Artists of St Andrews

Set within one of the most picturesque landscapes of Scotland lies the Town of St Andrews. From its breath-taking scenery to its vast and outstanding history, St Andrews has always been able to inspire those around her. Artists in particular have found the town to be an incredible source of interest, most notably in the 20th century when some of St Andrews most famous artists including Annabel Kidston, Ada Hill Walker, Jozef Sekalski and the McKenzie Sisters, found a name for themselves.

While the Museum is probably most well-known for its chemist, grocer’s shop and dentistry items, there are a variety of materials contained within the collection that relate to the social history of St Andrews. This includes a number of artworks which, due to the small nature of the Museum,  is rarely on display. Some of the images on display relate to the artist and model makers listed below

Jack Inglis

Jack was born in St Andrews in 1933 and was a pupil at Madras College. He joined the Byre Theatre Company when he was 10. He dedicated his life to Theatre and Arts and excelled in stage designing and model making. He worked for many important theatres in London as a Production Assistant or a Stage Designer. His talent caught the eyes of many and he collaborated with famous names of the theatre and cinema industry.

In 1960, he formed Toltec Studios with two companions in South London. The company supplied plans, drawings and scale models to prestigious institutions such as the Royal Opera House. From 1965, he produced scale models of famous buildings for the British Tourist Authority. They used them to represent Great Britain at World Fairs. In 1967, he produced Visurama, a son et lumière show depicting the history of St Andrews. His models appeared in several movies and he even got a commission for a scale replica of the Windsor Royal Lodge's ‘Octagon Room’ from the Queen Mother.

In 1987, Jack moved to Bournemouth. He lectured in Stage Technique and Music Appreciation. He continued designing sets and advised Amateur drama clubs on local productions.

Visurama

Toltec Studios produced Visurama in 1969 and 1970. It was an innovative way to use models in an animated show. The shows were a combination of scale models and slides projections. Recorded sounds, dialogues and music evoked scene after scene stories and characters from St Andrews.

Bill Maguire, theatre technician and lighting expert, elaborated the storyline. He used the writings of Hay Flemings, a famous St Andrean historian to recreate the protagonists' dialogues. Ken Inglis prepared the slides illustrating the story. A.B. Paterson, creator of the Byre Theatre, together with other locals, provided the voices of the soundtrack. Their distinctive pronunciation of English transmitted a truly St Andrean atmosphere. Famous actors such as Pamela Binns and Andrew Faulds also lent their voices for the occasion. Robin Don, from Newport, created a special stage for the models. A keyboard allowed the show master to move the models from a distance. Images seemed to appear and vanish in clouds thanks to a slide projector and a cloud effects projector. Water, snow and fire effects added a realistic touch to the show.

The show lasted 90 minutes and was on each year for a six-week season. They first performed it in the Preservation Trust Museum at 12 North Street in 1969. Every day, children aged 6 and over discovered the history of St Andrews as Jack and his colleagues performed the show in local schools. The Torch Club in South Street also welcomed them daily.

Making the models

Jack Inglis designed his models with a high level of precision. His unique tools were a knife blade and his fingernails, which he manicured to a point. Building such models required hours of observation but also a lot of patience. It was sometimes difficult to obtain detailed plans of famous buildings such as Big Ben. Ken Inglis, Jack’s brother and a photographer for the BBC, contributed by taking pictures and enlarging them to the scale Jack wanted to work at.

Jack used all sorts of materials to build his models. These were balsa wood, card, plaster, dental wax, paint, or anything suitable to achieve a realistic impression. The similarity of colours between the monuments and their models is striking. Jack donated the Visurama models to the Preservation Trust in 2008, and they are on display in the Museum for all to admire.

Annabel Kidston

Agnes Annabel Kidston was born in 1896 in Glasgow where she grew up. Her first encounters with art were through her art teachers Agnes Raeburn and Bessie Young. She attended the Glasgow School of Art from 1918 to 1921 and then studied in Paris and the Slade School of Fine Art in London. There, she studied painting and more importantly wood engraving under Thomas Smith until 1926. She became a part-time teacher as Head of the Art Department of Laurel Bank School.

