Blog-tagged too…
I’ve been enjoying reading some little known facts about people whose blogs I read and now Ruth Parker has tagged me. Taken me a while to think of my five facts, but here goes…
I come from Bo’ness and attended Bo’ness Public School and Bo’ness Academy. As of a few years ago the secondary I attended no longer exists having been pulled down and a new school built. I recognise a few teacher faces from the website, but in my day the language department was ruled by two quite formidable ladies, Miss Simpson and Miss Grant. Miss Grant was from Edinburgh and regaled us all with tales of her childhood (”when I was a little girl…” - a bit like Miss Jean Brodie.
I have a connection with Scotland’s oldest purpose built cinema, the Hippodrome. My great great Aunt Bella played the violin for silent films and even in the early 70s when it was still open she still worked there selling sweets. Until I was 3 we lived opposite the Hippodrome and I can remember regular visits there both to see films and to see films of Bo’ness specially made for the cinema’s owner. In fact on the other side of the family, my Gran and Aunt Jessie worked in the town’s other cinema (yes, at one time Bo’ness had two!).
My mother’s side of the family come from Ireland, my grandparents being Protestant and Catholic. Having traced them back a little I think one set came from Rathmullan in Donegal and I haven’t found the others yet. The Horn side of the family are still a bit of a mystery, Horn is a Dutch name and there are Dutch settlements close to Bo’ness. However I have a vague recollection of my grandfather telling me that when his daughter died young, Norwegian doctor recognised her condition as one common in Norway and traced back the family and found a Norwegian connection. I haven’t managed to trace that far back yet!
I have 3 phobias - dentists, worms and vampires! Yes, vampires. I can’t watch any film with a vampire in it and couldn’t manage more than a few pages of “The Historian”. I did watch “Dracula” on BBC1 the other night, but only because my mum was there and all the lights were on, but I still had nightmares afterwards!
I have very eclectic tastes in music, but I love musicals, practically all of them and especially old Rogers and Hammerstein such as Oklahoma. A former history teacher in Tobermory shared my love and we often thought of hiring the local village hall and treating the assembled crowds to our repetoire, but sadly (or fortunately for Tobermory) he moved to East Lothian.
Well, that’s me. I think everyone whose blogs I read have done this, so I will tag my fellow Argyll Glow Mentors.
