Kintyre holiday cottage identified
Two weeks ago, the Courier asked if anyone could identify an unknown Kintyre cottage visited by holidaymaker Shelly Allison in the late 1970s and, as usual, our readers delivered.
Many people correctly thought it was Strone Cottage, part of Carskiey Estate, with Ewan Johnstone, of Auchencorvie, who was the estate manager at the time, confirming its identity.
Mr Johnstone, who was responsible for letting out the house at the time, said: ‘I remember the night that girl and her father arrived. Half an hour after they got there, we saw lights coming back along the road and we thought they weren’t happy with the cottage – but they wanted to know if there was a carry-out in Campbeltown. There wasn’t, but there was a chip shop, so they went into town and returned to the cottage some time later with their suppers.’
Thomas Cameron, from Gartvaigh, also phoned and said: ‘The guy in the photograph rolling the wool, I think it might be Archie Maguire, who lived in Southend village and worked at Carskiey at the time.’
Shelly’s visit to Strone Cottage provided her with lots of happy memories, and she is not alone in her affectionate feelings for the area.
Mr Johnstone’s daughter, Judy Semple, also got in touch and said: ‘I was brought up at Carskiey until I was 12. My mum used to do the changeovers. We also stayed in the cottage occasionally and used to roll our Easter eggs up there.
‘I have very happy memories of time spent at Strone, both when we were there when men were clipping sheep and when we stayed.’
Kerry Houston contacted the Courier and said: ‘The big sheep fank and shed were close by the cottage. I spent many a happy Saturday there with my granda who was a shepherd.
‘We had to use a van to drive in rough terrain and over the burn just before the house. It has lots of happy memories for me too.’
Kerry sent in some updated photographs of the cottage and surrounding area, which we can share here.
Shelly, who lives near Preston in Lancashire, was delighted to find out more about the cottage, and shared another memory of her time there.
‘Some of my other memories of the holiday are sitting outside the house and seeing shooting stars for the first time ... it was magical,’ she said.
‘On our fishing trip, we caught 28 mackerel and one other fish that people thought was a dogfish. My dad duly filleted the mackerel for our tea. Unfortunately, after a day fishing and seeing all the fish guts, that was the last thing us kids wanted to eat!
‘We recently had an 80th birthday celebration for the other dad who was on the holiday with us. We asked him if he could remember where the house was, but he couldn’t. His daughter did say that she’d like to find the two young lads who were around the sheep shearing at the time, who thought it was fun to throw rocks in the water at us when we were in our inflatable dinghy!’
If any of our readers know who the young rock-throwing rascals may be, please get in touch.