One for the Diary: Saturday 12th July: Strawberry Tea 3 – 5 pm in the Hall.

A delicious afternoon tea, featuring local Scottish Strawberries – and lots of them.

It’s strawberries every which way – from strawberry sandwiches to strawberry cakes and tray bakes, bowls of strawberries and cream, strawberry meringues, chocolate dipped strawberries and much more.

An Excellent Week for the McLean Hall in the Thrift Shop

Linda writes:

It was a successful week in the Thrift Shop, thanks to all the enthusiastic help and the generous donations from Fearnan residents. Thanks also to those who baked for the Friday sale and to Lesley for organising the popular tombola.

Although challenging at times, our efforts were rewarded by thrift shop and online sales totalling £2,063. After rent this left £1,893. The funds raised will contribute towards the continuing improvement and development of the village hall as we approach its 70^th anniversary.

The monetary rewards were great, but the hidden value was in the feelings of goodwill, positive attitude, friendship and working together. There were lots of laughs and banter between helpers and customers and we were described by one as the ‘friendly Fearnan folk’.

Special thanks to Colin, Phil, Richard and Alistair who loaded up their vehicles to transport things.

As always, the hall committee much appreciates the excellent local support from the village.

Important Info about Recycling Laundry Products

Unfortunately, we have received news that the Air, Home and Laundry Care Free Recycling Programme that the Resource Hut subscribes to is to close. This is a decision taken not by Terracycle, who provide the platform to run the programme, but by the brand sponsors whose products are recycled.

We have a little bit of time before it actually closes, but the important information is that if you have items to recycle under this scheme, please make sure they are in the relevant bin in the Hut on or before 14th July. After this, they cannot be recycled via the Resource Hut.

Success For Aberfeldy Gaelic Choir at the Provincial Mod

Over the years, we have followed the success of our ‘own’ Aberfeldy Gaelic Choir and this year we are delighted to have an up-to-date report from our Vocal Choruspondent, Alan Brown.

Alan writes:

The Perthshire and Angus Provincial Mod has been a highlight of Aberfeldy’s Gaelic-speaking community – and much further abroad – since 1923. As well as the Royal National Mod, held in October at a different venue each year, there are several Provincial Mods hosted by individual branches of An Comunn Gaidhealach and the Aberfeldy event is one of the most popular and highly rated.

The Perthshire and Angus Provincial Mod – I’ll call it the Aberfeldy Mod from now on – is held over two days in June with the Friday being devoted to Junior Competitions. The Saturday sees Junior and Adult competitions in Piping, Fiddle and Clarsach leading up to what is to many the main feature of the Aberfeldy Mod – the Vocal classes including Solo, Duet, Quartet, Mixed Voice and Choral.

This year saw a new beginning for Aberfeldy Gaelic Choir, competing under Musical Director Kerrie Kennedy who took over the baton from May Brown in January with May rejoining the Alto section of the Choir. The changes –including the addition of several new and returning Choir members – were tried out earlier in June at Oban Provincial Mod with pleasing results.

The choirs take part in two competitions. The first is the Puirt-a-Beul – mouth music –  which was won by the mighty Lothian Gaelic Choir from Edinburgh.

This was followed by the Choral Singing: Own Choice competition in which choirs perform two songs for the Westcroft Trophy (overall winners), the Janet MacIntyre Memorial Cup (highest music marks) and the Cuach Clachmhor (highest marks for Gaelic).

In a real upsetting of the odds, the choirs of Lothian, Cumbernauld, Stirling and Dundee had to give way on the day to Aberfeldy who delivered the songs ‘Chi Mi Na Mor-bheanna’ which you may know as ‘The Mist-Covered Mountains of Home’ and ‘Gruagach Og an Fhuilt Bhan’, a love song from Barra, to the delight of the adjudicators and, of course, the audience.

It was a great moment for Aberfeldy Gaelic Choir and, of course for Kerrie who takes weekly practices in the Town Hall, driving from Oban and back each Wednesday evening. Our thoughts now turn to the Royal National Mod to be held in October this year in Fort William with lots of hard work to be done, including learning a new song.

The Choir will try out that song and others from their repertoire at the Aberdeen Provincial Mod held the week before the National.

Join the Gaelic Choir and see the world! If you’re interested in learning more have a look at our website or visit us on Wednesday evenings. You’ll be made very welcome.

Fearnan Book Club Review

Linda writes:

In May we reviewed Lola in the Mirror by Trent Dalton. It has been described as bighearted, gritty, magical and moving. It covered the themes of homelessness, domestic violence, isolation, addiction, friendship, love, loss and belonging.

We had previously read “Boy Swallows Universe” by the same Australian author, who has held a mirror up to the darkest corners of Australian life.

Trent Dalton was a social affairs journalist, so the story was succinct, written in short sentences with the least number of words. It was considered too long by some, and too dense by another who found the short sentences annoying.

The girl, who is the nameless central character, (her real name is not revealed until the end of the story) and her mother have been on the run for 16 years from the police and now live in a van with four flat tyres parked in a scrapyard by the edge of the Brisbane River. She dreams of a life as an artist of international acclaim. Lola finally finds love with a rich boy who waits for her on a bridge across a flooding river.

It was not easy reading, but we learnt a lot about the crisis of homelessness people and the loop they found themselves in with no address to apply for social security.

Drug and alcohol addiction featured, with nasty ‘heavies’ extracting drug money through violence for the underworld drug queen, Flora Box. Some found it hard to get into but most agreed that the second half was more interesting as we became invested in the character and her progress. Most didn’t see the twist towards the end where her background was revealed.

We discussed the symbolism of the mirror related to self-identity, truth and self-perception. We found the love story almost ridiculous and very sentimental. We thought the characters, many of whom were feisty and eccentric, were well portrayed

However finally good triumphed over evil. She decides to attend art school, meets her sister, finds love and acceptance with Danny and hopefully a bright future. The drawings, we all enjoyed throughout the book, featured in her successful art show.

We travel from Australia to Kenya for our next read which is Death in Kenya by M.M. Kaye. The author is well known for her highly successful historical novels including The Far Pavilions. She was a prolific writer who died age 95 in 2004.This is one of a series of mysteries she wrote in the 1950s.

“The Mau Mau terrorist uprising is now over, but when Victoria joins her family on their beautiful Rift Valley estate, the horrors continue. What began as the malicious persecution of a poltergeist has ended in brutal murder. In the small community passions run deep – but deeper still is the mind of a ruthless killer …”

And Finally……

Last month we forgot to tell you how much we raised for Help for Heroes at the VE Day Afternoon Tea. The total collected was £317.70! A big thank you to the generous folk of Fearnan.