A punctual man

Continuing his memories of Rait, Donald Abbott of Invergowrie writes: “My great grandfather, Thomas Macdonald, who died in 1930, had been the session clerk at the joint kirk of Pitroddie and Glendoick as well as lay preacher at Pitroddie United Free Church, originally of the Secession with its congregation in place from 1788 and a sad roofless ruin today.

“Thomas had been a tailor like his father before him who had a business in Rait. Thomas junior worked at this trade in Dundee, travelling each day by train from Errol Station. It was said that folks set their clocks by Tam’s passing by each day – he was a very punctual man.

Aged around 13, I was present when the lady laird, Mrs Moody-Stuart, supervised the workmen pulling down the hedge at the west end of the village, to obliterate the footpath and thus closing a right of way which had been open to generations.

“This had provided an access to the Glen of Rait road and was near the access to the lint mill overlooking the village with its neighbouring scutching pond for the flax.

“There was a sluice at that pond for allowing the passage of water into the Rait burn downstream and the village youth then used this pond for swimming and, in winter, for skating. It is very overgrown today but this is to the benefit of wildlife.

“The old ruined kirk, said by some to have been dedicated to St Peter and at the east end of the village, was and is a lovely place of solitude, Beyond it, on the other side of the Rait burn, is the Den of Rait with its Iron Age hill fort or Rath from which the ancient village takes its name. A real bonnie place with many happy boyhood memories.”