As far as the three children were concerned moving from Glasgow to Brechin was a culture shock but moving to Oathlaw Schoolhouse in 1948 was a whole different world!  There was a pigsty at the top of the garden, which had been in use prior to our arrival but was never used by us.  There was no electricity and lighting was by Tilley lamp, paraffin lamp, or candles.   There were no tarred roads – only parallel tracks.   No street lights.   The nearest bus stops were a mile away at Parkford or Braeheads.   The only good thing was that, as we stayed in the schoolhouse, we did not have far to walk in the mornings while other children had to walk or cycle anything up to three miles.   We can still remember the excitement when electricity arrived in the village and the roads around Oathlaw (and the school playground) were tarred. 

 In those days one of the day’s highlights was the arrival of one of the vans/travelling shops that served the country area.   The Co-operative van came twice a week, as did the butcher’s van and there were other vans as well.   “Onion Johnnys” also visited once or twice a year.

Over the next few years we settled in to country life.   We spent many a happy hour at Easter Oathlaw or Wester Oathlaw under the watchful eyes of Dave Whitton, Snr. and his two sons, Dave (Jnr.) and Ron.   We went to the fields when they were harvesting and stooking and played in the farm buildings.   We rode on the backs of the Clydesdale horses at a time when farmers were just starting to use tractors.   Dave Whitton had one tractor but several horses and, of course, farm workers occupied all the local cotter houses.  The bothy at Easter Oathlaw was occupied by an Italian ex-prisoner of war who felt he could have a far better standard of living in this country than if he went back to Italy.  We played by the banks of the Lemno burn and in 10 acre wood and we were frequent visitors to Clatterha’ smiddy to watch the blacksmith shoeing horses.   We went to the tattie planting and the tattie picking.   We started off the tattie picking with a “half bit” and marvelled at Mrs Robertson from Bogindollo, as she took on a “bit and a half”.   We were paid, if memory serves me right, the princely sum of 7/6d per day for our efforts, all of which went to our mother to help buy clothes, etc.  As part of our pay we also received, from the farmer, our “rations” of tea, sugar, butter, salt, etc.   In those days the potato harvest was considered to be more important than education so that, if the weather was bad during the “Tattie Holidays” then we were all given an extra week’s holiday so that the tatties could be picked.   One family that was indispensable to the “Tattie lifting” was the “McPhees”.   They were travelling people and arrived every year to set up their camp near the village.   While they were there their children came to the school.   During the summer we picked raspberries every day for Mr McCaig at Foreside of Cairn and were paid ½d  per pound.   Margaret, who was still very young at the time, was never very good at the rasp picking and was frequently told by our mother that it cost more to make her sandwiches than she earned for the day!

When we started at Oathlaw school in the late 1940s all our class work was done on slates with slate pencils and all our written work was done with old-fashioned pens with an inkwell in each desk.   The heating in the school was by a coal-burning stove and it was part of the Dominie’s duties to ensure that it was stoked up.  One of the highlights of the school year was the Christmas party.  The Greenhill-Gardynes at Finavon Castle donated a tree from the estate and this was decorated by the school children by making chains and lanterns from sticky paper and then stood in a corner of a classroom.   Real candles were used for the tree and it was a really magical time for the children.   Mrs Robertson from Bogindollo made a dumpling for the party every year.   There were games galore and a nativity play performed by the children.

There was a store of emergency rations kept at the school so that the children could be fed if they were “snowed-in”.   None of us can remember this ever happening but the school was occasionally closed due to the weather.   In 1953 a gale blew down most of the trees in the woods around Oathlaw.   Margaret was in Stracathro Hospital at the time suffering from pneumonia and pleurisy and was very aggrieved that the family could not visit her for some days.   There was also a very severe blizzard in 1957/8 in which several lives were lost in the County of Angus.   On that occasion Gordon, who was in “digs” in Arbroath at the time, managed to get a bus to Brechin, stocked up with bread there, and walked from Brechin to Oathlaw through the drifts.  

Another highlight of the year was the school trip, usually to the seaside.   Streamers were hung out the windows of the bus and “Clementine” and various other favourite songs were sung with great gusto.   If the weather was bad at our destination we adjourned to the local church hall and still had a thoroughly enjoyable time.

