Fearnan Village Association

The spell of good weather broke on Saturday but there was a warm welcome for everyone inside the village hall.

Nearly 50 folk, including holiday visitors from home and abroad, came to enjoy a wonderful spread of strawberry treats.

Live music was provided by Doug and Hilary (who also played at the Pudding Night in February), and we were delighted to welcome back Ian and Ann McGregor who came across from their new home in Auchterarder, along with some family members.

So what was on the menu for this Strawberry Afternoon Tea? You can have a look (and a listen) by clicking on the picture below:

And who was there? Well, here are some of them (click on the picture again to see them):

And here are some other pictures taken on the day:

Hey, this is starting to look a bit serious …….

…..that’s better!

The next FVA event will be a Coffee Morning on Tuesday 16th September at 10.30am. Hope we see you there!

Just a reminder that the next Coffee Morning is on Tuesday 10th June at 10.30 in the village hall.

In July, all things strawberry come to Fearnan with the Strawberry TeaZ event on Saturday 12th July at 3.00pm in the hall.

Sub-titled ‘101 Ways with a Strawberry’ there will be everything from strawberry sponges, chocolate strawberries, scones with cream and strawberries, mousses, cheesecakes, meringues and much more.

Last year’s spread was quite magnificent, so make sure it’s in your diary and don’t miss it this one!

Hope we see you there!

Coffee Mornings have resumed now that the repair work in the hall has been completed.  Last Tuesday, which was a fine Spring morning, saw a good turnout of 20 or so folk from the village who came to enjoy a chat with friends and neighbours. As usual, there was a good selection of home baking on offer which disappeared pretty quickly.

Our usual coffee-supremo is not so well at the moment. (Hope you start feeling better soon, Laurie!) However, Fraser very kindly volunteered to serve the teas and coffees and was instantly promoted from back-room duties (where he’s a regular washer-upper) to front-line coffee duties. Many thanks, Fraser, much appreciated by all.

We were pleased to welcome a visitor: Fiona Johnstone, who is a Community Engagement Worker with Perth & Kinross Association of Voluntary Service (PKAVS).

PKAVS is a charity that has been helping people and families across Perth & Kinross for many years. They aim to respond to changing community needs and also promote volunteering and citizenship among people of all ages. Fiona is working in the area surrounding Glen Lyon and Kenmore to build a picture of people’s concerns about community issues (including health) and the extent to which the services and activities in the local area meet the community’s needs. She is keen to develop an open line of communication so that we can both feed our viewpoint into the community planning process as well as receive feedback on the options that are under consideration.

Fiona chatted to a number of people at the coffee morning and will also attend the one in June. She can be contacted by email anytime at Fiona.johnstone@pkavs.org.uk and would love to hear from you if there are community service issues that you are concerned about and would like to discuss with her.

The next coffee morning is on Tuesday 10^th June at 10.30 am, and Strawberry TeaZ returns for a second year, by popular demand, on Saturday 13^th July.

In the second of our Talking about Fearnan series, Pat and Fiona visited one of the most well-kent figures in our community – Andy Burt of the Loch Tay Pottery.

Andy, and his wife Hazel, moved to Fearnan in 1982 having taken early retirement from their jobs in Harrogate. Andy had been Site Engineer at ICI’s HQ in the town, while Hazel was a senior lecturer in Social Sciences at Harrogate College.

A few years earlier, on a family visit to Whitby, Andy had spotted a potter working at a wheel in a shop window. He was fascinated and stopped to chat, only to discover that the potter had also been an engineer at one time. A seed was sown during that conversation, leading to Andy signing up for a course in pottery at Harrogate College…………………. and the rest, as they say, is history!

For a few years, pottery was a hobby but with early retirement came the opportunity to turn it into something more. Andy and Hazel started to look for a building that could be a pottery as well as a home – which they found in Fearnan, when John McEwen put the building that is now Loch Tay Pottery on the market. Andy, originally from Paisley and a keen cyclist in his younger days, knew the Loch Tay area well from cycling trips and was very happy to settle in Fearnan.

Andy and Hazel had originally met at a country dancing event in Dumfries, and they were delighted to discover that there was a very strong country dancing group meeting regularly in the village hall in Fearnan. Andy recalls 20 – 30 people a week attending, and even more at the popular Annual Dance when enthusiasts from the surrounding villages such as Camserney and Kenmore, and even from as far as Pitlochry, would come to join in.

