St Andrews in Focus Issue 91 Nov Dec 2018

St Andrews in focus ISSN 2514-409X

• shopping • eating • events • town/gown • people and more

Issue 91, £2.00 November/December 2018

the award winning magazine for St Andrews, Scotland www.standrewsinfocus.com

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Andrews in focus

• shopping • eating • events • town/gown • people and more

From the Editor

I have learned a delightful new/old word, ‘concinnity’. It’s been around since at least the mid-16th century, so Google tells me – “from Latin concinnitas, from concinnus ‘skillfully put together’” and it means: “The skilful and harmonious arrangement, or fitting together of the different parts of something; also, studied elegance of literary or artistic style.” The bibulous among you will be pleased to know that the Merriam-Webster dictionary further explains that the Romans apparently enjoyed a cocktail called cinnus, that gave rise to the verb concinnare, and so on. Allow me, therefore, to wish you all, wherever you may be, a most concinnitous Christmas and New Year!

Flora Selwyn

******** The views expressed elsewhere in this magazine are not necessarily those of the Editor. © St Andrews in Focus (2003)

NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2018 EDITOR Flora Selwyn Tel: 01334 472375 Email: editor@standrewsinfocus.com DESIGNER University of St Andrews Print & Design (printanddesign@st-andrews.ac.uk) PRINTER Winter & Simpson (stephen@wintersimpson.co.uk) DISTRIBUTOR Drop 2 Door (billy@drop2door.co.uk) PUBLISHER (address for correspondence) Local Publishing (Fife) Ltd., Suite 160, 15 Bell Street, St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9UR. Tel: 01334 472375 Email: editor@standrewsinfocus.com SUBSCRIPTIONS St Andrews in Focus is published 6 times a year.

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Contents FEATURES • Community Council • Eleanor Gunstone remembered • 80th Anniversary, the Kinder Transport • Uncle Charles • John Matthews • ‘Lest We Forget’ • Cairngorm Seedlings • ‘Albany’ • ‘Out of Focus’ • Reviews: – J & G Innes recommends – On & About Poetry • Story time: – What to do with Mr Tottle

3 4 5 6 7 8 8 9 9 10 11 12

TOWN & GOWN • Volunteering • The New Silk Road Project • John Cameron’s column • Special Feature: University Strategy for 2018-23

13 14-15 16 17-20

SHOPS & SERVICES • • • •

Why ‘Fairtrade Town’?

Electronic Wills The Trusted Trader Scheme Roving Reporter

21 23 23 25

ORGANISATIONS • • • •

Community Safety Panel Cats Protection Memory Café Signs of the times

26 26 27 27

EVENTS • The Archaeological Society • Youth Theatre interview • Car Free Day • The Heisenberg Ensemble • The Solheim cup • The St Andrews Play Club • There will be light!

• Selected Events

28 28 29 29 30 30 31 31

OUT & ABOUT • • •

Tim Hardie’s Nature Notes Autumn in Aberdour Hidden Gems

NEXT ISSUE – Jan/Feb 2019 COPY DEADLINE: STRICTLY 28 NOVEMBER

All contributions welcome. The Editor reserves the right to publish copy according to available space.

Cover: an original photo of the Cathedral by Heike Neukirch

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FEATURES Callum MacLeod, from the Provost’s Chair

The Community Council At the end of September it was my pleasure to host a Civic Reception for the Mayor, and Members of the Conseil Municipal, of our twin town Loches, situated in the Loire Valley of France.

Twinning such an international town as ours, with its place on the world stage as the Home of Golf, was always going to be a controversial step; indeed, I confess to have been at best lukewarm about the idea myself over the decades it had been discussed.

Nevertheless, after a protracted courtship lasting several years, the decision was taken to enter into a formal twinning arrangement, with my predecessor, Howard Greenwell, one of the signatories to the Twinning Agreement made a couple of years ago. Before, and since that date, there have been many links established between St Andrews and Loches, ever greater numbers of St Andreans and Lochois having visited each other’s towns, cementing with pride friendships and cultural links.

I myself have not yet had the privilege of visiting Loches but, like many, I was able to gain a flavour of the place from an exhibition of paintings and photographs held over the summer in the Byre Theatre. Indeed, one of

the paintings was used for the cover of the last edition of this magazine.

In welcoming the Mayor, I remarked upon how both our ancient burghs – ours still Royal, their regal status removed during the French Revolution – measured our long histories by the century.

Only last year, St Andrews was the only place in the United Kingdom to be accorded European City of the Reformation status, as part of the commemorations to mark the 500th Anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation, one of the catalysts being John Knox preaching to remarkable effect in our Town Kirk.

Our University, often appearing in the top hundred rankings of higher educational establishments in various league tables, recently completed the celebrations to mark its 600th Anniversary by announcing that £100m had been raised by its Anniversary Appeal. This sum allows it to begin to refurbish some well-loved buildings, as well as build new ones fit for the teaching, learning and research requirements of the 21st century and beyond.

Looking out of the window of the Council Chamber of the Town Hall during the Civic Reception we could see the tower of Holy Trinity Church, the stones of which were laid

one on top of the other more than 600 years ago. From the top of that tower one can see the world-famous links, where golf was first played well over 600 years ago.

Only a few months ago we remembered the consecration of the Cathedral 700 years ago in the presence of King Robert the Bruce, not long after the Battle of Bannockburn. This month we will solemnly remember with gratitude the passing of another century, that since the end of the First World War – another, more sombre link between our two countries. Soon after, and perhaps somewhat ironically, Brexit will come into effect (though, after my authoritative statement about the Community Council election in the last edition of St Andrews in Focus, don’t trust that statement too much!).

Whatever your views of the rights and wrongs of that process, what is certainly true is that cultural links and friendships between the peoples of the countries of Europe will become ever more important in breaking down barriers, while twinning arrangements such as ours will play a vital role in this.

As ever, I welcome hearing from you on any matter at: callummac@aol.com or at 01334 478 584. dum spiro spero

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FEATURES This warm tribute was submitted by John Gunstone, who wishes to thank family members, Elspeth Wallace and Elizabeth Riches for contributions

Eleanor Eineen Gunstone (née Hill): 9 September 1926 – 7 July 2018

Eleanor was born in Liverpool, the only child of Sydney John Hill, and and Fife Council from 1986 till Florence Eleanor Hill (née Mylchreest – a name of Manx origin, that 2007. Following her retirement has been handed down as a middle name to one of her sons, and one as a Councillor she continued of her grandsons). Eleanor’s father and mother were a printer and a to be involved with the Liberal bookkeeper respectively. She grew up with her parents in Loreburn Democrats as Treasurer, then as Road, Liverpool – with her maternal grandparents, Ma and Pa, next door Honorary President. She made – and her paternal grandparents, Granny and Grandpa, not far away in sure she met the new prospective West Kirby. parliamentary candidate in June of She attended Mosspits Lane Infant School, Dovedale Road Junior this year.

School, and the newly-built Childwall Valley High School, where she was In parallel with work and head girl in her final year. In recent years Eleanor made copious notes family life, Eleanor gave an about growing up in Liverpool, including memories of holidays in the Isle immense amount of time of Man, engagement in the Girl Guide movement, the opening of the to Scottish Athletics, Cross Mersey Tunnel, air raids and evacuation from Liverpool during the war, Country, and Road Running. and attendance at both Sunday School and youth club at Elm Hall Drive Her involvement started when Methodist Church – to mention just a few.

Penny showed promise in After leaving school Eleanor went to Liverpool University to study middle distance and endurance maths and science, but was unable to complete her course due, in large running. Along with others, part, to the huge numbers of young men returning from the war being she was instrumental in prioritised for university places. She subsequently had a number of jobs, establishing an athletics club in Eleanor including working in a pharmaceuticals manufacturer’s laboratory, in a St Andrews in the early 1970s, privately-owned analytical laboratory, for British Airways at Speke (now which eventually became Fife AC. Over the following decades she John Lennon) Airport, and as a receptionist in a pen factory, where she was heavily involved in the governing bodies of both Women’s Track made birthday announcements and played ‘music while you work’ over and Field, Cross Country, and Road Running, holding posts including the loudspeakers.

Honorary Secretary and Honorary Treasurer; Eleanor had met Frank Gunstone while she was also a representative on the British playing tennis at the church youth club.

Amateur Athletic Board. When the Scottish In 2014 Eleanor was presented with They were married on 20 March 1948, then Athletic Federation was formed Eleanor was moved to Glasgow, where Frank had been a appointed Convenor of the Road Running and an award by UK Athletics recognising university lecturer for about 18 months. They Cross Country Commission, and she set up her 40 years of service to the sport had two sons, Douglas, and John, while living a trust to ensure that money went directly to in Glasgow, before moving to St Andrews in women’s endurance running. She continued 1954, where the family was completed in 1958 to officiate at events well into her eighties, with the birth of a daughter (Penny). Eleanor was a stay-at-home mum including at cross-country races in freezing conditions. In 2014 Eleanor until 1966, when she deployed her earlier scientific training, gaining was presented with an award by UK Athletics recognising her 40 years employment as a histologist in St Andrews University’s Gatty Marine of service to the sport. In the same year she was thrilled to be selected Laboratory. to take part in the Queen’s Baton Relay in the run up to the Glasgow Around this time she also took her first foray into politics, being Commonwealth Games. elected to St Andrews’ town council, where she was an avid, if Eleanor died on 7 July 2018 at Ninewells Hospital, Dundee, following unsuccessful campaigner for an indoor swimming pool. It was 1988 a short illness. She is survived by her husband of over 70 years, before the East Sands Leisure Centre was opened. Her interest in Professor Frank Gunstone, three children, ten grandchildren and eleven politics continued throughout her life. She went on to serve as a great grandchildren.

Liberal, then Liberal Democrat Councillor on Fife Regional Council (Photo courtesy John Gunstone)

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FEATURES Gabriele Keenaghan, 92 this November, tells her personal story on the occasion of

The 80th Anniversary of the Kindertransport 1938-1939 (September) closed and we were completely separated The events of “Kristallnacht” on 9-10 November long journey. They had prepared a veritable from our families. As the train drew out of the 1938 rang alarm bells in many countries. feast, set out on the platform. We were allowed station in Vienna I saw my grandmother’s last The Nazis went on the rampage in all major to leave the train and help ourselves to the wave and a thrown kiss. I cities occupied by Germany, vandalising food and drink, which was remember feeling lost and Jewish homes, businesses, and burning plentiful!! Many Dutch abandoned. synagogues. In response, the British Jewish people were able to speak The journey seemed Refugee Committee, together with many German and they tried hard endless, the train appeared other organisations, appealed to Members of to console us, especially to stop at almost every Parliament; a debate was held in the House of the younger children, who station as we travelled Commons. The government agreed to allow by this time showed a great through Austria and an unspecified number of children under the deal of distress. I was quite Germany. At each station age of 17 to enter the United Kingdom. A £50 sad when the train once Gestapo guards left the bond was required for each child to secure again continued its journey train, while others got their resettlement, and to enable them to rejoin through Holland. on, again and again our their parents when the crisis was over. The first On reaching the Hook labels were checked Kindertransport arrived at Harwich from Berlin of Holland we left the against their lists. Some on 2 December 1938, bringing 200 children train and embarked on a suitcases were opened from a Jewish orphanage, which had been ship, taking us across the and searched. I was lucky burned by the Nazis on Kristallnacht.

English Channel to our new mine escaped the search, It was April 1939, as I stood on the station country of residence and for my grandmother had platform, in Vienna, a little girl twelve-andsafety – England! added envelopes, writing a-half years old, whose grandmother had The ship docked in pad and pen, underneath heard about the Kindertransport, and after the Harwich and we were my clothing, which was disappearance of my Father, was determined led down the gangway not permitted!! The age to help me escape the same fate. The train to where there was a range of children was was due to leave Vienna at midnight, why Welcoming Committee between 3 and 17 years. midnight? Maybe the Nazis did not want people of representatives from The younger children were to know that they were responsible for children various organisations. I tired and frightened, as having to leave the country of their birth and was met by a lady from indeed we all were, but leave their families, to seek refuge in a foreign the Catholic Committee we tried to be brave and land – a land among strangers, who spoke a for Refugees. She looked comfort them to the best different language, but who were goodhearted, kind and friendly, but Gabriele Keenaghan, of our ability. Some of the willing to give them a home and safety from unfortunately I was unable as she is today younger children did have Nazi persecution. to communicate with older siblings able to look There were nearly as many officials, her, she could not speak after them. namely Gestapo in their black uniforms, on the German and I could not speak English, we We had travelled about twelve hours when station that night as there were children. Each had to resort to sign and body language. Once once again the train came to a halt and all child wore a label showing name and number, again we boarded a train to take us to the final the Gestapo left. The and we were constantly destination of Liverpool Street Station, London. checked against the Now we had to say good-bye to our travel It was April 1939, as I stood on the Dutch border had been reached, we were now lists they held; people companions, we were separated and sent to station platform, in Vienna, a little in Holland, still a free were warned that different places in the United Kingdom, where girl twelve-and-a-half years old, country not under Nazi there were to be NO we would hopefully find a home and safety. whose grandmother had heard occupation. The Dutch EMOTIONAL SCENES!!

Today you will find a beautiful memorial about the Kindertransport people were expecting We were allowed to outside Liverpool Street station, to remind us us; Kindertransport carry one suitcase that 10,000 refugee children arrived there, trains had crossed the border at this point containing our clothes, and one soft toy, that between December 1938 and September previously, from other European cities already order was to be strictly adhered to, as anything 1939, and were given a safe haven with the occupied by Germany. The Dutch knew that else would be taken from us. promise of a secure future. the Nazis did not provide any refreshments, we Midnight approached. We were ordered would certainly be hungry and thirsty after our to board the train, the doors and windows (Photo courtesy Gabriele Keenaghan)

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FEATURES George Phillips reminisces about his

Uncle Charles Some of our readers will remember the 1951 film, “The Desert Fox: Before he went off to war Charles had a penny cut in two. He The Story of Rommel’’, starring James Mason as Erwin Rommel, the kept one piece and, as I was told, the other part was left with me. The distinguished German Field Marshal of World War Two. Before the superstitious hope was that he would survive the war, when the two credits at the start of the film, there is a brief prologue featuring the pieces of the coin could be reunited. I never discussed this matter with attack in November 1941 by British commandos, mainly from the No 11 Charles. I was born in 1938, too young to worry about these things (Scottish) Unit, who were attempting to kidnap or assassinate Rommel that happened in 1941. But how my poor Auntie Cathy suffered for at his presumed headquarters near Beda Littoria, 18 miles inland from several weeks, knowing that Charles had gone missing, but not knowing Apollonia, in Libya. In fact, Rommel was elsewhere; he was not even in whether he was still alive. In the end there was great rejoicing in my Libya during the period of the raid. So the mission was doomed to fail. family when Auntie got the good news that Charles was alive, but My Uncle Charles Nicol was one of the commandos on this mission. interned in a POW camp.

I always assumed that he was about the same age as his wife, my In his youth Charles was brought up in Aberdeenshire. Initially he mother’s sister Cathy, who was born in 1905. Charles’ great nephew worked on a farm. One day a friend suggested that they should seek Mark Nicol (whom I have never met) states online to enlist in the army. In due course Charles that Charles died in 1985. Auntie Cathy died in was accepted, but, ironically, his friend was 1972; although I attended both her funeral and rejected. Charlie served in Palestine, and He was such a gentle man, that of Uncle Charles, I cannot remember the on the Khyber Pass. He then returned to year of his death.

