Transcript:

Braeside and the school

A story by Edith Petrie and Pat Dunn about the school and Braeside in Lumsden.

I remember when Edith and her sisters were in school. We used to stay at a farm over at Clova, you see,

and we used to see them walking through the fields and a right long way to Lumsden School that they

walked up. Three miles down in the morning and three miles back.

People were healthier back then!

A few sandwiches in the bag and a tin of coffee or cocoa and my mother put it in in the morning and we

went to school the headmaster used to take it from us and put it on – he had a stove – and he used to open

the cork and set them on the top so that it was still warm. We just got soup dinners before I left.

It was Mrs McKenzie who made the soup and Mrs McGregor did it. We went down every Friday to

Queensbriggs with a pail of the stuff that was left. Did it for a week and got a threepenny on a Friday.

So what’s Queensbriggs?

A house just across there at the foot of the brae, a bridge beside it, just the other side of the village from

here, the Clova road, go past the garage and there’s a road down there and that’s Queenie Brae.

There was somebody told me that there was a queen or something – there was someone that told me but I

forget who it was. It’s just called that. The minister was telling me – she was telling Margaret Shearer.

But it’s Queensbriggs. But we walked it with what was left from our lunch with the school. With the spoil, we

come down every day and got a threepenny. That would have been for the Frasers?

Braeside – there’s no-one there now since we left – grounds all flooded and trees now.

House is still standing – I used to see it when I was out for a walk with my son. And he would look across

and say, “That’s where my grannie’s buried and to think I’ll soon be meeting her and she’ll make bannocks.”

Because he was dying of cancer – and that’s what he used to say.