The Country Dancing Club started in Fearnan in 1978, with Nancy Lovering as chairman and Alison Skinner as dance teacher.

Alistair Inglis took over from Nancy as chairman, followed by Fraser McLean and then Keith Brockie.

Other important meeting places for the village when Andy first came to Fearnan were the village Post Office and the Hotel. The Post Office and shop were originally located adjacent to the Tigh an Loan Hotel, before moving onto a separate site. At that time, the hotel was extremely popular; often there would be standing room only, and sometimes it was so busy drinks had to be handed outside to those who couldn’t get in.

There were even petrol pumps at the hotel (rather different from today’s situation with Ballinluig and Lix Toll being the nearest options for a top up at the moment!).

Going back even further, and well before Andy’s time, there was the Pier alongside the hotel and a Harbour Master to oversee goods and visitors arriving at the village by boat.

More than 30 years after arriving in Fearnan, Andy remains as passionate about his craft as ever – one that has used the same techniques for thousands of years and which was first introduced to Britain by the Romans. He does everything by hand, from throwing the pots to making the glazes.

Now in his 90’s, he opens the Pottery seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. As he says, it’s an ideal situation when you can turn a hobby into a job, and do what you want to do, when you want to do it.

Fearnan’s burial ground, known as Cladh-Na-Sroine, dates from the 16th century and was originally encircled by the old village of Stronfearnan. It is all that remains of the old village, which was demolished at the end of the 18th century.

Although the earliest inscription on a gravestone is 1778, there is a much older stone, a recumbent cross-incised stone, that dates from the early Christian era.

Two staff members from the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland were in Fearnan recently to survey and record both this stone and the Baptismal Font – also from the early Christian era.

Christopher Rowley was quick off the mark and managed to capture this great photograph of them at work.

This is the first of a series of articles based on our Fearnan Oral History Project.  Over the next few months, Pat Menzies and Fiona Ballantyne will interview a number of local residents in order to capture their recollections and memories of Fearnan, and to record them for our archive.

Our first interviewees, and willing guinea pigs, are Joyce and Alistair Halden of Burnside, seen here with Pat.

During the conversation, both Pat and Fiona were struck by how often Joyce and Alistair referred to the friendliness of people in the village, and how easy they had found it to settle here.

They retired to Fearnan after 18 years teaching at Croftinloan School in Pitlochry. Their original plan was to retire to their house overlooking the sea in St Monans and to become Fifers.  However, as retirement approached, Alistair realised that his heart was in the Highlands and he really wanted to stay in Perthshire.  Joyce wasn’t so sure about this change of plan, but a house-hunting trip to Fearnan convinced her to swap her sea view for a loch view (“The views were captivating. I fell in love with it.”).

This picture was taken when Joyce and Alistair retired. The pupils from the school gave them the wooden garden seat inscribed with the words ‘The Rest Of The Day Is Free’, taken from a poem about retirement that Alistair had written. The pupils and staff of the school thought the sentiments expressed were a fitting dedication to the couple for all their hard work over the years.

Moving to Fearnan in 1994, they set about redesigning the acre of garden surrounding their new house.  Joyce was determined that nothing would distract her from concentrating on the garden for the first few years, but a night out to hear the Fearnan Ladies Choir in their Christmas Concert at the village hall somewhat changed that plan.  Whilst sitting in the audience waiting for the concert to begin, Joyce was approached and asked if she would stand in and play accompaniment to the choir for the first part of the concert, as the usual accompanist had been delayed.  Whilst most of us would find this a rather extreme form of audience participation (unrehearsed after all!), the former music teacher not only rose to the occasion but did it so well that she was later invited to lead the choir.

So, for 14 years from 1997 to 2011,  the choir gathered every Monday morning in Joyce’s house to rehearse. Regular concerts were held not just in the village hall, but in venues across Perthshire. Another Fearnan resident, Bob Woolley, would join them at their various engagements and entertain the audience by playing saxophone, clarinet and flute.

