To be a farmer’s boy

Donald Abbott has been in touch with more rural reminiscences: “Bert Dewar and his wife and daughter lived at The Shieling in Rait during the war years and well into the 1950s.

“The Shieling was run as a smallholding growing fruit etc, and with a dairy attached supplying milk to residents of Rait and beyond.

“Bert’s father held the lease of Gasconhall/gaskenhall farm a short distance away from Rait and up The Glen of Rait Road.

“One of those farm’s fields grazed a couple of Bert’s milking cows which had to be collected every evening and brought down to The Shieling’s milking parlour in one of its then sheds.

“Each morning the cows had to be returned to Gasconhall’s field. When on holiday in Rait, accompanied by Bert’s collie, as a lad, I often I had to collect the cows for milking of an evening.

“Another thing Bert taught me was how to clat (thin out) growing turnips in one of Gasconhall’s fields when I was around 12 years of age, a fine experience for this Dundee ‘townie.’

“Bert and his wife in later years lived at Monorgan Farm near Invergowrie and Longforgan.

“Their daughter Sheena, later Mrs Mcgrath, was later the last postmistress in Rait.

“I recently mentioned in a Craigie piece Mrs Dovie Simpson from Kilspindie, my granny Macdonald from Rait’s cousin.

“Dovie was the granny of Sheena Mcgrath, the Rait postmistress.

“The bonnie village of Rait was very much an important part of my earlier years, and the Simpsons, Mcgraths, Macdonalds and Mcdonalds formed important family affiliations.”

Monifieth! And I could even take the train to Dundee!

“I never left – OK, we moved five minutes along the road to Barnhill but moving to Monifieth was the best move we ever made.”