4 December 2019 - "The Brig"

Bill Glennie

We are aware that Scottish engineers and builders were involved in projects all over the world.  Our speaker, Mr Bill Glennie, has done a great deal of research into their contribution to the construction of the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge. Choosing granite for the main towers led to a strong connection with Aberdeen. So many stone masons made a new career at an Australian quarry a small township with a school was built to accommodate them at Moruya, New South Wales. 76 workers with families including 20 children settled in Australia, many permanently. They became well known as The Quarry Scotties. Bill has visited the area and made many contacts with the families of workers. Following research at the Mitchell Library in his native Aberdeen Bill discovered that the quarry engineer, Stanley Stewart Beattie Purves, was a Kirkcaldy boy. His father owned the Economic Drapery Stores in Kirkcaldy's High Street.  Stanley was educated at Kirkcaldy High School and followed war service, during WWI as a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps in France, with a successful engineering career.  Mr Glennie did not concern himself only with senior members of the construction team as his painstaking combing of records and photographs portrayed. This very well documented and illustrated talk was aided by Mr Glennie's own career as a Principal Teacher of History.  He has an impressive ability to identify  characters from photographs without referring to notes, frequently comparing photos of some of the community in the 1920's with more recent pictures.   Derek Bethune invited members to show their appreciation for a highly professional and fascinating talk.

20 November 2019 - Hospital at Home

Jennifer Smith

All of us would prefer not to require hospital treatment but, if it is needed, having the care carried out at home may have considerable appeal.  Our speaker, Jennifer Smith is a member of a Kirkcaldy based Hospital at Home Team. Other Fife teams are at Dunfermline and Cupar.  Each team has around 20 members including a consultant based within a hospital and provides service from 8am to 10pm.  This Scottish Government financed project, from 2013, can provide a wide range of medical support for a variety of illnesses excluding heart attacks and strokes.  It enables care to be more suited to patient requirements in a comforting environment.  The team can spot problems such as patients hoarding but not consuming medicines but may also have to face homes where relatives cause problems with alcohol or drug misuse. Taking blood samples forms a large part of the duties.  Delirium is a major problem with hospitalised patients.  Home treated patients experience less confusion which speeds recovery.  A high proportion do make good recoveries.  End of life care is also provided allowing patients the comfort of family and familiar surroundings.  Jennifer related an amusing tale of a patient, on being advised that relatives and friends would find it easier just to drop in found, on her next call, a sign on the door stating that Hospital at Home was operating in her house and listed visiting hours!  Most patients are over 65 but some younger people are also catered for.  Visiting staff carry a lot of equipment and may make many calls daily so a great deal of driving is involved.  Staff are being trained to use laptops to enable hospital records to be accessed in the patient's home and it is also hoped to extend the service to 24 hours.  Member David Walker expressed his gratitude for his own recent Home Hospital treatment.  He congratulated Jennifer on an excellent talk and her expertise in dealing with many questions.

6 November 2019 - China - Part 2

Fred Daniels

Marco Polo and Fred Daniel's lives were 8 centuries apart, but they shared an experience.  Both explorers travelled on the Great Silk Route in Northern China. Fred accompanied by his wife and travel companion Rita made another welcome return to our club.  He surpassed himself with his account of astounding achievements on a limited budget and knowledge of the language. Fred accompanied his splendid photographic record with a commentary delivered with infectious enthusiasm and wit.  Our members can easily understand how this pair can charm the locals into giving them very practical assistance including a bank manager conveying him by taxi to his next bus station and a taxi driver extending a day outing by diverting huge distances to let them admire the sights.  One feels that Genghis Khan would have offered them hospitality.  It is impossible to do justice to their exploits which included visits to the City of Jia Yu Guan, the starting point of the Ming section of the Great Wall and an important defensive fortification for the Great Silk Route.  The intrepid pair do not use guided tours but cover huge distances by local bus and train.  They frequently found themselves alone as they wandered through magnificent temples or strolled up sand dunes to 5000 feet in the Gobi Desert.  Some of the time their buses travelled on the main Trans China route and they did glimpse camel trains which have travelled the trading route for centuries but now carry tourists.  They were disappointed to fail to take a camel trip as locals had booked out all trips due to a holiday.  Food was at best interesting but often unrecognisable and somewhat dodgy.  Ian Smith warmly thanked Fred and Rita on behalf of a good turnout of members. We were encouraged to hear that the story of this epic journey can be continued in the future.

16 October 2019 - Friends Against Scams

David Russell-Douglas

Methods of relieving you of your money are becoming steadily more sophisticated and many are operated by well organised gangs. One aspect, scamming, was the subject of a highly illuminating address by RBS Community Manager, David Russell-Douglas.