The choir originated in Fortingall in the 1950’s, under the leadership of Mrs Molteno of Glen Lyon House and was known as the Fortingall Ladies Choir. Some years later, when Ted Lewis was the conductor, it was re-named the Bruachan Singers after Ted’s house, where the ladies rehearsed. It became the Fearnan Ladies Choir when Joyce took over, attracting members from Fearnan, Fortingall, Acharn, Aberfeldy, Killin, Pitlochry and Kinloch Rannoch. And here they are:

Back Row: Alison Skinner, Jen McGartland, Jean Woolley, Molly Baird, Georgie McGregor, Anne Brennan, Janet Harding. Middle Row: Lorna Cassells, Maisie Steven, Mary Masterson, Lynn Ferguson. Front Row: Joyce Halden, Jessie Coghill, Maureen McDonnell, Mairi Taylor, Rosie Hooper, Thea Fagerson. Other Choir Members not in the picture: Jenny Kininmonth, Kate Mackay, Kate Conway, Margaret Ellis, Margaret Pree, Marijke Goodwin, May Scott, Gina Angus, and Sheila Watford.

It has to be said that Joyce’s garden can’t have suffered too much from the distraction of  the choir, as it was featured on the BBC’s Beechgrove Garden programme in 2001.  Click here  to read the Beechgrove Garden Factsheet from the programme which includes a description of the Halden’s garden on page 11 – “Through the Garden Gate”.

Joyce and Alistair refer frequently to the warmth and friendliness of people in the village.  They remember the village shop, and what a treat it was to have a shop and Post Office where everyone was so chatty when they called by for their messages.  They particularly remember a special send-off for the local postie who was going to go to live in Spain.  Everybody gathered at the Post Office to say goodbye, and Liz Menzies brought a donkey along – adding a Spanish touch to the proceedings.

Joyce and Alistair also recall how many events and societies there were, and how there seemed to be something on at the village hall almost every night of the week.

The extremes of the weather, not surprisingly, feature in their memories – paddling through floods in wellingtons to get food at the shop before the breakwater wall was built; arriving home from a winter break in the warm sunshine of Gran Canaria to find their gates (very) firmly frozen shut. Neighbour Garth Menzies came to the rescue and helped them to get in. However, the next morning they had the opposite problem – they were now frozen in and couldn’t get out!

More than anything, they talk about the kindness and helpfulness of friends and neighbours, particularly now that they are getting on a bit. The church at Fortingall has been a big part of their lives here, helping them to meet people and find friends when they first moved here, and keeping them connected thereafter. Indeed, over the years they have discovered many shared connections with other villagers, be it to do with music, horticulture, places, professional connections, mutual friends or a host of other subjects.

They certainly don’t have any regrets about that change of plan and the decision to swap St Monans for Fearnan.  On the day we visited, Joyce had been busy planting and pricking out seedlings for the new season in the garden and they were both very much looking forward to a forthcoming visit by one of their sons, his wife and their grandchild from Brisbane, Australia.

If you would like to contribute to this Oral History project, either by suggesting someone to interview or by sharing your own memories, please get in touch with Pat (patmenzies2004@yahoo.co.uk) or Fiona (fionaballantyne320@gmail.com)

The FVA held 2 events in the village hall last week.  The first was the AGM which was well attended and the draft Minutes appear below.  The second event was the March Coffee Morning which coincided with Pancake Day, so we had pancakes aplenty –  our regular drop scones from the griddle along with traditional pancakes served with lemon or maple syrup.

Fearnan Village Association, Minutes of the AGM and Business Meeting

Held at 4.00 pm on the 1st March 2014

 Welcome

The Chair, Sue Gardener, opened the meeting by welcoming members.  The meeting would be in 2 parts – the FVA Annual General Meeting, followed by the Business Meeting.

Annual General Meeting

Apologies

Apologies were received from Pat Menzies, Peter McKenzie, Tim Wheeldon, Dan Clutterbuck, and Ian and Anne McGregor.

Minutes of the AGM 2013

The minutes of the AGM in 2013, along with the minutes of the 2013 Business Meeting were adopted and signed by the Chair.

Chair’s Report on the Year’s Activity

Membership – our present membership is 63, up from 57 last year.

Matters concerning or affecting the village:

Perth & Kinross Development Plan –The campaign of lobbying and letter writing proved to be well worth the effort, and was wholly successful. The original draft plan issued by the Council proposed 2 development sites and 40 new houses for Fearnan but, following our campaign, both sites were removed from the final version that was approved by the Council.  The Chair thanked all those who had written letters objecting to the Council’s proposals.

Fearnan Brae/Main Road Junction – This issue was raised at the 2013 FVA meeting and, as requested, it was brought to the attention of the Community Council.  As a result, the Chair had attended a meeting with representatives of PKC Roads Dept. to seek a solution.

Broadband – we continue to attend meetings and lobby for an improved service.