Aberdeen and married Cathy. Their only child, not what I would have The 59 commandos on this mission my cousin Elizabeth, was born in 1940. When expected of a commando were transported to Libya in two submarines, the war started, former soldiers like Uncle HMS Talisman and HMS Torbay, sailing from Charles were among the first to be recruited, Alexandria. The raid to get Rommel was part of and soon he was training to be a commando. a mission, called Operation Flipper, involving three other objectives.

He was such a gentle man, not what I would have expected of a However, because of bad weather only 34 commandos were able to commando. When we were young my brother Bill and I said to him, “Did land; consequently one of the four objectives was cancelled. you ever kill anyone, Uncle Charles?’’ He just smiled and gave us no Operation Flipper was led by Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Laycock, reply. My father said he could never get Charles to speak of his army who was aided by Lieutenant-Colonel Geoffrey Keyes. After going experiences. ashore, two groups went off to carry out the planned missions. The I vaguely remember the family’s excitement when Charles returned one going after Rommel was led by Keyes, with 20 men. Lieutenantafter the war. As I was told later, he was skeletally thin. Despite all he Colonel Laycock and two others, including Charles Nicol, remained had done for his country, he couldn’t get a job. However, in time he got at the landing point to maintain possession of the beach, in readiness a labouring job, then got into the Post Office, where he later became a for the return of their two groups of colleagues. Alas, Geoffrey Keyes sorter. He worked for the Post Office until his retirement. Because of his was killed in the attack on Rommel’s presumed headquarters. He was ginger hair, he was known as “Ginger’’ Nicol, a term that was still used subsequently awarded the Victoria Cross. The British commandos were even when his hair turned white. He was very strong; one of his tricks supposed to be taken away by the submarines that brought them to was to lift a kitchen chair, picking it up by holding the bottom of one of its Libya. However, bad weather prevented this and they dispersed, hoping legs. If you try to do this, you will find that it is a very difficult thing to do. to avoid being apprehended.

After my mother died Auntie Cathy was like a second mother to As Uncle Charles told me, they managed to live off the land, me, although I was grown up. Indeed, Charles and Cathy were both evading capture for some time. A few actually did avoid being captured, an important part of my early years. Cathy came down from Aberdeen including Colonel Laycock, whom my uncle helped to break out from the to attend my PhD graduation ceremony at St Andrews. I took Charles’ beach. Most of the commandos, including Charles, were captured by goodness for granted all those years ago. Now I think gratefully of how Italian forces. As Charles said to me, “We managed to escape from the kind he was to me, someone who has undeservedly had a much easier Italians, but were later captured by the Germans. We knew we wouldn’t life than he had. get away from them!’’ Charles spent the rest of the war in Prisoner of War (POW) camps.

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CAR SALES

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FEATURES John Matthews demonstrates that

It’s not just women who multitask!

A true Scot, John Matthews is a rather self1987 he was awarded an OBE for “services to effacing man. It is only gradually that his commerce and the community in Brazil.” At the many, often simultaneous, contributions to the investiture, he finally had his chance to speak community become clear. to the Queen! Although proud to have received John was born in Edinburgh. Subsequently, this award, he insists that it reflects the efforts when living and working in England or of many of his colleagues, that its nickname, overseas, he described himself as a British “Other Buggers’ Efforts”, is absolutely accurate!

Scot, never English. “It’s just a question of ICI organised a great family lunch at the accuracy”, he would explain, “besides, I am company’s headquarters, which was visited by proud to be both British and Scottish”. the Chairman, Sir Denys Henderson, to offer Moving South with his family, John went his congratulations. “It was things like that, I to school in Birmingham, then on their return think, that made ICI something of a worldwide to Scotland, at Bell-Baxter in Cupar. He family.” started his university studies at University “I had a super time in Brazil, thoroughly College, Dundee, then part of the University of fascinating, well rewarded, with very, very St Andrews. A year later, as a member of the nice people.” The stark social divisions in the University Officers Training Corps (OTC) he country were all too obvious as John was was in the guard of honour when the Queen driven home through chaotic traffic, past one re-named the Dundee outpost, “Queen’s of the many favellas (shanty towns). These College in the University of St Andrews”. John’s days, he understands, the traffic is even memory of that day in 1955 was of damp more impossible, while the very rich travel by weather, with much time being spent “polishing helicopter to avoid the gridlock. my shoes, whitening After 10 years, both my spats and combing John and ICI felt that my sporran.” He did not he had been in Brazil speak to the Queen on long enough. He was I am grateful for all the that occasion! offered, and accepted, marvellous people I have He graduated with early retirement. After a honours in chemistry met and worked with all over few months in London, then, after a short and John and Daphne the world, but especially unsuccessful venture felt that they should into academic research, move nearer John’s here in St Andrews joined Imperial mother, who lived in Chemical Industries Crail; so they moved to (ICI) as a Commercial St Andrews.

Assistant. His degree, he believes, helped him 1993 saw the beginning of what was to “to work in a scientifically-based industry and become a busy “retirement”, when John joined understand a reasonable amount of what the the Fife Children’s Panel. The following year, real experts were saying. This might have been he was elected to the University Court (where more difficult had I been an Arts graduate.” In he was to serve for eleven years). He was also the early years he acquired a sound grounding invited to become a Director of the Association in many aspects of business, getting to grips for International Cancer Research (AICR), now with competition, while learning some of the Worldwide Cancer Research, serving for twenty skills of negotiation. At least, fixed currency years, thirteen as Chairman. rates made life a little easier, with one (old) A legacy of his time in the OTC and penny equal to one US cent for many years. subsequently in the Territorial Army, in 1997 John married Daphne in 1964 – “The John was elected Treasurer of the Tayforth best thing I ever did. I am a very lucky man!”

UOTC Regimental Association, a post from Work took them to live briefly in France, then which he resigned only last year. In the same for two years in the USA, and in 1979, with year, he became a Trustee of the May Wong their three sons, to Sao Paulo, where he had Smith Trust (a grant and award giving charity), been appointed President of ICI Brazil. In a role he still fulfills.

In succeeding years, John was at various times Finance Convener and Chairman of the St Andrews Preservation Trust, President of the After Many Days Club (the John Matthews oldest Alumnus Club of the University) and, as he still is, a Trustee of the Kate Kennedy Trust. “Foolishly”, he says, “I was also persuaded to become a member of the St Andrews Town Commission on Housing, a job with four marvellous colleagues, but which involved bloody hard work month after month!”

As if all this was not enough to keep him occupied, John was remarkably also a Governor of the British Federation of Women Graduates Charitable Foundation, and its Chairman for three years, roles in which Daphne had preceded him.

Finally, or almost finally, John has been active in the St Andrews-Loches Alliance for many years, its Chairman in recent years. As he says, “I was in the right place at the right time when the Community Council voted to twin with Loches. Many of my colleagues had worked so hard over many years – I deserve little or no credit for the eventual success. I am delighted to see the new twinning signs on all the roads entering St Andrews, and congratulate the Community Council on the splendid new “Royal Burgh” signs – they look fabulous.” John remains on the Alliance committee. He is also a member of the Vestry at Saint Andrew’s Church.

He comments, “I have no major regrets that I wish to admit; I am grateful for all the marvellous people I have met and worked with all over the world, but especially here in St Andrews.” He still enjoys travelling, likes cooking (sometimes successfully) and loves to read. The garden, however, is getting a bit challenging! “Maybe” he thinks, “it’s time to take things a bit easier.”

Unique John Matthews, what would we do without you?

(Photo courtesy John Matthews)

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FEATURES Ken Paterson,

‘Lest We Forget’ There are war memorials in villages, towns, Overseas Expeditionary Force. He became a Corporal in the 54th and cities. Some are small and simple with Battalion, Canadian Infantry. He was awarded the Military Medal for his only a few names, while others are large coolness and gallantry during an attack in the Somme sector of France and elaborate commemorating thousands on 18 November 1916. Corporal Christison was killed on 1st March who died during a particular conflict. Some 1917. He is buried in La Chaudière Military Cemetery, Vimy, France, and fourteen years ago I began to research the is also commemorated on the Canadian Virtual War Memorial. names on the war memorials that I have RAF Bomber Command lost 55,000 aircrew during the Second World Ken Paterson a connection with, beginning with the one War, all of whom were volunteers. John Horsburgh Wilson was born in the village in Leicestershire, where I on 12 September 1915 in Dairsie, the son of David and Mabel Wilson. live. Since then there have been a further ten, including that of Madras He joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, and became a Pilot College, where I was a pupil from 1961 to 1964.

Officer with 207 Squadron based at Spilsby in Lincolnshire. On the night The St Andrews War Memorial was unveiled on 23 September 1922 of 4 July 1944 he was the pilot of Lancaster LM125 (EM-G) that took off

by Field Marshall The Earl Haig. It commemorates the 184 men who died on an operation to attack the V-1 flying bomb storage depot at St Leu during the Great War, and the 102 men that lost their lives in the Second d’Esserent in France. The Lancaster crashed north-east of Chantilly in World War. the early hours of 5 July, the crew of seven killed. They are buried in Many of the men commemorated on the Creil Communal Cemetery, France. Pilot memorial have no known graves. Among Officer Horsburgh is also commemorated This year Remembrance Sunday them is John Murray Anderson, born on on the Scottish National War Memorial Roll falls on 11 November, one 28 December 1883 at 141 South Street, of Honour, and on the Madras College War St Andrews, the son of James and Jane Memorial 1939-1945. hundred years since the end of Anderson. He was serving as a Private in A number of casualties died while the First World War the 2nd Battalion, Seaforth Highlanders on prisoners of war. James Wann Douglas was 1st July 1916, the first day of the Battle of born on 19 September 1909 in Leuchars, the the Somme. The Seaforths left their front line trench at 9.00am and son of David and Margaret Douglas. He served as a Gunner in the 155th advanced in the face of heavy machine-gun fire directed from the village (The Lancashire Yeomanry) Field Regiment, Royal Artillery, and was of Beaumont Hamel. The fighting was intense throughout the day, but captured by the Japanese after the surrender of Singapore in February at 5.15pm, after reaching the trenches behind the German front line, 1942. He was among the men who arrived at Kinkaseki Prisoner-of-War the Seaforths were ordered to withdraw. They did so throughout the Camp, Taiwan, in November 1942, after a journey of some three weeks rest of the day, including the hours of darkness. It was not until 1.00am on the hell-ship England Maru. The prisoners were forced to work in a on 2 July that the last of the survivors returned to the British front line. copper mine, where conditions were as bad, if not worse, than those The Seaforth’s losses were very heavy, with 72 killed, 262 wounded, 54 experienced on the Death Railway in Burma and Thailand. In 1946 the missing. Private Anderson’s body was not found for burial; he is one of body of Gunner Douglas was brought back for burial in Sai Wan War the 72,000 men commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial in France. He Cemetery, Hong Kong, Grave VI M 3. He is also commemorated on the is also commemorated on the Scottish National War Memorial Roll of Scottish National War Memorial Roll of Honour.

Honour.

This year Remembrance Sunday falls on 11 November, one hundred A number of men from St Andrews emigrated to Canada, or Australia, years since the end of the First World War. I shall be attending the and returned during the First World War. John Brown Christison was born service at my village war memorial, and I know that many will mark the on 18 April 1878, at 35 South Street, St Andrews, the son of Hugh and occasion at the War Memorial in St Andrews.

Mary Christison. He went to Canada, where he worked as a shoemaker, and volunteered on 1st September 1915 to serve with the Canadian (Photo courtesy Ken Paterson)

Gordon Jarvie

Cairngorm Seedlings For Dr David Hall Once upon an autumn day, they were three tiny seedlings, carried down the track from Whitehaugh – Glen Clova Forest way.

Thinking ahead about their welfare I shouldered a wee poly bag of gritty soil.

Just as well. It was to be the last hill walk, followed by a final homeward drive.

The year? 2008, a real annus horribilis, eyesight, hindsight, balance sore impeded.

But those three seedlings were well seeded.

A simple pleasure now is noting sheer survival ten winters since that long-remembered day.

Those ‘bonsai’ plants of pine, larch, yew, all flourish still – albeit still too small to emit much smell of damp, snug, montane grit in mossy pots of clay.

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(Photo by Peter Adamson)

FEATURES Michael Buchanan

Discovering Albany For All Earlier I penned musings on the Dukedom of Albany (in Issue 88), in relation to speculation on a new title for Prince Harry.

Alas, he became the Duke of Sussex around the time of his marriage on 9 May 2018. In childhood, his wife may have dreamed of becoming a Princess, but she had to settle on being a Duchess.

After cursory searches of gazeteers and street atlases, I noted that the name ‘Albany’ pops up all over the place. There had been about a dozen Dukes of Albany over some 550 years up to 1919, when it was suspended.

Albany is the capital of New York State.

In northern Canada, the Albany River flows into James Bay, part of Hudson’s Bay. In Australia, south of Perth, Albany faces towards Antarctica.

In London, there is a score of Albany Streets, mostly in the outer suburbs.

St Andrews has Albany Place, Albany Park, and the Albany Hotel. Other Scottish towns with an Albany include Dundee, Dunfermline, Lanark, and Oban. In Edinburgh, St Giles

has an Albany Aisle. Related words are: Alba, a vacancy of 337 years, and decades of and Albania. genealogical enquiry, a new claim to the Recently, I acquired for a fiver an Buchanan title has recently been recognised, unused, chromium-plated Albany toilet-roll one John Michael Baillie-Hamilton holder, made in Manchester, England – Buchanan.” ‘nough said!

The future of the suspended Dukedom Luckily, ‘Albany’ will soon be rescued. of Albany may be determined in the fullness The rebuild of the University’s MUSA will of time. Could Princes George and Louis create a big, new space to become Rothesay and be called ‘Albany Gallery’.

Albany?

My Clan’s ego has been I would be pleased flattered recently by the to know of other Albanys, The rebuild of the redevelopment of Buchanan a chance for readers University’s MUSA Wharf, in Glasgow, and by to take part in a crowdwill create a big, new a new Buchanan Tower finding, rather than a in London’s Greenwich, crowd-funding. Let us space to be called named to recall a hook-up advance knowledge of the ‘Albany Gallery’ between Queen Victoria Albany ‘Bubble’ as a joint and President (1857enterprise. Shakespeare’s 1861) James Buchanan King Lear opens with of the USA, ex-American these words: “I thought Ambassador in London. “Trump Tower’ the King had more affected the Duke of is so yesterday! The Daily Telegraph of 9 Albany than Cornwall!” Amen to that!

September 2018 reported that: “The 15th chief of Clan Buchanan died in 1681. After

Out of Focus

9

FEATURES: REVIEWS

Christmas Book Recommendations I Am the Seed That Grew the Tree – A Nature Poem for Every Day of the Year: National Trust Illustrated by Fran Preston-Gannon Age: 7+

I Am the Seed That Grew the Tree: A Nature Poem For Every Day Of The Year, named after the first line of Judith Nicholls’ poem ‘Windsong’, is a lavishly illustrated collection of 366 nature poems – one for every day of the year, including leap years. Filled with familiar favourites and new discoveries, written by a wide variety of poets, including John Agard, William Blake, Emily Bronte, Charles Causley, Walter de la Mare, Emily Dickinson, Carol Ann Duffy, Eleanor Farjeon, Robert Frost, Thomas Hardy, Roger McGough, Christina Rossetti, William Shakespeare, John Updike, William Wordsworth and many more, this is the perfect book for children (and grown-ups!) to share at the beginning or the end of the day, or just to dip into.

