Gatehouse News
NEWS, INFORMATION & WHAT’S ON IN GATEHOUSE OF FLEET | Winter 2014
From the Editor
In the CADISPA Community Survey some seven years ago, a majority of Gatehouse residents reported their concerns at the lack of readily available information about community affairs and activities. This Newsletter was part of an attempt to fill this gap and is now celebrating its fifth birthday. In retiring as your Editor it is more important to look forward than to celebrate the extent to which the Newsletter has met the needs expressed so many years ago. Modern communications have progressed enormously in the last seven years. In particular, computers have made community as well as visitor access to the excellent and comprehensive Gatehouse website possible and changed the way that many of us access information: we are better - sometimes over-informed. But there is still a need for the printed word and for the gift of photography to illustrate many aspects of our community life, particularly those, often elderly, who lack ready access to electronically generated material. Discussions have begun about ensuring that the value of the Newsletter is sustained from 2015 onwards. The consensus suggests that the Newsletter would benefit from management and support by a team providing a wider range of readable material about more aspects of community life than has been achieved so far: for example to include the life of the primary school, the churches, outdoor activities, music, poetry, literature, the pubs, horticulture, fitness, the under 5’s, walking groups, health and so on, in addition to all the subject areas we have covered to date. The majority of residents have found the production each year of a comprehensive printed list of community bodies and contacts very valuable. In future this is to be enlarged. Each community body, association, club etc. is to be invited to write up in around 100 words a resume of its purpose, activities, meeting dates/ times etc and contact information. Entries will be incorporated in an enlarged compendium printed and distributed in March of each year together with what is hoped will be a new style of Newsletter. Please begin this process in the New Year as early as possible and post your entry to 56 High Street or email to GDI@ gatehouse-of-fleet.co.uk. In wishing all our readers and contributors the compliments of the season, special thanks are due to the business community for the advertising support they have given to the Newsletter in the past five years: without this support it would never have happened.
All Change at the Post Office
Gatehouse Post Office is to move to new premises based in the Gatehouse Store. If the move goes ahead, subject to consultation, it will change to one of the new local style branches - part of a major programme of modernisation and investment taking place across the Post Office network. This will mean Post Office services will be offered from a till on the retail counter with longer opening hours and with the majority of products and services still available. A six week local public consultation is currently underway (until 23rd December) to gather feedback about the suitability of the proposed new location. The Post Office welcomes any suggestions that could help make it better in its new location and any local community issues which you think could be affected by the proposed move. Further details are available on the Post Office website.
Congratulation to local novelist Karen Campbell.
Local writer Karen Campbell has been awarded a £15,000 Creative Scotland Artists Bursary to help develop her next novel. These prestigious bursaries are designed to support excellence and experimentation across all the arts, and Karen - who’s originally from Glasgow, but now lives and writes in Gatehouse - is one of only a handful of writers to receive such support. The Creative Scotland panel said they were ‘struck by the quality and strength’ of Karen’s work to date. The new novel - Karen’s seventh - will be set in Tuscany in World War Two. She said: ‘I’m absolutely delighted. It’s a real vote of confidence in my writing. I’ve never written a historical novel before, so this bursary will be a big help in allowing me time to write, as well as giving me the chance to travel and properly research my story, and I’m really grateful.’ Local poet Chrys Salt was also awarded a Writing Bursary in the last round of awards, to enable her to finish her forthcoming collection Dancing on a Rock. Congratulations to both our talented local writers and our best wishes for their continuing success.
Gatehouse Memories
Today an impenetrable mass of fallen trees, blackthorn and brambles make it difficult to reach the Barlay burn between the bridges on the Laurieston Road and at Fleughlarg but years ago there was a romantic walk down the burn to the Lover’s Dell. It was here that young people from Gatehouse would carve their names on the rock face. William Faed who left Gatehouse in 1851 was one of the young people who carved their name on the rock. Long ago the burn was known as Dalma Linn and such was its romantic fame that George Sproat, the author of Bonnie Gallowa wrote a book of poems entitled The Rose o’ Dalma Linn. George Sproat even persuaded the famous Gatehouse-born artist John Faed to provide illustrations for the book including one to illustrate the lines: Still he came not, still she lingered By the dear old Trysting stone. The inspiration for Rose was Nancy Carney, the Grecian Queen, who had, according to Thomas Faed, ‘set young men of the country, far and wide, mad’. The name lives on in Carney’s Corner on Castramont Road, where the Carneys lived. Since the Second World War the burn has gradually become overgrown. The editor of the newsletter would like to hear from anyone who has memories of the walk down the burn, or indeed of any other local places of interest which have faded from memory.
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