She moved to St Andrews in 1936 to join her sister Margaret. Soon after her arrival, in 1937, she co-founded and became the president of the St Andrews Preservation Trust. She and other famous St Andreans (Ronald Cant, A.B. Paterson etc.) appreciated the unique architectural and historical character of the town and understood that the town expansion could threaten it.

Between 1941 and 1946, together with her friends and fellow artists Alison and Winifred McKenzie, she became instructor in drawing and engraving for the Committee for Education for the Forces. They held classes three evenings a week and were notable for the work done with the Polish soldiers during their station in St Andrews. Under their teaching, many of the soldiers revealed to be extremely talented and displayed their artworks in prestigious galleries in both St Andrews and Edinburgh. 

After the war, she became a part-time instructor of drawing and painting at Duncan of Jordanstone, College of Art and Design in Dundee. Simultaneously, she involved herself with the St Andrews Art Committee of which she became the first Chairman and later the President in 1972. She also became one the first members of the St Andrews Art Club. In 1965, Annabel bought, restored and lived in 21-23 Market Street, situated in one of the oldest parts of the town.

She exhibited her artworks at many occasions at the Royal Society of Arts and at the Royal Society of Watercolours. She also had exhibitions on her own in Edinburgh, Helensburgh and St Andrews. A member of the Society of Print Makers, she produced illustrations for Jonathan Cape, the Glasgow Bulletin Saltire Society, and Chambers Encyclopaedia. Glasgow and Manchester galleries as well as the Ashmolean in Oxford acquired some of her prints.

Annabel Kidston died in 1981 in Berwickshire but a court bearing her name in Market Street, next to her home, still commemorates her in town.

The McKenzie Sisters: Winifred 1905-2001 and Alison 1907-1982

Winifred and Alison McKenzie were born in Bombay. Their father, George McKenzie, trained as an architect with Charles Rennie Mackintosh and planned to set up a partnership with him. However, he went instead to India to join the family sawmill business.

In 1923 Winifred enrolled in drawing and painting classes at Glasgow School of Art, where a lecturer Chica McNab, introduced her to colour woodcuts. Alison followed Winifred to Glasgow School of Art and became one of the leading students in Design and Textiles. They completed their art training at the Grosvenor School of Modern Art in London.

The sisters moved to St Andrews in 1940 with their mother and set up home at 3 Playfair Terrace. For the next four years, the sisters and their friend, Annabel Kidston, taught drawing and wood engraving to the allied forces stationed in St Andrews during the war.

In 1944 Winifred taught at Dundee College of Art where she as the first art tutor to introduce a wood engraving class for Diploma students. Alison joined her in the department two years later. When their mother became ill, the two sisters job-shared in order to care for her.

The McKenzie sisters were part of what became known as the ‘St Andrews Group’; a close-knit artists’ community, which included Annabel Kidston and Roberta and Josef Sekalski of Bell Rock House. Both Winifred and Alison had their work accepted every year by the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh. Winifred’s Blue Table was purchased by the Duke of Edinburgh, after being exhibited at the summer exhibition of 1963. The St Andrews Preservation Trust holds a number of works by Winifred and Alison McKenzie.

From the photographic archives by Museum Volunteer Pat Harvey

St Andrews Lifeboat c1910

In 1938 the R.N.L.I. closed the Lifeboat Station in St Andrews. On Saturday, 10^th September of that year a large crowd gathered at the harbour to see the lifeboat, the “John and Sarah Hatfield” leave for the last time. She was heading for Portobello where alterations would take place to convert her into a pleasure boat.

The coxswain was David Fenton who had been a member of the lifeboat crew for 40 years. His gallantry and outstanding skill had been recognised by the R.N.L.I., the Carnegie Hero Fund and the Royal Humane Society. Other lifeboat men such as James Chisholm, Alex Hill Gourlay, Robert Wilson Senior and Robert Wilson, Junior had also received medals and certificates during their long careers.

The “John and Sarah Hatfield” had come into service in St Andrews in 1910. She was a 25 ft. self-righting Rubie Class vessel. During her 28 years of service she had aided many vessels in distress and 43 lives in all had been saved. Her impressive record includes:-

1912      3 lives saved- “The Resolute”

1912      9 crew members saved- “Prinses Wilhelmina”

1914      13 lives saved - the destroyer, “H.M.S. Success” driven ashore at Kingsbarns            

               during a hurricane

1931      10 crew members saved – the steam trawler, “Loch Long”

We must remember that lifeboats at that time had no engines and had to be rowed by the crew who were all volunteers and mainly the local fishermen. The lifeboat was launched on the East Sands with the help of local men from the town who waded into the water and pulled on ropes.