Oi Duck-billed Platypus

By Kes Gray Age: 4+

A brilliantly funny, rhyming read-aloud picture book; jam-packed with animals and silliness!

From the bestselling, multi-award-winning creators of Oi Frog! Oi! Where are duckbilled platypuses meant to sit? Kookaburras, hippopotamuses, and all the other animals with impossible-to-rhyme-with names... Over to you Frog! The laughter never ends with Oi Frog, and Friends Praise for Oi Frog!

The Legend of Kevin: A Roly-Poly Flying Pony Adventure

By Philipp Reeve, Illustrated by Sarah McIntyre Age: 8+ Max is a young boy living in an ordinary tower block.

He longs for adventure in his life – then one day – DOOF! – a flying pony called Kevin crashes into his flat, blown in by a magical storm! The storm causes a huge flood and soon Max’s town is submerged by water. Luckily, Max has a flying pony to come to the rescue, and luckily for Kevin, he has a new best friend, with a constant supply of his favourite thing – biscuits.

Together Max and Kevin will embark on many wild adventures together . . .

This is the start of a hilarious new series brought to you by the creative and inspiring duo Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre, packed with amazing two-colour illustrations.

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The Magical Unicorn Society: Official Handbook

By Selwyn E. Phipps, Harry and Zanna Goldhawk (Papio Goldhawk, Helen Dardik, Jonny Leighton) Age: 8+ After centuries of mystery, the mythical Magical Unicorn Society has published its official handbook. These learned lovers of unicorns have created a treasure chest of unicorn lore – facts, fiction, the where, why and what of these elusive beasts. This is the ultimate gift for anyone who truly believes.

With breathtaking artwork from Helen Dardik and Harry and Zanna Goldhawk (Papio Press), and stunning design and production, this special book gallops through a history of these mythical creatures and looks at their magical future.

Snow in the Garden, A First Book of Christmas

By Shirley Hughes (Limited number of Signed copies will be available) A classic collection of festive poems, stories and activities by Kate Greenaway-winning author, Shirley Hughes. This beautiful Christmas anthology contains winter adventures, seasonal poems, festive recipes and easy-to-make craft activities as well as Shirley Hughes’ trademark warm and classic illustrations. Whether reading stories and poems to little ones or encouraging them to make beautiful crafts and Christmas treats, this book is the perfect introduction to this very special time of year.

Maps of the United Kingdom (We will have a limited number of Fife prints to go with this book)

By Rachel Dixon, Livi Gosling

Take a tour of the United Kingdom as you’ve never seen it before in this fully illustrated set of county maps. Travel through England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales and meet the incredible people born there, learn about its proud history, and discover ancient castles, modern feats of engineering and natural highlights while you revel in the nation’s curiosities, from the spectacular, to the quirky, to the downright strange!

A fabulous introduction to Shakespeare’s Sceptre Isle, for readers young and old.

FEATURES: REVIEWS Garry MacKenzie reviews

Out and About Poetry, Mainly from the East Neuk, Fife

By Gordon Jarvie Published by Harpercroft Books 2018, price, £6.95.

With its old stone harbours and cold winds of a cygnet rescued from Morrison’s carpark, off the North Sea, the East Neuk lends itself wrapped in a ‘grubby old towel’. to celebration in poetry. Gordon Jarvie has Birds aren’t the only two-legged East lived in Crail since 2004; his poems about Neukers in the book. There’s a hurdylocal landscapes, bird life, and well-kent gurdy man playing his barrel organ at faces have been published in numerous Anstruther Harbour, and a trio of Jackmagazines and newspapers, as well as in the-lads swaggering up Crail High Street, pamphlets printed under his own imprint, moustachioed, acting like gunslingers in Harpercroft Books. Out and About Poetry a spaghetti western, before turning into is a selection from these pamphlets, and Barnett’s bakery for scotch pies. Some of the it includes some of Gordon’s most recent most heartfelt poems collected here are those work. Anyone familiar with the East Neuk dedicated to friends and loved ones. There will smile in recognition at the familiar sights are touching poems in memory of departed and sounds recorded in these friends, with others dedicated poems. A sense of place is to fellow poets. It includes a Birds aren’t the only generated through the attention celebration of two magnificent two-legged East paid to the natural world – the bulls at Kinkell Farm, written Neukers in the book fulmars which roost on the for Glasgow’s poet laureate, cliffs near Crail harbour, the Jim Carruth, who is a farmer gannets trooping forth from the Bass Rock, as well as a poet. The collection ends on an the herons which congregate near Cambo. upbeat note, with a poem commemorating the Gordon’s encounters with birds aren’t always wedding of Gordon’s daughter. Another star of as ‘poetic’ as you might expect: the poem the book is Gordon’s spaniel, Brodie; a familiar ‘Harbour Scene, St Andrews’, tells the story long-eared face on the byways of Crail, he’s

the subject of ‘Walkin the Dug’, one of several Scots poems, and the memorably titled, ‘On the Wisdom of Acquiring a Dog at Seventy’: They love to interrupt you when you talk, and rain or shine they always need their walk.

Although many of the poems in Out and About Poetry are rooted in Gordon’s own life and experiences, this book is an ideal souvenir for anyone who loves St Andrews and the East Neuk. Life in the towns, villages, and farming communities along the Fife coast may be relatively quiet, but is nevertheless rich.

The ever-changing skies and seascapes, the havens for bird life, and the close-knit communities, make this a unique place to live.

Gordon Jarvie’s Out and About Poetry is a testament to the joys of living in a place where, as the book’s opening poem puts it, there is plenty of ‘room for a rhyme’.

11

FEATURES: STORY TIME Konstantin Wertelecki, (tongue in cheek!)

“What to Do with Mr Tottle” *note: all characters and institutions are entirely fictional During the few glorious months of St Andrews’ last summer, when the sun hovered unendingly in the sky and charabancs of tourists colonised the shores, hoteliers, restaurant owners, and landlords scurried to and fro, beaming with exhilaration.

For, it was a recurrently proven phenomenon that what kept guests pleased and comforted in St Andrews during the short summer, would keep hosts cosy and prosperous during the long winter.

‘Now,’ bellowed Mrs Strong, opening the annual St Andrews Tourist Board meeting, ‘Have we all a copy of the agenda?’

‘Well, I think it’s awfully silly to have one printed out’, squeaked Mr Swot, one of the local cheesemongers. ‘We all know what we’ve come down here for!’

‘Very well’, said Mrs Strong, dropping assertively into her seat, ‘Let us begin.’ Her stern eyes swept the room with a spotlight glare. For the past decade, the St Andrews Tourist Board was very happy to report that guest satisfaction ratings had been at their highest ever, that proprietors would only be too glad to provide guests with a most positive and memorable stay in St Andrews.

But, when Mr Tottle swept in, the rafters would quake.

‘It’s…it’s not that he’s necessarily a…a bad guest’, nervously said Miss Seekle, owner of MacCallum B&B. ‘It’s just that he’s…well…a bit excitable,’ she finished with a shy smile.

‘Excitable!’ roared Mr Barrach, proprietor of the Seagull Shores Hotel, ‘I have to tell him to stop frightening the guests every time he strides into the lobby!’

‘Oh, but he’s just trying to…to make himself at home’, Miss Seekle hurriedly replied. ‘He’s always very...quiet, once seated.’

Mr Barrach groaned, then snapped, ‘He makes himself too comfortable! It’s bad enough he parades in my lobby with his zebra-stripe dressing gown, fuchsia slippers, and mud mask. But, on top of that, he harangues the taxi drivers outside!’

‘Harangues, Mr Barrach?’, enquired Mrs Strong.

‘Yes!’, Mr Barrach replied grumpily, ‘He shouts at them to stop asking the guests personal questions like, ‘Where are you going today?’

‘And, he makes the most difficult demands!’, added Mrs Paterson, proprietress of the Pig Jig B&B. ‘During his last stay, he

12

was sad when it rained because he couldn’t He says, How could one ever attract tourists go swimming in the sea, then asked if I would with such a hard game? If they just dug it all be so kind as to, instead, fill his bath with up and made it mini-sized, it would be a lot seawater!’ more fun!’

‘And every time he comes to my place,’ Mrs Paterson shook her head whilst next interjected Mr Lewis, owner of the Fife Hills to her Mr Swot uttered a disapproving, ‘tsk, B&B, on South Street, ‘I have to carry my tsk, tsk’. son’s old cot from the basement all the way ‘Yes, yes,’ thundered Mrs Strong, up to the top floor, where Mr Tottle stays. resuming control of the meeting, ‘These are ‘Why does Mr Tottle require a cot?’ Mrs very unusual stories. However!’, she barked, Strong asked, puzzled. making Miss Seekle ‘For Houdini’. lightly jump in her ‘Houdini?’ Mrs Strong chair, ‘Has Mr Tottle what kept guests leaned forward in her ever done anything chair, ‘His dog?’ wrong?’ Those around pleased and comforted ‘His stuffed giraffe,’ her sat silent, with in St Andrews during the replied Mr Lewis, ‘He dumbfounded stares. takes it everywhere with ‘Well’, quietly short summer, would keep him.’ proposed Mrs hosts cosy and prosperous Patterson, ‘He’s just ‘You see…’, Miss Seekle shyly added, ‘Mr a bit…strange. I don’t during the long winter Tottle is…is ever so fond think there’s really a of animals. He’s always place for him here.’ trying to bring bunnies The others nodded back to his room.’ furtively in agreement. At this moment, Mrs ‘Bunnies, Miss Seekle?’, bellowed Mrs Strong stood up. ‘I have heard enough’. She Strong. then turned to Mr Barrach, seated next to ‘Yes,’ Miss Seekle replied, speaking her. ‘Mr Barrach, has Mr Tottle ever stolen faster than ever, ‘you see…as he likes his anything?’ room quite…quite warm, he wants to bring Mr Barrach looked at Mrs Strong, the bunnies inside as he has a fear that…that surprised. ‘Erm, no, never since I’ve known they’ll catch a cold if they stay out at night.’ him.’ ‘…catch a cold?’ quietly echoed Mrs ‘Mrs Patterson’, Mrs Strong called, ‘Has Strong.

Mr Tottle ever failed to pay his bill?’ Shifting ‘He doesn’t a-like the seagulls, though’, in her chair slightly, Mrs Patterson replied, blurted Mr Antionini, owner of the Italiana ‘Well, no – in fact, he’s always sure to leave a Café, ‘Every time those-a birds come by my generous gratuity.’ outside clienti, looking to-a rob their food, Mr ‘Mr Antionini’ Mrs Strong began next, Tottle chases them away with ‘Oudini.’

‘Has Mr Tottle ever slandered your business?’ ‘…chases them away?’ repeated Mrs ‘A-well..’, Mr Ationini began, combing Strong in disbelief, ‘But, why is he seagullback his hair with his fingers, ‘No. The first watching at your café to begin with? day I open, I have one cliente, Mr Tottle. The ‘Mr. Tottle? He and ‘Oudini have next day I open, I have one-a hundred clienti, cappuccinos every-a morning, replied Mr Mr Tottle’s amici.’

Antionini, ‘senza milk.’

After this, a pause filled the room. Then, ‘But, surely,’ began Mrs Strong, ‘Mr Tottle Mrs Strong quietly said, ‘There are many knows that a coffee without milk, isn’t—’ things that make St Andrews special: its ‘Ha!’, roared Mr Barrach, again, ‘You stunning landscapes and architecture, its should hear the funny things he says to me. deceptively rich culture, hosting events for He once pulled me over and asked, ‘Why poor students and flash film stars alike. is the Cathedral in such disrepair!? It’s a But, most importantly, it is friendly. We are disgrace to the town!’ friendly, to strangers, to friends, to those in ‘Oh!’, Miss Seekle timidly squeaked, search of a home, and to those who make never having heard the story before. here a home. Mr Tottle stays.’

‘The time before that’, continued, Mr Barrach, rolling his eyes, ‘He was complaining to me about the golf course!

TOWN & GOWN Megan Nicol, granddaughter of Pat Dodds, who owns the Harbour Café (see Issue 64).

Volunteering

I spent 12 months volunteering in Outward Bound a lot of time with Hong Kong (OBHK) through the Scottish charity, the boat house Project Trust –‘the first charity to specialise in helping to keep the organising overseas Gap Year placements for boats up to scratch school-leavers’ (from the Trust’s website). with maintenance, Megan Nicol Throughout my year I have had the pleasure of doing things such working up close and personal with the instructors, as sanding, varnishing, painting, or just general helping them run intensive outdoor activity cleaning of the boats, also other materials that courses, ranging from 1 to 18 days. I gradually got come with the waterfront team, like the pontoon the chance to have major inputs on what and how and dragon boat equipment. Finally, working we would run the courses, meaning I could choose with operations had several parts: in one way I what activities we did and when, so we could give worked with the Programmer Coordinator (PC) to the participants the maximum learning experience do drop-offs, clean up the base, any small jobs for the outcomes that they had said they wanted needed to be done on base. But I also worked to gain from our courses. These with the operations manager on outcomes included confidence, his new Rations Project. He is These outcomes self-reliance, leadership, and hoping to change the way we so on. do our rations, as-well as the included confidence, Other than working with the food we provide in the canteen, self-reliance, instructors, I had the opportunity so I spent time researching to work with several of the leadership, and so on every ingredient we had in other departments, including our provided food to give a Fundraising, Rations, Operations, and the Boat better selection for dietary needs, such as gluten House. I spent several weeks in each, learning free, vegetarian, etc and provide healthier, more the ins and outs of what they do. With fundraising nutritious food.

I worked mainly helping them prepare for events, Although I worked in most of the departments, such as the Multi Race, Adventure Race, and working with the instructors was by far my Corporate Challenge. This meant preparing props favourite, as I got to see first hand how these and moving kayaks from the store to the parking courses affected the participants and how much lot to be transported. With Rations I helped of a difference the instructors make in the short prepare the food and got it separated into baskets period they are there. I was most proud of my work ready for groups to pick up and take with them on during the disabled and educationally challenged courses, or be dropped off to said groups. I spent school that comes to OBHK every Tuesday for 8 weeks every year. However, this year they decided also to come for a 3-day course, when they camped and so on. I was able to be part of all of these opportunities. This course pushed me to adapt my ways of instructing in an attempt to engage all of the students, although they all had different ways of doing things and with different needs, such as ADHD, autism, and even Down Syndrome. It gave me the opportunity to see what was best for each and it varied very much.

I loved working with these students so much that I decided to go back again in October to join the training school at OBHK, leading to a job with them next year.

