About the
area
The
Mearns is an area with a rich heritage that spans
farming, fishing, historical and religious significance.
Many of the villages are named or have connections with
missionaries from the Celtic Church; famous castles,
some in ruins and others still lived in or open to the
public, are numerous; and the deep red soil is famed for
its abundant potato harvests (though the days of peak
agricultural use are now gone).
Add
all this to a people who are proud of their past and you
have a deep well from which to draw all kinds of stories
of yesteryear.
We
thought initially that we would find some of our key
contacts in residential homes but we made the unexpected
discovery that a lot of the residents are incomers who
have had connections with Stonehaven and wanted to
retire there. Instead, we have found that Mearns folk
live long and stay at home! So our best contacts have
been some quite elderly people still living very
independent lives at home, with very clear memories of
school and work, of family life and play over many, many
decades.
In
projects like this one, people are sometimes reluctant
to tell their life stories, not least because they think
their own lives have been 'boring'. However, after a bit
of persuasion, they realise that their stories are as
rich as anyone else's and, of course, will be
interesting to those who have not had the same
experiences.
So
farm workers, fisherfolk, foresters, weavers and
shopkeepers are all adding their life story thread to a
very rich cloth which is emerging.
When we
finish the project in the summer of 2004, we hope to
have created a digital archive which will be of interest
locally and nationally to schools, researchers and
others and that we shall have helped to gather in a
little bit of social history before the people who lived
the lives and held on to the stories pass on with their
memories.
The
project funders, the LHIS, is a partnership of Scottish
National Heritage, Scottish Adult Learning Partnership,
Heritage Lottery Fund and Nationwide Building Society.
The GAS project in the Mearns is one of 12 which
received funding Scotland wide.