The Lifeboat House is now home to St Andrews Sailing Club. On one of the walls there are boards which give details of the names of the St Andrews Lifeboats and their record of service since 1860, i.e. “Annie” changed to “Polly and Lucy”, “Ladies Own”, “Louisa” and “John and Sarah Hatfield”. These boards make very interesting reading. It was in 1860 that the Royal National Lifeboat Institution established a Lifeboat Station in St Andrews.

There had been 2 lifeboats before 1860. The first one came into service in 1800 and the second one in 1824. Between 1824 and 1860 more than 70 lives had been saved.

Thinking of St Andrews today, it is surprising to note that the prosperity of the fishing industry was reaching its peak around 1881 when 3 of the largest boats fishing in Scotland, “Sea King”, “Our Queen” and “Fisher Lassie” were fishing from St Andrews.

In 1938 when the Lifeboat Station was closed there was an article in the local press which referred to the lifeboat men as the “Red Cross Men of the Sea” – “splendid types of the rugged, hardy heroic toilers of the deep whom the Fife coast and the seaboard of Scotland have bred for centuries past”.

Down Memory Lane: Clothing by Miss Bushnell

If a child of the ‘20s and ‘30s could stand side by side with his or her counterpart of the 21^st century, there would be ONE article of clothing of which he or she was extremely envious. Until the Second World War – and for some time afterwards – pre-school and primary school age children of both sexes had bare knees all year long, through wind, rain, snow; whatever the weather chose to throw at us!

Boys were kept in short trousers until the age of 14, I believe, as a written edict which I suspect school staff found an easy way of “keeping youngsters from getting above themselves”! For girls there was no obligatory age at which they might cover up their knees, but I have a photograph of me and fellow class-mates at school at the age of seven, wearing long woollen stockings, whereas a photo taken about two years earlier outside Kinburn House (then not a Museum, but a very nice Tearoom, with waitresses in pinafore) obviously taken in winter, shows my baby sister cosy in her push-chair, my Grandmother wrapped up in her fur coat and me in a warm coat and a new pair of gaiters (just like adult ones). These were made of brushed woollen material and had about twenty buttons at the side of each leg. These buttons could only be fastened by using a buttonhook (quite a skill).

Between the top of the gaiters and the hem of my coat are my very bare knees. To look at it just makes me cold!

Miss Bushnell with her baby sister, Kinburn House, St Andrews c1930

How thoughtless it was on the part of adults! And not only because of the cold. Children will run – and they did so even in days gone by. Children will fall – for a multitude of reasons, with knees continually suffering: bruised, skinned, patched-up! Sometimes tiny fragments of gravel, stones and earth penetrated the lacerated skin and the Doctor was called out to administer the wonderful Peroxide of Hydrogen to the battered knee: this had the effect of an impressive FIZZ by which the ‘foreign body’ miraculously came to the surface, and in the process distracted the young patient’s attention and dried the tears!

Dungarees, romper suits, trousers of all sorts: what a wonderful difference they have made to children’s’ lives.

Museum store discovery - pre-reformation decorative wooden panel

While re-organising the museum store, the Curator stumbled upon this interesting carved panel tucked away behind a large piece of furniture. The wood was quite soft and part of the panel was a bit mouldy - this was gently removed and the panel was moved to a damp free area of the store!

Further research uncovered that the panel is from around the late 15th century and most likely from a local chapel or the Parish Church. The panel was at one time installed at 141 South Street before being salvaged by William M. Jack, local architect, restorer and trustee of the St Andrews Preservation Trust, when he restored the property some decades ago. Quite a find indeed!

Curator's choice: War-time wooden shoes

Our current summer exhibition, Furs, feathers, frills & florals: four decades of fashion, 1919-1959, looks at the development of fashion trends during a period shaped by economic instability and war. These wooden shoes, made in around 1943, are an excellent example of how industry got creative to solve a problem: the rationing of shoes due to rubber and leather shortages.

