watch was given for seven years’ perfect attendance. Lena Mudie was the

last person to receive this award in 1939-40 when she was presented with a

silver watch on which her name had been engraved. The oldest day school

medal in the Mudies’ possession is one presented to Magdalene Edie in 1906.

‘The shops in the village at that time were:

At the top

Craigs

Paper and General Store

Corner of Bonfield and Main Street

Laings

General Store

4th down from Village Hall

Johnston’s

Post Office

Lower Main Street

Polompos

Chip Shop

Sunnyside (Kellock House)

Bakers

Top of the Village

Pub

Corner of Main Street and Sunnyside

Pub

‘Nivens on Main Street had the “killing house”.

‘Cunninghams on Main Street were the blacksmiths.

‘The changes in the village noted between 1965 and 1985 include the sale

of the teacher’s house, the sale of the manse, the closing down of Maxwell’s

potato sheds and Wilson’s bottling plant, the amalgamation of the parishes of

Dairsie, Kemback and Strathkinness, the fire at the Youth House, the houses

built at Bonfield Park and Bonfield Court. As the houses have been sold and

the cottages renovated and often enlarged, the population of the village has

changed. It has become a dormitory’.

An anonymous contributor has written about an unusual farming technique

of fifty yearsago.

‘Before the 1939 war an old Aberdonian by the name of Sam Herd stayed

in a caravan at Kincaple. He had two steam engines with all the implements to

go with them to plough the land. A steel wire rope was fixed to a turn-table,

on each engine. Two men, one at each end of the field, pulled the rope to

plough, harrow and cultivate the land.

‘The steam engine was also used once during the war to pull an aeroplane

out of the Eden’.

Another contribution from someone who has seen many changes in the

village is that of Mrs. B. Pairman, who with her late husband ran “The Tavern”

for many years.

‘When we first came to The Tavern in 1954 I could have written a book at

that time with all the stories told to me of past life in the village by the then

O.A.P.s and ‘Worthies’ of the village. They were mines of information! Unfor-

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