Mr Douglas covered a huge range of scams, from the friendly helpful doorstep callers, bogus phone calls, to advanced computer techniques. The common theme was advice to avoid placing trust unless reasonably certain that one is dealing with a valid person.  Unsolicited scam offers of tax refunds and inheritance gains are common. If it sounds too good to be true, then it is probably false. Although many gumtree and eBay contacts are genuine there can be dangers, and a phone call may help.  ATMs can be vulnerable, and it may be preferable to use cash back facilities. Do not carry out banking on public WIFI. If your emails seem to be used by a bogus source change you email password.  Beware of revealing holiday and birthday dates on social media. These can be hacked and provide information for identity fraud and opportunities for housebreaking.

These and other precautions can be accessed on bank emails such as the Royal Bank of Scotland "Take Five" site.  Member Eddie Cockburn delivered a vote of thanks for a well presented talk which encouraged many questions and revealed that many members had encountered, but mostly successfully dealt with scams of the above type.

2 October 2019 - "Tommy's Timeline"

Tommy Bryson

Our speaker on 2nd October, Tommy Bryson is an amateur photographer with a keen interest in the building of the Queensferry Crossing to the extent that he amassed six and a half thousand photos over the years of construction.  Mr Bryson was a senior telecommunications engineer by profession and after retiral became immersed in this project, developing contacts which gave him access to some rare viewpoints of which he made very good use.  His presentation used a tiny fraction of his images, starting with a view of the estuary looking over the site in 2011.  Early construction work actually involved the careful removal of the iconic Beamer Rock Lighthouse to be sited elsewhere. Many images revealed the building of the caissons and the erection of the massive towers. A tiny tug scuttled around dwarfed by the massive sections of the main decking  The bridge was first named Queensferry Crossing in January 2015  Using a very powerful lens our photographer took some staggering pictures of the crane drivers raising material to the top of the 207 metre towers and a wee glimpse of the rather daunting walkways involved in such mundane matters as paying a call when nature required it!

Mr Bryson had very detailed images of the cabling which was the first ever to overlap producing diamond shapes which contribute to the beauty of this magnificent structure.  He was also invited to the official opening and finished his talk with pictures of this including the Queen.  Euan Fraser thanked him for his efforts in making180 trips to the site and producing such a fascinating pictorial record.

18th September 2019 - "Birth and Death of Islands"

Ian Gilchrist

The day's speaker, Ian Gilchrist, a past President, hardly needed an introduction but the chairman nevertheless gave a brief resume of Ian's career.  Although born in Calcutta his formative years were spent in Dundee.  He studied Chemistry at St Andrews University where his interest in Geology developed. After qualifying as a teacher, he first taught in George Heriots School in Edinburgh before beginning a lengthy tenure as Principal Teacher of Chemistry in Kirkcaldy High School.  Ian has previously spoken to the club on a variety of subjects, mostly connected with his travels.  His topic this time "Birth and Death of Islands" combines two of his keenest interest, travel and geology.

His presentation illustrated by original photographs and film was both informative and entertaining and thoroughly enjoyed by the members.  As background to his talk Ian spoke about the movements of continents. 

Behind the formation of most islands is seismic activity with earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.   The theory of continental drift and the clash of land masses along fault lines in the earth's crust is at the root of the beginnings of many islands throughout the world  

He began with reference to the 19th century explosion of Krakatoa in what is now Indonesia. New islands were formed from the remnants of the old mountain, some of a temporary nature.  Tsunamis from this earthquake were felt up to 3000 miles away and 36,000 people died This created huge interest throughout the world with fears that other cataclysmic events of this nature might occur elsewhere.

Ian illustrated the formation of islands in the Mediterranean Sea in bygone times with illustrations of islands off Crete and Italy.  Massive eruptions are not confined to pre-historic times.  Stromboli erupted in 2009 and Krakatoa, again, in 2018 with lava deposited on sea bed forming islands, some short lived,

A new island came into being off Iceland in 1963 after a major volcanic explosion. Originally 2.7 square kilometres in area this has speedily eroded and is now less than half that space.

Any member expecting to see islands appear in the Firth of Forth will be disappointed.  Not being in a major crustal active area the Firth's landscape will slowly change - mainly by erosion or flooding over the next few million years.

Elsewhere in the world many groups of islands face an uncertain future with changing sea levels.   Island countries such as the Maldives, Solomon Islands and Marshall Islands, all low lying, may possibly disappear altogether if the current rate of rising sea levels continues at the current rate.

4 September 2019 - "Scraps"

Jim Boyd

A double CA addressed Kirkcaldy probus Club in the Dean Park on Wednesday 4th September.  Jim Boyd is a retired Chartered Accountant and also a Conjuring Artist.

Jim introduced many Scraps including paper which, when unfolded, revealed facts and stories.  His topics were very wide ranging and delivered at a fast pace which left this writer floundering to keep up! He reminded us of leaflets dropped over UK, France and Germany delivering wartime propaganda  Under the heading WaLoR, "What a Load of Rubbish" he quoted examples of Council Talk such as  one in which councillors discussed financial problems which might cause an ice rink to be liquidated.  Mr Boyd has built up a large collection of memorabilia which he displayed including a vintage Beano.  Member Eddie Cockburn led a warm vote of thanks for an unusual and entertaining talk.