Red/burgundy suede and rubber wooden shoes (early 1940s)

This fantastic film shows the wooden shoes being made.

As you can see, small pieces of leather were added to these robust shoes to make them more comfortable and quiet. The donor of these shoes informed us that she wore these almost everyday until 1952 as they were so comfy!

Wooden shoes were also coupon free so you could save your coupons for other essential items of clothing. This became increasingly important towards the end of the war when the coupon allocation was reduced.

These wooden shoes, alongside other items of war-time clothing, are on display in the museum until 4th October 2015.

From our Photographic collection.....Merryweather Steam Fire Engine

By Museum Volunteer Pat Harvey.

 

 

This is a photograph of the Merryweather Steam Fire Engine which arrived in St Andrews in 1901. It was given to the town by Major Donald Lindsay Carnegie who lived in Playfair Terrace and died in 1911. A demonstration of the new Pump was held at the Bruce Embankment on the 1^st of June 1901. Dignitaries such as Dean of Guild Linskill, Fire Brigade Convenor, Provost Ritchie Welch and Major Carnegie were part of a very large crowd.

The steam Fire Engine was horse-drawn. The two black horses, stabled at the Wm. Johnston’s Livery Stables in Market Street, were also used at funerals. The firemen had to sit or stand on the machine and had to sit or stand on the machine and had to hang on. When the horses were speeding to a fire, accidents could happen and men were injured.

At a fire, steam was used to make the pump work. A remarkably heavy pressure of water was produced. It had to be fed with the coal and there always had to be water in the boiler. On one occasion the Town Council decided to kill two birds with one stone by giving a fire fighting demonstration at the Bruce Embankment, at the same time spraying the recently constructed putting green with salt water pumped from the burn to kill the worms on the green!

The fire engine was kept in the Fire Station at the back of Holy Trinity Church (now public conveniences). It served St Andrews and East Fife until 1920.

This fire engine seems very primitive to us today, but it was a big improvement on what had gone before. Originally fire had been fought with fire bucket. In 1834 St Andrews Town Council bought an 8 Man Manual Pump, second hand. It had to be man handled to a fire. It had no means of using horsepower. In 1864 money was raised to buy a new fire engine. It was an 8 Man Manual Pump, but with improvements- water tank canvas instead of heavy wood, drawn by horses, equipment included four 6ft ladders and it had a plentiful supply of buckets.

When the Merryweather Fire Engine was made redundant in 1921, it was put in the Town Stone in Abbey Court. It was damaged when on loan to students for the Charities Procession in 1949. The boiler fire was lit, without water and the steam pipes were damaged. Later it was moved to the Fire Service workshop at Methie where it was brought back to its former glory.

It went on show at various events and was the centre piece at a Vintage Vehicle rally at Craigtoun Park in 1991.

I understand that at a later date Fife Fire and Rescue Service gave it to Strathclyde Fire and Rescue Service Museum in Greenock, on permanent loan. While in their care, they were transporting it to an event when it fell off the vehicle which was carrying it and was smashed, falling on one of its big wheels. Ian Grant, Wheelwright and Carpenter, Pitscottie, made a new wheel for it and restores the engine as far as possible.

From our Photographic Collection... St Andrews Railway Station

By Museum Volunteer Pat Harvey

 

Sometimes people ask –

“Where was the Railway Station in St Andrews?”

 

                                                                                 © GM Cowie St Andrews from the Links c1960s

In 1850 the St Andrews Railway Company was formed and a railway line was laid from the Leuchars Junction to Junction to St Andrews. In 1852 the Goods Station was built outside St Andrews near where the Old Course Hotel is now. All kinds of goods, including coal, came in at this station and were delivered to various locations in the town, in the early days at home and cart. The Station Master’s house was nearby, now the Jigger Inn. There was an iron bridge over the railway lines and I remember when we were pupils at Madras College we could use this bridge to cross over the lines when going to the playing fields at Station Park.

