THE SCOTTISH CONNECTION CONTINUES!

This article, “Little house with global connections”, by Senior Reporter Kaiya Marjoribanks appeared in “The Stirling Observer”, Scotland, yesterday. It draws attention to my mini-memoir “The Scottish Connection” and also my other works.

A previous illustrated article published in the “Stirling Observer” on January 13th of this year about “The Scottish Connection” had caught the attention of the present owner of “Craigenveoch Cottage” and he contacted me. “Craigenveoch Cottage” (formerly “Craigenveoch Lodge”), Aberfoyle, Scotland, was where my late mother and her siblings spent their formative years before joining the RAF during World War II.

The owner of Craigenveoch Cottage, which is up for sale by McLean & Stewart, Dunblane, at “offers over £270,000”, sent me lots of interesting information and photos of the cottage.

It really is a gorgeous little house; completely modernized. My mother and her siblings would have been so thrilled to see it now! 

Craigenveoch Cottage now (courtesy of the current owner)

SCOTTISH MEMORIES

Me with my Scottish granny, the late Marian MacDonald,
when she visited Nassau, Bahamas, in the late sixties.

I am thinking of my dear Scottish granny, the late Marion John Crooks MacDonald (nee McMurtrie) at this time of the year, as she was like a second mother to me. 

Granny was born in West Kilbride, Ayshire. Along with my Papa, Robert Ross MacDonald from Dumbarton, she was an anchor in my life as I grew up in Scotland and later in England, where we moved because of my father’s job.

I still remember happy days as a child living on the Boquhan Estate near Balfron, where Papa worked. Granny sometimes helped in the “big hoose” as we called it!

I write about those impressionable years in my mini-memoir "THE SCOTTISH CONNECTION", along with ancestral facts and genealogy. Also featured in the book are personal anecdotes, nostalgia and precious old photos.

And I drew from my Scottish background, as well as from my knowledge of The Bahamas, when I wrote my Romantic Suspense novel "LOVE AT SUNSET".