 At the end of each school year the prizes were presented by the Greenhill-Gardynes from the Castle and, as each child went forward to collect their prize, the girls would curtsey and the boys saluted.   Gordon still has the “George B Craik” school shield, which has the inscription, “To commemorate faithful service in Tannadice & Oathlaw 1919 – 1939”.   It bears the names (starting from 1940) Nora E Whitton, Hamish A McLeod, Agnes Kerr, David Hay, Maureen Mudie, Robert Cargill, Agnes Kerr (again), Charles C Cargill, Isobel M Mudie, Isabella Brown, Ian McLeod, Janet Grant, Gordon Milne, Elma Carr, James Snedden, Billy Dunn, Gordon Snedden and Rosemary Dunn.

Each child got a third of a pint of milk each day and school dinners were brought from Forfar.  Short trousers were the order of the day for all the boys at the school, summer and winter, and in fact Jim remembers that he still wore short trousers during his first year at Forfar Academy.  The library van came to the school at regular intervals and delivered two large, heavy, flat wooden boxes with a rope handle at each end.   Locals who wanted a library book came to the school to make their choice.  Entertainment was, of course, very limited.   There was no television and the radio had a wet battery that had to be re-charged by taking it in to Forfar or Brechin.  The nearest cinemas were five miles away in Forfar.   As far as the schoolhouse was concerned cards were the usual form of entertainment.   We learned card games by the score, from “Slippery Anne” to Bezique and it has to be said that our father took these games very seriously and should you play what he considered to be the “wrong card” then that was quickly pointed out!  There were of course concerts and dances, whist drives and beetle drives and various other social events in the school and these were always well attended even on the darkest and wildest of nights.    For several years our father put on a firework display in the schoolhouse garden for all the pupils, their parents, and their friends and these displays were always very popular.

In 1953 a bonfire was lit on Finavon Hill to commemorate the Queen’s accession to the throne and we all set off to see it.   At that time Jim and Gordon were friendly with Ian Penman who stayed at “Benshie” (Ballinshoe) Farm and his father took us up the hill in his car.   He found that, even in the lowest gear, his car would not climb the hill road so, knowing that reverse gear was lower than first gear, he turned the car round and went up backwards!   The same Ian Penman went with Jim, Gordon and father Snedden for a camping holiday in Anstruther.   This was before our father had any transport.   A large tent was borrowed from Major Neish at Tannadice, loaded in to a large wicker basket along with all the other necessities for the holiday and carried to the road end at Parkford.   We went by bus to Forfar and then boarded the train to Anstruther.   At Anstruther one of the porters allowed us to borrow a trolley and we wheeled the wicker basket through the streets of the town  (to our great embarrassment) to the local campsite.   Major Neish also gave the Dominie a brace of pheasants every year.   Being a “Townie” our mother had no idea how to clean them and had to get someone else to do it for her.

In the mid 50s our father bought his first car from Joe Munro’s garage in Kirriemuir – it was a Sunbeam Talbot 90 and it was his pride and joy.   He could not drive of course and was actually taught by Jim who had learned to drive on Dave Whitton’s tractor!   He was in his mid 40s by then and this gives some indication of the standard of living in those days compared to to-day!

Of those who stayed in the area at the time there was Mrs McKenzie who stayed in the old cottage opposite the school and gave sound advice to our family on country life in general.   I believe her husband (deceased before our arrival) was a coachman for the Greenhill-Gardynes at Finavon Castle.   There were the “Malcolm’s” at Parkford Farm (who in later years moved to Forfar, the “Retties” at Braeheads (their mother was a great “home baker” – they also moved to Forfar), the “Millars” almost opposite Wester Oathlaw.    Jim Gold stayed at Oathlaw crossroads across from Mrs Mackenzie, the “Elders” were at Meadows Farm and the Smiths at Battledykes.   The Procurator Fiscal stayed at Westwood and the “Simpsons” were at Bogindollo (Bobby Simpson now stays in Brechin).

Oathlaw School was closed by the Education authorities about 1970 and shortly afterwards they decided that the schoolhouse should be sold.   George and Elizabeth Snedden moved firstly to Auchmithie schoolhouse and then to a house in Kirriemuir.

George Snedden died in 1981 and his wife Elizabeth died in 1986.   If they had still been alive they would have been amazed at the changes in Oathlaw and the surrounding area with many new houses built and most, if not all, of the farm worker’s houses and the County Council houses now in private occupation.

Before he died our father wrote a poem that encapsulated his feelings about Oathlaw and its surroundings: -