The Passenger Station was built in 1887. It was situated in the hollow between Kinburn Park and the Bus Station (see above photograph). This area is now a carpark which leads down to the Petheram Bridge Car Park. It was a great step forward when the passenger station was built. The tourist industry flourished. People could reach St Andrews more easily and hotels, restaurants, shops etc. all benefited. In the 1920s/30s Johnston’s house drawn cabs met incoming trains. The station would always be busy with students, golfers, holiday makers, St Leonard’s girls, folk going to Dundee etc., or group to Leuchars Junction to catch a train to travel further afield.

When coming back from Dundee, I remember getting off the train at Leuchars and the St Andrews train would be sitting in a siding waiting to take passengers to St Andrews.

 1887 was also the year when the railway line was laid from St Andrews round the coast to Anstruther, with stations at Mount Melville, Stravithie, Boarhills, Kingsbarns and Crail. It was in use until the Beeching cuts in 1965. I was never on this line, but I believe it was quite picturesque.

 The last train left St Andrews at 10.30pm on Saturday 4^th January 1969. It returned from Leuchars to St Andrews at 11.07pm. The driver was Jock Speed. I understand that the communication cord was pulled several times! The passengers sang ‘Auld Lang Syne’ and the gates were closed for the last time.

 However this was not the end for the old railway station. In July 1969 St Andrews Town Council bought the station and tracks from British Rail. The St Andrews Youth Development Committee, who would open The Cosmos Youth Centre in 1971, managed to get a lease on the station from the Town Council, rent fee, for use by the Ichthus Youth Club. It then became home to the youth club for the next two years. This was a very successful time for the club. As well as all the usual activities of a youth club- discos, darts, snooker, table-tennis etc., - they made maximum use of the station. A summer fete was held which included pony rides on the platform and clock golf on the tracks. This is another story in itself, and was one of the tops in the Research Groups exhibition held recently in the museum.

 

Steam cleaning 1920s Wedding Dress

With preparations for our summer fashion exhibition well underway, we spent a morning last week preparing a beautiful 1920s wedding dress back to its former glory. The dress had been recently donated to the museum but unfortunately it had been packed away for years with other costumes, left in an attic. When the dress arrived at the museum it was extremely creased and crumpled, having been untouched for so long.

 

We aired it out and let it hang for a week, in the hope that gravity would take its toll and some of the creases would just fall out naturally. However this didn’t have the desired effect and so we decided to try steam cleaning it, using a hand held clothes steamer. As we are a small organisation we don’t have any external funding to employ professional costume conservators; in this instance we relied on the much appreciated help of volunteers.

We tested a small area of the dress first and, satisfied that steaming wasn’t going to damage the material, we went ahead with the rest of the garment. Soon, to our excitement, the creases began to disappear and the true beauty of the dress was revealed. The wedding dress has lots of different layers to it, in a variety of materials, so we found that starting from the underskirt and working our way outwards was the best technique.

 

 

The delicate velvet flowers on the front of the dress got a steam too and turned out beautifully. The dress will be on display this summer in our exhibition “Furs, feathers, frills & florals: four decades of fashion 1919-1959” alongside many other beautiful pieces.

 

Displaying Costume - some hints & tips

Museum curator, Sam Bannerman, recently went on a trip to London and Bath to research costume displays in preparation for our summer exhibition Furs, feathers, frills and florals: four decades of fashion, 1919-1959. The trip was funded by the Art Fund’s Jonathan Ruffer Curatorial Grant Programme.

Here, Sam shares some hints and tips for displaying costume. These hints and tips came about through visiting different costume displays and through discussions with Rosemary Harden of the Fashion Museum in Bath and Georgina Ripley of National Museums Scotland.

We invite feedback and would love to hear your own experiences of working with costume.

1. Tie in with visitors expectations.

An important point that Rosemary Harden highlighted is that you need to remember who your exhibition is for; an obvious point that is often overlooked once you get into the finer details of planning any exhibition.
 

Our exhibition will mainly be seen by tourists, many of whom will know that St Andrews is ‘the home of golf’. I was apprehensive about displaying a pair of plus 4s (golf trousers!) for various reasons, however Rosemary pointed out that our audience will expect them. As well as giving our audience what they expect, we can reel them in and then tell them something new with our other pieces.

This point particularly hit home the day after meeting with Rosemary. I was standing in the V&A’s Wedding Dresses: 1775-2014 exhibition and the majority of visitors were watching a film of royal weddings despite there being an array of stunning wedding dresses to ogle. Of course they were watching the film! This is exactly the kind of thing they expect and want to see when visiting London.
 

