Of course it was a sad day, it was bound to be a sad day, but it was also a day with a sense of fulfilment to it as well. A celebration of a life well spent, of hard work, of home and family building and of love, kindness, generosity and happiness. To help us in that celebration we had the Rector of St Mary’s Episcopalian (the family church) – Nerys Brown (who strangely hailed from Aberystwyth and who held a PhD in Celtic Studies – a fluent Welsh speaker – a small world indeed). Also with us was Mamie’s old friend Heather Bovill and Jenny and I were able to visit her new home which was close to the Cathedral and the School that Mamie once taught in.
It was also good to have Sarah, Louise and Alice with us – they knew very little about Dunblane having only visited when they were very young so this was an opportunity to educate them about their Mum’s early years of visiting, not to mention her christening at St Mary’s. They must have wondered why we’d taken Mum’s ashes all the way to Dunblane – irrespective of her requesting it – but by the end of the day, they would have fully understood, and we were absolutely convinced it was the best thing to have done for Mum.
So to the pictures. First some of the churchyard, and the site of the plaque for Mum and Dad, placed close to those of Mamie and Bobbie. Also the gravestones of Mum’s father and mother, and of two of Granny McKay’s sisters who had also moved to Dunblane from Inverness.
“Remembered together“.
Dad didn’t have a memorial stone, and had no record of his passing, other than the record in the crematorium book in Bournemouth.
His ashes were scattered in the Queens Bower in the New Forest, we dropped some into the water of the stream too, thinking that they might reach Lymington where he had been a sea scout. We’re glad that all of you have been to that special place, but now he’s got a record of his life, in stone, the churchyard of the church where he got married to Mum on April 12th, 1947.
Not only are they remembered together but their stone is just below Mamie’s and their cousin Bobbie’s. Jane and I were delighted we’d been able to arrange this placement so well. You might have wondered why Mum was remembered in her maiden name, well that’s not uncommon in Scotland as you’ll see from the pictures below.
The clan system is very strong in Scotland, and Scottish records of births, marriages and deaths record far more of the female line than do records for other parts of the British Isles. It makes genealogical studies much easier to conduct.
Jane and I had decided that it would be fitting to clean the two gravestones of Grandpa and Granny McKay, and her two sisters Annie and Emily (Bobbie’s mother). We were delighted by the result, and our decision must have been a spur to the church to do some overall tidying-up of the graveyard because the grass had also been cut and new grass seed sown.
You will notice that Granny McKay is recorded as Catherine Mary Ross, not McKay, so Mum’s plaque is following in that tradition. Jane and the girls laid a posy of flowers on their grave, as well as on the plaques, and there was a floral tribute from Gail, Martin, Peter, Shells, DeeJay, Ruth and Ross who couldn’t for a variety of reasons be with us, as well as messages from Jenny and myself.
After a splendid lunch with Nerys and Heather who joined us at what will always be The Stirling Arms to Jane and me, but is now called The Riverside, we split up to do our separate walks down memory lane. Here are my pictures, and my memories.
I’ll start just up the road from The Riverside and show you The Post Office, where John McKay worked as the village postman – the postie – he probably got the job as a result of family connections. The first postmistress (surprisingly perhaps for the time, a woman) was a Miss McKenzie (or perhaps Miss Stirling, I forget). His mother was a McKenzie which is remembered in his name, and of course in Mum’s and now Ewan’s name, as well. It’s nice that McKay is also remembered in Maggie’s name.
Across the road from the Post Office, and this would not be unusual for the times, was the Railway Station. The station figured a lot in Jane and my visits to Dunblane. We would be allowed to go down to the station to watch the steam trains pass by, some not stopping on their journey to Perth and Inverness, but then as now, with excellent connections to Edinburgh and Glasgow. The night sleeper from Kings Cross passed through Dunblane We travelled at least once on that train, with Jane in a carrycot on the luggage rack (is that really true, or am I imagining it), and it might well have stopped in Dunblane as it was an important railway junction then for the Western Isles.
Of course it’s electrified now and Dunblane is a commuter town for both Edinburgh and Glasgow.
It’s sad to remember however that the line to Calendar (where Mum went to school), and on to Oban (where Mum and Dad spent their honeymoon) is no more.
You can just see the trackbed of the line to the left of the signal box in the picture above. This picture and the one alongside were taken from a new railway bridge that has replaced the one we used to stand on to watch the trains, and then run away from the steam, as the engines passed underneath.
In this picture you can see the pathway on the left-hand side that dropped down from the bridge towards the Station and to Bridgend – named not after the railway bridge but the bridge over the River Allan which was at the bottom of the street.
Bridgend was the site of a few tremulous visits to Aunt Emily’s flat (below). This was the top one to the right of this small tenement. You approached it through a shared front door, into a small lobby and then a set of dark, unlit stairs – always a bit spooky!
Walking down Bridgend you reach the plaque that marks the place where Mr McKenzie shoed Queen Victoria’s Horse. This story has been told elsewhere, and this post should be read in conjunction with it, so I won’t repeat myself. But I notice that I didn’t record that the blacksmith was also responsible for providing the iron protective covering for The Gathering Stone up on Sherifmuir. [I suggest you read up about this piece of local history.]
Away from “The Royal Warrant” – now thought to be a bit fraudulent as there’s no evidence that the horse need shoeing and the blacksmith just seized the moment and took his opportunity to create a piece of history for himself and enhance his reputation locally – you cross the River Allan and arrive at the bottom of High 
Street. It, like a lot of Dunblane, has hardly changed at all … thankfully.
Maybe the Italian ice cream parlour and fish and chip cafe have gone (I seem to remember it was called Gonellas), and the newsagent is no longer being run by Mrs Waddle (I think that’s right) where Jane and I used to go and spend our holiday money, but there’s still a baker (where we used to go every morning to pick-up fresh morning rolls) and a butcher. 
Alas the Co-Op has gone replaced by a Tesco which now sits at the bottom of the Old Doune Road on the site where we used to catch Alexander’s bus to Stirling (I remembered eventually, Jane!!!), and an M&S Food to the south of the town. An indication of the Andy Murray effect, and the fact that it’s gone upmarket quite a bit.
Grandpa McKay like many of his time was a freemason. His lodge (alongside) was at the bottom of the High Street.
Finally, to round things off, a couple of pictures of Springfield Terrace, where at No. 19 Mum was born – before they moved to Dunearn …
… and a few pictures of Allanwater taken of the place where Grandpa McKay jumped into the river to save the life of the boy. This is described in the other post.
The last picture shows the cathedral standing high above the river. Jenny and I hadn’t been in the cathedral for a while so it was nice to spend a short time there, before we were ushered out!
An addendum:
This morning we were delighted to hear from Heather who’d been using the Covid-19 situation to do what a lot of us have been doing – clearing out stuff, and catching up on tasks we’ve always meant to get round to, but never succeeded. Anyway she enclosed the cards that we’d left with the flowers and I’ve scanned them and here they are …
… Jenny has said, and I most certainly agree with her, thank goodness mum wasn’t around to experience the current Lockdown, and yes – thank goodness we broke her out of the Care Home!
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