Fearnan History – Ian McGregor has done a considerable amount of work archiving material and researching the men commemorated on the War Memorial. Initial work has started on the possibility of an Interpretation Board for the Registered Monuments in or near the village (the Baptismal Font, the Boar Stone, the Measles Stone, and the Market Cross) and a walk to connect them.

Social Events: These continue to help to bring people together. The 2013 Winter Pudding Night was a great success and Coffee Mornings continue to be enjoyed. The Strawberry TeaZ held in the summer was a new venture, which proved to be successful and fun. Mulled Wine and Mince Pies provided a warming start to the Christmas Season, raised some money for the Aberfeldy Hospital, and proved a useful introduction for new comers to the village.

Thanks: We have had to say a sad farewell to Ian and Anne McGregor who have moved house and thank them for their loyal support and hard work on behalf of the Association since it started.

Special thanks also to our committee Julia Lane, Laurie Lane, Fiona Ballantyne, Neil Ballantyne and Peter McKenzie for their commitment and hard work during the year. Thanks to Julia for representing us on the Village Hall Committee and to Laurie for attending Loch Tay Association meetings on our behalf, and sincere thanks to all our members for their support.

Key points from the Treasurer’s Report: A table setting out Income and Expenditure for the last year was presented to the meeting.

• Funds carried forward at the end of the year amounted to £3693.60.
• Donations to good causes during the year amounted to £137.05, and the use of funds had included a Hot Plate Griddle and a Photo Mounting Board.

Key Points from the Blog Report: There has been a 25% increase over the year in people viewing the FVA Blog.  Apart from the UK, we have regular readers in the US, Iceland, Canada, Germany and Australia.  A Gallery Page has been added, using the photos from the Fearnan Archive, and this is now one of our most popular items. The blog articles about the project to identify the men commemorated on the Fearnan War Memorial has produced a number of new contacts and readers along with some interesting photographs for the Archive.

There were no further questions and the Chair declared the AGM closed and moved on to the Business Meeting.

FVA Business Meeting

Local Development Plan

 Our objections to the proposed developments in the village were successful and the final Plan has now been adopted by PKC for the next 5 years. A copy of the Plan is available in Aberfeldy Library. The only building permitted within the village boundary will be in-fill, that is to say utilising any existing but undeveloped sites between houses in the village.  Any development outside the boundary will be classed as ‘housing in the countryside’, that has a different set of planning policies and which should give us greater protection from development.

Broadband

 The latest information is that Perth and Kinross Council, Scottish Government, the UK Government, the EU and BT are to fund a project that will deliver 2MB broadband for rural areas by 2017. At the same time, Highland Perthshire Community Partnership has an initiative that is designed to ensure that peripheral areas that are not commercially attractive to the internet service providers are able to benefit from the government initiative.

A question was asked about the impact of a ‘Yes’ vote in September on the main project to deliver 2MB broadband. This is not clear at this stage but it could mean changes in the funding partners.

FVA Blog

We have now purchased the domain name fearnanvillageassociation.com, which gives the blog an easier name to remember– http://fearnanvillageassociation.com.  It can also be found by searching for http://fearnan.com.   Many visitors to the site find us through searching for Fearnan on the Internet, and we know that people who are considering moving to the village have accessed the site for information about Fearnan.

There are 2 new developments planned for the Blog.  The first is a Walking Map for the village (discussed below under Interpretation) and an Oral History project that will involve a series of interviews with people who have lived in the area for a long time and who have memories of the village in the past. These will be recorded, with the permission of the interviewees, and the recordings will be added to the Fearnan Archive.

Fearnan Brae Road Junction

This has been a bone of contention for many years, with local people arguing that visibility is very poor and the Roads Department maintaining that visibility is adequate. Following a meeting between the Community Council Chair and the Roads Department, the Council is proposing to mount a sensor on the Brae, which will transmit a warning to traffic on the main road about vehicles approaching the junction from the Brae.  Mirrors were discussed but, not only do they get frequently stolen, we understand there would also be an insurance liability if there was an accident and it could be proved that the mirror was e.g. slightly misaligned, dirty or in some way inadequate. The Council’s solution means that responsibility remains with them. The positive outcome is that the Council are now engaged with the problem and we need to work with them.

Members at the meeting asked if the Council would consider reversing the sensors, so that traffic on the Brae received the warning about approaching traffic on the main road. The Chair will raise it with Councillors at the Community Council meeting at the end of March. She will also ask them to provide information about the timescale for this work.