2. Ensure that you have the skills and materials to create the display. If not, scale it back.

This is a really important point. At the early stages of planning this exhibition, I had big, big ambitions that, if attempted, would have been too difficult with the resources available. Conduct an audit not only of the physical materials that you have, but also the skills that you and your team have.

3. Try not to over-crowd cases.

Presentation is vital. The display should not be over-crowded as this will detract from the costume. There’s a clear different between a creative, active display and a cluttered one. Take these two shop displays as an example:

 

Image taken from http://chelseaamelia.blogspot.co.uk/

 

Image taken from http://retaildesignblog.net/

Planning a costume exhibition is similar to window dressing – you are trying to attract people to your display. The first image appears crowded and somewhat uninteresting because the mannequins are static; they are in the same pose, at the same height, looking in the same direction. The second image has the same number of mannequins, however there is action. They are also interesting due to the variety of poses and different heights.

                         4. Make a scene!

Backdrops can really help tell the story of the costume being displayed. Take this display of post-WW2 Dior at the V&A. To emphasise the elegance of Dior's ‘New Look’, a decorative gold mirror has been mounted behind the costume. It is simple, yet it adds a touch of class in keeping with the style of costume.

 

 5. Create a colour spectrum.

Rosemary highlighted this point to me and afterwards I could not stop noticing it! Colour co-ordination is easier on the eye - it helps visitors to flit from costume to costume. Here’s an example from the V&A:

1930s display. As well as keeping to a colour spectrum, notice how the plain and print styles complement each other and have been laid out plain-print-plain-print. Print-print-plain-plain would result in the prints clashing with the plain outfits looking too similar if side by side. There’s an intentional flow using colour and pattern, height, and careful positioning of mannequins.

Here is an example from the Fashion Museum in Bath:



Dior display. Green, pink and cream make up this colour spectrum, with the dress in the centre incorporating the green from the dress on the left and the cream from the dress on the right

With special thanks to the Art Fund, Rosemary Harden (Fashion Museum, Bath) and Georgina Ripley (National Museums Scotland).

 

New Trainee

We are currently hosting a new Trainee, Francesca Purvis, who is undertaking her SVQ in Museums Practice with us. The traineeship lasts a year and consists of a selection of modules that Francesca will complete through various work experience within the museum. It is a great time for her to be joining the museum as there are lots of exciting projects taking place in the forthcoming months. It may only be her second week in but already Francesca has experienced the unique occurrences that come with working in the museum! Whilst flicking through and old Fife Almanac from 1926, her attention was caught by a familiar name, McFarland (her mother’s maiden name.) Sure enough, the article detailed her Great Grandfather’s appointment as the new Minister of Balmerino Church and few details about his life works along with a picture!

 

 

 

 On further investigation she managed to find another article detailing his untimely death 11 years later, with a lovely accompanying piece giving a glimpse into his personality. What a small world!

 

 

 

 

Great War Memory Board

Our Great War exhibition closed at the end of September, but one of the legacy's of the exhibition was the contributions made to a Memory Board. The Memory Board was installed in the gallery over the summer, and visitors were invited to add an 'In Memory of' postcard to the board. By and large, due to the subject matter of the exhibition, the remembrances were of those who had served and / or been killed during WW1. Unfortunately, we did not receive any cards that remembered women, however we have decided to continue the Memory Board over the course of the Centenary years.

Here are ten postcards that were submitted to the board. We will continue to post these on our blog in due course. Please note that some of these cards can be fairly detailed and upsetting to read.

 

 

From our Photographic Collection by Pat Harvey

Can you guess what is going on in this picture?



Mr Gourlay (left) teaching swimming at Step Rock c1940s.
Photographer: G. M. Cowie.

The girl in the photograph is being prepared for a swimming lesson in the Step Rock Pool, St Andrews, in the late 1940s. A length of rope is being attached to the girl’s bathing costume. She then enters the pool with the instructors standing on “dry land” holding on to the rope and telling her what to do. Maybe a case of sink or swim!