(Photos courtesy Megan Nicol)

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TOWN & GOWN Charles Stevens, third-year History student at St Andrews, chatted to Flora Selwyn about

The New Silk Road Project An enquiring mind, a strong sense of adventure, together with meticulous a lot of cultures and peoples, which planning and sharp focus, epitomise Charles Stevens, the founder of I guess has built up an intuition this unique Project, ensuring success. In 2016 Charles with a friend had towards how to act and how to cycled across Asia from Beijing to Teheran for charity. This experience react in challenging situations.” formed the impetus for the New Silk Road Project. With Tom Micklethwait Thus dealing with visas, passports, (Georgetown University), Rob Krawczyk, (just graduated from Oxford, marketing, publicity, etc held no fears. who joined in Georgia), and Will Chamberlain (in the same year as The friends set off from London Charles at St Andrews, but joined in Greece) the objective was, “…to in June this year, after meetings at Charles Stevens get away from armchair academia and the general perception that the the Chinese Embassy, completing Belt & Road Initiative is either this benign global project, or a quest for the project on 4th August in Yiwu in Eurasian domination. We wanted to escape such simplicity, achieve an Eastern China, having covered 10,000 miles through 15 countries! “We empirical understanding of some of the complexities and perspectives visited around 20 critical infrastructure projects, ports, railways, train of this initiative.” September 2018 was the 5th anniversary of the Belt & terminals, residential developments. These are some of the hubs which Road Initiative, “so it’s a very fitting time to be are bringing greater overland connectivity to looking at this.”

Eurasia.” Interviews were held with key people: “to truly understand this A full year of planning was undertaken. business leaders, academics, a couple of The Project was sponsored by Jeep, providing government institutes, strategists, members of initiative you have to assess it a brand new car; the Center for Strategic & think tanks. Did the team have any problems on a country-to-country basis” International Studies (CSIS); Silk Road Briefing; with languages? Charles found many English Magellan Capital; the University of St Andrews; speakers, though some had only a smattering the mapmaker ZeroSixZero , leaving only a few other expenses for the of the language. But Tom speaks Russian, Will speaks Persian, while team, money which was earned in summer jobs. Charles, as a child, China provided interpreters. People, Charles found, were curious about had travelled widely with his family; his mother is a professional sailor, them rather than suspicious. He believes they had no problems because, ”moving boats around”, while his father, a dermatologist, also loves “we followed all the rules.” The team was careful to dress formally in travelling. So Charles says, “I’ve been lucky to have been exposed to suits for all their meetings, and they brought small gifts from the UK out of gratitude. They were also lucky, in that their car broke down only once at Trabzon, on the Black Sea coast – Jeep sent out engineers to fix it within the hour! On one other occasion a drunk driver ran into the back of their car in Almaty, Kazakhstan. His car was crumpled, but the jeep was unscathed!

Here, in the next four to six weeks, Charles will be busy editing the dozens of interviews they undertook, writing and publishing reports, maybe giving the odd lecture, “I’ve always liked being very busy.” He also plans to go to the United States in January to interview more people, “to build the most geographically comprehensive and authoritative interview series on this topic to date.” After that, he wants to concentrate on his formal studies to earn a good degree.

What conclusions has Charles drawn from this research project?

The Belt & Road Initiative is taking place a long way away, but Charles is certain that such global developments will potentially affect Britain, “or have implications for the UK in the future.” For instance, China is investing in many key ports, such as Piraeus in Greece, through which Chinese goods will be transported to a significant portion of Europe.

Infrastructure investments underpin the Initiative, along with trade, educational partnerships, policy, and financial integration. Apart from financing road building and other infrastructure using local and Chinese workmen, China is also increasing educational partnerships across Eurasia. Charles and his team found enthusiasm for the Initiative amongst the business community, but growing suspicion and resentment Jeep Wrangler Rubicon handover

Road into Anaklia

14

Makat-Aktobe Road

TOWN & GOWN

Beijing to Tehran Charity Cycle – Pamir Mountains from other interest groups. He recalls that Nepal, Myanmar, and Pakistan last year cancelled $20 billion of hydroelectric projects, “to truly understand this initiative you have to assess it on a country-to-country basis.” Also questioned in some places has been the quality of Chinese construction work; Charles cites a highway project in Poland that was, “a disaster.” The question arises, is the Initiative all about finance, or is it all to do with geo-politics, Chinese foreign policy? Taken together with China’s activities in the South China Sea it is open to wonder about China’s global strategy, if indeed there is one. Charles believes, “that China’s Belt and Road Initiative is a regional project, but one with global implications for the values, institutions and beliefs currently leading the international system.” Charles has found that China, by lending money to countries ignored by the EU, such as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, is building closer relationships across Asia.

On a personal note, Charles states, “I always try to be open minded and sensitive to the people, the places, and the environment in general…I think this attitude has made me aware of some of the astonishing complexity in the world.”

Charles and his team have shed a significant light upon what is going on in Asia. They deserve all our thanks, as well as those of our government. Such remarkable enterprise by students of our University is to be cherished and given full honour.

(Photos courtesy the New Silk Road Project)

With the British Ambassador to Krygyzstan

Old Silk Road Hassua

Tracking Map

15

TOWN & GOWN

John Cameron’s Column A century ago, as St Andrews University prepared to re-open after the summer vacation, the Great War was finally drawing to a close.

More than half of its undergraduates had enlisted in the military in the first months of the conflict, while student life had been transformed with young women replacing male students, and voluntary war work replacing organized sport.

Declining revenue from student fees, plus cuts in state support, meant the University had to stop acquiring new library books and constructing new buildings. The expense and shortages of coal made it impossible to heat the existing buildings to their pre-war warmth.

The wartime faculty was also greyer, older; heads of departments were less likely than younger teaching staff to serve in the military. The pre-war staffing situation was reversed, with professors now outnumbering lecturers.

Yet while the war imposed financial constraints and personnel shortages it also created new University departments, courses of study and areas of research. There’s also

little doubt that the general air of seriousness over 50 per cent. They mobilized early in in wartime Scotland increased the intensity of the war, then saw the longest and bloodiest scientific research and student commitment periods of fighting. to study.

Most became junior officers, leading In accordance with Britain’s military from the front, putting themselves in danger alliances, the close, centuries-old relationship in hope of achieving the nation’s goals. The between St Andrews and the great German mortality rate for St Andrews students was universities was broken, while around 20 per cent, a figure new ones were forged with War was cast as that amply justified references America. German ties were to them in the years after the a great manly eventually restored, but were war as “the lost generation”. never the same. Graduates Sadly, just as everyone adventure who would have routinely hoped things were getting back progressed to Tübingen or Heidelberg now to normal, fate contrived one last devastating headed across the Atlantic, a situation which blow. Returning soldiers brought home the continues to this day. pandemic known as Spanish flu.

As with other European middle-class The first wave was comparatively mild, elites, St Andrews’ students were among but a second wave in late summer recorded the most spirited of Britain’s patriots, far higher fatality rates. Schools, cinemas, having gleaned romantic ideas about war theatres, any public buildings where large from reading works like the Iliad during a numbers might congregate were closed traditional, classical education. War was down, while church attendances fell as cast as a great manly adventure, the very people tried to avoid infection. opposite of bourgeois complacency and In fact it was well into Michaelmas term materialism so many despised. before St Andrews University was fully Such longing for adventure explains why open for business, the town filling up with volunteer rates among our students were boisterous veterans who hadn’t expected to so high – also the fact that student mortality survive and were determined to make up for rates exceeded those of regular recruits by lost time.

Chinese & Cantonese Restaurant Sit in or takeaway Opening Times: Monday and Wednesday – Saturday 12.00pm – 2.30pm & 4.30pm – 11.00pm Sunday 4.30pm – late Tuesday – Closed

11-13 Crails Lane St Andrews, Fife Tel: 01334 467822

16

TOWN, GOWN, AND HOME Professor Sally Mapstone, Principal of the University of St Andrews,

Town, gown, and home: the University of St Andrews and its Strategy for 2018-23 The 2018 Annual Lecture to the St Andrews Preservation Trust Good evening ladies and gentlemen and thank you for inviting me to give the Annual Lecture of the St Andrews Preservation Trust. It is a privilege to do so, and I would like to express my thanks to your chair, Sandy Bremner, and colleagues for inviting me, also to Sandy in particular for liaising so helpfully with my office.

I will speak for about 40 minutes this evening before we open up for questions; I am glad to have an opportunity to introduce this audience in particular to the new University of St Andrews Strategy, which is very close to completion. This Strategic Plan will address the direction the University will take over the coming five years. This evening I am going to talk about how it will support and shape our relations with the town of St Andrews, and region of Fife in a constructive, sustainable manner. I hope you will see this evening that while the Strategy very much reflects the course I am setting for the University I also am very conscious of the important example set by the University’s former Principal and Honorary President of the St Andrews Preservation Trust, Sir James Irvine, our Principal from 1921 to 1952.

I have been Principal of the University for just over two years. I spent the majority of my academic career before that based in Oxford, after an earlier career as a publisher based in London. My academic speciality is Older Scots literature, so it gives me a particular pleasure that many of the authors I have spent years working on and writing about, such as William Dunbar and Gavin Douglas, were graduates of the University of St Andrews. To be connected to them historically, as I am now as Principal, is deeply rewarding. Of course my career at Oxford also involved an extensive period in the senior leadership team there, and that also prepared me for the job I have now.

Before I arrived in 2016 I had already taken the view that the University needed a new strategy. I spent my first year understanding the University and the town better, reshaping my senior team, scoping the Strategy. We have spent my second year consulting on the Strategy, composing it. We have produced, we believe, a plan that is both innovative and sensitive to the distinctive nature of this University.

We will be launching the Strategy at the end of this month (October) following the next meeting of our University Court. I am giving you a good preview of it here, but in keeping with our role as a global university with a strategy that is both intensely local and intensely global, I will also be launching and profiling the Strategy within days of its signing off in New York, at a meeting of our US foundation, then in Beijing, where I will be hosted by the UK ambassador, Dame Barbara Woodward, who is an alumna of the University.

The Strategy will set our direction, at a high level, until the end of 2023, but of course it looks beyond that too. Universities of our longevity have always to plan for a considerable future.

Home I am going to start by referencing the latter part of my lecture’s title right at its start. St Andrews is my home. This is where I stay, when I am not travelling, where I live with my husband Martin. Our house is University House, here on the Scores, which, with only a brief period of intermission, has been the University Principal’s residence since the 1890s. The way we occupy the House is different from some of my illustrious predecessors, and quite rightly so. We have a small flat at the top of the House, while the remainder of the House is used for public receptions, meetings, dinners, and as accommodation for the University’s many guests. One wing of the House is self-contained, providing temporary accommodation for visiting scholars and other guests. Having spent the previous forty odd years in an itinerant lifestyle, which involved regular periods spent living in my Oxford colleges, I am a completely institutionalised person. Martin has had more to get used to, by way of not going downstairs to get the paper in a state of undress, and getting used to encountering people he has never seen before in the House at unexpected times of the day and night.

St Andrews was familiar to both of us before I came here as Principal.

My research, or lecturing engagements, have been bringing me here since about 1982. Martin is a keen golfer and had often visited in that capacity. We had also developed something of a habit of spending Christmases in St Andrews over the past 15 years. So I have seen the town over a 35-year period before I arrived here. But of course, living permanently in a place is very different.

So St Andrews is our home. We still have a house outside Oxford, but we are renting that out as St Andrews is absolutely our base.

We appreciate also that this is home to many other people, and we have much enjoyed getting to know many of the residents of the town, including many not immediately connected to the University. I appreciate, too, that everybody who lives in this small, special place has views on its character and its future, and I always value hearing those views. Tonight is in part an opportunity to do that. But it is also a chance to share my way of seeing with you.

Gown As Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University, I am unambiguously gown; I have the exceptional honour of leading Scotland’s first university towards its exciting future. Today we are responsible for educating about 9,000 students, and I am incredibly proud of our student body. Amongst them are the best and brightest to be found not just in Scotland, but in the world, and we have an average of ten applicants for each place. We are also a community of over 2,700 staff, with just over 200 professors.

We are, quite rightly, a small university. The University of Manchester is the UK’s largest university with a little over 40,000 students, though Edinburgh is not far behind now with a little over 39,000 students. As I will go on to illustrate, this University, though small, is about the right size for the wonderful town we inhabit, our students and our research. Our intention is to move towards a total population of 10,000 students over the next five to ten years, while there are some nuances and caveats around that which I will return to later.

Today, and as we make plain in our new strategy, the University of St Andrew stands for research-led teaching and enquiry, which is high quality, distinctive, collegial. Our fundamental goals are to attract and nurture the best staff and students from around the world, providing them with an environment in which they can produce their best work for the wider benefit of society.

The performance of St Andrews is recognised as outstanding, both nationally and internationally. In national league tables, The Guardian University Guide 2019 ranks us top in Scotland and third overall in the UK, after only Oxford and Cambridge; The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2019 ranks us the same; The Complete University Guide 2019 also places us top in Scotland (and 5th in the UK).

On the global stage, in the influential QS World rankings, the University continues to rank in the top 100 in the world; the Times Higher Education World University Ranking, that evaluates more than 1,250 universities, places us in the global 200. We are the highest ranked university in our size category (under 10,000 students) in the UK. And also, according to the Times Higher Education, even though we are small, we are amongst the 25 Most International Universities in the World.

The evaluation we currently take much pleasure in is that made of us by our own students. The National Student Survey (NSS), a comprehensive analysis of the views of the UK’s student community on the university where they received their education, puts St Andrews first in the UK. This is the ninth time since the survey was launched in 2005 that this University has been at the very top of this conspectus of the UK’s student community.

Our financial performance is also strong, though circumstances are challenging. Last year the University had an income of just over £250 million, up 9.1% on the previous academic year. Grants received from the Scottish Government via the Scottish Funding Council

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TOWN, GOWN, AND HOME represented only 15.2 per cent of our total income. During the time I have been here our Scottish Government funding has fallen by several per cent and continues to decline. Real terms static funding body grant settlements are not keeping track with cost inflation pressures, putting reliance on the strength of the University to generate income from other sources. This is all the more important because the University of St Andrews is a university with a long history, but a very small endowment, currently c. £70 million, less than the endowment of most single Oxbridge colleges for example. As a result we run a very tight operating surplus, and we have very little spare long-term cash.

To survive and to flourish, to continue to compete as a major global institution we have to be creative, and entrepreneurial, where it makes sense to be so, where it speaks to our nature and our values.

Tuition fee income from overseas and outwith Scotland undergraduates and postgraduates is an important aspect of that, currently constituting just over £100 million of our income (remember we do not get tuition fee income from Scottish undergraduates or currently EU undergraduates). So is research. We have had an incredibly successful year for attracting competitive research funding. Research awards stand at £50 million for 2017-18, an increase of almost 40% on the previous year. This is really strong progress for research funding in the current funding climate.

This success enables us to fundraise, and a lot of my time is necessarily spent on this activity. This summer we concluded the University’s 600th anniversary campaign in which we had set ourselves the target of raising £100 million, which we have achieved. £27 million of that has gone into scholarships for students. But as soon as one campaign closes, another has quietly to start. We will not achieve what we have planned for our staff, students, and estate, without very significant further fundraising. Our new Strategy will also help us with that.

Our success is great for the University. It is also great for the town and the region. To illustrate this we regularly commission research from Biggar Economics to calibrate the Gross Value Added figures for what the University contributes to the local and national economy.

Gross Value Added, or GVA, is a measure of the monetary contribution the University adds to the economy through our direct operations and the wider consequences of these. For the year 2016-17 when our income was £230 million, the University added a little over £250 million, with over 4,200 jobs in St Andrews; in Fife this number reaches £279.6 million and almost 5,000 jobs; in Scotland we add £410 million, with almost 7,000 jobs.

For every £1 of public money received from the Scottish Funding Council, the University was able to leverage almost another £5 from other sources, having an impact on the economy overall of £12.

