Rusty McD, our fearless and intrepid reporter of furry, feathered or scaly friends in our community, is back with another 5-minute interview...
5 minutes with...
Yvonne Spearing and her “Doocot” This month I am back in St. Fillans, meeting a lady called Yvonne Spearing who has been nominated by last month’s interviewee Elaine Ross. Yvonne has a dovecot or, as the Scottish say a Doocot. When I phoned Yvonne to arrange a time in daylight to visit (so that I can take a photo outside) Yvonne laughs and says that the whole house is a doocot! She seems like a very nice person so I am very much looking forward to the interview. I am slightly early which I know is rude and Yvonne, also coming straight from work like me, makes me very welcome. It turns out that John Murray from The Villagers interviewed her son so that makes two Spearings in our local newspaper this month she tells me. Yvonne is an art teacher and teaches special needs children in a school in Perth. Yvonne’s husband Robin is a builder and the house and gardens are my idea of heaven: arty, homely... loads of animals in gorgeous surroundings. Over a nice cup of tea and a biscuit, Yvonne gets chatting so I quickly unpack my pen and paper and start taking longhand notes. Yvonne, how long have you lived in St. Fillans? We came to Ardsheean 25 years ago. Ardsheean had been built by biscuit manufacturers MacFarlane and Lang. The greenhouse you see in our garden and all the lovely outbuildings were build by them too. The greenhouses were fully heated and had grapevines etc. The whole place just had a gorgeous fully working garden. The person we bought it from had peacocks and they came with the house. Peacocks get very old; one of the peacocks, ‘Mildew’ was about thirty-five. He liked to look into the windows of the Drummond Arms. Another peacock used to sit up the drive in the dark and shriek loudly if somebody passed. Ardsheean is an Edwardian Country house and we used to do B&B for a while. It was a lovely big house but in winter also a perishing cold house. When we arrived all our furniture just about fitted into one room! We bought loads of our furniture at the Crieff sale room. Eleven years ago we sold Ardsheean and built a new house in the grounds behind. 20
Yvonne spends quality time with some friends!
You clearly love your animals! Well, we’ve had all sorts really. Hens in all sorts of colours, shapes and sizes. Rescued hens... people would offer me one or two - now we have loads. I love my hens! Edwina for instance was 17 and never laid an egg! She was a great character. We also had a cockerel that we hatched ourselves on the Aga. The white doves started when Robin bought me a pair for my birthday. Now we have loads and although they are mainly white, some of them have now interbred with racing pigeons. We have two Border terriers – oh yes and we used to have a Pigmy goat. He hated women and used to happily attack every female in sight. He used to hold you to ransom with his little evil eyes! One day he ate Rhododendron leaves and died. Having so many doves, do you lose some to predators? Yes, we lose some to the birds of prey. We have tried everything, stringing CDs across... and somebody lent me a giant ‘owl’, the idea being that it is bigger than a bird of prey - but this does not deter them. February tends to be a particularly bad month for losing doves to the birds of prey. Maybe somebody reading this article can tell us why this is? Doves are great mums and breed all year round. They usually lay two eggs. Their nests are like a pile of twigs and the chicks often fall out. The jackdaw came and I watched as he emptied a nest. You can’t fight nature! But I love my doves and sometimes they even like to come into the house; recently a pair was sitting in my bedroom and cooed away on my clothes rail! You know, I can just sit here and listen to your stories for hours! Thank you so much for having me. My last question to you is: Who would you like to nominate for next month’s ‘5 minutes with...’ ? Ollie Cameron from Lochearnhead... and her Guinea fowl!
One of Yvonne’s doves ‘at home’
The lovely garden
So we are off to Lochearnhead next month. Looking forward to it!