The Farmer & His Wife

John Taylor enjoys the peace of Glen Lyon.

WE’D made the silage and the hay wasn’t ready for cutting, so when Anne said Jo had called to invite us for the weekend, I agreed with pleasure.

Jo and Ian have a hill farm past Fortingall in Perthshire. It’s mainly a sheep farm, but they keep cows and calves as well.

I know we live in the country on the Riggin, but there’s always outside movement: planes overhead, boats going up and down the Forth and an overabundance of traffic on our roads.

Up Glen Lyon, you’re at peace with nature. The River Lyon runs through the bottom fields whilst the ground rises steeply from the valley. There’s trout in the river, and plovers, snipe and oyster-catchers to watch and listen to in the valley.

On the Sunday we went to the morning service in their wee church.

“It’ll be a children’s service as it’s Sunday School prizegiving day. I hope you don’t mind,” Jo said.

Of course we didn’t. There were five children in all, aged between five and nine. The minister had brought a compass to church and, as it couldn’t be seen from their seats, all five went forward and sat with the minister on the step up to the communion table. They really enjoyed finding north, south, east and west.

That scene of five children plus minister, sitting huddled in a circle, oblivious to the rest of the congregation, is one that Anne and I will remember for the rest of our lives.

To each of the four eldest, the minister handed a large card on which he had drawn the letters N,S, E, W. He’d arranged it so that when they stood up to show us, they spelled out the word NEWS. From there he developed his children’s address.

Then came the actual prize-giving when all five children received books.

As the minister called out each name in turn, a lady from the congregation handed out the prizes and five happy bairns returned to their seats.

When I looked at Anne, I could see she was having a job not to shed a tear, as it brought back, all too vividly, the times when our two bairns stepped up to collect their prizes.

On the way out Jo asked the eldest boy to show us his book. Someone had taken care in its choice.

They say great minds think alike. Without a word to each other Anne and I went in search of our Sunday School prize books when we got back to the Riggin.

I’m glad we went to Jo and Ian for the weekend. It was a refreshing change of scene, full of moments to treasure.