My memories of the village - Raymond Sime

 

Buying 3d "Lucky Bags" from Mrs Panton's shop (and always being delighted with the contents !)

 

Hearing my Granddad (Bob Tait) saying that Ray Stewart (about five year old at the time) was a great wee footballer who should go far.  How right he was !

 

Berry picking, and more berry picking at Shielhill!

 

The smell of coal fires in Mill Street.

 

Hot summers and cold winters (or maybe I'm just getting old.....)

 

Cycling to school from Newmill and being able to leave my bike up the side of Wattie Wilks' garage - never got pinched.

 

Playing "headers" in the school shelter shed. 

 

Playing "wrestling" in said shed, trying to do a back flip, cracking skull on concrete floor and waking up with concussion in PRI.  (I think Geordie Lennon, my opponent on that occasion, won by a technical KO.)

 

Kerr Currie's milk round (horse and cart.)  That horse knew the round without needing a driver !

 

School Headmasters in my time were Messrs Beaton and Munro.  Was extremely wary of both.  Mrs Harvey was my last teacher and to whom I owe so much.

 

Playing for the school football team in 1967/8 and beating Redgorton 5-1 in the Tullybelton Cup final at Murthly.  Redgorton were undefeated in the league that season and we were the underdogs.  Can't remember all the scorers but I think Ian Gibb got two and I got one (I like to remember mine as a 30 yard volley, but in truth I probably just mis-hit it.)

 

Angie Cura's fish suppers and in the summer, his ice cream.  Memory might be playing tricks again but neither seem to have been surpassed.

 

The "STANLEY" sign as you approach the village from Perth, which always reminds me that I am "hame."

 

Some may ask, "If you think Stanley's so great, why leave ?"  Well, the answer, at least in my case, was work.  Since leaving for college in the mid 1970's, I've lived and worked in Birmingham, Liverpool (another great place,) and North Wales before joining the Foreign Office in London.  Work now takes me all over the world but whenever work colleagues ask where I'm from - it's always "Stanley." 

 

And they can now visit it for themselves on the Stanley website !

Raymond Sime - 30th December 2005