Contacts

9 thoughts on “Contacts”

1. Hi Sheila,
   Love your blog. Just starting to create mine at Kirkcudbright PS. Hope ours will look as good soon.
   Janice Gibson

2. Thanks for the comment! We are slowing getting there!

3. Hi All
   The website looks great. I like the idea that children and parents can look at reading profiles.
   What a lot of work. Well done!

4. I have just recied a small New Testament that belonged to my great great grandmother, Letitia Mactavish. Glued in the front cover is a sketch of Lewalt School, 1831. I would loive to know if it is your school and will happily supply a scan of the picture.

   Best Regards,

   Andy Philpot
   Hamilton, Canada

5. Hello there! Thank you so much for getting in touch. We would love to see the picture of the school in 1831. Leswalt Primary is situated in South West Scotland, near the town of Stranraer. Do you think that is where your Great Grandmother came from? We are a very small village school with 2 classrooms and 36 pupils; small but perfectly formed!

   Please do not hesitate to get back in touch

   Sheila Baillie
   Headteacher

6. Dear Mrs Baillie,

   I will happily send you the picture if you can let me have an email address. I am not sure I can do it through your blog.

   Letitia was born in Edinburgh and then later she lived at Kilcrist House near Campbeltown before she got married and left for many years to live at York Factory on the shores of Hudson Bay in Canada. She died quite young at Sault St Marie in Ontario and is buried in Toronto.

   I can’t think of any reason why she had a picture in the front of her 1929 French New Testament. I will do some digging in the family papers I have.

   Cheers,

   Andy

   PS I looked a the pictures on your Web site and see what you mean by ‘perfectly formed’.

7. Many thanks for your reply – you can email the picture to me at- sbaillie171@ea.dumgal.sch.uk
   I will be able to put it on our little blog here for all to see.
   Wishing you a Merry Christmas from all here at Leswalt Primary!

8. Many thanks for sending the photographs,

   Sorry it has taken me so long to reply – we are back to school and busy organising events for our annual Burns Supper which will take place next Wednesday. The children are busy rehearsing their Scots poetry and singing!

   I have passed your photograph onto a local historian – who will perhaps be better informed than me! But, on first inspection, I believe that the building with the smoke coming out of the chimney is still standing. It appears to be the old “school house” to which the newer school building has since been built onto. That house was sold some years ago for Private housing, and no longer is used by the school. Leswalt Primary is still attached to that building. The two lower buildings on the right hand side of the picture are no longer standing. That area is now the school playground.

   The road in which the children are playing in the picture is in fact the main road through the viallgae of Leswalt.

   Today it has been a horrible, grey wet (typically Scottish!) day. I will try and get a photograph on a better day so I can send it across so you could see for yourself the changes in time.

   Many thanks for taking the time in this

9. Dear Mrs, Baillie,

   I am so glad to hear that one of the building might still be standing. What I now need to do is find out why and when my great great grandmother, Letitia Hargrave (1813-1854), was doing at Leswalt. Perhaps the local historian might be able throw light on the matter. Her father Dugald Mactavish (1782-1855) was a advocate and her mother was Letitia Lockhart(1789-1855). Dugald ended up at Sherrif of Cambeltown and the family lived at Kilcrist House.

   Cheers,

   Andy