Monday

[Back wall of the homes at George Place.]




[In front of George Place.]





[The home built by John Reid, Fred's great-grandfather.]



[The High Kirk in Stevenston.]





[Ardeer Church, Stevenston. Also built by John Reid.]









[Hills above Largs, home of Conny Kerr, former wife of dad's deceased cousin, Ian Kerr.]




















































[Conny's photo of the Buchanan visit in 1979. Ian on the bottom left. Conny sporting the red 76 shirt.]











[Fred in Conny's home 31 years later. The photos in the background are Katherine Ross (dad's great-grandmother) and Samuel Bell (her husband).]























[Buchanans 2010 with Conny Kerr.]














[Conny's wall had a collage of all her house guests over the years. Here we are again in 1979.]










[Back to Stevenston. The High Kirk; where Samuel Reid is buried.]







[Samuel Reid's grave.]



























[Overlooking Stevenston from the High Kirk.]











[Catherine Ross's grave.]












[Elizabeth Bell's grave.]














[John Reid's Grave.]







































[At dad's elementary school. This is where dad sharpened his etcher for his slate as a student.]

























[Walking to the Stevenston coast.]




































































[A wild haggis.]






























































[Stevenston dunes and the burn Dad jumped over as a wee lad.]












[Stevenston coast. Where dad was baptized.]












[Dad and his childhood friend, Jim McMurdoh, who grew up at No. 1 George Place.]

Location:No. 5 George Place, etc.

Sunday

[View from our home base, the "Greenskeeper Cottage." The building in the background is the clubhouse to the golf course we border.]

[Outside Robbie Burns birthplace (2 minute walk from our cottage).]

[Inside the cottage.]

[Spooky garments of some sort representing the four Burns children born in the cottage - including Annabella.]

[Buchanan plaid Haggis platter decorated with a line from Robert Burns poem "To a Haggis."]

[The old kirk featured in Tam o' Shanter. The window on the front of the church is from where the Devil played the pipes for the witches' dance.]

A winnock-bunker in the east,
There sat auld Nick, in shape o' beast;
A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large,
To gie them music was his charge:
He screw'd the pipes and gart them skirl,
Till roof and rafters a' did dirl.

[One of the tombstones near the kirk.]

[Tam O' Shanter, Souter Johnie and their doppelgangers.]

[Brig O' Doon (bridge over the river Doon).]

[The Buchanans and a random Scottish couple.]

Location:Ayr, Alloway

Ulster Volunteers

This historic photograph is of members of the Ulster Volunteers at an encampment at Wheatlands near Belfast, Ireland. My father, Frederick Buchanan, is on the front row, extreme left. The Ulster Volunteers were formed at the height of the controversy over Home Rule in 1912. My grandmother, Mary Jane Lyons Buchanan, was strongly opposed to Home Rule and called it “Rome Rule.”

Apparently my ould faither echoed his mother and joined the Ulster Volunteers to show his solidarity with those who opposed the Home Rule legislation which was introduced at Westminster in 1912. Sir Edward Carson, the leader of the Unionists, wanted to preserve the Union between Britain and Ireland, believing it to be in the best interests of his fellow countrymen.

When the Westminster Parliament introduced the Home Rule Bill (1912), Carson took a leading part in the formation of the Ulster Volunteers, who drilled openly to show that they were prepared to resort to arms rather than be ruled by an Irish parliament in Dublin.

The Ulster Unionists planned to set up a government of their own if the Home Rule Bill was passed. It wasn’t, but the Ulster Volunteers continued as an idea, and in 1921 Ireland was divided into two political entities – the South with a Catholic majority and the North with a Protestant majority. Freddy Buchanan volunteered for the Royal Navy in1917 and swore allegiance to the British crown. After years of poverty he ended up back in Scotland looking for work as a radical Socialist. Such are the turns of life!

Grandma Buchanan and "Big Lizzie King"

This summer sport's meet was held at Stevenston a week before WWII began. Stevenston in those days was a popular holiday resort for the Glasgow and Paisley folk.

It looks as if my mother is coming in at 3rd place (second from right). Not bad for a forty-three year old! Now we know where the running instinct comes from! I think the winner is "Big Lizzie King."

The second photograph shows Gran and Aunt Betty as spectators. The wee lad on the right squinting into the sun is me at age 8. At his left is our Irish cousin Maurine Buchanan who was spending the summer at 5 George Place. She was a daughter of Uncle Angus Buchanan, Papa's brother. I think she was supposed to stay longer in Stevenston but the war cut short her vacation. I seem to remember the big folks talking about German submarines in the Irish Sea.

Ian

I am the lad on the right – the other is my cousin Ian Brittain Kerr, son of Tillie (Mary) Reid Kerr who was the wife of John Kerr who abandoned his family when Ian was a baby. Why? No one is alive who knows, but my father had his theories: Tillie made such demands on him that he had to get extra cash and got caught with his hand in the till of the company – which in turn made him leave for parts unknown.

But, to the subjects of this snapshot – why am I wearing three layers of clothing, while Ian had only one? Is it because my mother was overprotective of me? Or perhaps, I am supposed to be dressed up when I go to see my Grandmother at 6 Kelvin St., Largs. Come to think of it, when Ian came to visit he usually wore his kilt!

I can hear Aunt Tillie urging me to put my arm around Ian so that people can see we are real pals! Incidentally, Ian and Aunt Tillie lived with Grandma Elizabeth Bell Reid. I don't seem to be in a posing mood, but I do have a correct "hankie" in my suit coat pocket. Ian on the other hand is in gear, fit for a scramble up to the Roman fort in the heights above Largs or ready to play vikings and pirates in the Goggle Burn.

He was born on the 23d of December 1933 and took some pleasure in having the same birthday as Joseph Smith. He was an introvert, shy and easily embarrassed by his cousin's extrovertish ways. He was also very smart, interested in bagpipes, took lots of photographs, liked history – indeed we were really very good pals with similar interests.

It was a sad, sad day for me when he died of a brain tumour in 1987.