For every one person employed directly by the University, almost 3 further Scottish jobs were supported. The figures are going in the right direction. The economic impact of the University on the Scottish economy has been up by over £50 million between 2014/15 and 2016/17, an increase of 12%.

All of us can be proud of the economic engine the University provides. To sustain, and I hope enhance this engine, the University will need to keep evolving. I hope to convey to you that our plans for this evolution are responsible and well anchored. The fact that we are simply so important to the economic prosperity of this town and our region does not give us, in my strong view, any sense of entitlement. We are part of a community, part of the town’s history. But we do want that community to recognise and appreciate the significance of what we contribute and what is involved in crafting that contribution.

Town Turning now to the town, again from a personal perspective, this is a place that I experience as someone who lives here. Martin and I shop in St Andrews, on occasion we try to find Saturday night reservations in its restaurants! We enjoy going to events at the Byre, or the Younger Hall.

We do so in the knowledge that the University now operates the Byre Theatre, and that when our new Laidlaw Music Centre is completed next year, we will have a small drama and music quarter in the centre of the town, which will contribute a great deal to the cultural enrichment of residents. In 2017-18 there were over 48,000 ticketed attendances at the Byre and other University locations, including our splendid Museum (currently closed while we build an extension to it) where, of course, we also offer cafés, bars, and exhibitions. I do have to point out that the Byre is not a money-making enterprise which the University has to keep its eye on, but we appreciate, and hope you appreciate, the significant contribution it makes to the life of the town. The same can be said of the Sports Centre, which I know many of you benefit from, which I live in hope of visiting regularly! Martin is a member of the New Club,

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while I have an extraordinary membership of the R&A, also Honorary Membership of the St Rule Club. We also walk the beautiful beaches together, and are distressed when the debris of parties, though may I say not always student parties, litters them.

How the University relates to the town that has been its home for so long is a fundamental aspect of the University’s new Strategy; it will feature prominently in the first section of that Strategy.

New Strategy In overview, the Strategy is built on four inter-connected themes: World-leading St Andrews, Diverse St Andrews, Global St Andrews, and Entrepreneurial St Andrews. All of these are underpinned by a University Social Responsibility statement that is essential to the delivery of the Strategy.

Social Responsibility The Social Responsibility statement comes very early in the Strategy, but it should be seen as enclosing the rest of the Strategy itself, and, as I have indicated, this connects essentially to our relationship to the town of St Andrews. Social responsibility is a deep-woven thread already running through much of what we do, but this is the first time in six centuries that the University will visibly place social responsibility in its plans. That is why we have made the choice to place it at the front of our Strategy, not as a bolt-on at the end. To us, social responsibility means acting ethically, transparently, sustainably, in a spirit of mutual cooperation and respect across all the different communities of which we are part. Local community relations are given specific emphasis in this part of the Strategy, as we recognise that our day-to-day activities and plans for the future have a profound impact on our neighbours.

Specifically, we want to ensure all project boards, planning discussions, and activities are ‘community-aware’. I don’t think this is quite the phrase Principal Irvine would have used, but it is a sentiment he championed in relations with the town, it was he who formed the first ‘Citizens’ Advisory Council on the Planning and Development of St Andrews’, of which he was also Chairman. We want to communicate promptly and transparently with our stakeholders and partners, listen to ideas, be willing to adapt where there is evidence that we can improve our proposals and practices. We also commit to developing our cultural assets and activities in ways that engage our community, while also supporting the core mission of the University. We will consume ‘more of our own smoke’ – ensuring wherever possible that the provision of services to students and staff has a wider positive impact on the broader population of St Andrews, especially the provision of new student accommodation to lessen the demand on private housing in St Andrews and North-East Fife.

This part of the Strategy also sets out that we expect that our staff and students will at all times observe a culture of tolerance, respect, and courtesy towards each other and the people of this town. We encourage in our students and staff a culture of civic engagement and volunteering. Let me add here that we have much to build on.

Last year our students’ charities campaign raised £87,000, with Save the Children, the Scottish Refugee Council, and Families First all benefitting from the proceeds. We were nominated for the National Student Fundraising Group of the Year for 2018. Of the 160+ student societies affiliated with our Students’ Association most partake in fundraising events or activities throughout the year. We also have over 600 student volunteers volunteering locally and internationally.

I am particularly impressed by the role our students, alongside our researchers, play in supporting Dementia Friendly St Andrews; together as Town and Gown we are becoming a case study for communitybased innovation in this vital area.

With regard to the local environment, we have committed in the Strategy vigorously to pursue a programme of carbon reduction projects across our University estate, and to embed a culture of deepseated institutional commitment to sustainable practice and policy. I highlight this part of the plan to draw attention to the spirit in which the Strategy as a whole is being undertaken. This town is integral to our appeal to staff and students, and to their success while here. I hope you likewise consider us, the University, integral to the success of St Andrews overall?

I want also to take a few minutes to introduce you briefly to the other four pillars of the Strategy, World-leading St Andrews, Diverse St Andrews, Global St Andrews, Entrepreneurial St Andrews.

World Leading St Andrews World Leading St Andrews places emphasis on quality and excellence, which are hallmarks of our University. We cannot be complacent, however; our global reputation is dependent on our commitment to

TOWN, GOWN, AND HOME carry our education and research at the highest levels of internationally recognised excellence.

Beyond the many things we already achieve in our core academic areas, looking forward, our academic community has identified a capacity and willingness to engage in five priority areas for collaborative working across disciplines. These areas will enable us to create platforms for our research strengths in a changing world; they are Peace, Conflict, and Security; Cultural Understanding; Materials for the Modern World; Health, Infectious Disease and Wellbeing; and Sustainability.

Despite, and perhaps because of, our relatively small size, we have the scale to make significant contributions, not only to established and emerging research fields, but to exciting national priorities in areas such as the blue economy, advanced materials, photonics, health, the digital economy, and policy development.

Again, our small size underpins excellence in education. We will retain an approach based on small-group, high-quality teaching, with partnership and dialogue between teachers and students. It makes St Andrews unique, enabling us to attract people of exceptional ability, and encourages every individual to make their mark by being the best they can.

Diverse St Andrews Also essential to our excellence is the diversity of people, both students and staff, we are able to attract to the University. The Diverse St Andrews theme in the Strategy sets out a clear commitment and agenda for enhancing our diversity further. As a truly international and world-class university, our ambition is to be a beacon of inclusivity.

We will achieve this through an approach that empowers our whole community – through a combination of deliberate steps sponsored by the University’s leadership and a determined shift in culture that makes sure everyone is embraced, from students, academic and professional staff, to our alumni. Inclusivity will inform and affect policy and practice across the place. We do this because it is right, but also because diverse organisations work smarter, encourage innovation, and maximise the creativity that is fundamental to academic excellence.

As you may know, the University is actively engaged in national inclusion agendas, including Scottish government initiatives on widening access. I myself chair the Universities Scotland committee on widening access across the HE sector. Widening access means making sure that people from across the social and economic spectrums in Scotland have the support, and self-confidence, to go on to higher education, where that is right for them, and that the Scottish higher education sector as a whole is open to and supportive of a new wave of skilled, ambitious students. The Scottish government sets targets for how many student places should be filled by students from adverse backgrounds at each university. St Andrews is already ahead of those targets, and we intend to be more ambitious. We believe that equality and excellence are entirely compatible, so we aim to attract those who can flourish at St Andrews from Scotland and around the world regardless of their background.

From the start of my principalship at St Andrews, I’ve taken an active approach to gender, in particular to ensuring that more women come through in leadership positions across the University. This work will continue. We will also engage with parents, carers, and part-time staff to ensure that their career paths are treated with fairness and flexibility. We acknowledge as an institution that a priority for us in the next phase must be greater racial and ethnic diversity. We will seek to address the experience of people from black and ethnic minority communities at all levels of the University, in order to make meaningful interventions in respect of recruitment, representation, and curriculum reform.

I am particularly glad that the University’s support of LGBTQ+ is gaining recognition. We are the only Scottish university to have achieved LGBT charter recognition, and have been nominated in the Public Sector Equality category for this year’s Pink News awards.

Pink News is the main site for news for the LGBTQ+ community.

Ten members of the University, including me, will attend the awards ceremony in London next week – the dress code is ‘fabulous formal’. I firmly believe that St Andrews is a place where people should be able to fulfil their potential to the maximum, encouraged and supported by the institution, whatever they do and whoever they are.

Global St Andrews The third pillar of the new University Strategy is Global St Andrews. As I’ve already noted, St Andrews, while a deeply Scottish university, has a uniquely global orientation and today is amongst the most international universities in the world. Our heritage is rooted in European traditions,

while many of our early Masters taught and studied in universities on the continent, John Knox and James Gregory amongst them. Today, our demographic profile is highly distinctive with over 45% of our students and staff coming from outside the UK. We are proud of our international outlook, determined to maintain and extend this element of our identity.

Unlike some universities, we have no plans to open a campus abroad in the Middle East or Asia. What we plan instead is to make better and more strategic use of the resources and relationships we already have. In line with our academic priorities, the University plans to develop further high-quality and innovative short programmes and summer schools in St Andrews. These programmes will draw on academic expertise from across the University, which will enable us to strengthen our international links. We will also explore how innovative technologies and on-line learning platforms can enhance activities.

While some short courses will have an important role to play in student recruitment, others, reflecting the changing times in which we live, will address the needs of established professionals, helping them to update and refresh their skills.

Out of term time today a wide range of organisations make use of our student Halls of Residence; gradually, in the future it will be students on our own summer, or professional, courses who will use this accommodation. The learning community of the town will become more constant in numbers, while more diverse in profile, throughout the year.

Entrepreneurial St Andrews Universities used to be described, quite erroneously in my opinion, as isolated from the ‘real world’. Scholars from St Andrews have always been part of the real world, whether that was the world of the Church and Court, or as is more common today, business and policy.

The exceptional quality of the research carried out at the University means that we see further opportunities for our work to have impact.

The Entrepreneurial St Andrews theme in the Strategy will drive a culture shift to strengthen our engagement with industry, business and government by increasing our capacity for innovation and value creation.

At the Eden Campus at Guardbridge we have an outstanding opportunity to develop a new model and facility to bring together expertise, both internal and external, in an environment for experimentation, with the aim of promoting the development of new approaches and ideas. On this brownfield site we are creating a resource of exceptional long-term value to the Tay Cities region that will build the foundations for a sustainable economic future in this area, as well as, as you know, providing a biomass plant that delivers a sustainable source of energy.

Across the University, where it is right, we want investors, industry, and policy makers to work alongside researchers and students to deliver the kind of innovative thinking required to assemble disruptive ideas to overcome major challenges. Opportunities will be created for these ideas to be realised, not only with existing private and public partners, but through the formation of new companies; I want more of our students to develop skills in entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurial St Andrews will share the approach catalysed at Eden Campus to embed an innovative model of engagement across the University. Eden is a deep, long-sighted investment in the region, exactly the type of investment that a 600-year old institution can make and steward for future generations.

Estates update As you will have noted, vital to delivering the new Strategy are our plans for the estate of the University, and I know our estate is of interest to this audience; I believe the Quaestor, Derek Watson spoke to you not so long ago about our plans. As you know, the University essentially has four main areas for its estate in and outwith St Andrews: the Town Centre, where most of our Arts and Social Science Schools are housed; the North Haugh where most (but not all) of our Science Schools are housed; the East Sands, where the Scottish Oceans Institute is located; the Eden Campus at Guardbridge, which currently houses the biomass plant that is heating much of the North Haugh, where, as I have just mentioned, we intend to bring both business and academic activity together, onto which we will be moving several hundred of our professional services staff from 2019.

As a University, we value our past, but we never forget that to sustain excellence we must invest and evolve – in our teaching facilities, in our research laboratories and libraries, in the sports and leisure facilities that allow students to test themselves in a non-academic arena. Principal Irvine’s practice is again useful here. Irvine supported the exceptional heritage of this town, writing that St Andrews ‘belonged not only to us, but to the nation’. He fundraised for and instructed on

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TOWN, GOWN, AND HOME the renovations of Louden’s Close, as well as the Collegiate Church of St Salvator. During his principalship Irvine also led the construction of a series of important additions to St Andrews, including the Younger Hall.

Once the new Laidlaw Music Centre that I have mentioned is built, the Younger Hall, will be renovated. The Younger Hall will continue to be shared with the local community, as was agreed by Principal Irvine with the Younger family at the time of its erection, and we all hope that you will enjoy its refreshed facilities every bit as much as we shall.

In 2019 new state-of-the-art facilities for the Scottish Oceans Institute, the University’s world-leading multidisciplinary marine research and teaching centre, will open. This building will also have a facility for public engagement enabling local people, school children, and tourists to learn more about the North Sea. We have recently completed a £14 million extension of our sports centre, creating a new eight-court sports arena, a fitness centre, four indoor tennis courts, a technical climbing wall, a strength and conditioning suite. We share the use of this facility with the community.

Most significantly of all, during this last academic year the University reached an agreement with Madras College, this town’s state secondary school, to repurpose and develop its central South Street home, in return providing the school with the site in St Andrews West. When relocated to its Langlands site, Madras College School will be able to offer local children an exceptional learning experience with modern classrooms and comfortable, exciting spaces for learning and sport.

The eight-acre central St Andrews site taken on by the University will create a once-in-a-generation opportunity. We plan to preserve the attractive listed buildings that front on South Street, and behind these develop complementary structures that create a new hub for learning and research, which will encourage our scholars to cross traditional disciplinary boundaries. We envisage moving three of our major Social Science schools to that location.

Student Accommodation and the HMO debate A topic in open debate at the moment is the perceived pressure that students are placing on housing in the town, and how increasing student numbers may change the character of St Andrews. Some points must be made clear. First, as I have said, in our Strategy we have only modest plans to increase student numbers and will move gradually towards 10,000 students over the next five years. The reason why we will not exceed this number is not lack of demand; as I told you in my introduction we have many applicants for each place so could expand if we so wished. Nor does it reflect an apprehension about how more students might fit in this town, though we do share concerns.

Put simply, the University of St Andrews succeeds today because it is a small university in a small town. Our size allows us to offer something unique to our students, which they value, and to attract researchers of exceptional quality here from around the world. It is not in our own intellectual, or business interest, to grow further than we are already committed. I want this to be common knowledge. The number of 10,000 has not been plucked out of thin air. It has been arrived at via a process of detailed modelling. We know that it is the number we need to achieve critical mass in a fiercely competitive international market for the best students and staff, but it is also a number which allows us to retain the essence of what we are, and where we are. Or, as Carlsberg might put it, probably the best small university in the best small town in the world.

Secondly, the University is a responsible civic partner that has long acted to ensure that the students who come to St Andrews do not change the character of the town beyond what is reasonable and positive for us all. Almost half of current students are accommodated in University Halls of Residence, so not in private rentals, or Houses of Multiple Occupation (HMOs). The proportion of our students that the University takes responsibility for housing is the highest for any university in the UK by a considerable margin. We are working to maintain this proportion, even as student numbers gradually increase.

This year we open two new Halls of Residence, Powell Hall and Whitehorn Hall, that between them provide almost 400 beds for students. When the Albany residence is renovated, the total number of new and renovated beds added to St Andrews by the University will be over a thousand.

It should be noted that the average cost of providing each new student bed is around £80,000, so this work represents an exceptional investment by the University and its partners in the long-term capacity of the town. A thousand new beds is about an £80 million investment in St Andrews, this region and Scotland; it is our students who between them enable this, bringing needed jobs and income to North East Fife.