At the next meeting on Wednesday 18th September Ian Gilchrist will give a presentation entitled "Birth and Death of Islands.

21 August 2019 - "Quote, Misquote"

Colin Moore

 With much of our news dominated by prophesies of Gloom and Doom we were happy to receive a humorous talk from Colin Moore. Colin is an active member of Cupar Probus club and, as for a previous talk, arrived well organised with his equipment for a talk on Quotes and Misquotes.  He tested the memory of our members by asking them to name the source of such quotes as "Don't tell him Pike!" and "You are ugly but I will be sober in the morning"  Cassius Clay is remembered for "I float like a butterfly and sting like a bee" The football manager John Lambie, hearing that a recovering  injured player did not know where or who he was made a statement  "Tell him he is Pele and get him back on the pitch." His fund of quotes would fill this newspaper and he was warmly thanked by member, Ian Gilchrist. 

7 August 2019 - Fife Cultural Trust

Gavin Grant

Gavin Grant, of Fife Cultural Trust was our guest speaker on 7th August.  Our local Gallery is widely recognised for possessing an excellent collection of paintings including those of the Scottish Colourists, Cadell, Fergusson, Hunter and Peploe.  The pottery collection includes many valuable pieces of Weymss Ware and the gallery exhibits many artefacts from our local history including the pistols used in the last duel in Scotland. Many of these items, and the building itself were provided by the generosity of local businessmen especially from the linoleum industry. The recent refurbishment has helped to provide modern attractive display areas for local and family history and special exhibitions such as the current "explore".

Maintenance of the galleries requires considerable financial outlay and Gavin was full of praise for the support provided by The Friends of Kirkcaldy Galleries. Over the last 27 years this group of volunteers have raised over £127,000.  The money has helped to restore or purchase many paintings and provided equipment such as a children's trolley.

Many items cannot be on permanent display, but some are exhibited in the new galleries in Dunfermline and many more in the very impressive Fife Archives which can, by arrangement, be visited by the public.  Euan Fraser, himself an active Friend of the Galleries proposed a hearty vote of thanks and included a plea for more members of the Friends.

17 July 2019 - Mount Kilimanjaro

Jack Dempsey

Kilimanjaro is one of the world's best known mountains. At 5895 m (19342 ft) it is the highest in Africa. The typically volcanic cone rises from a plain making it visible over huge distances. One of our own members gave an illustrated account of his ascent some years ago as part of an expedition organised by employees of the oil industry in the middle East

Jack Dempsey delights in energetic adventures and set off in a party of 15 after flying to Nairobi then overland into Tanzania. This group chose a route involving 110 km in 5 days ascending from base at 6000 ft with porters carrying much of the equipment. The trek travels through rain forest then moorland and finally arctic conditions and this trip was in mid winter. Over the last decades the glaciers have retreated to about 16000 ft. No technical climbing with crampons was involved but mountain sickness was a severe threat and Jack did experience this.  The final stretch had to be carried out at night to avoid slippery melting snow.  Only 5 of the party reached the summit and Jack just made it due to encouragement from a guide over the last few metres. A hazardous return was made in darkness to a hut before the trek back to base. Ian Gilchrist thanked Jack for another well illustrated epic tale following his bungee jumping at Victoria Falls and rafting down the Zambesi.

3 July 2019 - Sporting Memories Foundation

Ian Brokshaw, Donna Mackay and Gary Waddell

Sandie Shaw's "Puppet on a String" European Song and Jock Stein's Celtic both won their European contests in 1967.  For a patient suffering from dementia linking these two events was an achievement which spurred him on to further discussion at a meeting in Kirkcaldy Rugby Club run by a charity called 'Sporting Memories'. He began to recover his ability to communicate in a sociable environment.

The charity recognises how the power of sport can reignite and reconnect isolated older people. It works in partnership with organisations and community venues, including sports clubs, community hubs, sheltered housing, care homes and hospitals to run both Sporting Memories Clubs and one-to-one activities.

Locally the organisation has formed groups in the Rugby Club and in Ostlers House catering for dementia sufferers providing social activity during which conversion is stimulated by memories of their own activities as players or as spectators.

Donna Mackay and Gary Waddell are organisers. They outlined how the charity receives finance from organisations such as the National Lottery and hopes to extend to cater for more people in need.  Ian Brokshaw, a volunteer helper, clearly feels that time spent chatting with or showing photos of past events to sufferers is of benefit to them and gives him personal enjoyment and satisfaction.

This was a meeting at which the majority of members were first made aware of the existence of the organisation of which more information can be obtained at Sporting memories.org.  Volunteers to assist with activities or bring along more friends or relatives who would benefit from the group would be warmly welcomed. Harry Clarke expressed our appreciation of an informative and enjoyable presentation.