From Time To Time Freebie Alpha

Here´s a rusty alpha which coordinates with From Time To Time and also with many other kits in my store.

You´ll find it HERE. Hope you´ll like it.

A Scottish Soldier

With so many Campbells, MacDonalds and Armstrongs in my family tree it´s paradoxical that the the only photo I have of a family member in Highland dress is of my cousin, Brian Roberts, whose surname is not Scottish but originated in England and is very common in Wales where his father came from. However, if he shook his mother´s family tree, enough Scots would fall out to form several Scottish regiments.

Brian joined the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders – an infantry regiment - at the age of 20 when this photo was taken. Unfortunately, it´s in black and white so I´ve shown the regimental tartan he´s wearing underneath an enlargement of the silver badge on his hat. I´ve also shown a photo of the regimental museum which is in Stirling Castle in the “King´s Old Building” so-called because it was originally built in the 1490s as a residence for King James IV of Scotland, the last monarch to be killed in battle. The second photo shows a soldier with the regiment´s mascot, a Shetland Pony called Cruachan. By coincidence, or perhaps not, “Cruachan” was the traditional Gaelic war cry of the Campbells....something worth remembering the next time somebody nips into a parking place I´ve been waiting for or pushes in front of me at the baker´s. Incidentally, a mountain called Ben Cruachan – at 3689 feet - is the highest point in Argyllshire. The bottom photo shows a drum major and a piper dressed in regimental attire.

I find it rather sad that the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders no longer exists. In 2006, along with several other Scottish regiments, it was amalgamated into the Royal Regiment of Scotland. However, each battalion maintains its former regimental Pipes & Drums to carry on the traditions of their antecedent regiments.

I created this page using my latest kit, From Time To Time. If you´d like a freebie QP, you´ll find it HERE. Also, if you´d care to have an alpha which coordinates with the rusty spatters in the kit, watch this space...

From Time To Time

My most recent kit is called From Time To Time because, although it´s an art nouveau influenced kit and therefore suitable for vintage layouts, it also reflects the passing of time by including modern frames and elements along with the more traditional swirls and flourishes. Also, as the name suggests, there are many timepieces in a variety of styles including some unusual steampunk clocks. The colour scheme is mainly various shades of brown and sepia with copper and teal accents which makes it ideally suited for use in combination with Vintage Whimsy and/or Nostalgic Scrapbook which you will also find in the store. As is the case with all my kits, there are no recoloured duplicates included.

If you´d like to have the freebie QP which I created using From Time To Time, you´ll find it HERE.

Missing Photos, Finding Relatives

There are two photos of my father which I treasure simply because they are the only ones I have of him as a young man. In the first one he´s 16 and in the second one, which isn´t dated, I think he´s probably about 18. I know that both were taken in Ireland where he sometimes spent the summer with relatives who had a farm there. Judging by the Border Collie in that photo I can only assume that they were sheep farmers though I can´t be sure about that. There are a lot of things about my father that are a mystery to me. In the first photo he´s carrying a camera and yet none of the photos he took have survived. Also, there isn´t a single photo of him as a baby. However, the greatest mystery has always been his mother, Helen Campbell, for whom I was named. My father himself knew only that she died very young and that on her deathbed she pleaded with her mother-in-law to look after her child and made her promise not give him up to her own mother. I find this horrifying as it would appear that my paternal great grandmother, must have been unpleasant to say the very least if her own daughter couldn´t entrust her child to her. Until very recently these were the only facts I knew about Helen Campbell until Linda, a cousin of our mutual cousin, Neville, did some research into my father´s antecedents. I now know that poor Helen was only 23 when she died and my father only 4 which explains why he had no recollection of her. Linda has traced Helen´s family tree back to my great great grandparents who came from Reay in Caithness. I wish my late father had known this because sometime during the 1960s he went north to work at the nuclear power station in Dounreay near the town of Thurso and only returned when he found it impossible to find a suitable house there for the family.

As the name Dounreay suggests, it´s very close to where his maternal great grandparents, Robert Campbell and Betsey Isabella MacDonald came from. Of course, considering how small a country Scotland is, this is no great coincidence but if he had known this he may have been able to find relatives still living there. However, one thing I find particularly interesting about Robert and Betsey is that they, perhaps unwittingly, joined two warring clans together. Throughout Scotland´s turbulent history the Highlanders didn´t just wage war on the English but also on each other and the clans MacDonald and Campbell have a particularly bloody history. I won´t go into that in detail but I have to say that I find it comforting that now that I can lay claim to both clans in my family tree I no longer have to defend my middle name to any of my countrymen named MacDonald! Yes, clan memories die hard in Scotland and the massacre of MacDonalds at Glencoe in 1692 has - unfairly - gone down in history as proof of the bloodthirsty nature of the clan Campbell. I say "unfairly" because, according to what I´ve read about this ancient family feud, the MacDonalds weren´t averse to slaughtering the Campbells either!

With all this recent knowledge I created this page in memory of my dear dad who passed away in 1995.

The tartan on the left is the clan Campbell, on the right the clan MacDonald and in the middle the clan Armstrong to which our family belongs. Thank you, Linda, for making this possible.

Getting Started Again

It´s been a while since I designed a new kit, so long in fact that I was beginning to think that Nostalgic Scrapbook was my swansong. Being in constant pain isn´t exactly conducive to creativity and the sudden death of a family member lowered my spirits even further. However, just recently I´ve been having osteopathic treatment, mostly for the persistent headaches I´ve suffered for over a year and I´m feeling a lot more optimistic. The headaches haven´t gone completely but at least they´re not as frequent as they were and I´m not constantly reaching for painkillers.

Getting started on a new project wasn´t really a conscious decision. As you may have noticed, I´ve restored several old photos over the past year. I thought it was about time that I gave them a suitable setting and that´s really what started me off again.

You may remember this photo of my grandmother and my aunt. It´s a particular favourite of mine and I thought it deserved a layout all its own so instead of using an existing kit I started to design something around it.

 

In a way it´s strange that I´ve gone back to shades of brown again. You probably know I really don´t like brown, mostly because it´s a colour I absolutely can´t wear, but I do like teal a lot and I can´t think of any other colour which brings out the beauty of my favourite colour better than brown. What do you think?