2 pm there'll be tours of the village by groups of pupils and evacuees. At 7:00 pm we hold a reception for the evacuees to meet DPHS members, and at 8 pm there'll be a big band dance led by Ron Spears who provided the music at the evacuees' reunion in 1994. For tickets and details please contact Liz Fletcher at 01764 684 213 or 061.

Thursday, October 7, 7:30 pm. Village Hall. "Do you Remember...?" Energetic Joan Macintosh, author of two photographic books on Auchterarder and a DPHS member, has been busy on a new project, recording oral memories. Tonight she tells us about it.

Saturday, November 6, 10 am-3 pm. Village Hall. Our traditional combo of a coffee morning and an historic exhibit with items loaned by members. This year's appetising theme: Kitchens and Cooking.

Thursday, November 25, 7:30, Village Hall. "Boags, Bats and the Flatworm Menace" Member Brian Boag has remarkable knowledge of Dunning, from being a student of his family's history here, from his hobby as an area bat conservationist and from his job as a British expert on the spreading New Zealand flatworm.

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