 

The Step Rock Pool was where the Sea life Centre is now. It was built in 1903, 300ft long by 100ft wide. The depth graduated from 2ft 4ins to 8ft.

 

In the 1930s proper shelters and huts were built to form the Step Rock complex. Women were then permitted to use the pool. Until then, it had been “men only”, while women used the pool behind the Castle.

 

At the Step Rock, as well as the swimming pool and changing facilities, there was a paddling pool for young children and a kiosk which sold ice cream, cups of tea, buckets and spades etc. On the beach beside the pool, adults sat on deck chairs while children played in the sand.

 

For swimmers there was a diving board, spring board and a chute. The pool was cleaned by high tides. The temperature of the water did not vary much. It was always cold until we “got under”. On sunny days young people sunbathed on the concrete area beside the pool.

 

Over the years, many different acquatic events were held, -

Bathing Belle competition

Diving exhibitions

Water polo

 

and the annual swimming galas which attracted hundreds of spectators.

 

The huge success of the Step Rock was due to the formation of the Step Rock Amateurs Swimming Club in 1928. Local people and visitors alike would retain happy memories of summers spent at the Step Rock.

 

 

Recent Donation - RNLI Medal

Last Saturday the Museum received a wonderful donation of a RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) medal awarded to Robert brown of Kingsbarns in 1915. The donation is fitting considering our current Great War exhibition, but the medal is also very relevant to the Museum’s existing maritime collection. As well as the medal, the donor gifted the accompanying certificate and letters of thanks sent to Robert Brown from those he rescued.

Robert Brown was awarded the medal on the 14^th of January 1915. He assisted in the rescue of two pilots when their seaplane crashed during a storm off the east coast of Scotland on the 1^st January 1915. Local newspaper reports: “The hydroplane was in the vicinity of Kingsbarns when it descended and on touching the water it turned turtle. The two aviators managed to cling to their partially submerged machine and meantime the lifeboat was launched from St Andrews on receipt of the news of the airmen’s peril”.

Robert Brown, David Ritchie and Archibald Ritchie were fishing in the area and managed to reach the men before the lifeboat. They rescued the pilots in treacherous conditions and took them to St Andrews where the pilots recovered from their ordeal. The two pilots were Flight Commander Hans Acworth Busk (later killed in action in Gallipoli in January 1916) and Lieutenant Colonel L. H. Strain. They both later wrote to Robert Brown thanking him for his efforts, and the Museum is delighted to have also obtained these letters for our archive.

Winifred McKenzie Acquisition

Museum Curator Samantha Bannerman
with the painting

The Museum is delighted with its newest acquisition Still life with red and blue poppies by Winifred McKenzie. With the assistance of the National Fund for Acquisitions we were able to table a competitive bid for the painting at auction in Edinburgh, and our bid won. Using archive material relating to Winifred and Sister Alison, it was possible to determine that the painting was first sold at a St Andrews Art Club exhibition in 1977.
 
Although we hold an archive of information on the McKenzie sisters, we do not have any of their oil paintings in the art collection, making this a really important acquisition for the Museum. The painting will go on public display in the Museum for one month during Easter 2015 alongside a number of other recent acquisitions.

We are extremely grateful for the support from the National Fund for Acquisitions.

 

It’ll be alright on the night!

Many people (quite rightly!) were sceptical about our wee Museum playing host to five nights of performances; arguably, there is barely enough room to swing a cat, but it was felt that a bit of drama could really bring the exhibition on the Byre Theatre to life. So, undeterred, Red Wine Productions and The St Andrews Play Club not only worked around the lack of space, they used it to their advantage during their performances of "It'll be alright on the night!" - a play within a play set in the original Byre Theatre. Rather than performing the entire play on the stage, the cast performed the first act in the downstairs area of the Museum.

Some of the cast downstairs during the first act

The first act, written by Carole Tricker, took the audience behind the scenes in the old Byre Theatre of the 1960s. Missing actors and costumes threaten to cancel the show, but the players and fretting Director come up with a plan – the show must go on!

The audience were called to their seats, and the show was underway. The second and third acts were edited versions of the local classic, “The Open” written by Byre Theatre founder Alex. B. Paterson. This play was performed at the Byre Theatre every year the Open Golf Tournament came to St Andrews and so most of the audience were familiar with the play. As the cast were short of a few players, 'Sandy', played by Sandra Skeldon, excitedly steps in during the first act and volunteers to play the part of feisty sixteen year old, Mary the Maid, much to the amusement of the audience.

