Inspiration
Inspiration
I was born and brought up in the village of Stanley leaving there in 1964 at the age of 17 to join the Royal Navy where I spent the next 33 years.
This unofficial website is dedicated to the village and the folk from there, past and present. Gordon Howie (Keel), an old school friend who also no longer lives in the village, recently mentioned in an email to me it was an idyllic place to grow up in and looking back I wholeheartedly agree with him – although we probably didn’t appreciate it at the time!
The recent G8 conference in Gleneagles, apart from causing havoc in Auchterarder, exposed Perthshire to the world and a lot of people saw for themselves, perhaps for the first time, what we’ve known all along……..it’s a beautiful place. The following pages contain some of my memories of growing up in Stanley. The bare bones of a project are here and it will take a while to flesh it out – hopefully with your help. I
f you feel like adding your own memories or having some of your Stanley photos published here to share with others then please contact me.
It depends on you how far your website can go. Happy browsing!
Initially all there was to work with were some photos left by my late father and historical details he’d jotted down about the Lodge and the Bowling Club. It’s a pity he’s not around now to see (and most probably correct) some of the details now published! The other material we had to work with were the brilliant Stanley Poems penned by Exile which brought so many wonderful Stanley characters to life and he described them in a way all true Stanley folk could relate too. On a personal note I feel it’s important that our village heritage if you like is preserved for posterity and I hope your Stanley website will maybe do this through the poems, photos and stories contributed by you but we’re always looking for more.
Keep these photos coming and if you visit the site make your mark in the Guest Book – it lets others see you’re still around and doesn’t cost you anything. Finally if you see any photos on the website with names/dates missing etc and you can fill in the blanks then please let us know.
August 2006
Reunion
I’d like to record my sincere thanks to the committee who organised the Reunion and the numbers attending far exceeded those expected (or registered to go!) People travelled thousands of miles to get there yet some who lived literally a few hundred yards from the school couldn’t be bothered attending. That’s life, but well done to the many who made the effort and journeyed far to get there. Everyone seemed to have a good weekend judging by the feedback received (and no, there aren’t any plans to repeat it all again for 08.08.08, 09.09.09 etc but watch this space……….because you never know).
Still on the lookout for more photos and Stanley stories and I’ve got to express some disappointment that after two years there’s still blank names or years on lots of the photos, particularly the school ones. As Daddy Hughes would say “Not trying hard enough!” Come on……it’s easy enough. Click on any of the email icons on the website and give the photo section and number at the top of the photo page for easy identification at this end as there’s in excess of 1400 photos on the site now.
August 2007
Happy Birthday
I’m writing this update on the 24th September 2009 and today would have been my father’s 100th birthday. This short note is in no way meant to sound maudlin because he had a long and fulfilled life but we shouldn’t forget that his generation also had a hard time of it. As he spent all of his 92 years in Stanley he was a mine of information on the village and had numerous anecdotes. The Stanley website was set up 4 years after his death so a lot of his local knowledge has been lost and sadly we will never recover this. You will guess that the message I’m trying to get across is – if you have any Stanley stories/photographs etc get them in now so that they are captured for posterity. Had I thought of building the website a few years earlier we would have been able to enjoy all of these Stanley tales so don’t be like me and leave things until it is too late!
24th September 2009
This is your website
If you have information to contribute about Stanley, Perthshire, Scotland please share it with us. You can send in your stories, photographs and documents and we’ll add them to the website.