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Thirdly, unlike many other universities, we are actively engaged with local partners to manage the supply and use of housing in St Andrews and the wider region. As said, by 2025 we plan to provide almost 5,000 units of student accommodation. We are also developing affordable housing offers for our staff that will take some out of the private market (the Grange) and are supporting plans for more housing in St Andrews, 300 units of which will be affordable housing (St Andrews West).

In the light of our commitment to ensuring that our students are securely and affordably housed and that the town’s growth is wellmanaged, the University is deeply disappointed that a zero growth policy on HMOs has been put forward by the Communities and Housing Services Committee of Fife Council. The University’s offer to support the establishment of a short-life working group to assemble, analyse, and present the available evidence on housing so that we can reach a sustainable, holistic solution was not taken up, sadly. However the Committee did agree to include students in the consultation exercise that will take place before it takes a final decision in February 2019.

For our students a limited housing stock means higher rents. As a consequence, less money to spend in town, with larger student loans.

Higher rents also encourage students to look for property elsewhere, in areas where families currently live, or in locations that require them to drive (and park) a car in St Andrews each day. This makes them more, rather than less, disruptive to the life of the town. For the University, higher rents make it challenging for us to make a convincing competitive offer to students, especially those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Looking forward, I would like us to take a holistic, data-driven view of housing needs in St Andrews, appreciating how students influence it, how the University influences it, and – I think this has to be acknowledged perhaps more than it is – how second-home owners and retired people influence it. The Council acknowledges that singling out HMOs is not a silver bullet solution to the complex housing challenges faced by this town. We want a study to be undertaken of these challenges, so that well-informed, long-term proposals are developed in partnership.

AVP Collections I would like to draw the attention of the Preservation Trust to the significant step forward the University has taken to engaging with the heritage and fabric of this place through the creation of the senior post of Assistant Vice-Principal for Collections at the start of this year. This post is filled by Dr Katie Stevenson, a former historian at St Andrews, whom we were able to entice back from Edinburgh, where for the past two years she had been Keeper of Scottish History and Archaeology at National Museums Scotland. Katie is leading a rounded, strategic review of the material and digital resources of the University and town that engage us with our past, so that these are not only better preserved, but help us realise a richer future. She is leading on the renovations and relaunch of MUSA, as well as evaluating how Special Collections can be developed as an open resource for future generations. Katie reports to me directly. We are currently, for example, discussing the statue of St Andrew in the Botanic Garden, where she is reviewing its conservation and location needs, with a view to having it relocated to a more suitable site.

There is much to do, but in the establishment of the post of Assistant Vice-Principal for Collections, please see an unambiguous signal of how much value the University at leadership level places on the preservation of the outstanding heritage of this University and town – and the role that we want this heritage to play in shaping our future.

Conclusions ‘I stood amazed beneath St Salvator’s Tower and I knew I had come home’ – those words attributed to Principal Irvine are shared by all of us here. St Andrews is Town, Gown and Home to us. and I think it especially important that it retains the characteristics of a welcoming home as we look towards the future. The University is small, intending to stay so, because that is what makes us distinctive, valued, and successful. We will continue to evolve and adapt in a competitive world.

This requires our practices and estate to change. I hope I have shared with you that we take an incredibly responsible, long-term, and engaged approach to change. Place and history are everything to St Andrews.

The University stewards them for future generations with care, and in the good consciousness that we are preparing this town and University for what will come. I want us all to keep collaborating and working together to make St Andrews succeed as Town, Gown, and Home.

SHOPS & SERVICES Julian Crowe, Vice-chair St Andrews Fairtrade Town Campaign

What does it mean to be a Fairtrade Town?

The recent disappearance (temporary, let’s hope) of the “Fairtrade Town” signs at the entry-points to St Andrews has prompted members of the Fairtrade Town Campaign Group to re-think the reasons behind the campaign. It’s a good moment to re-affirm both the significance of being a Fairtrade Town, and the fundamental aims of the Fair Trade movement.

First, what do the “Fairtrade Town” signs tell the passing motorist about the town? St Andrews gained its Fairtrade Town designation in 2005 as the result of a grass-roots campaign to raise awareness of trade injustice. The campaign group established that a substantial proportion of the retailers and restaurants in the town sold or served Fairtrade products, while many firms, charities and other organizations used Fairtrade products. This, together with the endorsement of the Merchants Association, Fife Council, and the Community Council, persuaded the Fairtrade Foundation that there was sufficient support for Fairtrade to merit the award of Fairtrade Town status.

In order to maintain our status the Alice Curteis, Peter Robinson, Mary Popple receive the campaign group has demonstrated every 2015 Community Award from the Scottish Fairtrade Forum two years an increasing level of support for Fairtrade. The group’s activities include our food comes to seem as normal as the and retailers steal a competitive edge by regular surveys of the provision of Fairtrade smoking ban in pubs, or any of the other appealing to those who are prepared to pay products, visits to schools to spread things which were once unthinkable, but are extra for the pleasure of feeling virtuous. information about Fairtrade, and engagement now part of civilised life. As each generation This misrepresentation is heard often with different sectors to encourage the is aghast at what was accepted as normal enough, usually from muscular believers adoption of Fairtrade. For example, in 2015 by their parents and grandparents, perhaps in the free market, who brush aside the the catering for The Open Championship our grandchildren will stretch their eyes in ethical context of the Fairtrade movement. used Fairtrade products, and the organizers disbelief asking, “Did people really think it The discussion over the roadside “Fairtrade undertook to make all their subsequent was OK to pay an unfair price to those who Town” signs suggests that parts of the championships Fairtrade. It’s worth noting laboured to feed them?” There’s a long way Scottish Government are under the same too that the University is a to go, but the proliferation of misapprehension.

Fairtrade University; the town Fairtrade Town signs is one The truth is that consumers who buy campaign group work with staff way of nudging Fairtrade Fairtrade products do so because they there are now more into the mainstream. and students on events like the recognise a human, as well as a commercial annual Fairtrade Fortnight.

Meanwhile, the relationship with the men, women, children than 600 Fairtrade Fairtrade is therefore not achievements of the labouring hard to produce our food, and they Towns in the UK just the King Charles’s head of Fairtrade movement, therefore accept the responsibility to pay a few dedicated enthusiasts, though small in relation the fair price. Whether or not this gives the but something that has been to the bulk of world trade, Fairtrade consumer the pleasure of feeling embraced collectively by the town. This is are significant for those involved. At the virtuous is a matter of personal psychology, the real significance of the Fairtrade Town last count there were 1.66 million farmers nothing to do with the ethics of trade justice. designation. The signs at the roadside are a and workers in Fairtrade-certified producer Trade is a hot political issue. The badge of community achievement. But they organizations, including both small-scale coFairtrade movement is heavily involved have also a more practical function. Since operatives and (controversially) plantations. in the political debate, but Fairtrade is not 2001, when Garstang in Lancashire became In 2016 more than €150 million was paid in the exclusive domain of any one political the world’s first Fairtrade Town, more and Fairtrade premiums, spent by the producers party; the movement is not committed to more communities have followed the same on things such as improved housing or a single road to trade justice. The political route; there are now more than 600 Fairtrade training, and equipment for farmers. Fairtrade statement that individuals make when they Towns in the UK. producers organize their production for the buy Fairtrade products, and which the town The spread of Fairtrade is of great collective benefit of all the workers. Everyone makes when it collectively proclaims itself a importance to the increasing numbers of else who is involved in the Fairtrade process Fairtrade Town, is a gesture of solidarity with food-producers who benefit from fair and – as importer, wholesaler, retailer and, those who labour to feed us, a recognition stable prices and the Fairtrade premium, ultimately, consumer – takes the ethical that the international trading system could but no-one pretends that the movement decision to pay the producers a fair price that be, ought to be, more equal and more just. has come close to securing the goal of will sustain their families and communities.

Proclaiming St Andrews a Fairtrade Town is a global trade justice. This goal will only be This brings us to a common criticism tiny step, but in the right direction. achieved when Fairtrade moves into the of Fairtrade, that it is a “distortion” of “free” mainstream, so that paying a fair price for trade, a dodge by which certain producers

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SHOPS & SERVICES Chris Gardiner, a Private Client Solicitor based in St Andrews who specialises in all matters relating to Wills, Powers of Attorney, Trusts & Tax.

Can a text message be a valid Will?

A French Court in the city of Metz ruled recently Closer to home, last year the English that a text message could not be regarded as Law Commission launched a consultation a valid Will. into modernising the law surrounding Wills The text message stated that the deceased south of the border. This will not affect us in individual wanted a share of his estate to go to Scotland, as we have our own separate legal his mother instead of his wife, whom he was system, however, it may give an indication of separated from and in the process of divorcing. what the Scottish Courts might also accept The Court stated that under the French Civil as Wills if we change the law in the future.

Code, “a Will can only be valid if it has been The days when people would carry written by hand, dated, and signed”. around a pen and note pad are almost The argument for the use of text messages extinct. The smart phone is now everyone’s to be regarded as valid notepad, diary, address Wills has been appearing book, and almost every the law concerning what is in the news regularly in other tool you will ever a valid Will in Scotland has recent years. Last year require. However, the never been altered to include in Australia, the Brisbane law concerning what is anything other than documents a valid Will in Scotland Supreme Court ruled that a draft, unsent text has never been altered or items signed in wet ink message detailing how to include anything a man wanted his estate to be divided on his other than documents or items signed in wet death was a valid Will. Usually, a formal Will ink. With technology advancing around the in Queensland must be typed, or hand written, world at an incredible rate every year, the and signed in front of two witnesses, in order to question is – why should a Will only be valid be valid. However, in 2006 the law was relaxed if it is signed with wet ink? to allow more informal types of Wills that The proposals last year from the English show the clear intention of the individual to be Law Commission discuss the possibility of accepted as Wills. electronic Wills with electronic signatures

being accepted in England. It also proposes the use of texts, emails, videos, or voicemails as all being potentially regarded as parts of Wills. It is suggested that it may then be left for the court to decide, if for example, the contents of a voicemail or email represent a person’s intention to leave an individual certain property on their death.

But what difficulties could these new forms of Wills give rise to? With new forms of technology being created every week, a set of common rules would be hard to arrive at. Making it easier for individuals to leave a Will through the use of technology has to be balanced with ensuring that those same individuals are still protected from the influence of others, or from fraud.

The main issues will no doubt be debated in England; we will certainly be keeping an interested eye on developments. For now though, it looks like pen and paper still has a role to play in Scotland…

Steve Richardson, Trusted Trader Admin Team

The Fife Trusted Trader Scheme Set up in 2011, Fife Trusted Trader is the only official scheme across Councillor Ross J Vettraino OBE, from Fife which is backed by Fife Council, with all members vetted and Fife Council said: monitored by Trading Standards. The scheme is also backed by “Having access to vetted local traders Ombudsman Services, who provide impartial adjudication between should give our residents confidence when consumer and trader in the event of a serious dispute. Fife Trusted choosing a trader to work on their homes.

Trader is supported by Police Scotland and Citizens Advice Scotland.

Residents should feel reassured that we All members have been through a vigorous vetting process, must have such a high standard of businesses conform to a code of conduct, and will never turn up on your doorstep across Fife. All traders have been vetted unannounced or uninvited. by our Trading Standards team and have Cllr. Vetrraino OBE There are a wide range of Trusted Traders on to work to a strict code of the scheme: from plumbers, stone masons, roofers, practice to remain on the scheme.”

All members have been to mechanics, and through a vigorous gardeners. You can Business Owners vetting process search for the business We are looking to increase the number of traders on you need on the new the Fife scheme, as work requests from residents Fife Trusted Trader website at: increase. In particular, we are looking for more gardeners, electricians, www.trustedtrader.scot/Fife handyman services, as well as motor related trades such as MOT If you have family, friends, or testing. Most trades are welcome, apart from those related with the neighbours you think might find the food industry. scheme useful, then please spread the word.

The Fife Trusted Trader scheme If you have been trading for a minimum of six months, are moved to a purpose-built Trusted happy to be vetted by Trading Standards and would like to see if Trader website in April 2018, which membership would be a good fit for your business, please get in is managed and supported by a touch. You can contact the membership team on 0333 444 0185, dedicated team. The same website email: info@trustedtrader.scot or visit the website: also hosts schemes for East Lothian, www.trustedtrader.scot/Fife Edinburgh, and Renfrewshire Councils.

23

SHOPS & SERVICES

The New Picture House Winner of the RAAM Independent Cinema of the Year Award for Excellence Enjoy a pre-show drink in our lounge or book an exclusive function or children’s party with a private screening

www.nphcinema.co.uk

117 North Street, St Andrews Tel: 013334 474902

24

SHOPS & SERVICES

Roving Reporter 1. Nothing succeeds like success, says Reporter. This is epitomised by Richmond Sport, 35 North Street, St Andrews (01334 470 367).

Against very stiff competition they have been chosen as the official team-wear partner of Saints Sport, University of St Andrews. This means that they will supply all the match kits for all the sports on offer, as well as off-field leisurewear. Together with Macron S.p.A, the Italian leader in the field of sportswear in Europe, Richmond Sport now has a local customer base that covers from Gleneagles to Stonehaven, in addition to the home market in St Andrews. Their online shop also attracts many international University alumni, the furthest so far being from West Virginia, USA! On 22 September, before an audience of 10,000 at Murrayfield, Richmond Sport’s kits were on show at the St Andrews v. Edinburgh Scottish Varsity rugby match. The shop in North Street has everything the sportsperson of today could wish for! William can also be contacted on: William@richmondsport.co.uk

repairing a zip on a hold-all, replacing worn Velcro on a shoe, creating a patch – whether almost invisible or funky – over a tear, as well as the more straightforward sewing jobs.

The Scottish Government has set targets of 70% waste recycling with only 5% to landfill by 2025. These are daunting targets which mean drastic changes to our habits. It may become a necessity again to repair and reuse whenever we can, minimising what we send off to landfill. An attitude we need to cultivate?

Hence, I have volunteered through St Andrews Community Skillshare to teach people to use a sewing machine. After the introduction to basic use, I can help with any project they have. If they haven’t one of their own, they can book time to use my sewing machine, or one of Transition St Andrews’ ones. I also offer to do repairs, or alterations, for a donation to a women’s aid charity I used to work for.

Satisfying tasks? A student, wanting to look smart for a job interview, purchased a wonderful grey coat from Oxfam, but required the large old-fashioned lapels modernised to a narrow collar. The high quality tailoring made it a tough challenge. Another was a school rucksack with material frayed around the zip. Ransacking my material scrap-box yielded a scrap of blue faux-leather ideal for a replacement patch, such that the zip could be firmly re-attached.

Interested? The basic sewing lessons are on Tuesday’s at 5.30pm, or Wednesday’s at 10.00am in my home in North Street, St Andrews – bookable via the St Andrews Community Skillshare Facebook group. For repairs contact me direct by email to arrange a time: pambrunt128@gmail.com

(Photos by Flora Selwyn & courtesy Richmond Sport)

*****

2. Reporter is so impressed with this entrepreneur:

Pam Brunt’s Repair and Reuse Service: A (Alterations) . . . To . . . Z (Zip replacements)

I grew up just after the second world war, when shortages and rationing meant one reused or repaired, if at all possible: holes in woollens were darned; elbows patched; collars turned; worn garments unpicked and made into smaller items. As a result, my sewing machine has been an invaluable part of my life. In my first home my mother’s manual sewing machine was borrowed to make curtains, chair covers, clothes, when income was limited.