With a maximum audience capacity of 20, there were concerns that the audience would be too small. Yet, it turns out that this intimate venue was perfect – the cast enjoyed having the audience so close to them, and the audience felt like they were part of the action. One member of the audience even commented, “it was like being back in the first Theatre again”.

4 out of the 5 nights sold out and the plays raised over £700. The funds raised have been split between the Museum and the Friends of the Byre Theatre. This, coupled with the fantastic response we had from attendees have made this venture so worthwhile and we hope to have more performances in the Museum in the near future.

 

Photographs by Hannah Burt.

Festival of Museums 2014

On the 17^th of May, the Museum opened its doors out of season to take part in the national Festival of Museums weekend. We organised a day of storytelling, crafts and music that related to the lives of the fisher-folk of St Andrews - a fitting tribute to the families that once lived in the house that is now the Museum. The aim was to highlight the distinct history of the local fisher-folk to both local people of and visitors to St Andrews, particularly as, to visitors, St Andrews is much more well-known as a golf and University Town.

In the Museum, visitors were treated to stories and sea-shanties by Sheila Kinninmonth and Ken Johnston. The audience were able to drop-in at any time to listen, and both Sheila and Ken definitely looked the part too!

Sheila Kinninmonth and Ken Johnston

 

Across the road at All Saints’ Church hall, Museum volunteers were on hand to assist with the various craft activities, including painting dolly-pegs and making origami paper boats. In the hall, a photographic display was set-up showing the fisher-folk of St Andrews from c1850s – 1920s. The photographic display was a huge success, and some visitors were able to identify some of the fisher-folk in the photographs.

Although our Festival of Museums experience was over after 5 hours, the legacy of the day lives on! For the day, we published 1000 guided tours of the ‘Ladyhead’ – the traditional area of the fisher-folk. These have proved very popular with visitors, and we hope to be able to print more in the future.

Who Lived Here? Self-guided tour leaflet 

A Blog of Biblical Proportions

A few years ago we published the following article on the John Brown Bible in the St Andrews In Focus  magazine. The article has been resurrected (terrible pun!) as we have been photographing pages of a John Brown Family Bible in the collection, so we thought we would share them with you.

SAAPT 2003.203 Brown Family Bible, c1840 

 

John Brown was “Minister of the gospel at Haddington” and is famous for his “Self Interpreting” Bible in which the bible text was accompanied by explanatory notes and observations.   He meant his bible to be used by ordinary people to aid them to understand and be inspired by the text.

John Brown was born at Carpow in the parish of Abernethy, in Perthshire, Scotland, and was the son of a weaver and fisherman.  While working as a shepherd boy, Brown saved his earnings and walked from Abernethy to St Andrews to buy his first Greek Testament from Alexander McCulloch’s bookshop in South Street.   While at the bookshop, Brown was challenged by a professor to read a passage in Greek, and when he correctly read from the bible, the professor bought the bible for the young boy.   Upon returning to Abernethy he taught himself Greek, Latin and Hebrew, all without formal teaching.   In a time when there was still a strong belief in witchcraft in Scotland, people in the town of Abernethy became suspicious of his knowledge, and he left the town never to return.  He travelled the country for some time, eventually becoming the schoolmaster at Gairney Bridge, near Kinross, in 1747.   It was around this time that he realized his calling and set his sights on the ministry of the Succession Church, and in 1751 Brown was called to be the Burgher minister of Haddington.  

Brown planned his self-interpreting bible for many years and he spent many years working on it.  It was first published in 1778, with Brown at first struggling to find a publisher for the book and being forced to advance the money himself.  This first publication cost a Georgian 22/-, and sold surprisingly well for being so expensive.   It was subsequently reprinted in at least 26 editions, with the last being published in 1909.   John Brown published a number of other books, including “A History of the Churches in Scotland and England from the Earliest Period” and “The Dictionary of The Bible”, though it is worth noting that none of his publication made him any money.

John Brown married twice and had four sons, three of which also became ministers.   He died in June 1787.