Action Chair

Pancakes

 As requested at the last meeting, a pancake griddle has been purchased and fresh pancakes are now available at the Coffee Mornings.

Fearnan History

 Ian McGregor has passed the Fearnan Archive to the FVA and we need to decide who is going to look after it.  There is now a cabinet in the village hall for Fearnan memorabilia. There is enough material for another photo board, and we need to check that this would be acceptable to the hall committee.  Julia Lane will check this.                 Action Julia Lane

 Having left the village, Ian McGregor has offered the FVA the rights to his book about Fearnan. We plan to accept this offer, but need to investigate how we go about doing this formally.

Social Events and Dates

 Our programme of events in 2014 will be as follows:

Coffee Mornings:        all at 10.30 am in the village hall

15th April, 13th May, 10th June, 16th September, 14th October.

Strawberry TeaZ:        Saturday 12th July, 3.00 pm.

Armistice Day, Centenary Event:       Sunday 9th November,

11.00 am at the War Memorial, followed by Soup and Rolls.

Mulled Wine and Mince Pies:   Saturday 6th December.

2015 Pudding Night:   Saturday 21st February.

The meeting agreed that this year the Mulled Wine and Mince Pies event should be a fund-raiser for the village hall but felt that we should specify how the funds should be used.

Interpretation Boards

The village has 4 registered monuments and in addition, there are other points of interest, such as the burial ground, the Gallery and the Pottery.  During the course of the last year, the committee had tried to attract funds to develop an interpretation board that could be set in a central place in the village, along with signs for the monuments and the walking routes that connect them.  So far we have not been successful in raising these funds but, in the meantime, we plan to put a walking map on the web site.  Paper copies of the map can be made available in local holiday homes and visitor information offices. We will report progress on this as the project develops.

A number of suggestions were made as to how maps might be distributed and how people might be encouraged to walk the routes, and we will incorporate these into our thinking.

Armistice 2014

 2014 marks 100 years since the start of the Great War and the FVA is proposing that, on Remembrance Day this year, we will serve Soup and Rolls in the hall after the service at the Memorial. It may also be the occasion to unveil the new photo board showing the material collected about the Great War and how it affected people in Fearnan.

PKC’s Green Space team have a budget to clean and repair local war memorials and the Fearnan Memorial is on their list.  The step is to be repaired and set back into the memorial, rather than protruding, and the lettering is to be cleaned.

Boreland Farm

 The farm is in the hands of the executors and we understand that it is to be put on the market.  There is no other information available on plans for the farm.

AOCB

 The dead poplar tree close to the children’s play park was raised.  The Chair has spoken to the owners who are aware of the concern.

The Chair thanked the members for attending and closed the meeting.

Diaries at the ready, folks.  Here are the dates for FVA social events in 2014:

Coffee Mornings: all at 10.30am in the village hall: 15th April, 13th May, 10th June, 16th September, 14th October.

Strawberry TeaZ: Saturday 12th July, 3.00 pm

Armistice Day, Centenary Event: Sunday 9th November, 11.00 am at the War Memorial, followed by Soup and Rolls.

Mulled Wine and Mince Pies: Saturday 6th December.

2015 Pudding Night: Saturday 21st February.

There were tarts and pies, dumplings and strudels, cakes and sponges, mousses and gateaux, hot puddings, cold puddings, ice cream and custard.

A very pleasing spread and, in all, a record-breaking 31 home-baked puddings were on offer in the village hall last Saturday night.

It was just as well we had so many desserts, as over 60 people arrived ready to tuck in! And tuck in they did! As you can see from this video

Live music was provided by Katy, Andrew, Doug, Hilary and Audrey. Click here to enjoy a little sample:

After a couple of hours, even the most stalwart of pudding eaters were beginning to flag – but not to worry, there was still enough left for some take-aways for anyone who hadn’t quite managed to sample all their favourites. And there’s always next year when we can do it all over again!

We love puddings!

Here are some diary dates for February and March.

We hope you’ve been in training for the FVA Pudding Night, which takes place on the 15th February at 6pm in the village hall.  Will we be able to beat last year’s offering of 26 home made puddings?  Come along and find out! Live music, lots of fun, and as much as you can eat for £7 – school age children are half price.

The FVA’s AGM will be held in the village hall at 4pm on Saturday 1st March.  Tea and biscuits will  be served.

The first Coffee Morning of the year will be on Tuesday 4th March, at 10.30 in the village hall.  The dates of Coffee Mornings for the rest of the year will be announced after the AGM.