Then followed an electric Singer that accompanied our young family to a remote area abroad, facilitating children’s clothesmaking, and more curtains! A more modern machine now enables overlocking and embroidery, but the basics are the same. As a result, I hate throwing anything away that can, with a bit of effort, be restored to use again. I positively enjoy finding a solution to

Nayab dress (Photos courtesy Pam Brunt)

*****

25

ORGANISATIONS K Corbin, Chairman

St Andrews And District Community Safety Panel The Safety Panel in St Andrews has been going for a great many years under the strong chairmanship of Mr William Sangster, in which time the Safety Panel has tackled many issues of importance to the Town. Mr Sangster has worked tirelessly along with his colleagues, some of whom have many years’ experience within several fields, and some of whom have been volunteers on the Panel for more than fourteen years.

Interest in safety is a strong key for Panel members, helping to support and represent the community, to develop relationships working alongside one another in an endeavour to seek ways to reduce crime, promote a greater understanding, whilst developing and promoting good community

relationships between the police and the community. Community Safety covers a range of issues; it can include anti-social behaviour, home safety and security, road safety, pest control, nuisance dogs, just some of the issues which Panel members come across. There are really too many to mention, but the list is not endless. People need to feel safe from crime or any form of disorder.

The Panel is made up of volunteers from the community together with officers from Police Scotland, all committed to long term initiatives making St Andrews a pleasant, safe environment to live, work, play in, and visit.

Community Safety is the responsibility of everyone; as individuals we can all take

part in initiatives to help make safer areas for those not so able, for senior citizens, vulnerable and disabled; these tend to be the more targeted groups, when fraud or crime are involved.

If you would like to join this worthwhile and rewarding group, please feel free to get in touch with either: billsangster@hotmail.co.uk or izzy07@btinternet.com or telephone 01334 474 040, we would be delighted to hear from you.

Sheena McCall, Associate CFBA, welfare and feline behaviour councillor, introduces

The modern Cats Protection During the 1920s, cats were not run. Supervisors monitor eating, toileting, and behaviour of all throughout seen as the companion animals their stay, and report to the welfare officer at meetings held throughout of today, but rather as pests, the week. Sometimes our arrivals go out to another band of helpers, our often ill-treated. Started in 1927, foster parents, to be cared for in a home setting if deemed best for their the Cats Protection League wellbeing. wished to change this attitude.

The welfare officer is the link between the cats and the vets. Both The one-penny Mews Sheet in work in close association with the co-ordinator, between them trying 1931 did much to educate the to solve any issues arising, either medically or behaviourally, making public. The ‘Tailwavers’ scheme appointments for each cat to be seen by the vets on arrival, when all cats was developed during WW2 to are health checked, vaccinated. Un-neutered males, and all strays, are help the plight of pet cats during blood tested for FIV and FELV, while neutering is arranged for those not Tanith and Sheena the blitz. There is now an army already done. If all is well, cats are signed off to go straight to new homes of volunteers numbering some once found. Our aim is to rehome cats within a week. Those with medical 10,000. The Charity dropped the word ‘League’ in 1999, but its motives or behavioural issues sadly have a slightly extended stay till we can help have never altered: ‘Our vision is a world where every cat is treated with them overcome what is troubling them. All cats are found homes unless kindness and an understanding of its needs.’ they are irreparably sick or injured and the vets feel it wiser to euthanize.

So what happens when owners and their pets have to part? Many This is hard for everyone, especially some of our younger members, to people believe that they are betraying the trust of their beloved pet if they cope with emotionally. We try to gently remind them that the cats are in need to give them up into care, but this can be an exceedingly brave the right place, getting the right care, rather than dying in uncontrolled thing to do, and will only be met with empathy at all shelters. Cats are circumstances, often in great pain. a long-lived species, with many reaching their late teens, or even older.

Anyone who falls in love with one of our residents can enter a This length of time can see many changes in people’s circumstances ‘note of interest’. We have an adoption fee of £75, adaptable in some that can make it impossible to continue to care adequately for the cat’s circumstances, which goes a little way to cover medical bills. Our homing wellbeing. volunteers then visit to check that the cat and owner would be well With no paid staff Cats Protection works under the guidance of our matched, or guide them to a different character. Sadly some cats take co-ordinator, ensuring all cats get the best care and homes possible. Our longer to home than others, especially black cats, which are still often shops also help provide us with much needed income to look after our viewed with suspicion. charges.

Kittens go to foster homes for socialising, this also avoids them The Dundee homing centre consists of a reception, 20 pens, plus being in an environment that may be detrimental to their health. These 2 isolation units, both a human and a cats’ kitchen, and a charity shop. little ones are organised by our dedicated kitten officer, who is also We also have another external charity shop. responsible for their homing visits. Sometimes we Cats coming in can range from pets that can have pregnant mums who will return, neutered, With no paid staff Cats Protection no longer be kept; those found wandering; cats to their owners, the kittens rehomed at 10 weeks works under the guidance of our just delivered to the shelter; some unfortunately old. co-ordinator, ensuring all cats get that are just dumped – we even had a suitcase One of Cats Protection’s main wishes is to the best care and homes possible containing a mum and kittens – tragic! It costs see all pet cats neutered, unless they belong to nothing to leave animals with us; just a phone a registered breeder. There are just too many call. Emergencies are always immediately taken, we try to arrange pens kittens born, so sometimes it takes time to home them all. To this end as soon as possible. Sadly we also get cats in with perhaps solvable we have a voucher scheme to help those on benefits cover the cost of behaviour issues, such as inappropriate toileting, aggression, or inability neutering. Your nearest C/P group would willingly sort this out for you. to get on with another pet in the family. One of our newer problems is the In our feral programme, cats are trapped, neutered and returned breakup of a home. to the colonies where found, as it is impossible to socialise them. They On arrival one meets the reception staff, who greet people and would be inappropriate and unhappy in a pet environment, so best arrange paperwork for those animals coming in, or those leaving. They released again. We have a group of volunteers specifically to look after are also the first volunteers people phoning for advice will speak to, so and feed our feral colonies. it is vital they are understanding and compassionate. Cats coming in Fundraisers manage our two shops, very important people who are safely installed in a pen with a heated indoor cabin and outdoor run, work towards helping finance the shelter. The shelter itself is open to the settled in by shelter volunteers, given toys and all they require. These public daily for 11:00am to 4:00pm. Volunteers are always needed to join hard-working folk, often overlooked, available 365 days a year, provide our merry band. all feeding and cleaning. Without them the shelter would be impossible to (Photo courtesy Sheena McCall)

26

ORGANISATIONS Ketron Morrison

St Andrews Memory Café Almost six years ago there was little support in the area for the families of those with dementia. The few opportunities available at the time meant that spouses were unable to attend regularly as they found it difficult to leave those they cared for, or get someone to stay with their spouse while they attended on their own.

Many family carers were desperate for information and a chance to share problems with others in similar situations.

The St Andrews Memory Café was set up to help fill this void. It welcomes family carers on their own, or with their spouses. Volunteers support the carers by organising talks from legal experts, dieticians, fitness instructors etc. also by directing them to other sources of information, by listening, and giving them the opportunity to chat to others over home-made afternoon teas.

Meanwhile, those with dementia enjoy some form of entertainment, or activity to jog their memory of earlier times; for example, by looking at items from the Preservation Trust, the Fife Folk Museum etc. We also have a summer outing, which this year was to Cairnie Fruit Farm.

Family carers often feel isolated – the Memory Café helps to keep them socially active. Some couples now join up independently to go for a walk or putting together.

We meet once per month at Hope Park Church and are looking to extend this.

Chris Gardiner, Senior Solicitor at Thorntons Law LLP, presenting a donation to St Andrews Memory Café organiser Ketron Morrison and volunteers from the group.

(Photo courtesy Ketron Morrison)

John Matthews records

Signs Of The Times Until very recently locals and visitors alike were greeted, on reaching the town limits, by a plethora of road signs, including the formal town signs (most of which were of standard, but uninspiring, design). Some of the routes into the town did not even have a sign of any sort!

A notable exception to the quality of signs was the one built into the wall at the junction of Guardbridge Road and Old Station Road. This sign, bearing the coat-of-arms of St Andrews has been kept fresh over many years by the attentions of local worthy and one-time sign writer, Bill Sangster.

Now, however, each public road into the town has a brand new sign remembering the town’s historic status as a Royal Burgh and bearing, in full colour, the town’s coat-of-arms. St Andrews’ important place in Scotland’s history, its renown as “the home of golf” and its worldwide recognition as the home of “Scotland’s First University” merit this vastly improved signage.

Beneath each town sign is one identifying Loches as St Andrews’ twin town.

The Royal Burgh of St Andrews Community Council is to be commended for this initiative, on which it has worked for some considerable time. In recent months the work was led by Howard Greenwell, who produced design studies, worked closely with Fife Council on clearing the regulatory hurdles, secured funding for the whole project, finally placing the contract for the production and installation of the signs. The first sign was installed on the Guardbridge Road early on 27 August, and the work was completed within two days.

Official photo: Howard Greenwell (right) with representatives of the funding bodies

27

EVENTS From Paula Martin

St Andrews University Archaeological Society On Thursday, 15 November 2018, in School 1, St Salvator’s Quad, at 8.00pm Allan Kilpatrick, Historic Environment Scotland will talk on: Defending Scotland against the Kaiser.

He will look at the archaeological evidence for the First World War in Scotland. During the War much of Scotland had extensive military occupation; best known is the Royal Navy’s bases at Scapa Flow and Rosyth. This activity has left traces from the coastal batteries and

defensive positions, training sites, PoW camps, airfields, and even transport. Using information gained from recent fieldwork together with illustrated material from the Historic Environment Scotland’s own collections, also from The National Archives, this brief overview should provide an insight into the quantity, quality, and importance of the archaeological remains of the First World War, found across Scotland.

Oliver Savage, Marketing Intern at the Byre, interviews

Sophie Gent, Byre Youth Theatre The Byre pantomime is something that we look forward to every year. As the nights draw in and the mercury drops, it’s nice to know that there’s a whole room full of joy and smiling faces just a short walk, or drive, away.

To start getting in the festive spirit, we sat down with Sophie Gent, 15 years old, and one of the veterans of the Byre Youth Theatre, to talk all things pantomime, really to get the nitty-gritty of what it means to perform on the Byre stage every year.

How long have you been a part of the Byre Youth Theatre?

I’ve been part of it for around 7 years – I started when I was 8.

Why did you get involved?

My sister started before me and was singing its praises, so I had to try it out. I had done a few after-school drama classes, but they were nowhere near as amazing as BYT! My sister has since turned 18 and left, but obviously I have continued, as the Byre has become my second family.

What’s been your favourite Panto to work on with the Byre, and why?

All of the pantos I have been part of have been incredible in their own ways, but I have to say each year tops the last. It’s probably

because I’ve just grown, coming out of my shell over the years, so I have a lot more fun in the later pantos. At this point my favourite is the last one, Beauty and the Beast. I loved my character and costume so much last year that I’m not sure if it can be topped!

Pan – mostly just because I’d love to fly!

Unfortunately though, I don’t think that’s going to be possible right now – the Byre doesn’t have that type of equipment, and flying is so integral to the show that it would be really difficult to do without.

Is there anyone who particularly inspires you to perform?

After thinking about this for a while, I have to go for Ashley Foster, owner of BYT, my second mother. She has been like my fairy godmother for years, and I honestly feel I could go to her with anything.

If you could play any role in the world, what would it be, and why?

Anyone who knows me knows my love for Marvel movies, so I’d love to be some part of that universe. Slightly more realistically, being a part of a West End musical has always been a dream of mine.

If you could choose, what Panto would you like to do next?

We’ve done most of them, but one that I’ve been wanting to do for years is Peter

If you could perform with any famous person at the Byre, who would that be?

Again, anyone who has met me or even seen my lockscreen will be aware of my admiration of Spiderman actor Tom Holland. He also played the title role in Billy Elliot in the West End when he was a child, so I would love to work with him at the Byre.

What do you want to do when you grow up?

Definitely, something in the world of musical theatre or acting, most likely the stage. People ask me what my backup is and I obviously have other ideas, but I genuinely can’t imagine doing anything else.

What’s been your favourite part so far, working on Sleeping Beauty?

I always love learning the dance routines and getting to know this year’s characters. It’s still early days, but spending time with my panto family is always amazing – there’s never a boring day!

Sleeping Beauty will be on at the Byre from Thursday, 29 November to Saturday, 5 January.

(Photo courtesy Peter Adamson)

Sophie in Cinderella, 2015 (aged 12)

28

EVENTS Tony Waterston, Chair of St Andrews Space for Cycling

Car Free, People Happy?

Gillian Craig presents

A Christmas Concert Sunday, 9 December – 7.30pm in St Salvator’s Chapel The Heisenberg Ensemble, director Gillian Craig, and The Celebration Chorus, present a concert of Christmas music including Charpentier’s ‘Christmas Mass’ and Corelli’s ‘Christmas Concerto’.

Tickets £10 (students and children £5) reservable in advance until 7 December at: gc5@st-andrews.ac.uk or from 01382 540 031; and at the door.

Car Free Day More than 3000 walkers, shoppers, and cyclists took over St Andrews’ main shopping street, Market Street, in September as the Medieval town returned to its roots, banishing cars for the day as part of World Car Free Day. The Street was closed to cars from 9.00am to 5.00pm.

Tourists, students, residents, and shoppers were treated to safe access to a children’s soft-play area, a pop-up park, a yoga class, African drumming, and a skateboarding ramp. The highlight was three twenty-minute spectacular stunt bike shows from Scotland’s Stunt Team, The Clan, which drew big crowds.

What is the purpose of Car Free Day, and did it achieve its aims? Organised by St Andrews Space for Cycling, with the help of Transition University, the Rector, Students Association, and Fife Council, the idea is to show what a city centre can be like without cars. There is a global movement to make towns and cities more pleasant to get about in without the threat of pollution, accidental injury and stress – this is particularly desirable in an ancient town like St Andrews, where historically everyone went about on foot.

It feels quite different strolling in a city where you can walk in the road and breathe clean air; this is what came about in Market Street.

To make the town more cycle and pedestrian friendly, more will need to be done in building safe routes, both to school and from residential areas to the shops. We need to gain the support of the businesses in Market Street and beyond, if street closure is to be repeated; Podofit was the only business to place a stall outside the shop, reaping the benefit. There is copious data available from other towns holding similar events, that people on foot and bike spend as much as those coming by car, while in the long run spending more, as they visit more often. And there is no competition between St Andrews and other shopping areas in Fife.

However, not all reactions to Car Free Day are positive. Some are concerned that traffic is simply displaced to other parts of the town; some found it difficult to obtain a parking space; others were anxious about the impact on those with disabilities. Some businesses complained that their takings were down. Hence there is a need for more work to be done in addition to the feasibility study being carried out by the Playfair Group (University of St Andrews). SASC recommends further trials over the next year or so – to test out the impact when the weather is less perfect than this time round, establish what needs to be done to keep up business profits, and examine parking alternatives. A Car Free Day at Christmas, or other festivals, would be fun, particularly if Market Street becomes a true market again with shops putting their wares on the street, as Podofit did so successfully.

Let’s embrace clean air and a walkable environment – and pull together to make it work in St Andrews.

Heisenberg Ensemble (Photo courtesy Gill Craig)

(Photo courtesy Robin Waterston)

29

EVENTS Stephen Gethins MP

Local MP hosts Solheim Cup event in Parliament As co-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Golf, I was pleased to host a reception at Westminster marking ‘one year to go’ until the Solheim Cup at Gleneagles.

The APPG was set up to promote the benefits of golf, to encourage clubs and golfing organisations to make the sport more accessible at grass-roots level, especially for women and children. It also aims to promote the health and wellbeing benefits of the sport.

It was good to speak to those involved in staging the 16th Solheim Cup at Gleneagles, including Ladies European Tour Executive Chair, Mark Lichtenhein; also to hear more about the development of women’s golf from those taking part, with European Team Captain Catriona Matthew, as well as Sky Sports’ presenter Di Dougherty, who led an interesting Q&A session. As readers may be aware Di was in St Andrews recently to film an episode of US TV series the ‘The Golf Explorers’ with Jason Connery, also featuring local golf historian and author Roger McStravick.

It was also good to speak to VisitScotland Director of Events, Paul Bush, about the work which is going on to showcase Scotland as a leading golf destination, a move which will hopefully help bring more visitors to ‘The Home of Golf’, as well as to Scotland overall.

The Solheim Cup tournament provides a fantastic opportunity to enhance Scotland’s reputation for golf and as the perfect stage for major international events, whilst also delivering economic benefits to the local area and more widely across Scotland.

Solheim Cup September 2018 (Photo courtesy Stephen Gethins)

Alan Tricker, Director

Meeting Nell Gwynn The St Andrews Play Club – the local community theatre group – is performing Nell Gwynn, by Jessica Swale, with a cast of 20 actors/singers. The play was on in London in

2016; this is its first production in a Scottish theatre outside Edinburgh.

At an early rehearsal, cast members Frank and Wendy Quinault said they had a portrait of

Nell Gwynn, so the Play Club’s Nell Gwynn – Sarah Thomson – went to see who it is she is portraying.

The picture is a copy of a painting by Victorian artist Henry Greenhead. He based it on the famous one by Sir Peter Lely, painted at the height of Nell’s fame as an actress in the late 1660s that hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in London. Sarah was intrigued to see an actual portrait of her character in the play, and was delighted when the director, Alan Tricker, said she wouldn’t have to dye her hair red!

The play is set in London in 1660. King Charles II has exploded onto the scene with a love of all things loud, extravagant, and sexy. He reopens the theatres. At Drury Lane, a young Nell Gwynn is selling oranges for sixpence. Little does she know who is watching! Nell Gwynn charts the rise of an unlikely heroine, from her roots in Coal Yard Alley, to her success as Britain’s most celebrated actress, with her hard-won place in the heart of the King. But at a time when women are second-class citizens, can her charm and spirit protect her from the dangers of the Court?

You’ll need to see that play to find out!

Don’t miss this chance to see this fun-packed romp – where the sparks start to fly as love and honesty triumph over snobbery and class.

(Photo courtesy Frank & Wendy Quinault)

30

EVENTS Lindsay Matheson, for the St Andrews Partnership & Cathedral Floodlighting sub-group.

“There Will Be Light” This is a footnote to the article in the last issue of this magazine about the St Andrews Cathedral Floodlighting Project being undertaken by the St Andrews Partnership.

We are pleased to report to all those organisations, trusts, and individuals, who have supported us in this endeavour,

that Fife Council awarded us full planning permission on 20 September.

This autumn we shall be working closely with Historic Environment Scotland, the owner of the property, to schedule the necessary groundwork and archaeological preparations on the site, prior to installing

and commissioning the lights. At this stage (September), we do not have a date for the switching-on, but the very fact that we are nearly there is what matters for now. Thanks are also due to St Andrews University, who generously have agreed to pay for the electrical running costs of the new scheme.

Selected Events Thursday, 1 November – 7.00pm. New Picture House, St Andrews, National Theatre Live, Allelujah. Contact: nph.nphcinema.co.uk Saturday, 3 November – 9.00am-1.00pm Argyle Street car park. Farmers’ Market.

– 11.30am to 4.00pm. Burnside Hall, BALMULLO. Seasonal Craft Fair. High quality professional artists, craftspeople, food producers. Home baking & raffle. Entry £2.50 (includes refreshments). Plenty of free parking. Contact: fran@sauberlich.name Tuesday, 6 November – 6.30pm. Chemistry Building, North Haugh. Orchids of Central Scotland. A talk by Dr Roy Sexton, for the Friends of the Botanic Garden. Free. Contact: friendsmembership@standrewsbotanic.org Wednesday, 7 November – 7.30AM. Breakfast at The Old Course Hotel. Effective negotiation skills, a talk by Andrew B Brown for the St Andrews Business Club. Tickets via Eventbright. Nonmembers £20. Contact: secretary@standrewsbusinessclub.co.uk Sunday, 11 November – Remembrance Sunday. 100 years since the end of WW1.

Monday, 12 November – 5.15pm. Main Physics Lecture Theatre, North Haugh. Learning the Lessons of Quantum Mechanics, a talk by Bishop Joanna Penberthy of St David’s, Wales. For the James Gregory Public Lecture Series on Science, Religion & Human Flourishing. Contact: eric.r.priest@gmail.com

Thursday, 22 November – 7.30pm. St Salvators Chapel, North Street. Chamber Music Concert. Ashley Solomon, baroque flute; Terence Chariston, harpsichord for the St Andrews Music Club.

Contact: paul.spicker@googlemail.com Saturday, 24 November – 2.00pm. the Junor Gallery, 43 South Street. Poetry reading with Professor Bashabi Fraser and Professor Alan Riach, from their anthology ‘Thali Katori’ celebrating links between Scotland and India. Free. All welcome.

Contact: info@junorgallery.scot Thursday, 29 November – 7.00pm. Rooftop Café, British Golf Museum, Bruce Embankment. The Art of Cleecting – exploring the origins & growth of the R&A’s Painting collection. A talk by Diane Bailey MBE. Booking advised.

– 7.00pm. New Picture House, St Andrews, The London Paladium, Live, The King and I. Contact: nph.nphcinema.co.uk

*****

Saturday, 1 December – 9.30am-11.00am. Steak Barn, Balgove Larder, Strathtyrum. Christmas Wreaths. Fundamentals of making your own wreath to take home.

Tuesday, 4 December – 6.30pm. Chemistry Building, North Haugh.

Botanical Exploration in Kalimantan & Papua New Guinea. A talk

by Dr Mark Hughes for the Friends of the Botanic Garden. Free.

Contact: friendsmembership@standrewsbotanic.org

Wednesday, 14 November – 7.00pm. New Picture House, St Andrews. Troilus & Cressida.

Live from The Royal Shakespeare Company. For further information & booking contact: nph.nphcinema.co.uk – 7.30pm Town Hall, Queen’s Gardens. Overland to the Caucasus for birds, a talk by Jeremy Brock for the Scottish Ornithologists’ Club.

Thursday, 6 December – 5.15pm. Theatre C, Purdie Building, North Haugh. The Galloway Viking Hoard, a talk by Andrew Nicholson, Regional Archaeologist, Dumfries & Galloway, for the St Andrews University Archaeological Society. Contact: pfdecmartin@gmail.com – 7.00pm. New Picture House, St Andrews, The National Theatre, Live, Anthony & Cleopatra. Contact: nph.nphcinema.co.uk

Thursday, 15 November – 8.00pm. School 1, St Salvator’s Quad, North Street, St Andrews. Defending Scotland Against the Kaiser. Lecture by Allan Kilpartick, Historic Environment Scotland. Looking at the archaeological evidence for the First World War across Scotland. Contact: St Andrews University Archaeological Society, pfdecmartin@gmail.com See page 28.

Saturday, 8 December – 6.30pm. St Athernase Church, LEUCHARS. Lights & sounds of Christmas, Concert . Tickets, £5 (include seasonal refreshments). Proceeds to the Church Regeneration Fund.

Contact: fran@sauberlich.name – 9.30am-11.00am. Steak Barn, Balgove Larder, Strathtyrum.

Christmas Wreaths. Fundamentals of making your own wreath to take home.

Tuesday, 20 November – 6.00pm. Cosmos Centre, Abbey Walk. People first St Andrews Group. A self-advocacy group for people with learning disabilities, supported by a Development Officer.

– 7.00pm. New Picture House, St Andrews, National Theatre Live, The Madness of George III. Contact: nph.nphcinema.co.uk Wednesday, 21 November – 5.00pm. The Old Course Hotel.

William Dowson, Bank of England Agent for Scotland, speaker for the St Andrews Business Club. Tickets via Eventbright. Nonmembers £20. Contact: secretary@standrewsbusinessclub.co.uk

Sunday, 9 December – 2.00pm. New Picture House, St Andrews, The Royal Ballet. Live. The Nutcracker. Contact: nph.nphcinema.co.uk Tuesday, 11 December – 6.30pm. New Picture House, St Andrews.

Cinema Live. A Christmas Carol. Contact: nph.nphcinema.co.uk Saturday, 15 December – 2.00pm. New Picture House, St Andrews.

Munro Films. Cbeebies Christmas Show. Contact: nph.nphcinema.co.uk

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OUT & ABOUT Tim Hardie’s

Nature Notes There has been no long Indian summer following our hot June and July this year.

September’s storm Ali ripped through the central belt, blowing down hundreds of oak and ash trees, their limbs leaving every available chainsaw seconded for work. Here at home a two-ton oak limb landed flush on an iron gate, leaving it resembling a ribbon.

Although the nesting season is largely well and truly over I did feel sorry for our redoubtable wood pigeons, who oftentimes are breeding at harvest time; no doubt many nests were blown to kingdom come. That said they are not redoubtable for nothing,

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and are probably already building another of their flimsy nests, laying another brace of their chalky white eggs.

Out in the garden one evening I saw a large raptor coming by on the wind. Although usually there are many buzzards around, this fellow seemed different, with a much more slender long tail, very like a red kite, but with no fork in the tail; it was a hen harrier. Like lots of birds at the moment he, or she, was no doubt heading south for winter.

The swallows departed for sunnier climes, as usual they were delightful company the past months. Though there appear to have been fewer adults returning this year, the pairs that did arrive did well, as did the house martins.

I received my annual visit from migrating willow warblers and chiffchaffs in the middle of August. Enchanting little birds, they like a wild bit of garden, where they can feast on insect life to their hearts’ content prior to their long journey to the Continent. Talking of warblers, I recall a few weeks ago coming to the end of a walk, having seen nothing at all, when I came across a family of whitethroat warblers, busy, busy, work to do, insects to catch – similarly enchanting.

The vegetable garden has frankly been a disaster this year, the cold and late spring, followed by a heat wave, then a wet August!

It is so thick with nettles and weeds I think David Livingstone could even go missing in it!

Whitethroat (Photo by kind permission of John Anderson ( www.pbase.com/crail_birder )) My little friends the field mice have grown fatter and fatter on the back of having fresh peas for supper every night. In turn they have raised lots of little field mice promised peas for their supper next summer. I am virtually defeated, considering whether a pair of porky pigs might be the answer, and buying vegetables in Tesco, like every other sensible person!

My new point-of-lay pullets arrived early at the end of August. Now they have blossomed into elegant young ladies about to pursue a career laying eggs for my café.

Sadly the chieftain of the hen run, Cocky Boy, still looks like a dog’s breakfast due to his moult, and the pullets are enquiring if I couldn’t find them a younger lad, who’s a bit better looking. I have suggested they just be patient and all will be fine!

OUT & ABOUT Craig Gilbert

Autumn in Aberdour The end of September is a time when evenings grow colder, the nights draw in and waterproofs are required to survive the wind and rain, which tends to be the more pronounced weather.

Indeed, I had secreted myself away within four walls as Storm Ali lashed at our house!

How wonderful, then, to take an excursion to the pretty village of Aberdour on the south coast of Fife, to be greeted with amazing sunshine and a wealth of views. From the High Street, with notable cafĂŠs and gift shops, a descent downward on Shore Road led to the Black Sands beach. From there, Edinburgh and Inchcolm, with its prominent abbey, were in plain sight, glinting across the sparkling Firth of Forth. The Forth bridges cast a resplendent vista to the west, with the new Queensferry Crossing looking akin to triangular sails on a ship.

Taking a moment to enjoy the surge of waves reverberating on the shore, and immersing myself in the curious rock formations (this time certainly far less intrepid to navigate with the tide in), one felt heartily content with life. Turning east, the coastal path loops around a harbour of boats bobbing on the calmer waters, before crossing a small bridge to meander upward. Dogs barked and splashed into the sea chasing tennis balls, with cries of delight and dismay from their owners, and the current scene here seemed an idyllic, peaceful place; a far cry from history, when paddle-boat steamers used to visit the village in Victorian times at regular intervals, putting Aberdour on the map as a keenly desired tourist destination.

A viewpoint can be reached by following the path up some stone steps at Hawkcraig point, where the full majesty of the Firth of Forth lingers to engulf the senses. Views as far as Bass Rock and Cramond Island, and the nestled town of Burntisland, with the ever-present Binn Hill behind complete with its tall mast, are just some highlights to see.

There had been rumours of hump-backed whales being sighted from here of late; alas, on this occasion, I was to be denied such a sight. Instead, the journey continued to Silver Sands beach, and ended, as is my habit, at the cafĂŠ there; I can totally vouch for the lemon cheesecakes! Of course, for those wanting a longer walk, a right of way continues along the coastline, alongside the railway, to Burntisland.

(Photo by Catriona Parkes)

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OUT & ABOUT Arlen Pardoe

Hidden Gems in St Andrews Focussing on features that are in plain sight, though often overlooked

World War I Memorials On Sunday, 11 November 2018 the country will commemorate 100 years since the end of World War One. It seems appropriate to record some of the WW1 memorials in St Andrews, remembering those who gave their lives in this conflict.

They include plaques, rolls of honour, and stained glass windows.

(Photos courtesy Arlen Pardoe)

Madras College The WW1 plaque in the Quadrangle has 46 names.

All Saints’ Church The WW1 plaque in the Courtyard has 8 names.

St Andrews War Memorial The two WW1 plaques at the east end of North Street have 185 names and appear identical to those in Holy Trinity Church.

Holy Trinity Church The two plaques inside the Church have 185 names.

St Leonards School Plaques outside the library commemorate five names, of which three died in WW1.

Victory Memorial Hall The plaque inside the hall commemorates those who died.

St James’ Church One plaque inside the Church commemorates Captain John Ogilvy Fairlie.

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OUT & ABOUT St Salvator’s Chapel Eight plaques behind the altar have 131 names.

Hope Park Church One plaque inside the Church has 6 names.

A roll of honour transferred from Martyrs’ Church has 112 names.

St Andrew’s Church The plaque inside the church has 40 names.

Wyvern A roll of honour has 86 names with photographs of OTC members.

St Leonard’s Church One plaque inside the Church has 12 names. A second one commemorates the masters and boys of Clifton Bank School.

MEMORIAL WINDOWS

Holy Trinity Church Seventeen WW1 memorial windows high up in the Clerestory depict Scottish Regiments, the RAF, and the Navy.

St Salvator’s Chapel

St Leonard’s Church

Martyrs’ Church (now a University research library)

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